The United States and Israel murdered the supreme leader of Islam. [1]

How is that OK? How is it so OK that people can casually mention that they approve of murder in otherwise polite conversation? I guess some people just need killing? What the hell kind of a morality is that?

If you were to accept this, then you’d have to at least have intimate knowledge of the person whom you’ve condemned, no? But people don’t know the first thing about the Ayatollah; they know only that they’ve been ordered to hate him. He is Emmanuel Goldstein (Wikipedia).

I spoke with a co-worker last week, who casually parroted the line parroted by all European official and most members of Congress: “If you ask me, I’m glad he’s dead, at least.”

Can you imagine?

People so easily celebrate the death of a person they’ve never met, about whom they know nothing—or about whom what they think they know they never think to question—and then feel satisfied about their moral superiority. An old man has been killed and they think nothing of how it reflects on them to say that they’re glad he’s dead.

All of the information that they have about the man comes from the people who have been trying to kill him for decades. This doesn’t disturb most people at all. They never think about it. They don’t think about why they hate people they’ve never met, in countries they’ve never been to, who speak languages that they don’t understand, and whose history they know nothing about.

They have no idea what his name is. They have no idea how to spell it or even say it. They don’t even know whether Ayatollah is his name or a title, or whether there has been more than one since the revolution, or even when the revolution was, or what they were revolting against. They have no idea, and they don’t care. They just parrot what the media has trained them to parrot, like good little monkeys.

What did the Ayatollah do in his life? What was his role in Iranian society? In the Muslim faith, in Islam? What did he preach? What did he do in his life? Over which parts of society in Iran was he in control? Did he order the hangings himself? Are there really hangings? Are there really hundreds? Maybe, maybe not.

But you don’t know. Because the people who are telling you that you should be really mad about all of the oppression and all of the hangings are the same people who were telling you about Iran’s “Revolutionary Guard”—does such a construct even exist? Or is just a name out of the children’s comic book that people in the west use to learn about Iran?—tearing out the wombs of women that they’d raped in order to cover up the evidence of the rapes. That was a NY Post headline, almost certainly planted by Israel and/or the CIA.

That’s who you get your news from, people. That’s the “information” on which you base your vaunted opinion that it’s a good thing that an old man was killed. It is for these people that you have thrown your principles and morality out of the window by celebrating the death of a religious figure. It is from them that you will not hear about the girls’ school that was one of the first places that the U.S. and Israel bombed.

This truly is the depths of anti-intellectualism.

But it has always been thus.

Iran is the enemy and always has been, for my entire adult life. They and the Russians have never, ever, ever experienced a reprieve in public opinion. The impression that most western citizens have of these countries and their peoples is uniformly provided by people who hate Iran and Russia. The only way to they could get into the good graces of the west is to allow themselves to be eviscerated and vassalized by Empire.

The depictions of these countries and their people are caricatures. Even more deviously, the depictions are the worst of the west itself, projected onto the countries and peoples that it has selected to be enemies.

Iranian Army

The future will laugh ruefully at the simplistic idiocy, at the base immorality, at the crude manipulation. They will laugh because it worked. They will grudgingly admire how the fools in charge of the west were able to easily predict the minimal amount of effort required to convince people to allow the murder of entire nations full of people. It is a pathetically small amount of effort.

People are eager to hate, as long as they see themselves benefitting from it, or they can be convinced that they are benefitting from it. This, too, is depressingly easy, requiring almost no effort at all, once the ball is rolling. They are eager to hate to assuage the fear instilled in them by the same people that urge them to hate.

I offer the following two videos as an antidote to this indoctrination.

Prof. Mohammad Marandi humanizes the Ayatollah

*SPECIAL* − Prof. Mohammad Marandi : Latest Developments LIVE From Tehran by Judge Napolitano − Judging Freedom (YouTube)

“[…] he was a person who lived a very simple life his children—all of them live a very simple life. Now that he’s passed away, I can say that I knew him. I wasn’t close to him, but I’ve met him on numerous occasions. I met family members of his regularly and none of them even have businesses. Not that he’s against business, but he prevented anyone from his immediate family from getting involved in business just to make sure that the family, the entire family is super clean.

“He was a volunteer in the war before the revolution. He was in jail—he was imprisoned numerous times and tortured. When the war started, he had no military experience, but he left for the warfront and fought. At the end of the war, when he was president, when the United States entered the war on the side of Saddam and they shot down the airliner and they started attacking Iranian naval installations and Iranian naval ships.

“The war fronts were very unstable and he went to the war fronts as the president. I saw him there and it was very dangerous for him because he would be a key target but he went from front to front to strengthen the morale. He was never a person afraid of death and he was always a religious scholar. The Christian martyrs in Iran—and I’ve posted a lot of these—he would on Christmas he would go to the family the houses of Iranian Christian martyrs on Christmas—for the Armenians it’s in January, for other Christians it’s in on the 25th of December, as in the United States.

“So he has visited numerous families of the martyrs. The narrative on Iran in the United States judge is completely fabricated and it has demonized this country for 47 years. And the reason for this, is Iran’s opposition to the Israeli regime and Iran’s insistence on being independent. But, if there was no Israel, I would assure you that Iran and the United States today would have would have embassies and we would have normal trade and business. But it’s the Israeli regime that insists on hatred and animosity.”

“They’re slaughtering people. They’re slaughtering families. They destroy apartment blocks. People are thrown 30 meters away from their homes. Kids, men, women, people on the streets lying, dying, kids under the rubble at the school. When they bombed the school on the first day killing 165 girls, we didn’t see anything in the western media and the Persian language media in the west because they have this huge media apparatus in Persian which is hostile towards Iran. There was no concern. They didn’t care about these kids. It wasn’t just the US government or this racist Zionist regime, but it was the entire media apparatus whether liberal or conservative. No difference. They seem to take pleasure in bombing cities and slaughtering people and they’re completely indifferent.

“[…]

“[Young people in Iran] did not see the crimes that the United States had committed alongside Saddam Hussein against us. And they could not feel, they could not comprehend what sanctions meant and how these sanctions were imposed from abroad to strangle us. But now they see it vividly how the empire so crudely slaughters men, women, and children. And then you watch CNN and and Fox News or you read The Guardian or Breitbart, they’re more or less the same. These students, who are very all of them fluent in English, see them as sinister and so their world views are evolving. What Trump has done the Iranian leadership, Iranian thinkers and intellectuals could never have done in a 100 years to change the opinions of these young people.”

The U.S. knows nothing about Iran

This is an excellent, clear-eyed report by Alastair Crooke, explaining that most of what people think they know about Iran is wrong. And most of what they think has happened in the war is wrong. Iran is taking damage but the U.S. has lost irreplaceable resources.

Can Israel & the U.S. Sustain Iran's Military Power? (w/ Alastair Crooke) by The Chris Hedges Report (YouTube)

Top comment:

“The war is going so poorly Trump will have to start releasing Epstein files just to distract from it”

Closing remarks:

“Chris: I just want to close, having worked in Iran for many years, and I believe you did too. The caricature of Iranians including the supreme leader—who was extremely literate: his favorite book, I believe, was Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables—is part of the problem, in that they have been turned into cartoon characters. And we’re talking about a rich, deep, Persian culture and tradition. They’re not the people they’re painted as.

“Alastair: I couldn’t agree with you more. […] you put your finger on it. This is a catastrophe of miscognition. They just don’t understand. And what is more, there is absolutely zero empathy. They view and treat the Iranians as Israeli subhumans.”

These are three interviews I’ve watched with Scott Ritter, who is entirely in his element.

Israelis will begin to leave on their own

There is a lot of great military analysis in this video but an interesting point that Ritter and Alkhorshid make is that many, many Israelis are quite well-off and quite privileged. Many of them have options outside of Israel. These people will not long suffer the deprivation of a country at war with a real enemy, and will begin to leave. These demographic shifts will have difficult-to-predict consequences.

Scott Ritter: The U.S. Has Lost and Is Trapped in the Iran War With No Way Out by Dialogue Works | Nima R. Alkhorshid (YouTube)

He provides a wealth of military information. He discusses how planning occurs, or how it should occur. But it doesn’t. The U.S. and Israel aren’t doing their homework, and they don’t respect Iran’s cleverness and planning. They are blowing up decoys, just as they did in Yugoslavia. Te U.S. is dancing about their missile strikes but most of the stuff they’re hitting isn’t what they think it is—because they didn’t do their research, and they don’t respect the possibility that Iran might know what they’re doing. The U.S. and Israel is used to bombing defenseless enemies from above.

He says also that the Iranians are holding back on killing soldiers. They are hitting military infrastructure as precisely as they can. They aren’t killing U.S. or Israeli soldiers or citizens, not versus what they could be doing. They’re all holed up in known locations and could be supersonic-ed to death. They’re holding back even though there are so many reasons to lash out: the schools, the Ayatollah, etc.

If Iran sticks to their goal as it appears to be now—making Israelis miserable but not dead—they will leave on their own. The Israelis are wealthy and can leave if there’s no water, fuel, or infrastructure. Since Israel and the U.S. opened up the shelling of infrastructure like desalinization plants, Iran might take out some of the same in Israel, where they depend on desalinization for water much, much more. Enough Israelis will leave on their own to collapse things there. The ones I’ve talked to are sick to death of war.

Iran is ready, while the U.S. is not

Iran has been preparing for this war for a long time. The U.S. has been threatening it for a long time but apparently not specifically preparing for it.

'Prove Me Wrong' – Scott Ritter Says This War Could End US Power in the Middle East by India & Global Left
| Jyotishman | Scott Ritter (YouTube)

“Iran is not relying upon weapons that have yet to be produced. They’ve already produced them and they’ve already stockpiled them and they’ve already factored in attrition. They have produced these. You know the Shaheed series drones, which, surprisingly, are being very effective against targets everywhere. They’ve produced missiles advanced missiles. They have stockpiles of older missiles and they have a a strategy on how to employ these missiles to maximum benefit. The Iranians have already built this stuff, so it’s a sunk cost. It’s done. But it didn’t bankrupt them to do it.

“By the way, the United States, who is the premier supplier of interceptors, to give you an example, the United Arab Emirates apparently bought $2 billion worth of missile interceptors. and they’re out, done, finished, gone. Zip. And who replaces them? There’s no production line right now functioning that can replace them. The United States hasn’t gone into war-production mode. We’ve already strained the entire system supplying air defense systems to Ukraine and now the Middle East has just shot through its load and there’s nothing left to replace it.

“This is the reality. The United States itself has, you know, stripped bare other theaters. I mean, when the president has to talk about we have plenty of ammunition all around the world, what he’s saying is, so sad, too bad, South Korea and Japan, we’re taking the missiles meant to defend you. Too bad Taiwan, those missiles are gone, too. And Europe, sorry, we’re taking those missiles as well. You know, so this is the reality. Iran fires a drone that cost $20,000 to produce and we shoot it down with three interceptor missiles that cost 3 to 4 million each to produce.”

“[…] we can’t do this because we are married to a legacy system of large amphibious assault assault ships, where we put hundreds of Marines on it, still have to sail it close to shores, and, if they sink one of those ships, we’re screwed. And yet, that’s exactly what will have to happen here. We will have to forcefully seize an Iranian port. Forcefully seize an Iranian port. Then forcefully seize airports and then seek to, you know, offload hundreds of thousands of troops under fire.”

“[…] with the exception of Normandy, we never invaded a space as large as Iran. So, let’s say we land in Tschahbahar. Then what? You see, Pete, I’m the guy that actually helped plan that very operation, the OP plan for Americans to put forces into Iran to respond to a Soviet invasion. So I’ve actually done this, Pete, and I’m telling you, it ain’t going to work. You can’t do it. So stop talking as if you can do it.

“You are going to war with what you have and what you have is not enough and you were told by your generals it won’t be enough.

“Moreover, there’s a you know there are two clocks ticking away here. The first clock is availability of resources. As I said, they’re running out of ammunition very fast. But there’s another one too because, as we speak, Aramco facilities are ablaze. As we speak, Qatari gas terminals are under attack and Qatar stopped shipping liquid natural gas. As we speak, the Strait of Hormuz is shut down. By the end of the week, Europe is going to be screaming. By the end of the month, Europe is going to be dead. By the middle of the month, Americans are going to be screaming.

“And this this is a reality. This president will not be able to withstand the political pressures brought on him at home, domestically, and abroad, globally um about the consequences of this illegal war of aggression.”

“[…] the British in all of their imperial stupidity have decided that they want to play a role in this conflict, that they have suddenly decided that they are pro-Israel. And so, Iran has fired missiles against British bases in Cyprus. What did the Greek government do this morning? They’re sending F-16 fighters. They’re sending air defense. They’re sending naval ships. Now, what do you imagine Türkiye’s response to this is going to be? Because the last time Greece deployed military forces to Cyprus, Türkiye invaded. And Türkiye is not going to sit back and allow Greece to do. So we may very well see in the very near term a new regional war between Türkiye and Greece. And ain’t that going to be pretty, NATO fighting amongst itself? And this will be a war of existential proportions because Türkiye will go for the knockout blow against Greece. They’re not going to put up with this. And then what is NATO going to do?”

On the nature of monarchy in the Middle East

Scott Ritter: Iran Wins the Long War − U.S. & Israel Losing Ground! by Dialogue Works | Nima R. Alkhorshid (YouTube)

“The Gulf Arab states can’t fight, don’t know how to fight, won’t fight. They farm it out. I was in a hotel in Riad before the war started. We would take our meals there. We work down in the in the bunker of the Ministry of Defense building. So we go across the street and they had this, I think, it was a Sheraton hotel. Had a nice, you know, buffet spread. And so, we would go there and the Saudis paid for it all because they got a lot of money. And so we’re sitting there and I had just spent the day, you know, preparing, you know, going through target lists and all this stuff about a conflict we’re getting ready to fight to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

“And, at the same buffet, were a bunch of Kuwaiti princes who had fled Kuwait City, and who were now taking refuge in Saudi Arabia. And we overheard them. They were sitting there talking to their Saudi hosts and they said, ‘you know, these Americans are our mercenaries.’ You know, we’re paying them to come here and liberate at night and the lieutenant colonel I was with basically ordered me out of the room because he saw that I was going to get up. I was going to go over there and I was going to beat the living shit out of this Kuwaiti, stomp him into the ground. I’m nobody’s mercenary. I take the orders only from my legitimate chain of command. it was deeply insulting.

“But the problem is: that’s their mindset and that’s how they view everything. They don’t view anybody as their equal. They don’t view anybody as a partner. You are a paid servant. When they pull out their wallet and they start putting money on the table and you take that money, they believe they own you. And in fact, they do.

“Except now what they’re finding out is they’ve been played the whole time. That we’ve let them sit there and and treat us to free lunches and free hotel rooms and free this and they buy our goods. But at the end of the day, all they’re good for is facilitating the desire of their Israeli masters to promote greater Israel.

“What do you think the Abraham Accords is? It’s not about, you know, collective empowerment through economic development. It’s not about mutual beneficial relations. It’s about the Arabs subordinating themselves to a greater Israel. 100%. That’s all it’s about. And that’s what they’ve done. That’s what these perverse, fat, pale, effeminate, non-men rulers of these nations have done. And I’m going to say, I’m just tired. We have to start calling it out. You can’t solve a problem unless you accurately define a problem. And so if we continue to pretend that Saudi Arabia is a military power when it’s not. Iran can defeat Saudi, and I pray they will.

“If Ansarallah’s listening to this: march on Riad, do it. do it. Get rid of this ridiculous family that only came in because a bunch of bunch of Wahabis ran around on camels and intimidated other Bedouin tribes in the 1920s and 30s. That’s it. There’s no legitimacy here. There’s no mandate from God. They just happen to be a tribe had better camel-operators than everybody else.

“It’s the same thing with the rest. The, you know, the Emirates, the British put them in. The British put everybody in. It’s colonial legacy. There’s no legitimacy. They have no mandate of the people. There’s no democracy. And then they got lucky because they happened to be sitting on a bunch of oil and gas that has now made them richer than they can possibly imagine.

“But the money doesn’t bring legitimacy. The money just makes them rich. Legitimacy has to come from standing for something. Standing for something. They don’t stand for democracy. They don’t stand for liberty. They don’t stand for justice. They’re just rich. That’s it. And they believe that they could sit there and leverage their control of the United States into controlling Iran. But it turned out that it was the United States controlling them, using them on behalf of Israel. And that truth has now come out.

“That truth has been played out in broad daylight by Iran. This is one of the greatest gifts Iran’s given to the region and the world by bringing everything to a head. The world will now get to see what kind of country Iran is. They’ll get to see the support that the Iranian people provide to their country. And they’ll also get to see the fact that the United States has been using the Gulf Arab states on behalf of Israel for decades. And they’ll get to see what Israel’s real plans are. that Israel is nothing more than a genocidal state wrapped in a tiny piece of territory with meaningless biblical references.”

“I wouldn’t want to be them. Because they’re just going to get used, abused, and slaughtered again. Basically, we have no options. None. Now, had the CIA and HEGs and everybody sat down with real experts and held a panel discussion, they would have known this upfront. Had they sat down with real experts about Iran.

“It’s funny. Some of the big advisers out there are guys who served in Task Force 17. Delta Force. These guys are good. They got big muscles and they got tattoos. They’re really good at jumping out of helicopters and sprinting into buildings and killing people. Hoorah, Delta. But they were given they were supposed to carry out this covert war against the Kuds force in Iraq and all this stuff. And so you have these thick-necked knuckle-draggers, some of whom are, you know, smart enough to have learned Farsi.

“And they were involved in a campaign that they lost ultimately. but now they’re the ones posting themselves as regional experts and providing the advice. These are the people saying that the Iranian people want to be overthrown. that they hate the regime. So we got Delta-Force, knuckle-dragging losers, guys who haven’t won a war yet. Big L stapled on their heads. They probably got their ass kicked in Afghanistan. They came over and got their ass kicked in southern Iraq.

“And then they went home and started thinking about their relevance to the world. So they started selling themselves as “regional subject-matter experts” is a term they like to use. And they’re just ignorant. If they’ve been in Iran, it’s because they landed there one night to insert somebody or extract somebody or to plant a device or to do something. But they haven’t wandered the streets of Tehran interacting with the Iranian people talking about to them.

“They haven’t, you know, gone to Kashan. They haven’t gone to any of the places that were blowing up. They didn’t go to Manab. They certainly didn’t meet with the families of the school children they were slaughtered by the bombs. These people know nothing about Iran. Nothing about Iran. And yet they’re the ones saying, “No, all we have to do is kill Ali Khamenei and the system comes down.”

“But had they talked to real experts, they would have known that killing Ali Khamenei will only strengthen the system that it will backfire fire. And that’s exactly what happened.”

“I don’t know what Hegseth thinks he’s doing because we went to war on a half-ass plan that was there to appease greater Israel. Israel is laughing all the way to the bank. They don’t care about Americans. They don’t care that we’re bankrupting ourselves. They don’t care about anything other than the fulfillment of their plan of greater Israel. And so they’re they’re laughing as we break our backs here. And we are breaking our backs.

“And you can see it in the panic in Hegseth’s mind. I mean, when you take joy out of sinking a ship that would had gone to India to participate in a festival, a shipping festival. So, it’d been paraded on the shores and now it’s off the coast of Sri Lanka, not an active combatant, heading home or heading to wherever they’re going to head.

“And we send a submarine. We’re not in a state of war. What legal authority did we have to sink that ship? The Congress authorized that. We had legal authority, apparently, according to Congress, to preempt the Iranian missile attack against us. But this ship is out there and we sunk it. The most cowardly act possible. We didn’t give it an opportunity. The submarine didn’t rise up and say surrender or something like that, send a signal. That’s that ship was sailing, not in combat mode, and we sunk it. And Pete Hegseth is bragging as if this is some sort of um example of, you know, American marshal supremacy. It’s something we’re supposed to be proud of. No, Pete, we’re ashamed of you and we’re ashamed of that action. It’s something that the ship’s commander should never have done. That submarine commander should never have sunk that ship. That ship posed no threat to anybody. and why did we sink it? Because we can.

“And don’t tell me we’re at war because Congress refuses to declare war. Congress called this a defensive action. I mean, that’s what Mike Johnson was saying. It’s defensive. Therefore, it’s not really a conflict. We don’t even get involved. It’s purely defensive. Was that a defensive action to send a submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka to sink a ship? Sounded pretty offensive to me.

“And this is what we’re doing on everything. I mean, this this is an incompetent campaign that was all premised around the notion of regime collapse. Now that that’s failed, now they don’t know what they’re fighting for. They’re just blowing up buildings. And that’s all they’re doing is blowing up buildings. If you think there’s anything inside the buildings being bombed, you’re dumber than dirt because anything of value has been long since evacuated and hidden in any one of hundreds of hide sites the Iranians have been preparing since 2005.”

A Young Scott Ritter

Introducing Stanislav Krapivnik

This is a good analysis by someone I’d never heard before. His take is mostly the same as other analysts, though his point of view is unique, in that he’s a former U.S. Army officer with Russian roots. He moved to Russia from the U.S. over 20 years ago and is fluent in Russian.

Iran War Spreading: Russia Gets Involved by Neutrality Studies | Pascal Lottaz | Stanislav Krapivnik (YouTube)

Stas pointed out that,

• The U.S. has started a holy war by killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It’s akin to killing the Pope. And they’re celebrating it, practically parading his head around on a stick.
• The Strait of Hormuz is closed, so prices will begin to rise, especially in Europe, as they “go to bingo fuel.”
• There are unconfirmed reports that the U.S.S. Liberty has been hit.
• They’re killing children on purpose. It’s not collateral damage. This is not only how Israel rolls but how the U.S. has always rolled, all the way back to WWII. They raped and pillaged, then projected their behavior onto the Red Army, which had the death penalty for rape or marauding. The U.S. firebombed so many cities in Germany, even in the north of France. They have always killed with impunity and overwhelming force.
• Russia is providing material support to Iran in the form of diesel and refined fuel, as well as drones, jets, and almost certainly pilots.
• The negotiations are a bad joke and no-one with a brain in their heads believes a word that the U.S. or Israel has to say. They are duplicitous to a fault.

“The Americans have unleashed something they can’t control. Hezbollah is all in, because if Iran goes down, Hezbollah is done. Hezbollah is all in. Hamas will probably go in. This is just going to continue expanding and Americans are not ready. No matter what [members of the Trump administration] say, Americans have died. There’re American casualties. And there’s going to be a lot more of them.

“So the only message I have to people in the West, you’re being marched off a cliff. Time’s up. Either go do something, hit the streets, put pressure on your governments, or you look at your children and know that they don’t have a future. I mean, this is it.”

McGovern and Krapivnik

Ray McGovern is a founding member of Veterans for Peace and also a former CIA officer who’d worked and advised at the highest echelons of the U.S. government, having served under seven U.S. presidents. Professor Marandi is a professor at a Tehran university.

Attacks on US Bases: Air Defense Didn’t Work? − McGovern and Krapivnik by Stanislav Krapivnik (YouTube)

This is an excellent discussion of mostly Iranian and U.S. logistics, about the ability of the U.S. to resupply itself, on how Iran’s production is state-driven and powerful, like Russia’s, whereas private industry in the U.S. cannot deliver. Stas mentioned that Raytheon recently increased production of Patriot missiles by 10%, from 600 to 660 missiles. That’s a maximum of 330 targets total per year.

Iranian DronesProfessor Marandi was excellent as always. He noted that Iran hasn’t used any of their newest stuff. Even their 15-20-year-old stuff is hitting its targets, which kind of surprised everyone in Iran, as well as in the call. Radar installations in U.S. bases are being hit by the dumbest, oldest drones without firing a shot. Iran is setting up for the long haul. Israel is a side-show for them. They could flatten it at any time but they don’t want to waste missiles on it (probably because they also know that Israel would attack with a nuke or a dozen).

McGovern says that the U.S. is going to run out of ammunition in a week. Trump and his crew just put it all on red and spun the wheel. If Iran keeps going from strength to strength in defying Israel and the U.S., then they will win this war, if it can be said that anyone wins a war. As Marandi said: Iran is getting hurt but it will not lose. It is so prepared for this that the U.S. has nothing—other than nukes, which he didn’t say, but I’m saying it—that can defeat them. The U.S. and Israel are massively overextended. Like everything else in the U.S., they’re more about the the pre-game show than about the game.

00:00 — US Israeli attack on Iran overview  
03:03 — Situation in Tehran and evacuations  
05:29 — War inevitability and White House logic  
09:46 — Trump motives and US politics  
12:54 — Objectives of assassination strikes  
15:08 — Iran strikes Gulf US assets  
19:50 — Russian Chinese reactions assessment  
23:04 — Russia stance and diplomacy future  
27:17 — US negotiations distrust history  
31:18 — Iran planning long war strategy  
34:48 — Impact on Iranian society alliances  
39:04 — Long war and Israel risks  
43:37 — US logistics and missile limits  
47:18 — Iran Gulf strategy escalation  
51:20 — Condolences and human cost  
53:05 — Russia China view on Trump  
56:03 — Possible short US war scenario

Pascal Lottaz citing Iván Ramírez de Arellano

Pascal Lottaz was born and educated in Switzerland but he’s lived in Japan, working for a university there, for over a decade. He cites analysis published largely on Twitter that seems quite insightful and will probably prove to be quite prescient in the coming weeks and months. It has already predicted the last couple of weeks quite well.

Iran’s Massive Strike Doctrine by Professor Pascal Lottaz (YouTube)

This was another excellent report, even though he made us listen to way too much Keir Starmer (he said he included the longer clip because the man should speak for himself but it was still annoying because it’s Starmer).

Pascal cited analysis by Iván Ramírez de Arellano, The Jomini of the West (Twitter) at length.

“The rapid, unprecedented escalation of Operation Epic Fury is already the subject of rigorous analysis by analysts, strategists, and operations researchers. Although still only within the initial 48 hours of the onset of hostilities, the current course of operation reveals stark, alarming divergences between the tactical military success celebrated by the Allied coalition and the campaign’s long-term geopolitical viability.

“The joint US-Israeli campaign and the Iranian response are already illustrating the structural limits of air power, the fragility of global energy markets and the mathematics of modern inter economics exposing critical vulnerabilities in the US Israeli operational design. It is questionable if the United States and Israel are operating within a coherent and achievable theory of victory.

“The stated Allied war aims are maximalist. To permanently remove Iran from the ranks of confrontation states by either toppling the regime entirely or failing that completely disarming its massive ballistic missiles and drone arsenal. However, historical precedents and rigorous operational modeling indicate that enduring regime change cannot be achieved solely through aerial bombardment. By executing a deception strike against Ayatollah Khamenei without the introduction of occupying ground forces or a coordinated internal revolutionary vanguard capable of securing the political vacuum, the Allied coalition has failed to constrain the Iranian state.

“Instead, massive aerial kinetic expenditure merely cripples and fragments the state apparatus. It expands rather than constrains the space of possibilities for regional chaos. The death of the supreme leader rather than inducing immediate societal capitulation for a Venezuelan-style democratic transition has likely unified hardline Iranian nationalist elements and the surviving IRGC cadres under the desperate survivalist doctrine.

“Additionally, Iran’s aggregate arsenal estimated prior to the conflict at over 2,500 medium-range ballistic missiles and 8,000 short range systems and tens of thousands of loitering munitions is simply too vast and too deeply entrenched in subterranean bunkers to be entirely disarmed from the air. Recognizing their inability to win a conventional counterforce duel against US stealth bombers, the regime’s decentralized. Surviving commanders have naturally defaulted to countervailing strikes against soft, highly lucrative targets.

“The US lacks the physical defensive density required to permanently shield the oil monarchies from these dispersed asymmetric attacks. If these monarchies cannot be protected, Iran retains the capacity to wreck financial markets, devastate the global economy, and consequently destroy the political viability of the current US administration for a generation, highlighting that the risk of escalation are multiplying hourly without a viable exit strategy.

“Conversely, Western threat assessment historically fixated on Iran’s ability to mine or blockade the straight of Hormuz. While disruptive, this is a maritime choke point that can eventually be secured and cleared by the United States Navy overwhelming superiority. However, the true existential existential strategic lever available to Tehran is the systemic physical destruction of the onshore oil and gas processing infrastructure of the Gulf.

“Because Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait serve as indispensable logistical co-belligerents hosting the air bases and the naval headquarters from which American power projects, their critical energy nodes are rendered legitimate high priority military targets under the laws of armed conflict.These facilities, specifically the export terminals, sit comfortably within the range of Iranian short-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and inexpensive Shaheed drone swarms.

“If the IRGC facing existential annihilation initiates a scorched earth campaign against these specific nodes, the physical backbone of the global energy system will be severed. The strategic calculus here is to inflict such severe pain on global markets that the international community forces the US to hold its military operations. The financial markets have already begun pricing in this instability. Brent crude closed at $72.87 and on Friday before the strikes and analysts at Barclays and Goldman Sachs project that if the infrastructure targeting scenario materializes Brent crude will rapidly blow past $100 per barrel representing a catastrophic 37% jump.

“Under such immense domestic economic pressure, the United States executive branch might implement draconian export controls to stabilize domestic American fuel prices. This political maneuver would leave the European Union and the United Kingdom completely devoid of both Russian natural gas and Gulf energy supplies, effectively fracturing the Western geopolitical alliance and plunging Europe into an unprecedented energy vacuum.

“Likewise, the US and Israel are currently prosecuting a highly asymmetric war of attrition that Western military-industrial bases are poorly positioned to sustain economically. Operation Epic Fury relies almost exclusively on advanced ballistic missile defense systems to protect critical infrastructure. This necessitates that expenditure of multi-million dollar interceptors such as the terminal high altitude area defense or THAAD and the standard missile 3 to defeat legacy Iranian ballistic missiles and mass-produced drones warms that cost a fraction of the defensive interceptor.

“This inverted cost exchange ratio strongly favors Iran’s saturation strategy. Iranian operational resilience potentially backfilled covertly by material support from Russia or China may likely simply outlast Western interceptor stockpiles. Iran’s vast missile inventory serves effectively as an ablative sponge designed specifically to absorb and exhaust western high tier interceptors. Once these finite interceptor stockpiles fall below critical operational thresholds, Allied bases, aircraft carriers, and the vital Gulf energy infrastructure will be left exposed to undefended cascading saturation strikes, rendering the Allied position militarily untenable.”

Pepe Escobar and Larry Johnson

Pepe Escobar is on fire and full of information, more about the political situation than about the military progress, or lack thereof. Larry Johnson also discussed the politics, but focused a bit more on the military situation, which is that “the U.S. has effectively been driven out of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.”

Pepe Escobar & Larry C. Johnson: US-Israel HIT Tehran, Iran DESTROYS Tel Aviv, Hezbollah NOW Joins by Dialogue Works | Nima R. Alkhorshid (YouTube)

Larry had very choice words for Pete Hegseth. The story that four U.S. F15s were shot down by the Kuwaitis in a friendly-fire incident is completely non-credible. The Kuwaitis haven’t been able to shoot down Iranian drones (which are much slower) but they can target and shoot down fighter jets that their targeting systems are programmed not to shoot down?

He pointed out that, with oil prices set to shoot up, Russia is going to benefit economically as well.

Iran has refused all calls for peace or a ceasefire from the U.S. The wheels are in motion and they are going to let the chips fall where they may. They see that they have the wind behind them.

Neither the U.S. nor Israel has dared to fly over Iran because their air defenses are intact—because, as Nima pointed out, they’re shooting up police stations and schools rather than tactical infrastructure.

The U.S. aircraft carriers have pulled back to Cyprus, which is over 1000 miles away, which means two refueling ops for any jets making sorties to Iran. Iran can and has hit Cyprus, though.

The video is almost 2 hours long but I found it extremely informative.

I couldn’t help but notice when the article Malignant Dawn by Bill Murray (3QuarksDaily) started out with the following rather naive and incredible statement,

“How would the United States handle the rise of the rest? The debate was usually about what the US would do to keep things steady – to maintain equilibrium. No one saw the US as the disruptor. But as it turns out, it’s the chief enforcer who is changing the script.”

It is flabbergasting to read something like this from an author I’d thought to be somewhat better-informed. Obeisance to the myth that the empire tells about itself is a mind virus.

As usual, those who were victims of the mind virus but upon whom the realization is now dawning—slowly and after incredible repetition of the obvious—that the U.S. might not always be the good guy, they have to characterize their previous unquestioning fealty to the empire’s myth as a mass hypnosis that was shared by all. Most importantly, the willful and deliberate ignorance of this hypnosis was clearly not a personal, moral failing.

There were a bunch of us who knew exactly how the U.S. would react to multipolarity. It was not an ineffable mystery. We’d watched 75 years of cold war. We’d watched the empire expand.

We didn’t ignore it all because it would have been much more convenient to do so, because e.g., our investments were expanding, because the rising tide of the empire happened to be lifting our boats. We didn’t look away from the atrocities committed that they myth claimed were done in all of our names because we were under the umbrella. No, some of us walked away from Omelas the minute we got wind of what was going on.

Two weeks later and people are still talking about Mark Carney as if he were some sort of leftist hero. Don’t bother watching his speech. It’s self-serving trash that boils down to: We are only dissatisfied with a system once it starts being disadvantageous to us. The exploitation of others never bothered us in the least.

FULL SPEECH: PM Carney’s Most Inspiring Remarks at Davos — Greenland, Trump Tariff Threats | AQ1B by DRM News (YouTube)

He never names the U.S. or Trump. He just complains that things are hard for his poor country, which is accustomed to being one of the predators but is now scared that it might end up as prey. If you didn’t know enough context, you’d think he was complaining about Russia and China. Carney’s main example of authoritarianism in this speech is communism. I thought for a second that he thought Russia was still communist. Or that China was. You really need to bring a lot of context to fill in the blanks.

He names the glorious institutions of the WTO, the UN, the COP … the UN is the only one that has any humanitarian inclinations, mostly thwarted by its authoritarian structure. The WTO and COP are tools for extraction from the poor and weak.

And then the second half is a boring speech that he seems to think he’s giving to a board of directors as a boring, boring CEO. It’s incredible that this was considered to be a groundbreaking speech. People probably got boners because he quotes Václav Havel and they were blown away by his erudition.

This is a speech given by a middle king to other middle kings. This is one of the other leaders bitching about how Cersei is going nuts in King’s Landing. This is pathetically Game of Thrones.

He ended with a sales job for Canada, talking about how it’s the best at so many things. He brags about its “public square”, which, like, no. Remember the trucker protest? They canceled all of those people’s bank accounts. There is no real freedom of speech in Canada.

This is not the speech of a humanitarian. This is not the speech of a man with principles. This is just more of the same: he represents people who are content—blissfully or deliberately—to have their lifestyles built on a pile of skulls—on the backs of the poor, the weak, the subjugable—but will complain when there is even the threat that he and his ilk might be treated in the same way.

Being a humanitarian—being a socialist, being a leftist—means being willing to give up personal benefits based on injustice to others. It means being just as incensed by injustice to others as injustice to ourselves.

He’s realizing that his country may no longer be under the umbrella, that the price extracted for staying under the umbrella may be too high. As long as the price was the lives and well-being of others, he was fine with it. That’s not a principle. That’s disgusting.

I don’t remember Carney saying anything much about Palestine. Or the kidnapping of Maduro. I bet if I would dig a bit, I would find veiled approval. Let’s stop kidding ourselves.

Overall, it was a fitting speech for a former Goldman Sachs bigwig. He’s a jackass.

And, oh God, is he boring. Fifteen minutes is ten minutes too long.

I mean: look at him. This ain’t Lenin.

Inside, The Valley Sings by Nathan Fagan & Natasza Cetner (Vimeo) is a fifteen-minute video of rotoscoped animations of prisoners and prisons, with a voiceover by multiple prisoners. They explain their lives inside. The first explains that he was sentenced to 34 years in prison at 16 years old. He lived in Angola prison in Louisiana. The film is also available on YouTube, as linked below.

Inside, The Valley Sings | Award-Winning Documentary Short Film by Short of the Week (YouTube)

Another “spent 22 years and 36 days total in solitary confinement.”.

Later, he said,

“When they came to take me out of the cell… My vocal cords had gotten so weak from so long not talking to anybody I was semi-catatonic. I didn’t have a mirror in that cell. I went in there in my thirties and I didn’t come out until I was 58. And when I saw myself, I cried. I had gotten old. I fought all those years to stay alive. For what? I would kill someone before I would put them in a cell like that. That would be so much more humane.

“With my words, if I’m able to enable you to feel something that I feel, then maybe you’ll know there’s real truth to what I say. This punishment does destroy: Minds, hearts and souls. It robs you of hope, which is the essential need to carry on with life.”

I am at a loss for words. The U.N. considers it a human-rights violation to keep anyone in solitary confinement for longer than two weeks. This duration is based on the scientific evidence of myriad sociological and psychological studies. Anything more causes irreparable harm.

This is what the U.S. of A. does to its own citizens. Imagine how little it cares for the lives of those who aren’t even U.S.-Americans.

Oh, wait. They don’t really care about U.S.-American lives either.

This is your tax dollars at work, running the world’s longest, most inhumane experiment, while simultaneously masquerading as beacon of hope and democracy, an ideal of the moral high ground.

At the end of the film it writes,

“Among Western industrialized nations, the United States is the only country to make extensive use of long-term solitary confinement.

“A recent report states there are more than 122,000 men, women and children being held in some form of solitary confinement in U.S prisons on any given day.”

The article CBS censors “60 Minutes” report on torture of immigrant detainees by Patrick Martin (WSWS) writes,

“The leaked version of the “60 Minutes” segment is devastating. The courage of the men who testified is remarkable, as is the compassion of the students and human rights advocates who helped them, and the determination of Alfonsi and her team of journalists to bring this information to the public. The segment exposes the blatant lying and inhuman callousness of the Trump administration, particularly Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem […]”

I can confirm that these men were courageous to speak out. They speak Spanish. I watched the video at the post 🚨Holy shit. Someone leaked the entire 60 Minutes episode CBS didn’t want you to see. by @CallToActivism (Twitter).

It’s not like we’re not going to see it, people. There is no stopping it.

The footage of CECOT is horrifying, They’re not ashamed of it. Bukele is happy to let influencers show the world how prisoners are stuffed into cells, stacked on beds four high, like chickens on a roost. They show prisoners lined up in six rows, each seemingly nude, each with his head shaved, each with his hands tied behind his back, each with his forehead pressed into the spine of the person in front of him.

There is footage of Katherine Leavitt, who is an evil witch of a fu@&ing demon, denouncing everyone as a litany of horrific things, none of which they’ve even been accused of. She’s a demon, I cannot stress this enough. She is a true believer. Either that, or she’s a brilliant actress, like the Daniel Day Lewis of her generation. Either way, she’s intrinsic in helping her bosses do a lot of damage. How many people think to themselves, how could this pretty, blonde, Christian lady be wrong? She wouldn’t lie to us; she loves Jesus! Fock, dood, fix your scam radar before it’s too late.

Sharyn AlfonsiProps to Sharyn Alfonsi (Wikipedia) for this excellent report, described as follows by Patrick Martin.

“The domination of giant corporations and the billionaire families who control them is the fundamental source of the attacks on democratic rights faced by the entire working class. As the WSWS has emphasized, the return to power of Trump and the ongoing effort to establish a fascist dictatorship in America means that the political forms of rule are being brought into line with the underlying social reality. It is impossible to maintain even the pretense of democracy in a society riven by such massive economic and social inequality.

“The censorship of “60 Minutes” underscores the critical importance of the working class gaining access to the information needed to develop a clear understanding of the capitalist crisis and the dangers that it poses.”

The EU, casting its eye about for more thought­crimeThis is an excellent interview with what is presumably the first of many Swiss people to be sanctioned by the EU for thinking unapproved thoughts and having unapproved opinions out loud. He’s been accused of supporting Russia, which, like, it’s a free country, right? Oh no. It is absolutely not a free country.

I wrote recently at more length about this in Hung out to dry by Switzerland, in which I reported on an interview with Nathalie Yamb, who is another Swiss citizen upon whom the fiery eye of the eye has settled.

The interview is in German.

Meine Konten wurden eingefroren | Jacques Baud by Westend Verlag (YouTube)

“Das heißt, das ist genau das Gegenteil von was die Leute wie Rousseau, Voltaire und so weiter im 17. Jahrhundert gekämpft haben. Wir sind zurück—300 Jahre zurück—des Habeas Corpus, dass man das Recht hat zu einer Verteidigung existiert an sich nicht.

“Auch wenn ich gegen diesen Sanktionen kämpfe, das wird nicht ein juristische Prozess sein, das wird an sich ein politischer Prozess sein. Das heißt, wir sind sehr weit weg von der Idee, die wir seit 1945 wollten. Das heißt die Herrschung der Demokratie, der Recht von jeder sich auszudrücken, das ist genau, was wir in 1945 verlassen haben.

“Und sie wissen als Deutsche besser als ich, was das heißt. Und viele Leute auch, die Sowjetunion gekannt haben, kennen das auch. Und einige Leute in Deutschland haben sogar gesagt, dass was ich erlebe im Moment sei noch schlimmer als was in der DDR passierte in Bezug auf ähnliche Fälle. Das heißt, dass wir haben uns nicht verbessert, wir haben uns verschlimmert sozusagen., wir haben unsere Werte verloren.

“Wissen Sie, Demokratie, es gibt nicht zwei Demokratien. Es gibt nicht die gute, die schlechte Demokratie, es gibt nur Demokratie.

“Wenn ich mit meinem Schweizerischen Auge, wenn ich die Frankreich anschaue, die französische Demokratie hat nicht viel zu tun mit der Schweizer Demokratie, an sich hat nichts zu tun damit, wenn man da gut beobachtet. Die können einfach der Präsident wählen. Das ist ja das ist ein einzige. Der Rest ist eine Monarchie.

“So, das heißt, aber die Begriffe, der Begriff der Demokratie ist immer das gleiche, dass man der Recht sich auszudrücken, der Recht die diese freie Meinung zu haben und so weiter. Es gibt nochmals wieder, es gibt keine gute oder böse Demokratie. Es gibt die Demokratie. Die Werte müssen immer die gleiche sein, die Freiheit. Und wenn jemand eine andere Meinung hat, umso besser, dann kann man streiten. Das heißt, intellektuell streiten natürlich, man kann Ideen austauschen.”

This is a great discussion. At 26.5 minutes, it’s relatively compact. They discuss, among other things, Vivek Ramaswamy’s having come down to Earth to realize that his party will not accept him as a real person.

Millennial White Men DISCRIMINATED Against? (w/ Vijay Prashad) by Briahna Joy Gray (YouTube)

At about 18:00,

“I mean, there’s real racism but also for political reasons. It’s very useful to believe that groups rise or fall because of their kinds of intrinsic ability, because then they don’t have to spend money on any policies to try to create any kind of equality. Right? Like, that’s the real game. It’s like to cut government spending by saying that anything that you observe where a group is struggling is their own fault.

“But he can’t point to the the difficulties that any other group faces because, in his mind, it’s their own fault. And that’s why I think he’s having this existential crisis, like he thought that we were doing merit.

“This is why he got in trouble about a year ago around the holidays, defending H-1B-visa immigrants because he was like, “Oh, I thought we all agreed that if someone is smart and does a good job and is in a quote unquote burden on society that they should come here.” And then all the white people were like, “No, the game is white people get good stuff and nobody else does. We run this joint. It’s not about merit. It’s about white supremacy.” And he was like, “Oh shit.” He thought that the merit stuff was legitimate and not a pretext.”

Vijay’s response was brilliant, saying he has no empathy for people like this.

“Vijay PrashadThe two people you mentioned are both South Asian, Usha Vance and and Vive Ramaswami. They’re desperate to assert the fact that they’re white and they are not migrants, in a way, because a migrant is a person that needs to be deported by ICE. They are somebody who wins a prize in Cincinnati, Ohio because they were born in Cincinnati. You know, there can be other people born in Cincinnati who deserve to be expelled by ICE because they are illegal migrants. They’re illegal not in their status, but they’re illegal in the imagination. They shouldn’t be there. What he’s trying to say is, ‘I exist legally in your imagination.’ And that’s either malicious—he’s trying to claim whiteness—or it’s naive. And I think he’s not naive. I think he’s malicious.”

The article Walz Pulls Out: Score Another Another One for Racism, Coupled with Democratic Party and Media Ineptitude by Dean Baker (CounterPunch) is yet another well-written lament in a long list of laments about the utter lack of resistance to the grinding propaganda machine buoying the Trump administration.

I don’t really care about Tim Walz. He’s an empty suit. For God’s sake, he was nominated as a vice-presidential candidate to the even emptier suite of Kamala Harris. That he’s bowing out of a re-election campaign doesn’t really interest me.

That said, he’s getting railroaded for something that doesn’t exist. Dean writes a good article debunking this stuff but, honestly? It’s a waste of time. Even the people making the accusations don’t believe them. The people online who’ve managed to pressure Walz into resigning don’t believe in them. They don’t even believe that Walz stands for the things that he says he stands for, or that they say he stands for.

The only thing that matters to them is that Walz seems to be in opposition to Trump and his administration, so Trump and his administration—and their army of online volunteers, who make a fortune grifting the gullible—are making an example of him.

It’s quite certain that no-one in the Trump administration or who is adjacent to the Trump administration cares about fraud, and certainly not on principle.

Dean writes,

“Linda and Vince McMahonSometimes even high levels of fraud are apparently tolerated. As I noted previously, the Inspector General of the Small Business Administration (SBA) identified $200 billion of potentially fraudulent payments in the Paycheck Protection Program, an emergency pandemic started in Trump’s first term. This would have been more than 15 percent of the money that went out the door.

“That massive level and percentage of fraud proved not to be career ending for Donald Trump. In fact, it was not even career ending for Linda McMahon, the SBA administrator responsible for overseeing the program. Trump promoted her to Education Secretary in his current term.”

Dean points out that Linda McMahon—someone whose entire work experience before the Trump administrations was working for the WWE—didn’t suffer any loss of reputation for having been in charge of an agency that lost far more money to fraud. To reiterate: that this doesn’t seem to matter isn’t mysterious. They like Linda because she does thinks that they like and they don’t like Tim because he doesn’t. That they used supposed fraud as a lever to torpedo Tim’s career is incidental.

People don’t care about the large-scale fraud from which Trump and his ilk benefitted because they haven’t been ordered to do so by their media silo. The media silo doesn’t exist in the U.S. that cares a lick about large-scale, white-collar crime. All media tell their minions to care about penny-ante bullshit so that the hoi polloi continue to fight amongst themselves and not against their betters in the self-selected elite. On this, all parties agree. They know on which side their bread is buttered.
 

Lee Camp’s show Unredacted Tonight is getting better and better with each episode. This was a brilliant report, tightly reported, chock-full of excellent information, hilarious. No notes.

UNREDACTED: The Crazy Truth of US Coups in Latin America / US Police Kill More People Than You Think by Unredacted Tonight | Lee Camp (YouTube)

From the show description:

“In this episode of Unredacted Tonight, Lee Camp traces a modern history of U.S. intervention in Latin America—covering major regime-change operations, covert actions, and military interventions from the 1950s onward. With sharp political comedy and rapid-fire historical references, the segment connects well-known flashpoints (Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Honduras, Haiti, Venezuela and more) to the broader mechanics of power: intelligence operations, economic pressure, political manipulation, and the strategic interests that often sit behind public messaging.

“The show then shifts into a “Dystopia Report” focused on policing and accountability in the United States, examining how deaths in custody and police-involved fatalities are tracked, classified, and prosecuted. Using headline examples and research-based discussion, the segment explores the gap between official reporting and independent estimates, and what that gap suggests about transparency, oversight, and the real-world incentives inside the system.”

At about 11:30,

“Man, do we love kidnapping presidents. Love it! Some people like fly fishing or knitting or bestiality or whatever, but the US empire loves kidnapping democratically elected presidents … and also killing them.”

At about 15:45,

“A few years ago, the Department of Justice released a report about the numbers of people who die in law enforcement custody, and they said they have no idea how many people die in law enforcement custody. Oh, great. So that 1,292 number is just the victims we actually bothered to count. Well, I always say the only thing harming American exceptionalism is truth. If we could just keep truth at
bay, we’ll be fine.”

At about 18:30,

“So, if the government has failed to count a lot of deaths, exactly how many are we talking here? According to a large-scope study by the highly respected Lancet Medical Journal, police killings in America have been under-counted by more than half over the past four decades. According to a new study … half! half! Jesus.

“About 55% of fatal encounters with the police between 1980 and 2018 were listed as another cause of death. Another cause of death. Like what? Taser-to-face syndrome. Yeah. Yeah. He, you know, he came down with a bad case of boot-throat. Yep. Lot of folks in prison picking up the boot-throat. They are usually the ones talking back to us or saying negative things commenting on my haircut. Yeah. It’s very very contagious. Yeah. So if police killings are under-counted by 55%, how many would that be during, say, last year? Well, if 1,292 is the official count, then the actual number is 2,871 people murdered by police in America last year.”

“So if we assume, as the Lancet medical journal just told us, that there’s roughly 2,871 police killings a year, a likely undercount, times 15 years, that’s 43,065 people killed by cops. Then, three convictions [in 15 years] would be 0.007%. One conviction of a police officer for every 14,355 murders. I don’t know what to say to that.”

The article We’re all just content for ICE by Ryan Broderick (Garbage Day) writes [1],

“They are tightening the noose and there is very little room left for any kind of meaningful protest. Minnesotans over the weekend organized massive demonstrations, with thousands of people marching through the south side of Minneapolis several days in a row. But there was no law enforcement there, nor were there any ICE officers (at least in uniform). No one to whom they could direct their anger at. As for local leaders, Rep. Ilhan Omar spoke to the crowd on Saturday, but even she looked shaken. A few hours before the march, ICE agents blocked Omar from inspecting the federal building and even threatened her with pepper spray. Right after Good was killed last week, Noem created a policy that blocks congressional visits without a seven-day notice.”

So much national policy is created by unelected madmen and madwomen, overriding state and local law. How can states get away from this, from the tightening noose of the federal regime? The U.S. Constitution foresaw one drastic solution: The threat of secession. The first U.S. Civil War showed that this was not a viable option, though.

“[…] it won’t be long until a much darker, far more unpredictable form of opposition replaces that.”

Yes, the absolute clowns currently running things are so arrogant and stupid enough to think that, if they stifle the protest of desperate people, that those people will submit to the lash.

They will not.

If you give people no other outlet than violence, then they will resort to violence. It is completely predictable and understandable.

The federal shock troops are terrorizing everyone. They sow fear, they will reap the whirlwind.

We’ll have to figure out who the real allies are. Unfortunately, those who spent decades mentally and physically preparing for government overreach, government militarization of the homeland, internment camps, and so on are now MIA. They don’t mind any of those things happening when it happens to someone else. They cheer it on when it’s against an enemy they’ve been trained to hate, no matter that it’s against their own interests. So, where are those boasting militias of yore when you need them? Oh. They’re posting “liberal ownage” videos on Twitter and joining ICE.

“The lesson here is clear: We’re on our own now. They have guns and drones and they can hack our phones and smear our names online and arrest us without a warrant and charge us with terrorism. And all we have are whistles and protests and TikTok and group chats and maybe some journalism. Our local leaders are admitting they can’t help us. So we’re left with nothing but hope that all of that will be enough. But it’s impossible to shake the profoundly unsettling feeling that we have clearly stepped across the threshold into a very different political reality. And it’s not a matter of if it arrives in your town, but when.”

Disagree. We cannot lose hope. They want us to feel isolated. But we see that, when the community shows up, ICE melts away. [2] They have power against numbers; they can do damage. But they can’t win. People need to get to levels of desperation and community that they are willing to suffer inconvenience for their neighbor, to lose something, maybe even their lives. This is not the preferred situation, but if people don’t get there? It’s only going to get worse.

The local, state, and federal governments are the enemy; they always have been. It’s time for real anarchy to bubble up. It’s time to self-organize. It’s time to stop paying your subscriptions, stop paying your taxes.

Starve the beast.

Forget the midterms. They are, as always, a distraction. They are 10.5 months away. It’s only the middle of January and look at what’s going on. You won’t be able to go outside to vote by November, bro. Face reality.

Glenn Greenwald’s analysis of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good is nearly 30 minutes and it’s all 100% worth watching. It’s a very well-thought-through and well-presented analysis of the culture of violence in the U.S. [1]

Minneapolis ICE Shooting: Glenn Shares His Thoughts by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

Glenn discusses the sickness of a society that cheers violence, that celebrates death. He begins by talking about Renee Nicole Good’s utterly senseless death, which, for the sake of argument, we won’t even call an alleged murder, because nothing has been officially alleged yet. He compares the right’s celebratory reaction—Fuck around and Find out! Talk shit, get hit!—to the reactions of very online people after Charlie Kirk was murdered just a few months ago.

He notes that one difference between the incidents is, that those who trashed Charlie Kirk were nearly entirely online, and nearly entirely insignificant in terms of actual power. In the case of Ms. Good, the reprehensible lying and celebratory comments come from the very top and goes right down the ladder.

Glenn discusses the attitude toward violence in the U.S., in general, using the example of when the U.S. extra-judicially executed Osama bin Laden, sending people into the streets to celebrate in writhing ecstasy. Other peoples in other countries that don’t share U.S. bloodlust looked at this and wondered: what kind of demons are U.S. citizens, to be celebrating the violent death of a person?

The reason is anything but war

This made me think of my own youth in that country, where the won’t-someone-please-think-of-the-children crowd kept searching about for a reason as to why young people seemed to be so violent. They blamed rock music, then heavy-metal music, then rap … just music by non-whites, by non-mainstream, by anyone with an unwelcome political opinion. Look at the lyrics to so much heavy-metal and rap music: the sound is violent but the lyrics are often anti-war and anti-imperialism. I found out afterward that much of the metal I listened to was anti-Vietnam.

Once video games became good enough to mimic reality reasonably well, those became the next target. Obviously violent video games breed violence. But they were, of course, disingenuous, because they were never going to look within, to see the culture of hate, division, and alienation that the U.S. pounds into everyone’s head. They wouldn’t look to the military budget that’s larger than the next 10 nations combined. They wouldn’t look at anything that flowed money into their own coffers.

Anyway, that’s just my additional thoughts. Glenn didn’t talk about blaming music or video games for violence in the U.S. but he did discuss the deliberate alienation in the culture.

What about January 6th?

Finally, Glenn talked about the January 6th riot. He continues to maintain that it wasn’t even close to a viable insurrection—I agree; they had no plan; it grew organically; the functioning of the state was never in any danger whatsoever—but that’s not the point he was making. What he said was that, if people support the State’s being able to mow down a woman for disobeying orders—even if they were conflicting or unjustified orders),—then the capitol police would have been justified in killing dozens, if not hundreds, of people on that day in January, instead of just Ashli Babbitt.

But people decide whether they consider violence to be justified based on their personal politics, which leads them to espouse wildly perverted and hypocritical opinions. They’ll defend to their death the full pardons granted to everyone involved in January 6th.

Some of those people had committed serious crimes; some of them had gotten railroaded into sentences that were far too long for what they’d done. Railroading is the kind of justice most people in the U.S. of A. have known for a long, long time. We only notice when that kind of stuff starts to affect people who are more like us.

But, still, that’s not why so many people thought they should be pardoned. They have this base feeling that most of those people were there protesting what they perceived to be injustice. They shared that feeling, so that protest was justified. They didn’t see how dangerous it got; they didn’t see the danger posed by some participants. It wasn’t an insurrection but it did turn into a dangerous riot that damaged government—i.e., the people’s—property, and some of that property was quite sacred to U.S. institutions.

Ok, the heroes we’re talking about manage to convince themselves that the Jan. 6th protestors—who actually rioted, who actually broke into a government building—were treated unjustly. One protester was killed, and she was shot while crawling, armed, through a windows she’d smashed through in a door in the interior of the building. I’m not going to litigate this particular instance because I don’t know more than those details—and even those might be wrong, if I’m honest—but to illustrate that, at a minimum, Babbitt was unequivocally more engaged in active resistance—domestic terrorism!—than someone like Renee Nicole Good.

But these heroes are also 100% convinced that a suburban mother—who was in her own car, in her own neighborhood, and driving at below walking pace—has to know and understand how to follow orders in a tense situation on a suburban street in America. They think that the burden of remaining calm is on the non-professional person. They think that the person with the gun is justified in being on the hair-trigger of fearing for his life and, should he assassinate someone, he should suffer absolutely no consequences for it. He shouldn’t even lose his job.

This is the madness and deep sickness of too many people in U.S. society. They celebrate death and murder like savages. Or demons.

Don’t trust your lyin’ eyes

The article Think You Saw State-Sanctioned Murder? You Failed Media’s ‘Rorschach Test’ by Janine Jackson (ZNetwork) writes,

“In the 13th paragraph, we get the mayor of Minneapolis: “Frey said of the self-defense explanation, ‘Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody that is bullshit.’”

“Did the NPR reporters see the video themselves? Can they tell us whether or not this is bullshit? How exactly do they define the job of reporting?”

“That piece explained that you can’t really know what you saw, or what it means, because “in a polarized country, high-ranking officials were offering definitive, and starkly contrasting, accounts long before the facts could be established.”

“The Times sees its role as telling you that whether or not you believe Renee Good deserved to be murdered depends on whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.”

HasanAbi does the work

Here’s a short video with examples of hateful, hateful people but also those who are deeply thankful to HasanAbi for having shown them the error of their ways.

'my loved ones would never get shot by ICE' by HasanAbi (YouTube)

The title says it all: this is, deep down, how people think. It won’t happen to me.

Historical analogues

Martin Niemöller covered all of this already, back in 1946 with his poem First They Came (Wikipedia) that starts out,

“First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

“[…]”

Look it up if you don’t believe me (or look at the German version below), but the stanza about the Jews is last in the list. The poem talks about the Germans having come for the communists, socialists, and trade unionists first.

Unsurprisingly, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum skips the first stanza because fuck communists, that’s why. I would not be surprised to hear that they’ve also elided the second and third stanzas by now, leaving just two stanzas, with the oppression of the Jews leading off a much, much shorter poem.

There is no German version of the Wikipedia page but the English-language version includes the whole poem in German.

“Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.

“Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

“Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

“Als sie die Juden einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

“Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.”

The umbrella is shrinking

I only recently realized that a metaphor that I’d been using for what seems to be happening to people who have been historically untouched by the vagaries and violence of empire—that “the umbrella is shrinking”—is just a more visual metaphor of what the poem was saying.

I think of what’s been happening over the last ten years, but perhaps more in the last year, is that the “umbrella is shrinking” and “more people are getting wet” who hadn’t been out in the rain before. Some of them are just noticing that they’re getting drops on their sleeves. But that’s never happened before. The billionaires and other elites are shrinking the umbrella. You’re not in the club anymore.

You're not under the umbrella

FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul grabbed him for an interview as he was exiting a small, local event at his high-school alma mater. He exuded a calm fury, the same passion he’s always had against injustice.

I’ve included a partial transcript of the following ~8:00 video below. He made the following chilling, if obvious point about halfway through.

“I spent 17 months in Southeast Asia while the draft dodger was playing golf. Right? You know how I know we’re a third world country? Because in third world countries, they have the military doing their police work in the cities.

“When you walk around, I was in the Philippines the day Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and went under dictatorship. We went from nobody to a guy with a machine gun on every corner. That’s what happens in a dictatorship. In comes the military.

“That’s what’s happening here. and people better wake up to it.”

Jesse Ventura on Minneapolis ICE shooting: 'We're a 3rd world country now' by FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul (YouTube)

“We’re a country of the Constitution. We have a leadership now that has destroyed the Constitution. They don’t follow it. They could [sic] care less about it. Am I right or wrong? I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I view, after January 6th, the Republican party is a domestic enemy to our Constitution. I can’t get any bolder than that, can I?”

“I just came here today to show my support as a graduate of Roosevelt and tell them how proud I was of what they did of keeping ICE off of this campus. This is a place of learning and you learn and you learn things like the Constitution. You learn about warrants. You learn about things of that nature. And what we’re getting right now is violating all that what kids are being taught.

“You want to know something? I’ll give you a quote.

“We’re a third world country now. You want to know why? I’m an expert. I been to them. I spent 17 months in Southeast Asia while the draft dodger was playing golf. Right? You know how I know we’re a third world country? Because in third world countries, they have the military doing their police work in the cities.

“When you walk around, I was in the Philippines the day Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and went under dictatorship. We went from nobody to a guy with a machine gun on every corner. That’s what happens in a dictatorship. In comes the military.

“That’s what’s happening here. and people better wake up to it. You want to read something, then read your history of Germany and start comparing the tactics of what happened in 1930s Germany to what’s happening here.”

“It undermines the entire Constitution. The military cannot be turned loose
unless it’s a national emergency. They’re going to tell me this is a national emergency.”

“You mean the draft-dodging coward? I don’t saw call him by name. He’s the draft-dodging coward who, when it was his time to serve his country, he did what all rich white boys did. I wasn’t a rich white boy. I grew up in South Minneapolis. Most of me and all my friends are Vietnam veterans. We had to go. But the rich white boys never had to go, did they? And he didn’t have to go, did he? And yet he’s going to tell me what courage is.”

“[…] good for these people that stood up. They’re teaching their students something that we are a country that we have to be a country of law and a country of the Constitution. They’re all forgetting about the Constitution of the United States of America. We don’t even have it anymore after January 6th. Are you kidding me? And then they all get turned loose and now they’re in charge. I gave up on this country when this guy got elected.”

“[…] somebody needs to clean up what the Democrats and Republicans constantly wreck. And you notice I lump them together. You know, I should use my old name for them, the Democrips and the Republoodlicans, which my apologies to the Crips and Bloods for using their name in that way.”

Jesse Ventura outside his high-school alma mater

“You are at the mercy of these faceless bureaucrats.”

This hits a little too close to home. How long before someone finds this blog and puts me on a list? Will my bank in Switzerland freeze my account as well? Granted, I’m not a black woman like poor Nathalie, so I have more rights.

This is just a public-service announcement that the reason they want you to do everything on your phone, on-line, and in the cloud is so that they can then track every last little thing you do.

And then they will draw conclusions from it.

Will they draw the correct conclusions?

It doesn’t matter!

Whichever conclusions they draw will ex-post-facto be the right conclusions because technology is never wrong.

Then they’ll cut you off. No more phone contract. No more online accounts. No more online banking. No more banking. Funds frozen. Have fun fighting back now.

There is more discussion below, after the interview.

Sanctioned by EU. Abandoned by Switzerland | Nathalie Yamb by Neutrality Studies and Nathalie Yamb (YouTube)

00:00:00 Intro & Reasons for Sanctions
00:03:04 Financial De-platforming & Frozen Assets
00:12:46 Travel Bans & Notification of Sanctions
00:17:51 Refusal of Consular Assistance & Surveillance
00:27:12 Legal Recourse & The Judicial Trap
00:36:20 Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) & Banking
00:41:49 Psychological Impact & Support Systems
00:43:40 Advice for Survival & Digital Sovereignty

“Pascal: So, and just ladies and gentlemen, just to make this very clear, the Europeans have been using this way of doing things for decades towards people outside of Europe and they’re now turning it into Europe. They’re turning it on them, on their own populations just to know. I mean, other people have been for decades victims of this kind of bullshitery, which is not a judicial process. It’s absolutely not and it’s very difficult because it’s difficult to see an end of it.

“Nathalie: And it will also affect your next stop of kin. For example, I have a son who is living in Switzerland. He has nothing to do with what I’m doing actually but, because he bears the same name then sometimes when he makes payment it gets declined.”

“What you have to do is to build a new ecosystem around you that is outside of occupied Europe, because I think Europe is not free anymore. So you have now to start looking for banks outside of Europe. You have to look for platforms outside of Europe. You have to you have to reconfigure everything in your immediate day to day.”

“We are now at 59 people. We are at two Swiss. There will be more. There will be more. It will be hundreds. It will be thousands maybe 10 thousands. This tool, they will not let go of it. There’s a very good argument that the European Union will keep this thing indefinitely—the Russian sanctions list—even if the war comes to an end, because they can now link it to Russia paying reparations or not. They will keep this tool and they will put more and more people on it.”

I’m glad to have discovered Pascal Lottaz, who’s a great interviewer and seems like a good, moral person. He’s deeply disappointed by the ineffectiveness and uselessness of the Swiss bureaucracy, who aren’t willing to “lean out of the window” on any, single thing. They just keep their heads down and don’t help when that help might be misconstrued by the sanctioning bodies, for which they have much more respect than their own citizens.

Nathalie YambPoor Nathalie got no help from her own embassy, nor from any of the organizations in the Swiss government specifically charged with assisting citizens in these situations. They all acted as if she’d deserved what she’d gotten, considered the charges of being a Putinversteher to be not only beyond reproach, but also justification for completely blocking her from Swiss life. From all life.

She’s cash-only. Her Amazon account no longer works. Deezer doesn’t work. Her Netflix is blocked. Payments probably continue, with all of these providers probably having access to an account—through automated payments—to which the owner herself no longer has access.

She has lawyers. They are being stymied all the way.

This has been my experience as well, as a U.S./Swiss citizen living in Switzerland. The U.S. passport makes you a second-class citizen, subject to rules and regulations that other Swiss don’t have to deal with, imposed by the Swiss banks, not the state. But the state looks away.

“We need we need to connect. The only solution for me, it’s solidarity. Because it goes across the borders. It goes across the continent. It’s a matter of humanity, of human rights in a proper sense. […] So we really need to put all our energy, our our ideas, our resilience together because the enemy that we are fighting is a monster and alone you can just hit them a bit but you can’t you can’t break it. We need to to build a strong system all together in order to resist this dystopian reality that they want to to impose on us worldwide.”

This is another cover-up of a shooting by federal military deployed in the U.S. Being white does not protect you. Historical privilege does not protect you. Only obeisance to the regime might protect you.

The umbrella has gotten smaller. You used to be standing under the umbrella, watching it rain on black and brown people. Now, It’s raining on people who have the right skin color, but the wrong thoughts, maybe the wrong gender.

This is Gaza.

NEW EVIDENCE SHOWS TRUTH BEHIND ICE SHOOTING by HasanAbi (YouTube)

The cop shot her because she was an uppity bitch who wasn’t doing what he told her. He shot her because she’s not a person. He had to shoot her, so she would stop, so he could give her the smack he knows she deserved. So she deserved to die. Who cares anyway? She was a fucking prairie dog. Vermin.

This is how they think. This is how Stephen Miller, Donald Trump. J.D. Vance, Kristy Noem, and anyone else defending this thinks. They are liars. They are maniacs. They are monsters. They are demons. I do not know what will stop them.

I am not exaggerating; I am describing. See the article ICE gestapo murders woman in Minneapolis, sparking mass outrage by Jacob Crosse (WSWS), which writes,

“Ignoring video evidence, the Trump administration moved immediately to brand the killing as justified. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X that “one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle” and claimed the shooting was a defensive act that “saved” officers’ lives. Stephen Miller characterized the woman’s actions as “domestic terrorism,” as did DHS Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference.

“Trump personally intervened to justify the killing, issuing a statement that repeats and escalates the false federal narrative and openly endorses the actions of the shooter.

““I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota,” Trump wrote. He claimed that “the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer.” He asserted that the agent “seems to have shot her in self defense.””

None of what they said happened. There are multiple videos. The terrorists were wearing uniforms and point-blank executed a woman they found annoying, while she was in her car in an American suburb. There is no curb on these people. The police are completely absent. The police are not there to protect you. You are being ruled by maniacs and demons. They will murder you if they think you might have looked at them funny.

“Trump went further, attempting to criminalize all opposition to federal immigration raids, claiming that “the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis.” He concluded by demanding that the population “stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers.”

“Trump’s statement is a direct political signal to federal agents, acting as Trump’s personal paramilitary force, that lethal violence will be defended and rewarded by the White House.”

The only thing most historically privileged people are going to do is to see how long their privilege protects them. But it doesn’t and it won’t. You’re now just like everyone else. You’re now feeling what it’s been like for all of those other people you couldn’t have cared less about over the years. Now, you partially understand. Maybe. Maybe a little bit.

There is no protection against these maniacs. They’ll use broken AI software to build a profile of you and then send shock troops to eliminate you because you’re a domestic terrorist. What did you do? It doesn’t matter. You are what they say you are.

That’s what a world without laws, habeas corpus, burden of proof, evidence, or trials looks like. The apparatus was never there to protect you, much less so now.

“[…] a masked federal agent has shot an unarmed woman in broad daylight, been allowed to leave the scene, and remains unidentified and uncharged.”

He and thousands like him are out there. They’ve got theirs masks on. Safeties are off.

Enjoy the year.

Lesson 1: Resistance is futile

The lesson Switzerland can learn from the attack on Venezuela is that it can just stop investing in the military because its military is useless in this day and age.

It’s wasted money.

While there are theories that Caracas didn’t use any of its anti-aircraft missile batteries because they were paid off, it’s also just as likely that they realized that they can’t use them without dying.

What are you gonna do when those Chinooks drop into your national skies? Are you going to shoot American helicopters out of the sky?

Really?

You know what’s coming for you if you do that, right? 400 more helicopters with B2 bombers making sure that they don’t get shot down. If you so much as touch a hair onthe head of an American soldier, you will get 1000 more soldiers up your ass. Unless you’re prepared for a protracted engagement and you don’t have that much to lose, you’re stuck.

Ansar Allah (the Houthis in Yemen) were able to resist but they did get the shit bombed out of them. Caracas was not willing to risk it. Neither would Switzerland. The only option would be to roll over.

Even though the American helicopters would be attacking them, the promise of what would follow were they to shoot any of them down prevents them from using any of their weapons.

You can’t realistically do anything against a more overwhelmingly more powerful military like that. You just have to sit there and take it.

That is how it is to live with the mafia in your midst. Do what we say or we kill you. Resist and we will burn your fields and salt the earth.

So you might as well stop buying fighter jets and invest in education and social programs, instead.

Lesson 2: Deals are useless

The other lesson that Switzerland can learn is that making deals with a country that does not consider them to be an equal is useless. The U.S. doesn’t have to honor any deals with Switzerland because it is too tiny for its complaints to matter. Switzerland has no leverage.

Switzerland only gets what it wants as long as what it wants overlaps in any way with what the US wants. As soon as it doesn’t, Switzerland is going to get some serious backlash.

The message is: “the law is what we say it is, and you have to follow it, and we don’t.” That isn’t very different from the statement that, “the law binds some people and does not protect them while it protects others and does not bind them.” [1]

Lesson 3: You’re not in the club

The only difference in 2026 so far is that more and more people are being pushed into the world that 80 to 90% of the planet has been in for the last 100 years, at least. Switzerland may not have shared in the wealth equally, but they’ve definitely been under under the wing of those stealing all the wealth. But now? Now Switzerland is no longer so securely under the wing. Switzerland is starting to feel the raindrops.

This is, yet again, another one of those moments where you can say that we’ve always known it was like this, but now we really know. Now, the arrogance with which the messages are being delivered can no longer be ignored, can no longer be ensconced within the battening of comforting lies we tell ourselves to pretend that this isn’t the way it is.

Lesson 4: The U.S. is weaker

Paradoxically, the show of arrogance—the bluster—is actually the sign of a weak state. Powerful states don’t have to make such overt demonstrations of their power. Everyone just understands the situation without being reminded. That’s how it was for a long time with the US. Now, the US has to make very strong statements about how powerful it is, which paradoxically shows how ostracized it actually is on the world stage.

The difference now, though, is that the expressions of power are much more regional that before. Donald Trump tried to express his power in the rest of the world—as in Ukraine, Yemen, or Iran—but he returned with his tail between his legs. His peace process in Ukraine is pathetic and has nearly completely fallen apart. His handling of Israel has let out the leash even more on a country that is stomping a mud hole in a powerless opponent.

Just like Israel, the US. likes to take on enemies that are far weaker that it. That’s why it’s now they’re beating up on Venezuela, which is much closer to home and has basically no military power. Trump is also beating up on American citizens at home. They’re beating up Americans inside of America and that damned frog just hasn’t gotten hot enough yet.

This is cold comfort, of course. The U.S. has a lot of military hardware, and it has a giant pile of stupid assholes in charge, so it’s gonna be a painful descent.

Lesson 5: Arguing is unproductive

There is no way to “debunk” this criminal organization because it lies about everything all the time. It doesn’t believe in anything it’s saying. You should stop wasting your time debunking it.

That includes not wasting any time debunking the weird charges against Maduro. It doesn’t matter what they charge him with.

I’m not even sure why they bother with a court and sentencing. Just throw him in a hole. Just shoot him on live TV.

Lesson 6: Trump likes gold

And everything that’s happening to Venezuela? There is no reason that it couldn’t happen to Switzerland. All you have to do is whisper in Trump’s ear that Switzerland could be the “Israel of Europe” and “that’s where all the gold is.”

Resistance is futile

This is yet another excellent interview, this one with John Kiriakou, who, like Ben Norton, is extraordinarily well-informed and extremely capable of imparting his knowledge. Lee Camp does a very good job of feeding him questions and topics.

LIVE: Former CIA Officer John Kiriakou on Venezuela, 9/11 & More! by Lee Camp − Unredacted Tonight (YouTube)

I learned the following about the mission to kidnap Maduro,

• The U.S. had zero casualties. Kiriakou says that that wouldn’t have been possible without complicity on the part of at least some Venezuelans, who were almost certainly on the CIA payroll. [1]
• He thinks that the vice president was probably in on it, simply because of how conciliatory she is after the kidnapping versus how fire-breathing she was before. [2]
• The U.S. went out of its way to bomb Chavez’s tomb, which had been turned into a political-information and tourist destination. WTF.
• The U.S. will not be “occupying” Venezuela. The country is bigger than Austria, Germany, and France combined, and it’s mostly jungle.
• Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves—centuries worth—but it’s also the dirtiest oil in the world.
• The U.S. administration seems to have gotten away with it, as the only other possible poles of the multipolar world have either not reacted—China—or have just expressed dissatisfaction—Russia.
• Congress hasn’t said or done anything.
• The U.S. populace doesn’t care about war crimes.
• Neither does anyone in Europe.
• Macron cheered it on!
• Merz needs more time to think about it.
• The Labour Secretary in Great Britain only chastised that this kind of thing might “embolden other countries.” She is so deliciously unaware of her own bias. But this is typical for Europeans: The problem is never the U.S. The problem is always whoever the U.S. says it is. So, this lady is dutifully afraid that the U.S.‘s master stroke of piracy and criminality might be emulated by the true criminals and enemies of the world: Um….checks with the U.S….ah, yes, of course: China, Russia, Iran, Cuba … who else? Oh, you’ll get back to me? Ok. I’ll wait here.
• Kiriakou: “Just do whatever you want. Nobody’s gonna stop you.”
• Jeffrey Sachs:

  “The issue before the council today is not the character of the government of Venezuela. The issue is whether any member state by force, coercion, or economic strangulation has the right to determine Venezuela’s political future or to exercise control over its affairs. This question goes directly to article 2, section 4 of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

Finally, here’s a long, worthwhile citation about refining capacity and how the U.S. has been mostly successful in controlling Venezuela’s ability to capitalize on its oil reserves by manipulating refining capacity.

“John KiriakouKiriakou: Until 2017, where were the only refineries on Earth that could clean Venezuelan oil? They were in Houston, Texas. And in 2017, the first Trump administration effectively shut down the Venezuelan oil industry. And we mothballed those refineries.

“But the world didn’t just screech to a halt. China and India immediately built their own refineries to handle Venezuela’s dirty oil. But the Chinese did it right. The Chinese built a refinery in China, but they also built one in the Caribbean. The Indians built one in India and they’ve been shipping Venezuelan oil to India to refine it there. The Chinese were ready to do it right there in the Caribbean. The refinery is built, but it hasn’t yet been opened.

“Well, now they don’t need a refinery because whatever oil Venezuela lifts is going to come to the United States. We don’t have to occupy the oil fields in order to control Venezuela’s oil or to control the economy. We just have to insist with a very stern look and a pointing finger that oil comes to the United States.

“So, why did I bring up Iran in this? First of all, this was a big “fuck you” to the Chinese. But secondly, virtually the only leverage that Iran has in international affairs today is the ability to close off the straight of Hormuz. Right? Something like 60% of the world’s oil flows out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s […] four miles across. So it’s easy to block the straight of Hormuz.

“So in the event of you know something terrible happening, if the Iranians needed to do something to pressure Western economies—and especially the US economy—closing the straight of Hormuz presumably with Russian and/or Chinese consent would be the only thing that they have to do. Well, now we don’t need Iranian oil. We have all the Venezuelan oil we could use for the next 500 years. So, it further weakens Iran.”

I find this information useful and fascinating but I’m not quite convinced about the reasoning. I think he might be putting more thought into it than the Trump administration has. Isn’t the U.S. a net exporter of oil? Or is that fossil fuels, including natural gas? And if Venezuelan crude is so heavy, then what’s the point of getting that as well as the already heavy crude extracted from shale through fracking? And wouldn’t bringing more oil on the market depress prices, leading to a shale-fracking being economically unviable?

Now maybe I’m putting more thought into this than the Trump administration has. 🙃 At any rate, I still have a bunch of open questions, so I take this information with a pinch of salt.

Ben NortonThe following video is an excellent interview with Ben Norton, a fluent Spanish-speaker who has spent a lot of time in Venezuela, reporting and investigating economics and politics. He knows a lot of people there, and has many friends there. He says that the opposition in Venezuela, which on the tip of everyone’s tongue in the U.S., is negligible in Venezuela. They have no real presence, not even online. They are very marginal.

Those are the two parts of the narrative that are being pushed very hard: Maduro wasn’t even the president because their elections were a fraud, and also the opposition has just as much legitimacy to rule as the elected government. None of this is relevant, of course. Even if the opposition had no support among the people, the oligarchs of Venezuela, who co-own much of the media with the CIA, have outsized power relative to their numbers.

Why the U.S. Keeps Targeting Venezuela: Oil, Empire & China’s Influence | Ben Norton by India & Global Left (YouTube)

Norton, as is his wont, recounts the entire last 25 years of history of economic warfare and coups on Venezuela, and how it relates to other, similar actions throughout the world. Venezuela is not an isolated case.

He says that now, after 11 years of suffering under crippling sanctions—and from the worst inflation that he had ever personally experienced—Venezuela’s economy had become the second-fastest-growing economy in South America, mostly thanks to an influx of contracts with China and the Global South. The U.S. couldn’t abide that, of course, because they’d been trying to strangle it into giving up its oil.

Now, they’re hijacking oil tankers, they’ve kidnapped the president, but they’re still quite a ways away from having control over the oil. They do have control over Venezuela’s ability to refine their crude oil, though, as most of the refineries for the level of crude oil are in Texas. There is one in China and one in India but the majority of refining capacity for Venezuelan oil is in the U.S.

Norton discusses the economies of the other countries in South America as well, in particular the raw materials they have, and to whom they export them. He noted that Chile is still suffering from the years of Pinochet, with the highest level of inequality of any country in South America. The same oligarchs who looted the country then still own everything now. I was already thinking it, but then Norton also drew the parallel to how the Soviet Union was plundered after Perestroika.

He also provides a lot of detail about Argentina’s history, vis á vis China, swap lines, the IMF, over the last decades, and how these things relate to the various U.S. administrations. He also talked about the likelihood that the U.S. will continue working to shut down the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) with China. In fact, he predicts that Honduras will officially recognize Taiwan and all that that entails. Honduras is very much in the U.S. pocket. Argentina is more than 1000% of their quota at the IMF and so are very much in thrall to empire.

As a fellow bloviator, I appreciate and am very much in awe of the information Ben has organized into a coherent picture and that he has at his disposal—all without looking anything up. It bespeaks someone who has done the work.

Beware, though, his presentations should have a warning like those you sometimes see on Wikipedia, “This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience.”

Yes, but I can attest to the fact that this audience is very interested.

Vijay Prashad is brilliant, and he’s brilliant in this video. He discusses how he knows Maduro personally, that the guy was a bus driver and union leader before he was asked to step in for him by Chavez, who was dying of cancer. Maduro’s wife is in the general assembly, as well.

Venezuela: What Just Happened? With Vijay Prashad, Andreína Chávez and José Luis Granados Ceja 📱 by Katie Halper (YouTube)

Maduor was elected president. The Wikipedia on the 2024 Venezuelan national election is one of the longest ones I’ve ever seen, and is filled with wishy-washy language that lets the reader believe that there is cold, hard proof of election fraud without actually providing it.

This suggests to me that some people in powerful organizations were busy laying the groundwork for being able to say that Maduro wasn’t the legitimate president of the country, so that the immunity enjoyed by the president of a country under international law doesn’t apply. Think about it: why is there a 35-page article about an election in Venezuela in English? I would understand if it were in Spanish, but someone took the trouble to make sure it was available in English. The CIA lässt grüssen.

José also points out that the Venezuelan opposition has always bitched about every election result that they didn’t win. There’s nothing new there.

The main discussion starts at about 20:00. Some notes:

• This is an invasion and a coup. The timing is so that Trump could present the fait accompli to the Congress and the nation on the 4th of January. Venezuela had an important meeting on the 5th of January, as well.
• Prashad talks about the crews of the boats that were seized. “We live in a civilization of detritus. Nobody cares about any of these people.”
• José gives a PSA that there is no such thing as sanctioned oil. You can’t sanction a commodity.
• Prashad recommends to read the indictment against Maduro because it’s ludicrous, a joke of an evidence-free document written by teenagers.

All of the so-called evidence presented against Venezuela and its democratically elected government is equally shaky. They have been trying to do this for over 20 years. Bush tried to coup Chavez in 20o3, They’ve been gunning at Venezuela and its oil for that long. The sanctions have also been hitting Venezuela that long. What are we even talking about? Almost certainly, nothing you “know” about Venezuela is true. It’s all propaganda and disinformation planted to lead up to this coup.

But they don’t even need to work that hard. People are going to be on board with this war because they have been ordered to be on board for this war, just like they’re always on board for every damned war of plunder. The cartoon They’re Not Even Trying to Lie Well Anymore by Ted Rall sums it up.

Ted Rall − 1-5-26

“He: There is a country.
She: This country has a president.
He: You don’t know anything about this country.
She: You don’t even know where it is.
He: They’re a threat.
She: He’s evil.
He: We need war! Else we’ll die!
She: These scripts aren’t even trying any more.
Producer: Americans are war sluts! No need for lube!”

At least it’s easier to stay on top of things this time. You don’t have to dig down to get to the truth. The press conferences are more open and to the point. You don’t have to ask yourself what they’re really saying. They’re saying it. What they’re saying is horrible enough. If they’re lying to cover up something even more horrible and illegal, it almost doesn’t even matter.

Try and stop us

The U.S. President just says that the U.S. owns other countries, like Venezuela. It’s not true in any realistic sense, but that’s what they like to think has happened, that’s what they want you to believe has happened, so that you can help them make it part of the mass delusion that is the reality of the U.S. one quarter of the way through the 21st century.

Trump says that the U.S. took it for the oil And that they’re going to give the oil to the corporations.

All of that is essentially verbatim. I’m not misrepresenting them.

So, now the U.S. doesn’t pay for things or do stupid stuff like “trade”. It just takes what it wants because it’s strong. OK. It’s been like that for a long time, but they used to dress it up a bit.

And they’re doing all this to corner the market on the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet: Venezuelan crude, to keep it out of the hands of the Chinese and the Indians. So the U.S. commits war crimes by attacking Venezuela to steal its oil so it can make already fattened U.S. corporations even fatter by polluting the atmosphere and warming the planet even more? Jesus wept.

Is the mask off? Was it already off?

The article The US Empire Needs Men Like Trump by Caitlin Johnstone (Substack) writes about the dynamic at play here. How much has actually changed from before? How different is the Trump administration? In which ways?

“If you were wondering why the US establishment was so much more chill about Trump becoming president this term than they were the first time around, you’re watching the reason now. The powers that be were assured that he’d carry out longstanding imperial agendas like kidnapping Maduro, bombing Iran and overseeing a final solution to the Palestinian problem, and they trusted him to carry out those plans.”

Very good people like Vijay Prashad concur, saying that this isn’t a “mask-off” moment because the mask has always been off. But I think that he’s making the same mistake that other clever people make: he’s assuming that since he knew that the mask was off a long time ago, that other people also know that.

With “mask off,” I mean that most U.S.-Americans will no longer be able to deny that they are toppling other countries’ governments for their own gain. The administration isn’t even claiming to have done it for Democracy. They did it to steal resources that they don’t need but that they want to control, in order to strangle other countries (Cuba, China). More people are in on it now; that’s what “mask off” means.

Look at this post.

This is our hemisphere

That was published under the imprimatur of the Department of State of the United States.

How does it differ in any way from the T-Shirt that Homer wore in Blame it on Lisa (Wikipedia) in S13E15 of the Simpsons, broadcast in 2002? [1]

Try and stop us

There’s no way to pretend that the U.S. doesn’t think of itself as an empire now. You have to either disavow this administration or go all-in that you’re for empire and subjugation of other nations. You have to declare that you’re an immoral criminal with no principles.

If you don’t stop pretending, then you end up basically agreeing with Lindsey Graham. You have to think he’s a smart, well-informed, deeply moral, and loving Christian. That’s what you have to do because that’s what you stand for. You have to put your bloody signature on idiocy like the stuff below.

““Cuba is ready to fall,” Trump told the press on Sunday next to a delighted Lindsey Graham. “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know if they’re going to hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from their Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They’re not getting any of it. And Cuba is literally ready to fall.””

Can we please stop talking about Cuba collapsing on its own? It’s not collapsing on its own. It’s being strangled to death. This is the United States doing to Cuba what Israel is doing to Gaza. The United States has convinced the world that laying siege to a nation by starving it to death is not an act of war. So the United States convinces the world to repeat its idiocies, even people who are actively against the policies.

They are accepting the framing. We have to work incredibly hard to recognize the framing and impose our own.

People like Lindsey Graham help because, unlike Trump, who’s willing to promulgate the lie that Cuba is going to “fall on its own,” Graham can’t help himself because he’s a demon. He positively loves thinking about all of the stupid Cuban communists who are going to die for their dream, making way for his beautiful U.S. corporations to make money. He only hopes that the stronger ones survive as a cheap or slave labor force.

““You just wait for Cuba,” Graham added. “Cuba is a Communist dictatorship that’s killed priests and nuns, they preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered. We’re gonna wake up one day, I hope in ’26, in our backyard we’re gonna have allies in these countries doing business with America, not narcoterrorist dictators killing Americans.”

““Donald Trump will have done something that’s eluded America since the fifties: deal with the Communist dictatorship 90 miles off the coast of Florida,” Graham said on Fox News. “I can’t wait till that day comes. To our Cuban friends in Florida and throughout America, the liberation of your homeland is close.””

And this kind of framing is everywhere. On Iran, they’re no longer talking about a fictitious nuclear-weapons program. Trump claimed half a year ago that he’d destroyed that program, so it would be difficult, even for him, to claim that they still had the program without looking weak himself. So the next pivot is to demand that Iran no longer be able to defend itself at all.

“Prior to that Trump had confirmed to the press that the US would attack Iran if it tried to rebuild its missile program, saying in a joint news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu that “I hope they’re not trying to build up again because if they are, we’re going have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.”

“[…] the president is not talking about attacking Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear facilities or construct a nuclear weapon. He’s talking about Iran’s conventional ballistic missile program. The United States is saying that Iran simply is not allowed to defend itself in any way, shape or form, and that if it tries to rebuild its ability to do so it will be attacked again.”

This should be a fun ride. Watch out for the blowback, USA.

Although, how would you even know if there were blowback? Can you tell the difference between foreign militants kidnapping people off of and shooting people in the streets and what ICE is doing?

The U.S.—and, frankly, most of the West—is so broken that it would celebrate Jack the Ripper today for “cleaning up the streets.” Might makes right as official policy. They are the absolute worst.

These are the violent shudderings, the death-throes of an empire.

I often think of the US as the vanquished Balrog in the Lord of the Rings. It falls, presumably to its death or banishment, but its whip lashes back up to pull down the bridge with Gandalf on it. It’s going down, but it’s still so dangerous.

Just because empires inevitably die, the flailing of a dying empire was never going to be pleasant. It’s going to get messier.

The article Oil Tanker Seized by Liz Wolfe (Reason) writes in such a weak way about piracy. This is neither surprising for the author nor the publication.

“Over the weekend, the Trump administration seized two oil tankers. […] U.S. forces boarded a Panamanian-flagged commercial vessel, owned by Hong Kong’s Centuries Shipping, off the coast of Venezuela. They had no seizure warrant, which doesn’t appear to have gotten in their way.”

This is why Liz Wolfe and Reason can’t be taken seriously as a news organization, though they act like one. She can’t come right out and say that this is illegal activity. It’s piracy.

The magazine is ostensibly Libertarian but so many of its columnists have a hard time coming out against what they seem to consider their natural allies in the Republican Party that they can’t even seem to strongly condemn an act of actual government overreach: a state seizing private property.

“On Sunday, U.S. forces apparently intercepted another tanker—”a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion” that is “flying a false flag”—according to anonymous officials. U.S. officials claimed that the vessel, reportedly called the Bella 1, was not flying a valid national flag, and that international law dictates that it could be boarded as a result.”

Oh, sure. That’s like a cop smelling pot or having seen something in the victim’s hand, or claiming that the dog smells drugs in the trunk. Can you believe this is in a libertarian publication?

“An estimated 20 percent of tankers worldwide “move oil from Iran, Venezuela, and Russia in violation of U.S. sanctions,” reports the Times. “These ships often disguise their location and file false paperwork. The Bella 1, for instance, faked its location signal on a previous voyage. U.S. officials say they have identified other tankers carrying Venezuelan oil whose previous involvement in the Iranian oil trade makes them subject to U.S. sanctions.””

The author is never going to mention that the U.S. sanctions are not some sort of international law; it’s just the U.S. declaring war on enemies and then stealing their property.

There’s nothing more to it than that.

There is no “dark fleet”. It’s just ships from countries the U.S. doesn’t like.

None of these dipshits are going to question it because it’s just the standard worldview for them. They don’t see anything wrong with it. They certainly don’t have a moral problem with it because they don’t have any principles.

If they even think about potential blowback, they don’t care about that either because they know that it won’t get them. That’s why they get their panties in a bunch whenever white/middle-upper-class people are killed somewhere. [1] It uncomfortably reminds them that they’re not invulnerable.

The article US seizure of China-bound tanker near Venezuela escalates US conflict with Beijing by Andre Damon (WSWS) goes a bit harder, linking the seizures the coming war on China as well as the still-impending seizure of Greenland.

“Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian denounced the seizures as “a serious violation of international law” at a Monday press briefing in Beijing, adding that China “opposes all unilateral bullying.””

“The economic consequences of the blockade are already severe. Cuba, which depends on Venezuelan oil, is facing the loss of a key economic lifeline and is facing widespread hunger, rolling blackouts, and medical shortages.”

“The National Security Strategy published by the White House last month announces a “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” explicitly aiming to restore “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” and deny China “the ability to own or control strategically vital assets in our Hemisphere.” The document effectively asserts US ownership over two continents—presented as “our hemisphere”—whose resources Washington intends to seize as a power base for confrontation with Russia and China.”

“As part of the drive to seize control of “our” hemisphere, Trump has also demanded that Greenland, a territory of US NATO ally Denmark, become part of the United States. On Sunday, Trump appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland. Over the weekend, Landry said in a post on X that he would seek “to make Greenland a part of the U.S.””

Oh, my God. I thought they’d forgotten about Greenland. Do they think that rare-earth metals refine themselves, though? 90% of the refining capacity that matters—so-called “5-9s” capacity, which refines to 99.999% purity—is in China. The U.S. had a multi-year effort that resulted in a “2-9s” (99.1%) purity. [2] That’s honestly nowhere near good enough for the low-nm processes needed by high-end chips. [3]

But wait, there’s more! Trump’s gonna build the biggest, bestest boats ever! And he’s gonna call ‘em Trump Boats and they’re gonna be awesome. They’re gonna go “Blubblubblub” as they cruise across the ocean, like super fast. With jet-skis.

“Trump-class BattleshipsOn Monday, Trump announced plans to build a new “Trump Class” of battleships as part of a “Golden Fleet.” Speaking from Mar-a-Lago flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and renderings of the proposed warships, Trump declared that “each one of these will be the largest battleship in the history of our country, the largest battleship in the history of the world, ever built.” He claimed the ships would be “the fastest, the biggest and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons and laser systems. The first vessel would be named USS Defiant. Trump said he approved construction of two ships immediately, with plans for 20 to 25 total.”

They didn’t say whether it would have the most awesome trucks that the world has ever seen on it, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that it will. I mean, why not? Go big or go home.

This is pure fantasy. it’s like watching a 12-year-old next to his cardboard spaceship but it’s not cute, it’s pathetic. My God, how are people not f@&king embarrassed to be associated with this? You should be backing away slowly but there’s so much sunken cost at this point. You should be demanding health care and welfare instead.

The madness is on the outside now.

They’re not even putting on the velvet glove anymore. It’s all just iron fist now.

Trump is America with the mask off.

Tucker Carlson : War, Peace, Trump, and the Constitution. by Judge Napolitano − Judging Freedom (YouTube)

This is a good interview. The Pareto Principle is quite strong, though. I can agree wholeheartedly with at least 80% of what both of them said. I can find little with which to disagree in their discussion of Israel, Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, Syria. They are both staunch supporters of freedom of speech, due process, no collective punishment, judge the individual, not the group. These are all good things.

The remaining 20% is, however, very important and requires a bunch of follow-up questions.

• They both have at least a remainder of American exceptionalism.
• Carlson and Napolitano both love Tulsi Gabbard unreservedly. They give her a huge benefit of the doubt for her terrible track record. They only remember the bits that they like.
• Carlson thinks Lindsey Graham is charming and a great guy. He disagrees with his policies but he thinks he’s just lost his way.
• They seem to think that the U.S. is a force for good, but has lost its way. They think that we just need to tweak a few things, to enforce what we all know is “how America is.”
• They both love Jesus nearly as much as they love America. Or maybe more. This is the scariest bit.
• Carlson apologized for horrible, racist things he’s said in the past. He at least admit he was wrong. He was careful to say that discriminating based on genetics is ridiculous but that leaves the door open for discriminating based on political beliefs, economic beliefs, and nationality, which would let him off the hook to continue to be anti-immigrant.
• Probably the biggest problem is that Carlson thinks that the U.S. is anti-white. That’s a deal-breaker.

These are not minor differences.

However, there’s a lot to work with there, and Carlson has a ton of influence. He is saying a lot of the right things. His approach to foreign policy is mostly sound, his analysis is historically accurate and mostly spot-on. His recommendations are all about what’s good for America, though, which tends to line up with what’s bad for the people in the countries we tend to make suffer.

The weekly newsletter Roaming Charges: Kill, Kill Again, Kill Them All by Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch) writes,

“The double-tap strikes are appalling and illegal, but Hegseth is merely following the bloody path Barack Obama blazed. Obama’s drone assassination team even had a name for wounded survivors they would target for a second kill strike: squirters. According to David Shedd, Obama’s former acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

“We used double-taps all the time. You would get the initial signature off of a target that’s been hit and if you saw that they ‘squirted’ and were injured … you hit them again.” Shedd told Washington Post columnist Mark Thyssen: “There was often a second predator ready to go … that was fully expected to be used if you didn’t have a 100 percent coming out of the first hit — and maybe a third hit…It was done routinely.”

Speaking of drone-bombing civilians, the same newsletter writes that Israel continues its cleanup work in the Gaza strip.

“IDF Press Release: “The Air Force eliminated two suspects this morning in the southern Gaza Strip who crossed the yellow line, carried out suspicious activities… and approached the forces.” The two “suspects” were 8 and 11…”

Palestinian terrorists − now thankfully eliminated

NBC News dutifully reported this as:

Eliminating child terrorists tests but does not break a ceasefire

Now, just wait a minute. It depends on how you look at it: At least those kids didn’t have to starve to death. It’s like the IDF was doing them a favor by nipping things in the bud like that. It was downright merciful.

The article Democrats, Press Gloss Over Original “Double Tap” Operations by Matt Taibbi (Racket News) confirms that Gore Vidal was right when he called his home country The United States of Amnesia.

“The piece explained that British and Pakistani journalists had counted 50 civilians had died in recent “follow-up strikes” that sources on the ground claimed were intended to kill rescuers and first responders. The Times report elicited a bizarre non-denial denial from Barack Obama’s White House, in which an unnamed spokesman said we should “wonder” about “misinformation” coming from “elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed.””

Does that sound familiar? Some of us have been listening to and hearing this kind of crap for decades. It doesn’t matter which actual people are in the U.S. administration—they all act and talk the same.

This kind of bullshit precedes Trump and it will almost certainly outlive him.

“The Trump/Hegseth scandal grew out of multiple different strains of recent American military history. One involves those prior “targeted killing” and bomb operations mainly across the Middle East that killed somewhere between 22,000 and 48,000 people from 9/11 through 2021 (a former CIA analyst who oversaw some of these operations put the number closer to 60,000). Another is in Barack Obama’s abortive Libyan campaign from 2011, which in some ways bore the closest resemblance to Trump’s Venezuelan mess.

“That brief display of what one lawyer called “total lawlessness” was a ghastly bloodletting involving high-powered weapons and essentially defenseless targets, deployed for questionable if not outright fraudulent reasons by another White House acting unilaterally. Like Trump’s White House, Obama’s deputies concluded his campaign fell short of the definition of “hostilities,” among other things because “there are no troops on the ground” and “Libyans cannot meaningfully exchange fire with American forces.””

Did you catch that? The Obama administration didn’t consider its drone attacks to be hostile because the prey had no way of fighting back. They don’t consider their own actions to be hostile, a priori.

“We documented really shocking killing from both Democratic and Republican administrations. When you look at the data we captured, it wasn’t that different than what these guys are doing in Venezuela. These strikes are more efficient, but they’re really being brazen about it. It’s like the mask is off.”

“Mustafa Qadri: My personal opinion is that it’s very clear double taps are an act of terrorism. The U.S. military is not the first to do a double tap. It’s been done for many years. The only reason they are doing it is they are trying to convey a sense of terror.”

Like napalm! Napalm was an indiscriminate way of killing so many people. They killed directly by fire, and indirectly, by starvation because there is nothing left to harvest. They defoliated what they didn’t burn using Agent Orange—causing untold cases of cancer. They mined the entire countryside.

It’s all the same thing. Drones are just the modern version of killing indiscriminately.

They possess an impunity to kill whatever the fuck moves or doesn’t move or is considered an enemy. Or whatever. They barely even seem to care what they’ve killed. Just kill, kill, kill. And make a ton of money while doing it.

“Mustafa Qadri: It’s really hard for a lot of liberal commentators to appreciate this. Trump is seen as a tough guy by a lot of non-western audiences. When he acts beyond the law, it is affirming for a lot of people that this is the way you deal with terrorists and your enemies. Many see Trump as out of control, but the U.S. is still seen as the main global power, so the actions of the Trump administration are still very influential. I don’t think the western audiences realize it’s norm-setting. It sends the message that everyone can do this.”

Western audiences have never experienced blowback. It’s been almost 25 years. They’ll cry when troops are attacked as if it were the greatest injustice the world has ever seen. Imagine if valuable civilians were to be killed by non-Americans.

“Mustafa Qadri: What Trump is doing is expanding on something that already existed. That’s something important for people to realize. As an international lawyer, I’m a huge fan of the role the U.S. played in setting up the international legal system. The Americans were the ones who insisted people go to trial. That system is being systematically dismantled, and it’s really a worrying development.”

Yeah, that’s all over now. Some people say not to panic, that we can still save the system.

Bullshit.

Prove it.

If you’ll recall, just 2½ weeks before the kidnapping, Trump Declares Closure of Venezuela’s Airspace by Dave DeCamp (Scheer Post),

““To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

“It’s unclear if the declaration means that the US will impose a no-fly zone on Venezuela, which would be an act of war. Such a step or any military strikes on Venezuela would be illegal without congressional authorization, per the US Constitution.”

The fact that this continues to be mentioned is pathetic. Not a single instance of U.S. state violence in the last 80 years has had congressional approval. That means that it has all been illegal.

This legal nuance doesn’t make any difference to the dozens of millions of people that the U.S. has killed. The only difference now is that the POTUS now declares war on his own personal web site.

The U.S. is post-constitutional. There is no constitution anymore. Just forget it. Open that glass case and let anyone walk in and take it. It means nothing. It hasn’t for a long time, but the Trump administration has officially blown all the doors off of any potential enforcement mechanism. He dares the other branches to enforce anything against him. When they do, he retreats! But mostly they don’t. Why? Self-interest and cowardice. They’re afraid to rock a boat that’s carrying them along as well—in pretty nice circumstances, for most of them!

The article In pardon of narco trafficker, Trump destroys his own case for war by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos (Responsible Statecraft) writes,

The title is already wrong because it buys into the notion that Trump’s case for war with Venezuela was based on the drug trade. I know that’s what he gave as the reason but it’s not the real reason.

PinnochioYou see, Donald Trump and everyone surrounding him lies for personal advantage. The only reason they do any of the myriad awful things that they do is that they think it will bring them personal advantage, power, wealth, or a combination thereof.

I figured I’d point that out because I’m not sure enough people have noticed it. These poor people keep arguing against the Trump administration as if refuting any of their fake reasons would change anything at all.

Trump backs his moving van up to the house and starts unloading the whole house’s contents through the back door, while everyone else is in the front yard, arguing about a sign with the N-word on it.

A corollary of that is that they can’t be hypocrites because they don’t really believe in anything. If they were to ever do anything that benefitted others while either not benefitting themselves, or that caused them to lose wealth, power, or advantage (or a combination thereof), then that could be construed as hypocritical because that would run counter to the only perceivable principle in anything they’ve done until now.

When Trump pardons a convicted drug dealer so that he can return to power as president of one country, and accuses another of dealing drugs with no evidence as a casus belli against another country, then that’s not hypocrisy: it’s business as usual.

I queued this article in November of 2025 but never published it. The context has suddenly become much more relevant, so I’m clearing my queue of anything related to Venezuela.

At first, I thought it was kind of hilarious that the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to a Venezuelan. You know, because Trump wants one of the damned things so desperately, and he hates Venezuela, so it really seemed like a stick in his eye.

Hoo-boy was I wrong. The Nobel Peace Prize in 2025 was awarded to María Corina Machado, who I’ve written about before in these very pages.

She is the U.S.-supported opposition leader in Venezuela. She organized the military coup against Chavez in 2002 and supported the shadow government during the whole Juan Guaido decable.

The Nobel Prize committee lauded her as,

“[…] one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times” and praised for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela”.

“For years she has campaigned against Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro Moros, whose 12-year rule is viewed by many nations as illegitimate.”

OK. That seems interesting. Maybe I’m missing something. Let’s see what Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado wins the Nobel Peace Prize by Kostya Manenkov, Regina Garcia Cano and Geir Moulson (AP News) writes,

“Machado, who turned 58 this week, was set to run against Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government disqualified her. Edmundo González, who had never run for office before, took her place. The lead-up to the election saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations.”

“Machado was included in Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in April. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote her entry, in which he described her as “the Venezuelan Iron Lady” and “the personification of resilience, tenacity, and patriotism.””

Man, if Marco Rubio thinks she’s good, there’s got to be something fishy about her. Lemme check my own notes. Oh dear…

Machado through the years

My notes over the last year-and-a-half paint a different picture. The U.S. mind-virus is nestled deeply in the members of the Nobel committee. This is not surprising; this is the same committee who’ve already rewarded Barack Obama and Henry Kissinger for their peaceful contributions. Poor Hillary Clinton seems to always be a bridesmaid. But we were talking about another “iron lady”,

• Links and Notes for February 2nd, 2024

  Why the US Is Reimposing Sanctions on Venezuela? by Roger D. Harris (Antiwar.com)

  “Machado’s treatment by the Venezuelan government has arguably erred more on the side of leniency than severity. In most other countries, a person with her rap sheet would be behind bars.

  “Back in 2002, Machado signed the Carmona Decree, establishing a coup government. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had been deposed in a military coup backed by the US. The constitution was suspended, the legislature dismissed, and the supreme court shuttered.

  “Fortunately for democracy in Venezuela, the coup lasted less than three days. The people spontaneously took to the streets and restored their elected government. Machado, who now incredulously claims she signed the coup government’s founding decree mistakenly, was afforded amnesty.”

• Links and Notes for February 16th, 2024

  Washington, Pro-Democracy? Depends on the Country by Ted Snider (Antiwar.com)

  As detailed in the article and elsewhere, Machado has a long history of anti-democratic activity in Venezuela, plausibly if not definitively linked to foreign governments like neighbor Panama and perennial instigator the U.S. She is a signatory to two documents supporting and encouraging coups in Venezuela, one of which succeeded for a few days. The decision to bar her was taken by the courts, not by executive fiat.
   

• Links and Notes for May 17th, 2024

  Is Washington Trying to Subvert Venezuela’s Elections? by Maria Paez Victor (CounterPunch)

  “The results of a 3 May 2024 poll by Encuesta Nacional Ideadatos, indicated that Nicolás Maduro is the choice of 52.7% of voters while Edmundo Gonzalez is the choice of only 18.7% of voters.”

  And that 18.7% of voters are probably just so anti-Maduro that they would vote for a cardboard box instead.

  “Despite being legally barred from running for public office 15 years ago because of proven corruption, Machado staged a bogus opposition “primary” in which she prevented other opposition candidates from running. Ballots were unaudited and destroyed making post-voting inspection impossible. Then Machado declared the absurdity that two million people voted for her. But truth did not matter. The aim was only to tell this falsehood to the gullible international media, who will print anything the USA candidate of the extreme right will tell them.”

  “Gonzalez openly declared he has no plans to campaign personally (What for? He has the money and power of the USA behind him?) People aren’t sure if this is due to his elderly age, 74, or his sheer idleness. Maria Corina Machado is the one who is campaigning for him, carrying around a large poster of his face so people can recognize Edmundo Gonzalez on the ballot.”

• Links and Notes for July 26th, 2024

  Venezuela: An Attempted Coup By Any Other Name by Maria Paez Victor (CounterPunch)

  “We are in the presence of an attempt of the international fascist far right and the CIA to overthrow the government of Venezuela with a massive disinformation and denigration campaign to justify illegal sanctions and foreign intervention in the country.

  “The checkered past and crimes of Machado, poster girl of the far right, is never mentioned, her involvement in coups, her promotion of street violence in the past, her asking the USA for sanctions and military invasion against Venezuela, and right now, her collaboration with criminal gangs and narco-paramilitary groups are never mentioned. Her puppet, Edmundo González, was involved in the logistics and financing of the death squads in El Salvador’s civil war. Their hands are tainted with blood.”

• Links and Notes for September 6th, 2024

  Washington presses regional governments to secure Maduro’s ouster in Venezuela by Andrea Lobo (WSWS)

  “Five weeks after the July 28 presidential elections in Venezuela, the fascistic leader of the US-backed opposition, María Corina Machado, demanded on Thursday that the Biden administration “do more” to oust President Nicolas Maduro from power.

  “Speaking to reporters from an undisclosed location, Machado argued that this was a matter of strategic importance for US interests globally and concluded: “I am partial to maximum pressure.” She then repeated her appeals for the Venezuelan military to overthrow Maduro.”

  Hooray! This is just what the world needs: another maniac to add to Zelensky and Netanyahu. There are so many people rubbing their hands together for a similarly tragic situation in Venezuela. It’s not like it’s going great there now, but the U.S. is looking to make things so much worse. [1]

Machado in 2025

So that’s the kind of stuff that those of who’d been listening had been hearing up to the end of the 2024. What do the reactions look like now that she’s won the Nobel Peace Prize?

The article When Maria Corina Machado Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, “Peace” Has Lost Its Meaning by Michelle Ellner (ZNetwork) writes,

“If this is what counts as “peace” in 2025, then the prize itself has lost every ounce of credibility. I’m Venezuelan-American, and I know exactly what Machado represents. She’s the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine, the polished spokesperson for sanctions, privatization, and foreign intervention dressed up as democracy.

“Machado’s politics are steeped in violence. She has called for foreign intervention, even appealing directly to Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of Gaza’s annihilation, to help “liberate” Venezuela with bombs under the banner of “freedom,” She has demanded sanctions, that silent form of warfare whose effects – as studies in The Lancet and other journals have shown – have killed more people than war, cutting off medicine, food, and energy to entire populations.

“Machado has spent her entire political life promoting division, eroding Venezuela’s sovereignty, and denying its people the right to live with dignity.”

“She praises Trump’s “decisive action” against what she calls a “criminal enterprise,” aligning herself with the same man who cages migrant children and tears families apart under ICE’s watch, while Venezuelan mothers search for their children disappeared by U.S. migration policies.”

“If Henry Kissinger could win a Peace Prize, why not María Corina Machado? Maybe next year they’ll give one to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for “compassion under occupation.””

The article Nobel Prize for imperialist war and regime change goes to Washington’s Venezuelan puppet María Corina Machado by Andrea Lobo (WSWS) writes,

“This hero of the struggle for a “peaceful transition to democracy” openly hails US military aggression and is directly collaborating with Washington on plans for post-regime-change repression of all those opposed to Washington’s intervention.

“As the New York Times acknowledged last week, “The group supporting the use of force is led by Maria Corina Machado.” The Times adds: “One of Ms. Machado’s advisers, Pedro Urruchurtu, said she was coordinating with the Trump administration and had a plan for the first 100 hours after Mr. Maduro’s fall. That plan involves the participation of international allies, he said, ‘especially the United States.’” One can be certain that those 100 hours would be every bit as bloody as those that followed the coups in Chile in 1973 and Argentina in 1976.”

“Recently, Machado went on Fox News to endorse the ongoing US military buildup in the Caribbean and extrajudicial massacres of fishermen accused without evidence of working for cartels allegedly tied to Maduro.

““I want to tell how grateful we are to President Trump and the administration for addressing the tragedy that Venezuela is going through,” she said. “Maduro has turned Venezuela into the biggest threat to the national security of the U.S. and the stability of the region.””

It’s nice how everyone is showing their true face all the time now. It somehow makes things easier when they don’t even bother with subterfuge. The Nobel Prize Committee is irredeemably in the tank for the U.S. administration. There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. heavily influenced—if not outright made—the selection, having first ascertained that the prize absolutely couldn’t go to Trump instead.

As Lobo writes,

“[…] they couldn’t give the award to the US organ grinder, they did choose one of his able monkeys in the person of Machado.”

“A defender of “free market” policies, above all the privatization of the state oil company PDVSA, whose public ownership has been upheld by a wide spectrum of bourgeois parties since the 1970s, Machado has endorsed Milei’s economic program of “shock therapy” in which “freedom” means the liberation of corporations to eliminate social spending and exploit the working class without any restrictions or regulations.”

Should she somehow come to power [2], I suppose she could expect a $20B “loan” from the U.S. government when those policies utterly and predictably fail to do anything but enrich herself, as Milei’s have.

This is nothing but a farce. Irredeemably stupid.

Lobo continues,

“It is necessary to cut through the lying propaganda of “democracy” and “human rights” and reveal the ugly reality of bourgeois politics. The working class must reject with contempt the cynical use of the Nobel Prize to sanctify imperialist reaction. Only the unity of workers in Venezuela, with those of the rest of Latin America, the United States, and internationally—armed with a socialist and revolutionary perspective—can halt the march to world war and fascist dictatorship, and open the way to genuine peace, democracy and social equality.

“The anointment of Machado by imperialism is, above all, a warning: the ruling class is preparing for new crimes on a world scale. [3]”

Yeah, but who else is worthy?

I just heard Chas Freeman say, near the end of the following excellent interview that, “I would have said that Francesca Albanese should have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize.” His interlocutor Jyotishman agrees, saying that “Absolutely. I mean, there there are many candidates. Some some said Greta Thunberg, some said Francisca Albanese.”

And that’s only if we stick to female, white Europeans! I’m sure the rest of the world would have something to offer as well, were the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee to be interested in anything other than currying favor with the U.S. empire.

Chas Freeman: Why This Gaza Ceasefire Won’t Last by India & Global Left (YouTube)

Let the lady speak for herself

If you’re wondering what to believe, then listen to the lady herself. She posted this on Twitter., cited in its entirety.

“This recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is a boost to conclude our task: to conquer Freedom.

“We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy.

“I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”

This is practically an open invitation to invade Venezuela.

María Corina Machado sells out

Oh, never mind. It is an invitation to invade Venezuela, install her as president, after which she will give away $1.7T of natural resources to U.S. firms. She’s probably get something for it. On of the peace prize, of course.

And that, folks, is your Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2025. Drive safe.

Postscript

The article Julian Assange: Sweden Broke Own Laws With Nobel Prize to Venezuela’s Machado by Wyatt Reed & Max Blumenthal (The Grayzone / Scheer Post) writes that when you embrace Trump and the U.S., you get dirty,

“The Wikileaks founder pointed to the “ample public statements… showing that the U.S. government and María Corina Machado have exploited the authority of the prize to provide them with a casus moralis for war,” adding that the explicitly stated purpose of the war sought by Machado and her wealthy Latin American backers would be “installing her by force in order to plunder $1.7 trillion in Venezuelan oil and other resources.”

“The Nobel Foundation stands accused of a number of violations of Swedish criminal law, including breach of trust, misappropriation and gross misappropriation, conspiracy, crimes against international law, as well as financing of aggression, facilitation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and breaching Sweden’s stated obligations under the Rome Statute, to which Stockholm says it is “deeply committed.”

“Under Swedish law, “Alfred Nobel’s endowment for peace cannot be spent on the promotion of war,” Assange noted. “Nor can it be used as a tool in foreign military intervention. Venezuela, whatever the status of its political system, is no exception.””

I queued this article in October of 2024 but never published it. Since Israel and the U.S. are gearing up to attack Iran again, it’s time to clear out the backlog.

The article Biden escalates toward disastrous war against Iran by Andre Damon (WSWS) writes,

“Iran surrounded by US basesUsing Iran’s attack on Israeli military infrastructure Tuesday as a pretext, the White House has effectively given Israel carte blanche to carry out an illegal attack against the most populous country in the region.

““We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us [referring to the G7 nations] agree that they have a right to respond,” Biden said Wednesday. Reuters commented in a news report, “[T]he US is not pressing Israel to refrain from retaliation.””

Like it would matter if the U.S. had pressured Israel for anything. This is all just so tiresome. It’s always lies and deceit. It’s quite obvious that Iran is the end-goal. The U.S. use the Israelis as a very willing and enthusiastic proxy to take advantage of Iran’s reluctance to go to total war, just as the U.S. has Ukraine doing the same to Russia. These are proxy wars with the goal of weakening perceived enemies.

“One year after the start of the Gaza genocide, it has become clear that Israel seized upon the events of October 7 to implement long-held plans to ethnically cleanse and annex all Palestinian territories. This is part of a regional war throughout the Middle East to conquer what the Zionist state claims to be its biblical borders.

“For the United States, it has been a means to cement imperialist control over the oil-rich Middle East region and to establish the Middle East and Central Asia as a firm base for US military operations in order to press ahead with its confrontation with Russia and China.”

Uncle Sam relaxes with a glass of oil and his feet on a pile of skullsIt has always been about the oil. U.S. actions in Venezuela, Russia, and now Iran are not coincidentally in the oil-rich areas of the world that have either not come under the control of the U.S. Empire or had been taken away. Iran and Venezuela nationalized their oil and infrastructure. The Saudis have learned their lesson and have learned to curtail their mouthiness. As soon as they step out of line, they’ll have a proxy war on their hands, too.

These are just high-level plans, though. On the ground, It never works out this way. Military capability, goodwill, and good standing will continue to be burned for the benefit of a handful of elite winners at the helm of the U.S. war machine.

“It is high time to put an end to the myth that Israel is an actor independent of the United States. Israel’s primary function is as an attack dog and instrument of the interests of American imperialism throughout the entire region.”

What did the illustrious “opposition” leader Walz have to say?

“Walz said, “We will protect our forces and our allied forces, and there will be consequences.” Vance added, “Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are when they’re fighting the bad guys.””

The “bad guys.”

Oh. Ok. So, everyone is simpering and stupid.

“[…] no one bothered to note, first, that such an attack would be completely illegal, and second, that it would have monumental and historic consequences for the entire world.”

Neither of those things—illegality or consequences—are of particular interest to the people in charge. They don’t recognize laws as applying to them, and they never feel consequences.

Their supporters live in a propaganda bubble so impenetrable that they couldn’t even begin to process the idea that anything the U.S. or Israel might want to do is “illegal”. The notion doesn’t even compute. How can a nation that never does anything wrong do something illegal? It’s inconceivable.

Nor can they imagine that anything the U.S. does would lead to anything but positive consequences, as long as the U.S. extends its governance and grip on the world. How could that be a bad thing? The U.S. is an unprecedented force for good in humanity’s long history.

“The US media is presenting a looming Israeli attack on Iran as a response to the strikes launched by Iran on Israeli military bases on Tuesday. In fact, Iran’s attack was a response to a series of US-Israeli bombings, murders and terrorist attacks that have killed thousands of people throughout the Middle East.”

I really don’t think that it’s going to suffice to term the U.S. media “useful idiots” anymore. They are complicit. They know exactly what they are doing. They are well-compensated propagandists for Empire, no different than Goebbels and his crew were. Or, as These Are US Wars. These Are Biden’s Wars. by Caitlin Johnstone (Substack) puts it: “No matter how much you might despise the mainstream press, it’s not enough.”

The originally cited article concludes,

“The Iranian regime has repeatedly adopted an attitude of restraint to these US and Israeli provocations. There was no significant response to the murder of Qasem Soleimani in 2020, and Iran’s regime has tolerated repeated assassinations of scientists, and most recently, an Israeli bombing in Tehran itself. The president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking for the Iranian ruling class, has repeatedly adopted the most conciliatory attitude toward the imperialist powers. These efforts at conciliation have now failed, and the Iranian regime is coming under increasing pressure to resist and retaliate.”

Give ‘em an inch and they take a mile.

Has the lesson been learned? Is Iran prepared? Or is it just as powerless before the military might of the U.S. Empire as Venezuela? Will it be unable to fire a shot for fear of what might come as punishment for having defended itself?

I queued this article in September of 2024 but never published it. It’s still quite topical as, 15 months later, Venezuela’s president has been kidnapped, Israel’s genocide against Gaza continues, and Israel is gearing up for another run at Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Iran.

Vijay Prashad offers an in-depth analysis of the history of Hezbollah, as well as the more recent history in the region. He particularly emphasizes that Israel is, by all reasonable definitions, the terrorist state, as it routinely crosses international borders to assassinate people. These murders are then completely forgotten by the NATO nations as they all wonder when an enemy like Hizbollah or Iran will “attack out of the blue”, simply because they hate Israel so much—and for no known reason.

Vijay Prashad − Iran, Israel & Venezuela and the Context Missing in the Media by acTVism Munich (YouTube)

Vijay said the following in August of 2024.

“The Israelis are playing a very reckless game here and I don’t understand why Europe doesn’t recognize this.”

The statement still applies.

At about 16:00, Prashad corroborates Finkelstein’s more provocative formulation that Netanyahu is Israel since the “Israeli voting public, one way or the other, find him to be a good leader.” All of the things that we find appalling—like torture camps—don’t seem to bother the voting public at all. It’s just like the U.S. though—when Obama said “we tortured some folks”, it actually improved his popularity. The U.S. public is at least vaguely aware of how the country works—and they just don’t care. Israelis seem to be the same.
 

I queued this article in September of 2024 but never published it. The linked video is no longer available on YouTube nor can any trace be found of anything with that name on either DuckDuckGo (Bing) or Google because search engines apparently don’t index Rumble. [1] I’ll leave the link to YouTube, though, so we can all enjoy the big black hole provided by Google.

What Interest Does the U.S. Have in Who Governs Venezuela? by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

In the video, Greenwald discusses how the U.S. is completely uninterested in Venezuela’s elections and much more interested in its continued resistance to becoming a vassal state.

“Does anyone ever talk about the need to democratize Saudi Arabia or object to the lack of democracy in Egypt or the United Arab Emirates? No, of course not. Nobody does. Or in Jordan or in Kuwait? Because we have no interest in changing the governments there. We’re very happy with the governments there. So we don’t care at all about whether there’s democracy.”

Uncle Sam relaxes with a glass of oil and his feet on a pile of skullsDon’t ever forget that pretty much everything you hear in the U.S. media about Venezuela is a manipulative lie intended to make you not only support the U.S. continuing crippling economic sanctions but also any upcoming military (including CIA) incursions to gain control of that country’s resources. [2]

These propaganda are designed to make you cheer coups as “victories for democracy” because they will now put an end to the completely fictitious waves of Venezuelan criminal rapists that are flooding the U.S. Thanks FOX News! [3]

Glenn continues,

“So, how is it that you can have U.S. officials openly admitting—boasting—that the reason there’s a change in government in a country from a democratically elected leader to one that’s imposed on those people undemocratically was because the United States helped engineer the subversion of democracy?

“How can you hear things like that, on the one hand, or know that the United States embraces the most tyrannical despots on the planet in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt and then believe, on the other hand, that the reason we’re so concerned about the integrity of democracy and elections in Venezuela is because we’re just so benevolent—we just care so much about democracy, we just want to spread freedom all over the world?

“It’s something that will never stop being confounding and bewildering to me, generally. I understand that propaganda often is designed to work well based on studies of how the human mind functions. It’s a science developed over many decades but sometimes it’s so blatant—the falsehoods on which it’s based—that I do think it’s worth documenting. But it’s still something that I don’t understand how it isn’t just immediately visible as the obvious fraud that it is.”

The clip he showed where the U.S. official was boasting about a coup was from CSPAN. No-one watches that. If neither silo promoted it, then people don’t “know” that this happened or what the official had admitted. The NY Times isn’t going to tell them, and neither is FOX News.

Also, people don’t “know” that Saudi Arabia and Egypt are dictatorships. They are not described as such when mentioned, unlike Venezuela where Maduro—and Chavez before him—are continually described as dictators, even though they’re actually elected. Ghaddafi was continuously elected, as well. Putin is also elected.. People don’t “know” what Glenn assumes that they know so there’s no paradox by which he should be bewildered.

His context is that, whenever he hears about Egypt or Saudi Arabia, he thinks about them as dictatorships, not as the loving, democratic, open, economic partners that they’re described as by the mainstream media. His context is that, when he hears about Russia or Venezuela or Iran or North Korea or China, he wonders why the focus is on their often fictitious crimes and not on the real crimes of vassal nations.

People don’t think like that because they don’t “know” these things. They know them when you tell them and they will temporarily agree with you during a discussion but it will all quickly fade from memory and be replaced with the avalanche of propaganda that they hear all day, every day.

They claim not to listen to it, but it worms its way in nevertheless. All of the subtle—or even quite overt—phrases that have no anchor in reality or truth. All of the descriptions and characterizations, which, while not outright falsities, leave out so much context and detail and countervailing information that they amount to lies intended to manipulate people and produce a particular mindset.

They: Maduro was a dictator.

Me: Fuck off.

They: What?!? Don’t you care that Maduro wasn’t a nice guy?

Me: No. Nothing you think you know about Venezuela is true. Nothing you think you know about Maduro is true.

They: But the Venezuelans…

Me: You don’t care about the Venezuelans. You care about low gas prices.

They: But Venezuelans are celebrating…

Me: The only people greeting the U.S. as liberators are oligarchs, plunderers, and assholes. Or the clinically deluded. Like you.

They: FOX News said…

Me: Look, there’s Lucy. She’s holding a football. Why don’t you try and kick it?

They: But they’re all drug dealers…

Me: They’re not. And it’s irrelevant.

They: You love drug dealers?

Me: No. You love drug dealers. The Sacklers [1] are still billionaires, advertising regularly on your favorite news sources.

They: But we’re just protecting Americans…

Me: No. You’re cheering on the plundering of the world for the U.S.-American elite.

They: But Trump said…

Me: You have no principles. You have a daddy. You should be ashamed of what a pathetic sucker you are. You’re in a cult. Go try to kick another football. I bet he doesn’t pull it away this time.

They: But the NY Times wrote…

Me: Everything you know about the world has been told to you by people who hate not just you, but anyone who has anything. They want to plunder the world.

Me: You’re just a dupe who hates the enemy du jour. Everything you think you know about anything has been told to you by people who represent their own interests. They don’t even have to work very hard. You make it easy. You’re a cheap lay.

Partially, though not really, inspired by:

'Don’t you think Maduro was bad?' by HasanAbi (YouTube)

Donald Trump pumps his fistThe following one-hour video is a serious, though entertaining and humorous, look at “[…] every way Trump is using the presidency to make him and his family billions.” It is historically exhaustive but not repetitive, despite the lack of imagination on Trump’s part.

Why be inventive when just telling obvious lies to get people to give you money seems to work just fine? Trump’s motto is now and seems to have always been, “do no more work than you have to.” The picture to the right of Trump celebrating with a fist-pump illustrates this perfectly.

I have included several interesting quotes from the video below.

All The Ways Trump Is Using The Presidency To Enrich Himself by Some More News | Cody Johnston (YouTube)

At about 05:30,

“Sharper Image was a semifancy gadget store that was basically Spencer’s gifts for the upper middle class. Also, for our younger viewers, Spencer’s Gifts is a shop at the mall that sells silly tchotchkes and blacklight posters. Like a proto Hot Topic that had lava lamps and mugs shaped like a boob. Also, a mall was like a physical version of Amazon that you could eat soft pretzels in. Oh, and the middle class was this third class between dirt poor and having all the money ever.”

At about 8:30,

“He essentially made himself the shorthand for a rich guy. […] Instead of actually being super rich and successful, he became a mascot for being rich and successful. A monopoly guy. Scrooge McDuck. Richie Rich, the Ronald McDonald of luxury. Donald McDonald, a walking Sharper Image for upper-middle-class people to admire and actual rich people to ignore. And he slapped that name on everything like the affforementioned stakes, but also vodka and dietary supplements.”

At about 12:30,

“Trump’s name is mostly used as a label for other companies to license, including foreign governments and investors that are developing large-scale hotels and luxury properties. The Trump Organization has at least five real estate deals with Saudi real estate company DarGlobal. One of which, Trump International Oman, is partnered with Oman state-owned tourism group, promising investors both hands-off investment expertly managed by Trump to generate income on top of lifetime residency visas. This is along with developments in Dubai, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

“The New Yorker estimates that these licensing and management deals being made in the Gulf are bringing in a minimum of $15 million. Vietnam also struck a deal with Trump to build $1.5 billion luxury golf courses and hotels.

“And while that’s all well and good for Trump, the scammy business mascot, I probably don’t have to stress that this is a president now. It is the United States president—now the mascot of the Republican party—being used as an international brand while he’s the president. I know it seems normal now. I guess since Trump is a TV real-estate guy and has been president once before and nobody seems to be willing or able to stop him from doing all of these things that are obviously weird for a president to do. But it’s very weird. It’s abnormal actually for a president to be developing all of these opulent resorts overseas in order to curry favor with others or to allow others to curry favor with him or to generally enrich himself.”

At about 15:30,

“The president who has spent a third of his presidency at his own properties using taxpayer dollars to promote his business when he’s supposed to be doing president stuff. He’s just flying around in a jet we pay for doing his side hustle. We pay for that. It’s the company car and he’s using it for personal stuff. He’s hosting official government events at his hotels, making foreign governments and the Secret Service pay millions at his properties using our tax dollars.”

At about 32:30, he does a segment on cryptocurrencies:

“ It’s a very fickle, highly volatile investment that has limited regulations that are currently in flux around the world, has no safety net, gets lost frequently, and is the go-to method to shadow-fund criminals and hate groups and online gamblers.

“Again, it’s cool in theory. It’s like anarchist bucks, but instead of being used to get into some cool bondage club to learn about the matrix, it’s mostly being used by Wall Street types and the literal president of the United States to get around laws.

“This is why cryptocurrency is frequently used as a pump and dump scheme, which is when people talk up their cryptocurrency to maximize its value, sell it off for real money, and then watch its worth fall down to nothing. It’s money but worse.”

At about 38:00,

“I will reiterate that a handful of people purchased [Melaniacoin] before it was announced, meaning that they must have preemptively known, perhaps because they knew Melania or the company hosting it. It could, in theory, not be people in Trump’s circle.

“But I also need to remind you that there are still transaction fees and the entity in charge of the Melaniacoin, a company called Meteora, also made at least $64 million in real money through those transaction fees. So you have a small group of anonymous traders making $100 million, seemingly tipped off in advance, on top of the extra money going to the company hosting this. The first lady presumably gets a cut because it’s her coin that she launched. But thanks to the third party, she is also legally insulated from any corruption.

“That means the most innocent scenario is that the president and first lady are licensing their names to the futuristic version of a shady gambling app and are unaware that it’s a scam. Again, the most innocent scenario is that the president is ignorant and gullible.

“And of course, the exact same situation is happening with Trump coins. He announced the launch on Truth Social, and wouldn’t you know it, the value way the heck up to $6 billion within days of launch. The Trump Organization and its affiliates own 80% of the coin supply and have collected millions of dollars in just those trading fees alone.

“Just the United States president taking a rake.

“Again, it’s perfect for Trump. He has distilled everything he’s done in the past down to this digital frontier, selling his name and name alone with no product or actual value. Like, even if he wasn’t [sic] the president, he would absolutely be doing this. But of course, he is the president.

“Trump the crypto scammer. As I said, it is perfect for him. And better yet, it’s through a market that he as the president also gets to regulate on a federal level. It’s win-win if you don’t factor in the rest of the country.”

At about 53:00,

“Jimmy Carter gave up his peanut farm. That wasn’t for nothing. That was to avoid Jimmy Carter forcing American consumers and companies to become obsessed with peanuts and make him money via peanuts.

“Of course, in this case, Trump’s preferred industry is just scams. He’s helping himself and the scam industry. He’s also uniquely able to get away with this stuff. He’s done it his entire life and he has ported that ability to his time at the White House.

“Literally, when the House Oversight Committee Chair, James Comey, was asked about the Trump family’s crypto scams, he said it’s okay because, quote, “They’re admitting they’re doing this.” See, they’re holding a big sign that reads, “Doing crimes,” which makes it all above board, right? He’s donating his paycheck to renovate the White House. See, he gives back. He doesn’t need the money on account of the hundreds of millions of dollars he’s you know scammed from so many people.”

At about 54:00,

“You might notice that in all of what I just said, all the ways Trump made money involve him never producing a single worthwhile product or giving anything in return. It’s just a series of financial scams and social cheat codes where he used an inflated personal brand to run sweaty scams that compounded into enough money and power to shield him from consequences.

“There are so many Trumps out there, but only one is like the mascot for unearned wealth and power, and only one that is using the office of the president for the first time ever while he’s the president to amass massive personal wealth. We kind of need to nip this one in the bud.”

The article “Settler madness.” by Cara MariAnna (The Floutist) writes of how a society teaches its young to hate. The example comes from observing Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

“The following three images are screenshots from a video of another incident in which settlers harassed the same family. The boy with the side curls holds a stick. He’s the same boy who was wearing a sweatshirt with a hood in the previous video. I’m showing you these pictures because settlers use their boys as attack dogs. The armed man stands back and tells the boy what to do.”

Children bullying children (from the article)

“This is called rage-baiting. The settlers are trying to provoke a reaction so they can call the I.O.F. and escalate the violence. Here the Jewish boy is focusing his aggression on the smaller Palestinian boy.

“This is sociopathic behavior. This boy’s mind has been damaged if not destroyed. He’s been force-marched into a state of complete irrationality. He’s been taught to hate Palestinians and to take pleasure in tormenting and bullying them. In a few years he’ll go into the army. As a civilian he’ll carry an assault rifle.

“How will he raise his children? How will peace be possible when each generation of Israeli Jews has been taught to fear and hate Palestinians and to see them as animals?”

I think it’s silly to dispute that this is happening. Of course it’s happening. Brainwashing and indoctrination is absolutely necessary for any violent project such as the colonization of Palestine. So has it always been, and so will it always be. The idea is to train people to think that they’re the good guys, even when they’re doing very bad things. You train them to think that doing bad things is good when they are done to bad people, to the enemy, to the other.

Plunder

Colonization is just plunder: you want something that someone else has and you think you can take it from them without compensating them for its value and without being punished more than you are willing to accept. The easiest way to do this is to take advantage of an existing inequality. Your group will not only not punish you for plundering a group of lower value, it will reward you. This is the easiest and best way. If there’s no convenient group of others around, it’s a bit more work to generate an inequality against a group of others. Once you have a group of others, though, it becomes perfectly legal, approved, and rewarded to plunder them. No so-called civilized society today exists without this dynamic.

If you can “other” someone, you can take what they have. If you can “other” them so hard that society agrees with you that they aren’t even human, then you can even kill them and take away everything they have—and get away with it. That’s the dream.

Gentrification

Every society with colonial ambitions trains its people to do this. Countries without ambitions outside of their own borders can do this too because, remember, gentrification is a euphemism for colonization. Declaring a war on immigrants, preventing more from entering the country and trying to get rid of the ones you have—as many European nations are doing [1]—requires indoctrination of hatred of the other just as much as outright colonization.

The Poor

Declaring a war on the poor is an age-old standard. Imagine being so bereft of morality and principle that you consider plundering those who have nothing to plunder. It makes sense, though; plunder seeks soft targets. And the poor are incapable of defending themselves. Though the reward is lower, the effort and risk are negligible. The reward for plundering an oligarch would be immense but the effort and risk are high. We avoid effort and risk; we have been taught to seek rent. “Farming” the poor is more lucrative. The logic of plunder is inexorable.

The U.S.

It was no different in the U.S. during its own official apartheid, and it continues now through the relatively long period of “soft apartheid” that has followed and which has been going on my whole life. Instead of being officially racist, the U.S. now officially hates the poor—which is easier to get people to support than outright racism—and society is adjusted to ensure that much higher proportions of black people are poor than other races. And then you can send them to prison for being poor … and rent them out as slaves from prison. Voila. The balance has been restored. [2]

While the specific targets change—current public sentiment is most strongly against South- and Central-American immigrants and Middle-easterners, especially Muslims [3]—but the project and its goal do not. And we’re talking about where the focus is: Black people aren’t suddenly living as equals, they are just not the main target right now.

The war on trans people continues as well, even though most people don’t know anyone whom they would deem “obviously trans” or they have no idea what the term even means.

There are people in Central New York lustily and heartily cheering on Trump’s war at the southern border even though they’ve neither seen a swarthy immigrant nor heard anyone speaking Spanish. It is embarrassing how easy it is to move this type of project forward.

Europe

Most societies (at least in the west) teach virulent hate. People in Europe and Switzerland hate Russians with a burning passion. Perhaps Israel takes it farther. [4] Perhaps we see it more now, now that the Hasbara dam seems to have broken. But it doesn’t absolve European racism and hatred. After all, Europe continues its unswerving official support for Israel, just as the U.S. does.

The Israeli indoctrination programs are perhaps more thorough, more brutal, more virulent—but Europe wouldn’t mind getting there. They could easily find a way to justify it to themselves. The important first step has been taken: there is no principle—no moral compunction against hating the other—standing in their way.

The article Some Days There’s Just Too Much Israeli Psychopathy To Write About by Caitlin Johnstone (Substack) writes,

“If I had murdered people for trying to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones who I had also murdered, I’d definitely be asking myself a lot of questions, but “what was so important about that corpse?” would definitely not be among them.

“Gaza has become a hunting ground which is visited by psychopathic individuals who want to experience what it’s like to kill human beings, and it’s always open season. Those bloodthirsty monsters then re-enter our communities and walk among us without consequences.

“They get to go commit atrocities and then come back and resume their lives as though nothing happened, like going off to some kind of genocide summer camp. It’s about the most horrific thing you can imagine.

“Israel poisons the entire world.”

While I agree that the hagiography around Daniel Raab, an American from Chicago who joined the IDF to murder Palestinians—that’s pretty much a direct quote from him—is nauseating, it’s not just Israel that does this. It’s empire. It’s colonialism. It’s racism. It’s indoctrination. It’s a mindset engendered by all of these things.

Torture is so booooringThis is what U.S. soldiers do all the time. Of course, many of them are absolutely psychically destroyed afterwards. It eats them up. It will eat up the Israeli soldiers too. You can indoctrinate them all you want but their humanity eventually seeks them out where they live—in their dreams, in their haunted thoughts. Many take it out on themselves. Many take it out on others, self-destructing in a cataclysm that sacrifices even more innocents.

This is not to make you feel sorry for people who murdered innocents when they could, but to say that war destroys everything. Many former soldiers are far more apologetic about what they’ve done than Daniel Raab.

Raab was born into just the right cauldron for sniping innocents in Palestine, though: the good old U.S. of A, where you learn early that life is cheap, especially when that life is poor or colored or both. It was a smooth transition from the racism of the U.S. to that of Israel.

People like Raab reenter U.S. society and no-one is the wiser because no-one is taught to care or ask what “joined the IDF” even means. If they have any idea what it means, they associate it vaguely with something good.

It’s kind of wild, isn’t it? There are U.S. citizens who join a foreign army and no-one bats an eye. There’s even a Congressperson who’s worn his IDF uniform in Congress. He has a giant Israeli flag outside of his office. We are taught to be unfazed, and we are simultaneously taught to go f@&king bananas if that army belongs to pretty much any other country.

In Europe, people who return to Lebanon or Syria to help protect their families from invading Israelis are roundly chastised as Islamist terrorists—fighting for the caliphate!—while people who join the IDF are just treated as normal. You would expect the opposite in world with a moral compass. Lucky for us, we ain’t got one.

From a comment by Stephen Walker:

“They’ve attacked two new countries in two days: Tunisia and Qatar. They’ve carried out dozens of assassinations in the following countries in just 18 months: Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Qatar. Total number of countries attacked in less than two years: 9 (Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Malta, Tunisia, Qatar). Total impunity. The entire world’s inaction is sickening.”

It’s not that the world doesn’t act; the world approves. It welcomes the state of things. The U.S. can also attack whichever countries it wants and no-one even remembers these things as invasions of attacks.

People will chirp at you that Russia has to be punished because it invaded Ukraine, as if invading a country were a unique act. They only consider it to be unique because it was neither the U.S. or Israel that did it.

They literally can’t remember any other attacks or invasions other than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They can’t remember any history in that region before February 2022.

They can’t remember any history in Israel before October, 2023. They have no idea what’s going on there. They think Israel is just defending itself.

When Swiss media write about Israel attacking Qatar, they don’t ask WTF IS GOING ON? No, of course not. Instead, they ask “Where else might Hamas be hiding?” I’m sure they would absolutely welcome measures to rout “Hamas” out of Switzerland by simultaneously egesting every swarthy-looking Muslim or Arabic speaker, just to be on the safe side.

We wouldn’t want to piss off Israel, which would, in that case, be completely justified in bombing Switzerland. That would be understandable, as they would then only be stamping out obvious antisemitism.

The situation is truly sickening.

But it is not surprising.

The US is famously and proudly anti-intellectual. It has been for most of my life. There are exceptions but those exceptions live at the edges of society. While their Wikipedia entries might laud them, they acquire neither wealth nor power.

Wealth and power are reserved for the largely self-anointed princelings of the Idiocracy. Europe held itself aloof from its ignorant progeny across the Atlantic for a reasonably long time. But that time is unquestionably past.

Knowledge? No thank you.Kaja Callas is a sad example of the kind of painfully ignorant people who rise to power in the U.S. and Europe. She is not only ignorant of any history outside of the constrained propaganda she greedily devours every day—probably not least because it buoys her personal success—she is proudly ignorant, completely unaware that others might have a different context that is more valid than her own. She chastises those who know better. Well done.

The video below shows her expressing disbelief that China would think that it had anything to do with what only Europe and the U.S. call “World War II”.

EU Slammed By China For Lack Of Basic History by Novara Media (YouTube)

From a comment on the video:

“35 million Chinese military and civilian people died fighting imperial Japan in the second world war. Japan invaded China in 1931, eight long years before war in Europe began.”

Another commentator I read somewhere posed the question: “why does Callas think China is on the permanent Security Council?” Hint: it’s because those nations were the winners of the war that inspired the founding of that council—the Soviet Union, the United States, United Kingdom, France, and China.

If you’re looking for a more optimistic take, read Hold strong: The cruelty increases with desperation. The video below is by the same guy—Hasan Piker—as in the other article but with a much less hopeful take this time. This video describes the current state of things: that we are cogs in a well-oiled, rent-extraction machine. We have to wake up to it, use our agency, and stop believing all of the bullshit.

you think you have rights? by HasanAbi (YouTube)

“Every single American is being surveilled at every single moment of the day.

“How is it not illegal or goes against our rights?

“Dude, you’re an American. Do you not understand? We’re nothing. We are peasants who have been deluded into thinking that we have any kind of self-importance whatsoever.

“This is what I keep repeating over and over again. And people seemingly do not understand. They do not understand. You do not understand.

“We do not have rights. You know who has rights? Corporations have rights. They have the right to do whatever the fuck they want. Okay? They have a right to get the bag by any means necessary.

“Neo wakes upWe’re just running around thinking like, “Oh, we got autonomy. We do whatever we want.” Yeah, good luck, dude. Every single aspect of your life, whether you are aware of it or not, is being commoditized by these AI tech companies.

“This is quite literally just a mass surveillance operation, openly traded on the market. Like all your movements are tracked and they’re sold to data brokers. They’re sold to companies that want to surveil you for one reason or another to sell you more. Law enforcement has access to this. Your landlord has access to it.

“We’re literally lab rats, brother.”

To be optimistic for once: It’s always darkest before dawn. That is, the reason that the elites are lashing out so cruelly is that they are getting more and more desperate as some of them can’t help but notice that the wheels are coming off of this whole rent-extraction contraption that they’ve built.

Sloppy Jenga TowerSome of the other are just yanking Jenga bricks out of the tower of the global economy as fast as they can, utterly oblivious to or uncaring about the degree to which they’re destabilizing their own future ability to pullout bricks.

They still have a lot of power but, in their desperation, they’re forced to invest increasing amounts of political capital to get what they want.

“The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

Just in the last year, we’ve seen a much-larger percentage of people switching from lulled and gulled consumers to captured consumers; they are still active participants but they now know that they’re being duped. You have to put a lot more work into keeping the balls in the air for a propaganda system where the participants are awake or waking up to it.

Their desperation and cruelty comes from trying to beat people back to sleep, á la “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

As many more victims as their terrible rule will take, this is already an admission that it will come to an end. They are now legitimately terrified that this will happen.

The video below is a well-worded plea to keep up the pressure, to keep fighting.

It’s up to us to change their minds by HasanAbi (YouTube)

“The reason why Western leaders have realized that they have to be even more cruel, and suppress speech even more actively hands-on.

“[…] This administration is doing things that actually undermine the very fabric of American society. Beyond colonial exploitation, beyond the death and destruction, beyond the upholding of violent systems like white supremacy, Americans actually at least had a couple things that they advocated for unconditionally, like free speech. And now they’re eroding that fundamental principle. They’re eroding that fundamental constitutional protection at the behest of a foreign state.

“And I’m telling you right now, I speak to Americans all the time, people from very different backgrounds than mine, and they’re angry, too. So, it’s up to all of us to activate them. It’s up to all of us to motivate them.

“Become undeniable, become unavoidable, and keep up the pressure no matter what.”

This video of Donald Trump going off the rails is a couple of months old already but the content doesn’t really matter. He’s still doing the same song-and-dance, keeping the plates spinning and the plebes distracted while he makes himself richer.

Trump dancesHe’s benefitted less than a handful of other billionaires but he and his family have gained about $3B since he took office. Those are incredible numbers but no-one with any power really seems to care. There is no real uproar about it. He’s still getting away with it.

Perhaps most of it will disappear in the next big crash that he and his crew are hastening but that might be too much to hope for. People like Trump are almost never the first ones to lose everything.

Trump just can't stop rambling by HasanAbi (YouTube)

“It’s the fact that there are people tuning in who agree with this reactionary framework that frustrate me. And this is no different. It’s not that Trump is like a bumbling old baboon, senile, and constantly lying. It’s the fact that people actually love him and they also agree with him and they think he is brilliant. That is the most—that’s the most discouraging thing because if, like, everybody recognized what the he was and and reacted appropriately and, like, you know constantly tried pushing and and then there was like a significant militant response against that sort of thing then I would say you know at least people are—at least the population is—smart. At least the population understands what’s going on. At least your neighbors know what the fuck is up.

“What makes me sad is the fact that there is a 30% part of this population that unironically, no matter what he does, will turn around and say, “Nah, man. That’s my president, you stupid libtard. He’s hot. He’s healthy. He’s 215 lbs and he’s 6'4 and he can dunk a basketball and he’s ending all the wars.”

“It’s like, oh my god, it’s just so frustrating. is so frustrating to have to to deal with people who have decided that they can just hallucinate an alternative reality. And those guys have so much play on our lives. Like even the military incursions, even the send the military, send the Marines, send the National Guard to Chicago, that’s done for those guys.

“Those guys who are just like, “Hell yeah, brother. we got to do more militant response to solve this unlimited crime in blue cities where seemingly there’s a lot of black people.” Like that’s who he’s doing it for. Or “hell yeah, brother. We got to deport every Guatemalan. They’re scary. They got salsa hips. They’re dancing. I hate that.”

“That’s who he’s doing this for. Those guys have so much play. The dumbest, most psychotic, racist people in American society that have never left their hometowns get to dictate what we all experience. And that is so frustrating.

“I mean, look at this. Florida moves to end all school vaccine mandates. First in nation to do so. How the fuck can you look at this and go, “This is great. This is great, brother. Fantastic. Hell yeah, brother. We’re gonna get rabies, and that’s fine. We’re bringing back legionnaire’s disease.” Awesome.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters in Bern, SwitzerlandI was listening to the Swiss news on the radio a couple of weeks back. There had been pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Bern the day before. Instead of discussing why people were protesting, the reporters dutifully reported about the damage that had been caused and dutifully reported on right-wing politicians who blamed it all on leftists and Antifa, as they’d been dutifully instructed to do by their ideological masters in the U.S., to whose Truth Social accounts they’ve all dutifully subscribed so that they never miss a single marching order.

It’s f@&king pathetic. No-one listening to the radio gets to hear about why there were protests. You never, ever do. People just protest. Who knows why? They’re just Querulanten (troublemakers, grousers, gripers), I guess. People just gotta let off steam, ammirite? They’re probably doing it because they’re jealous of how well other people are doing because those people aren’t as lazy as the protesters are. You can almost hear the so-called journalists shaking their heads at the sadness of these moochers’ existences.

But you gotta put protesters down, of course. If you can’t put them down physically—too much political fallout and whining—then you can do it ideologically.

When there’s a pro-Palestinian protest, it is of course deemed a leftist protest because no-one could be pro-Palestinian and conservative, right? So, when something is damaged, the smooth-brained press will of course repeat what the smooth-brained police have told them, which is what the smooth-brained politicians want to have as the simple solution, which is, again, provided to them by the smooth-brained Trump administration, which forged these anti-Antifa talking points in the smithies of the U.S. ideology factories weeks ago. They vomited it up all over themselves and all over America and now European politicians return not to their own vomit but, like the absolute betas that they are, to the vomit of those pale shadows of self-nominated alphas from across the pond.

It’s f@&king tragic how simple everyone is. Have some f@&king pride. Grow a f@&king backbone. Think a thought.

So we hear on the news that protesters who have gathered for unknown reasons broke shit. And that every single person that showed up there is ideologically uniform so that proves that any damage that was done was by people who believe in that ideology. That means that being pro-Palestinian means that you’re a violent leftist, right?

I dunno, I’m just a smooth-brained plebe listening to the radio. You gotta help me come to the right conclusion. Wait, what? I got it right? On the first try? YAY for me. I’m so smart. Oh, and also, I hate leftists now. I’m still right? Cool! I’ll keep going.

F@&k those leftists for sacrificing themselves for the ideology of thinking that everyone is equal and should share in our luxury and wealth. I even kind of vaguely feel now that Palestine might deserve what it gets, if these are the kind of people that defend it. Wait, what kind of people are they? Are they even real Swiss people? Are they maybe Hamas? Maybe Israel is right and everyone is Hamas! They’re f@&king everywhere! Even in Bern, destroying stuff. Who knew?

So, we call them Antifa because that’s what Trump ordered the world to do but you get what I mean, right, Israel? Wink, wink. Hamas, Antifa, whatever. They’re people who annoy us and get in the way of us taking even more shit for ourselves, so we say what we gotta to get them outta the way. Plundering has never been easier when you have them the giant lever of the oligarch-controlled media to get the people you’re plundering to cheer you on while you’re doing it.

A subsequent report informed us all of what the Anti-Defamation League thought about it all, because anti-semitism is literally the only racism happening in Switzerland ever and, even if it weren’t, it would be the only one worth worrying about because, if you don’t worry about it enough, you’re automatically anti-semitic. Sheesh. Dodged that bullet. I think.

Luckily, this doesn’t apply to any other racism, like being so anti-Muslim as a nation that you can sit there, munching popcorn, while you commiserate with the ally who’s perpetrating a genocide rather than the people being slaughtered because, let’s face it, they’re pretty much all just terrorists-in-waiting, ammirite? That’s all a Muslim really is. Which is why you kind of do have to preemptively slaughter them by the hundreds of thousands, before they come for you first. So, really, it’s kind of hard to see why all of those people are protesting in Bern, unless they’re all terrorists, too?

And we’ve come full circle.

As the good Lord (or White Empire) intended.

This is also a couple of months old but remember when, about 400 news cycles ago, federal museums like the Smithsonian were told to dial it back on exhibits that cast slaveholders in a bad light? I don’t recall hearing whether that was retracted in the meantime. Probably not, because so many closet racists have positively soared out of the woodwork and and are cheerily enjoying what I imagine is, even for them, a wholly unexpected moment in the sun that they will, characteristically, round up to a permanent hall pass, if at all possible.

TRUMP DOWNPLAYS SLAVERY by Hasan Piker (YouTube)

“Yeah. It’s like, hey, uh excuse me. How about you offer some praise to the good man Adolf Hitler? After all, he was responsible for killing Adolf Hitler. That’s the type of [ __ ] argument she’s making here. It’s crazy. What do you mean? The fuck is this? What are we doing? This is on CNN, bro. This is not Fox News. I feel like a decade ago, this would be the outlier on a Fox News panel. And even they would have other Fox News hosts be like, “Okay, maybe that’s a bridge too far. You’re saying the quiet part out loud. That’s not supposed … we’re not supposed to say that.””

“It’s so funny because nobody ever says, “Hey, Trump, why are you too focused on how sad the history of slavery makes you feel?” People only turn around and go, “Why are you calling this racist?” Classic. It’s not the other person that’s being racist that’s a problem for you. It’s the fact that someone is calling that out accurately for what it is. That’s the issue. Okay.”

“I don’t know what these guys think the purpose of a f@&king museum is. Like, what? Like, museums are not supposed to be presenting like a future vision of what things are going to look like in the future. It’s the history of African-Americans in the nation that’s doing its function.”

This is the main point here: these arguments about museums not being uplifting enough are profoundly stupid. They’re not arguing about whether the information in the museum is accurate; they’re arguing about whether it makes them feel bad or uncomfortable. It is an absolute tragedy that so many people are on board with this. The anti-intellectualism in the U.S. went up another level, which I really didn’t think was possible.

Topographie des Terrors museumYou wanna see a museum that puts the blame squarely on the perpetrators? Check out the Topographie des Terrors museum in Berlin if you really want to see how it’s done. No punches pulled there. Look at it. It’s not dressing up anything. No gold trim there.

The people in the U.S. who are positively reveling in the sun right now are a bunch of snowflakes who are too stupid or too venal to even see how snowflake-y their arguments are. They don’t care because they’re winning, for now.

Luckily, everything they do is incredibly short-sighted so things will fall apart very, very quickly. Their center will not hold. The rough beast has slouched to Washington but its hour will come soon enough.

Almost every line in the following video was important and necessary for people to hear. I dare say …. brilliant. This video seemed completely extemporaneous. It’s Hasan expressing his deeply held and well-considered beliefs, pretty much all of which I agree with. Chapeau.

TRUMP'S MILITARY REVENGE by HasanAbi (YouTube)

The video’s not even 20 minutes long and I found nearly all of it worth citing below.

“What could be a solution to crime? Great question. This has been something that thinkers have gotten together and and tried to find solutions to since the ancient times. Okay. From ancient Greece onwards, the answer has always been the same. Solve poverty and you solve crime. That’s it.

“Just as Americans and their inability, the American government’s inability to address any of these problems and then their solutions are always just like to basically make the problems worse. With the conversation around crime, the solutions are identical.

“They are basically doing the just one more lane on the highway and we will fix this traffic issue. Please, one more lane. But in terms of addressing the crime, the real solution to lowering traffic density, as we all know, is not more lanes on a highway. It’s actually public transit. Okay? Making a less car reliant infrastructure would be the perfect solution to the traffic density problem. But we don’t do that. And we just keep adding lanes onto the highway. But you still get bottle-necked when you enter the city. That’s just how it works.

“And the same principle applies to every single thing that these guys are seemingly trying to solve. If militancy was actually an adequate solution to crime, then America would be crime-free. We have the most militant police force on the planet. Nothing comes near the militancy and the militarization of our domestic police force. This is before we even talk about utilizing the military.

“[Reading from the chat] ‘But I like my car is the only freedom we have at this point.’

“This is what I mean. No, true freedom is not having to sit in traffic. True freedom is actually being able to have a much more affordable alternative to having a car. You can still have a car if you want to, but like real freedom would be the freedom to have a diversity in transport options as opposed to just simply being in your car. But Americans just do not comprehend that at all because it’s been sold to you. This has been sold to you since birth that like cars are actually—cars equate to freedom.

“But anyway, that’s like that’s just one aspect of this. Here, give me any problem that has a major impact on American day-to-day existence and I will show you that they do the same every single time.

“[From the chat] Gun violence, school shootings.

“Okay, the solution is simple. Gun control is the most effective means to at least cut down some of the gun violence. And yet, no one wants to do that. So, we constantly look for other alternative reasons. Okay, we’re like, “Oh, door control. Oh, we you need more guns. We need to give the teachers guns.”

“Okay, it’s so stupid. You’re not solving the problem. You’re making the problem worse. I already gave you the example of just one more lane on the highway for traffic density.

“Same with healthcare. Solution to healthcare is to take out the profit incentive from healthcare. It should be free. It’s free in many other countries, in almost every single country. Every country that has decent governance has realized that this is the bare minimum thing that they need to do.

“In America, we don’t do that. And we’re like, “No, no, you don’t understand. We need to let the free enterprise thrive even more and then it’ll automatically solve itself.” Nope. It hasn’t. Why would you think that doing the same thing over and over again and leaning into the private enterprise aspect of it is going to actually solve this problem?

“And the same goes for crime. Same goes for crime. The only solution to crime is the eradication of poverty because that is where crime manifests. Crime manifest as a byproduct of people’s material conditions. Crime increases when people are poor. When they feel as though they have no alternatives.

“The American government is already like pretty ruthless in terms of dealing with crime have refused to reckon with this problem. they just say nah actually it’ll be different this time. The best mechanism to solve crime is more deterrence, more violence, more punitive measures and, if that was the case, we’d be crime-free already, as opposed to like all these other countries. But all these other countries have significantly lower crime rates than we do.

“All these other countries have significantly lower recidivism rates than we do—the likelihood to re-offend—right? Once someone is in jail and that’s directly a consequence of the way our prison structure works, our prison system works is so ruthless and so violent that you become like a better criminal. You become like…you are pushed into being a more rugged criminal once you go to prison as opposed to like rehabilitate and reintegrate into society.

“It all stems back to this like insane concept that we have. It’s the profit motive. We have private prisons in this country which is abhorrent, morally repugnant obviously, but then also on top of that it’s the lack of interest in solving any of these real problems because someone can make more money off of not solving these problems.”

“Why do you think people in high crime neighborhoods want more police? Because they also believe the same that everyone believes. They believe the same that your uncs in the suburbs believe. The false notion that like more police presence is actually actively solving crimes or is like active deterrent. Also, these under-served neighborhoods oftentimes do have a ton of police presence, but they’re just not doing the normal function of policing. And that is precisely the reason why they think, “Oh, if there were more cops, maybe they would actually solve these problems.” When, in fact, a big problem with policing is that they’re just not doing their jobs. That’s the issue.

“I’m not saying ‘no police’. I’m saying do your job. Okay? Do your job. Do your job. The theoretical job of a police force, whether it’s a democratic design or not, is supposed to be: to protect and serve the citizens, protect and serve the public. But policing historically and in contemporary American society simply protects and serves capital, the interests of capital. That’s all they do. Their active response time to incidents in rich white neighborhoods is far better than their active response time in black neighborhoods, in poor neighborhoods in general. That’s the reason why a lot of people that live in areas where there are higher rates of crime think like, oh, if we have more if we had more cops, maybe they would like actually come faster.”

“Attorney General Pam Bondi has made clear that cities and states with these so-called sanctuary policies which limit local law enforcement from working with federal agents to enforce immigration policies. Also, that has nothing to do with crime.

Ironically enough, sanctuary city policies are oftentimes backed by the local police because is a successful way to have undocumented migrant communities collaborate and cooperate with the authorities without fear that they’re just going to be like unjustifiably deported for being a witness to a crime. That is the real reason why sanctuary cities were implemented. Okay? Or, at least, one of the reasons why sanctuary cities were implemented. It is so ridiculous that these dudes are trying to bring up the the lack of collaboration between federal law enforcement that’s mechanism is to violently prosecute civil offenders.

“Like imagine you you just get like ripped away from your family and sent to a totally separate country for a moving violation. You know what I mean? a traffic violation. And I’m not even talking about like DUIs. I’m talking like a tiny offense cuz that’s what it is to cross the fucking border. That’s literally what that is. That’s just how it’s seen in the legal system. And it shouldn’t even be seen as an offense really cuz the best possible way to fix that problem is to document these people, right?

“So, they’re basically saying the real issue is that like these criminal scum, you know, that work every single day to make your lives better for pennies on the dollar. Those are the real rugged criminals. Okay. And they must be violently seized and kidnapped by mass-armed thugs of the state and ripped away from their families. And if we don’t do that, then, you know, crime is out of control. I think many Americans still don’t fully comprehend this issue. And I can’t even necessarily fault them for their clear lack of humanity, like their clear lack of recognition for the humanity of undocumented migrants because like there’s not that many people out there convincingly speaking on this issue, convincingly speaking on the humanity of migrants in the way that I try to do every single day.”

“Hasan Piker streamingI think it still loops back. I hate to be a broken record on this, but I think this still loops back to white supremacy, right? What I mean by this, is like immigrants are black and brown in the minds of like many Americans. So, you can kind of turn a blind eye to like over-policing in those communities, no matter how unconstitutional or ridiculous it is without ever actually having to care about their humanity or their contributions to American society and American existence and the social fabric that keeps everything together.

And the same goes for black neighborhoods and black cities in general where it’s just like, this, the assessment from like regular Americans, from all different backgrounds, is that like higher-percentage black cities and higher-percentage black neighborhoods are just like scary and filled to the brim with crime. And therefore you just have to be violent and brutal to these people and you know if you use the military like this then it’s still good.

“They don’t even think about it like, “Bro, that’s your city, too.” You know what I mean? They don’t even comprehend it, because they just think, “Oh, it won’t happen in my city. There’s not a lot of black people here, so it’s fine.””

The article Trump & the Russophobes by Patrick Lawrence (Scheer Post) was written near the end of August—about two months ago—and discusses the U.S.‘s obsession with just absolutely hating first Bolsheviks, then the Soviet Union, and now Russia.

“I say this because Russophobia is about more, much more, than near-term geopolitical strategies and policy choices. This is a question that goes to the ideology that makes America America, to the collective psyche, to Otherness and identity (which are intimately related in the American mind).”

It’s not just the U.S., though. People in Europe and Switzerland are just delighted to believe the most transparently false and outright implausible fairy tales about Russia’s aspirations and abilities. I’ve talked to many people in Switzerland who are 100% convinced that “defeating Russia” should be not only a top-priority goal for Europe but also for neutral Switzerland. It’s no wonder, of course, as every news agency in Switzerland cheerily repeats this viewpoint day after day after day after day.

No-one—not the media nor its willing dupes—has no idea what would come next, of course. They just know it’s super-important that Russia lose. When pressed, they say it’s because we need to show that “you can’t just attack other countries.” When pressed further about Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Yugoslavia, or Afghanistan (an incomplete list of targets of NATO in the last quarter-century), they run out of words if they have any moral compass and they splutter about those not being the same thing at all, if they don’t.

The article wondered, two months ago,

Trump in a China Shop

“Can Trump put a long, regrettable past thoroughly into the past, or at least set America on a path such that it may finally embrace the 21st century instead of continuing to fall behind in it?”

I wrote at the time:

HAHAHA. No. He will almost certainly fuck it up. It is unfortunately too delicate a solution for the bull elephant to find by stumbling about. That’s even assuming that he actually wants that solution. Or that he can summon the concentration to actually get it.

The last two months of increasingly insane and criminal bullshit has borne out my negativity.

The article Only Liars And Manipulators Say Gaza Isn’t Starving by Caitlin Johnstone (Substack) makes what I consider to be a logical error in argument in the following passage,

“When a nation keeps having to publish denials that it is intentionally starving civilians, you can safely assume it’s because that nation is intentionally starving civilians. If you saw someone on social media loudly denying the latest allegations that they are a child molester over and over again for two years, you probably wouldn’t let them babysit your kids.”

Yeah, you probably wouldn’t but would it be fair to do so? Let’s ask Kevin Spacey, who despite complete and total exoneration, will probably suffer from accusations, jokes, libel, and slander for the rest of his life. The section on his Sexual-misconduct allegations is two short paragraphs that end with “not liable” and “acquitted”, although no-one will ever care that this happened because he is now fixed in people’s heads as a child-molester who can be the butt of cheap-ass comedians’ jokes until the end of time.

What I’m saying is, is that what you’ve posited is a bullshit argument, Caitlin. It’s one of the first where I’ve seen her let her emotions carry her from a logical argument, actually.

An accusation is not a fact, no matter how many times it’s repeated. What matters is evidence. The difference between theory and fact is credible evidence.

For example, the genocide in Xinjiang suffers from a major deficit of proof. There are some blurry satellite photos that purport to show what their publishers claim are concentration camps. They might as well be pointing out pareidolia in the surface of the moon.

In the case of Gaza, we don’t have to guess. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence of starvation, including proud and loud-throated declarations of intent by the perpetrators, who only switch to loud-throated denials when it is politically expedient for them to do so.

“You don’t see pro-China spinmeisters frantically churning out propaganda denying that China is intentionally starving civilians, because China is not intentionally starving civilians.”

Yes you do! Like, China has had to deny a genocide in Xinjiang for over a decade because the west will not shut up about it, will not stop accusing it, although the evidentiary basis is so thin as to be nonexistent.

In the case of China, we are seeing a heavy-handed integration of disparate cultural groups into a dominant culture. This happens everywhere. It’s not great but it is efficient. The U.S. is filled with monolingual citizens who refuse to learn a single word of Spanish and yell at everyone they can to “learn English!” This is also cultural annihilation, is it not?

But let’s not get into the philosophical weeds here, though. Suffice it to say that Caitlin’s argument here is specious and wrong but I forgive her the exaggeration. The photos and documentation in ’Starvation Is Everywhere’: Virtual Tours of Gaza Clinics Expose the Scale of the Horror by Yarden Michaeli and Nir Hasson (Haaretz) is very detailed and would be quite harrowing to someone with a sensitive heart and who’d perhaps not already been hardened by having seen this all before so many times.

This particular detail—that severe malnutrition or starvation during childhood development leads to retardation —is one that I have mentioned to people throughout the last two years. The goal of the deliberate starvation isn’t necessarily to actually starve everyone to death—though they’ll take it if they can get it!—but to cripple the next generation so that we don’t have to hear silly things like “there are so many Palestinian professors and doctors and engineers” anymore. Israel is trying to get Palestinians out of there. Starving them encourages them to move.

The future of GazaIf they don’t move, then making the entire next generation retarded is also a good fallback. They simply don’t care about those people as people. Their only concern is the logistics of moving that large amount of flesh out of Gaza. Dead bodies must be burned or buried. Healthy bodies take up more space—and they might fight back. Starved bodies? Much more compact. A bunch of retarded zombies? Still annoying but at least not that dangerous anymore.

For those of us who follow the topic, this is not news. It is documentation of the completely predictable end-game of what has been meticulously planned for decades and executed over the last two years. This documentation is vital but it is not surprising. Israel—and its allies—does not consider Palestinians to be humans. They are to be exterminated like prairie dogs who eat crops. People in the Israeli government probably read this Haaretz article with no small amount of joy because it confirms for them that their plan is working and that it is nearly complete.

The article documents the intent,

““The decision we made tonight on the total cessation of the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza is an important step,” Smotrich declared at the time. “Now we need to open the gates of hell on the enemy.”

“The gates of hell were indeed opened, and the price was paid, and is continuing to be paid, by the children of Gaza. As early as April, the UN’s food program announced that the last bakery in Gaza had shut down because it had no more flour or cooking gas. Official Israel was not fazed.”

The anti-Muslim sentiment that has been clearly prevalent for my entire lifetime (over five decades), and which rose to such heights after 9/11, is back with a vengeance. These beady-eyed and small-minded criminals never forget their goals. They want domination. And they want only their own kind. Their understanding of the world is limited to this. They know nothing of long-term solutions. They know nothing of morality. They know nothing but thinking in terms of zero-sum economies and the subsequent annihilation of the other.

Israel is probably hoping for a Punktlandung on October 7th so that it can celebrate the beginning of construction of a seaside resort with Netanyahu posing with his foot on a golden shovel, breaking ground into rubble.

Coincidentally, as I was reading this article, I was helping my family set up a big party (a baby shower), at which over 90 people would be in attendance. It’s a giant party for a single as-yet unborn baby with ungodly amounts of food. There was so much food that, even with 10 extra guests that brought the grand total to a neat 100 people, much of it wasn’t even eaten. Afterward, we were sitting in the kitchen, in the aftermath, looking at panfuls of macaroni&cheese, potato salad, meatballs, and more, wondering what we can freeze, what we can donate to friends, family, and neighbors (no-one really took anything home from the party), or, as I suggested, whether there’s a soup kitchen that could use some food.

The irony is hopefully painfully clear.

This video presents an excellent topic on which to shine the spotlight. Unfortunately, Oliver spends a bit too much time with “pooping on pigeon” jokes and too little time on examining the root causes of why corporate crime goes largely unpunished or lightly punished while personal crime is punished incredibly harshly.

Deferred Prosecution Agreements by Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (YouTube)

It’s somewhat obvious to say that a just society would seek to build and grow a system in which most of the members can thrive. Sometimes, something bad needs to be pruned away. But how do you decide what is bad? When something causes harm to other members, it is bad. A corporation whose practices impoverish or kill other members should be made to stop doing that.

A corporation comprises many other entities, many of which do not need to be punished—or, even, morally, shouldn’t be punished—so how do you punish a corporation for malfeasance? It’s actually somewhat easier than with a person, because a corporation doesn’t have an indivisible soul or consciousness. You can, within reason, split it, reduce it, fine it, change leadership, etc. in order to retain the good parts while reducing and/or punishing the bad.

The reason that doesn’t happen is corruption and an utter lack of principle in the leaders of society. The way our system works is to lift up the worst assholes in society while impoverishing those who are unwilling to take immoral advantage of others in order to get ahead. We end up with an elite that comprises no-nothing assholes who are more than willing to defend and rescue each other in order to maintain the myth that they should be at the top.

So, when a corporation commits crimes, the people who would be in charge of determining the size of the punishment also happen to be directly invested in that corporation, and they most likely personally benefitted enormously from that corporation’s malfeasance. What is their incentive for preventing that malfeasance from recurring? What would be the incentive for punishing the people involved in the malfeasance at that corporation, when they simply did what they themselves would also have done to aggrandize themselves?

Summering in AcupulcoWhy would they do that when those people are most likely their friends and their children most likely attend the same private schools, when they most likely winter in Acapulco together?

The part that this piece completely misses is the endemic nature of the problem. The reason that corporate crime goes unpunished is that the elites, the wealthy, the powerful, the legislators, the authorities, are all in bed together. They don’t even really consider it a crime when a corporation kills people—those aren’t really people at all, since they don’t know them or anyone like them.

The article Will Trump’s Working-Class Base Turn on Him? by Yanis Varoufakis (Project Syndicate) writes,

“I, too, hope and pray that Trump’s working-class base will rebel against a president who so readily betrayed them. But I suspect they might not.”

I know they won’t. I just spent almost four weeks among a good sampling of them. They are heavily propagandized and well-trained to ignore anything and everything that they might accidentally hear that might cause an otherwise principled person to at least consider reconsidering their opinion of the magnificence of every single proclamation made from on high by their great golden leader.

“Today, Trump is also peddling two interlocking dreams. One is the dream of crypto riches, reflecting a novel assault on the common good – a campaign to privatize the dollar – that previous Republican presidents lacked the technology even to imagine. Coupled with the AI frenzy, this has triggered not only a bonanza for Wall Street and Silicon Valley, but also fresh optimism among Trump’s working-class base. A significant segment of his MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) movement, blind to the enormous risks of this new variant of the something-for-nothing mentality that led to the subprime mortgage debacle, dreams of future non-wage sources of income. Trump may be robbing them of food stamps and Medicaid, but he is the conjuror of magical forms of wealth with an “anti-system” aura.”

This is spectacular-sounding analysis and I’m sure Yanis is proud of it. I want to agree wholeheartedly but nagging at me is that I don’t think that either Trump or his flock understand any of what was written above in anything approaching concrete, rational, recognizably logical, or comprehensible terms.

Instead, I fear that they’re mostly just acting on instinct, snuffling for personal wealth. Their completely broken bullshit meters allow them to believe nearly any vague and wholly unsubstantiated—if not outright impossible and reality-bending—rumor. They combine this with an extraordinary resistance to admitting that they might have ever been wrong about anything, even when doubling down is clearly detrimental to not only themselves but everything they know.

In order to get angry or critical, you’ve got to first admit that you’ve been hoodwinked into something you didn’t want and that you’re going to have a hard time getting out of. People are not willing to do that.

For example, I have exactly one friend who could be honest about being fleeced, who freely admitted that Amazon was ripping him off because Prime Video used to be included in a Prime membership. Soon after, it became $4 per month, and now it’s up to $16 per month and there are 2-3 commercial breaks per movie.

Dr. Evil, his plastic wife, and his Freudian rocketOther people I talked to just talked about how expensive the licensing must be for Amazon while they admitted to coughing up an extra few bucks per month to turn off the advertisements. For now. They’re just cucks, really, making apologies for Jeff Bezos while he’s sending his wife into orbit for fun, using their prime-subscription money.

The article MAGA 2.0: Making China Great Again by Dean Baker (CounterPunch) writes that,

“[…] we also need to come to grips with a world where the United States is still a very important actor, but no longer the world’s dominant economic power.”

That’s going to be a giant tantrum that will shake the world and ruin untold lives. We can only hope that there’s anything left once the U.S. is finished throwing its toys out of the pram.

“There is no inherent problem with a country other than the United States having the dominant world economy. After all, the rest of the world dealt with it for the last 100 years, and most countries did just fine. However, the United States would be much better positioned to deal with China as the pre-eminent economic power if we had leaders who lived in the real world. We don’t at present, and it is not clear at what point in the future this could change.”

We haven’t had leaders like that for any time during this transitional period (i.e. during the decline of empire): Obama could not shut up about how exceptional America is, neither can Trump and neither could Biden. The U.S. is not capable of accepting multilaterality, culturally, philosophically, and socially. It is a machine that has been built to do one thing: plunder. It cannot do this from a non-dominant position. It will not deal with this well, as is apparent from the histrionics and tantrums of the Trump administration.

The article Roaming Charges: From of the Mouths of Madness by Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch) discussed several interesting news items.

ICE

St. Clair started off with a few items about immigration:

“Cost of painting Trump’s border wall black: $500 million.

“ICE recently shelled out $2.4 million for a fleet of new trucks and SUVs, which were custom detailed with gold wraps reading “DEFEND THE HOMELAND, INTEGRITY, COURAGE, and ENDURANCE.”

“ICE has lowered the hiring standards (it will no longer require agents working the southern border to speak Spanish) and raised the salaries for ICE agents. The starting salary is now $90,000 with a $50,000 signing bonus.”

I guess they’re having trouble finding people to work for them?

These people are all malignant toddlers smashing their toys and throwing them out of the pram. As they feel the power they’ve arrogated to themselves, they will get much more dangerous. It will be short-lived, as anything this maniacal and divorced from reality must be, but there will be so much damage and ruined lives

All of this is, at its root, racism. It is a deeply racist policy that treats anyone with a different last name and brown skin as being from a plethora of interchangeable countries. No-one cares whether someone is from Venezuela or El Salvador or Pakistan; it doesn’t matter whether the details of the accusation are completely false. None of this invalidates the accusation: you don’t belong here and we will make you suffer and then throw you out.

It doesn’t matter where you’re from; we don’t think that you’re from here—you’re most certainly not one of us—so you’re not human. Citizens of the U.S. barely have rights anymore. Anyone trapped here who’s not a citizen of the U.S. is vermin, to be tortured for pleasure and then removed from sight—it doesn’t matter how.

Immigration Enforcement by Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (YouTube)

Mispronouncing “Mamdani”

“While Fox News is having a meltdown over Mamdani’s plans for a few city-owned grocery stores, the Trump Administration is buying up massive stakes in US corporations…”

Yeah, someone here tried to engage me on Mamdani but I didn’t believe that he was of good faith about it, so I demurred. I simply said that the people will choose their mayor, as it should be … and that Cuomo is a giant piece of shit. He couldn’t disagree because (A) Cuomo absolutely and provably is that and (B) he’s also a Democrat, which is all the proof a Republican needs.

The person pretended to not be able to pronounce Mamdani, to which I had to reply that the name had only seven letters and none of them were mysteriously pronounced. Sure, Cuomo has two fewer letters but pronouncing Mamdani correctly shouldn’t be too challenging for anyone of reasonable intelligence and linguistic facility. But these people do pretty much what FOX News says. So, if FOX News says that it’s difficult to pronounce Mamdani, then they’ll stumble over those seven letters like they can barely read or speak.

“Mamdani told the press this week that Cuomo is still running because “Andrew Cuomo is someone who doesn’t understand that no means no.” He’s good.”

He’s used that one before but it’s not yet gotten old.

Personal Aggrandizement

“Florida Senator Rick Scott disclosed $26,000,000 in stock trades.”

These people are looters and plunderers. Their work in government is 100% to grease the wheels for their personal enrichment. They will never support a policy that they see as being detrimental to themselves, even were it to be very beneficial for everyone else. The only way to get anything like that to happen is to fool them into believing a communally valuable law would be personally valuable as well—which, despite their stupidity, is not so easy because they are quite cunning about personal profit—or to get rid of them. Depressingly, the former is a much more plausible path than the latter.

Terrible negotiating skills

“Stephen Walt on the abbreviated Trump-Putin summit: “Trump is a terrible negotiator, a true master of the ‘art of the giveaway.’ He doesn’t prepare, doesn’t have subordinates lay the groundwork beforehand, and arrives at each meeting not knowing what he wants or where his red lines are. He just wings it.””

Honestly, that’s even a generous appraisal of his abilities. It doesn’t mention how easily he’s led by his ego or how naturally illogical he is. He is not a smart man. He is cunning. He has charisma. He succeeds against other base creatures like himself, the kind which almost exclusively fill the elite ranks of business and government. His charisma and cunning work on them because they see themselves in him. They wish to be him. They, too, have no principles and would do anything for their own personal enrichment, so they can’t help but respect the player and the game, kowtowing immediately in the hope that some of the riches they grant him with feigned subservience will be returned ten-fold. They don’t care if a rising tide lifts all boats, so long as it lifts their boat.

Trump probably looks good in shorts

Trump in shorts

“Trump on the US hosting the World Cup: “I may play…I’m a very good athlete. My son is a good athlete. A good soccer player. On the tall side for soccer…I may put on shorts, I look extremely good in shorts, and join the play.””

This is probably the craziest quote I’ve heard from Trump. I don’t even think he was kidding. He’s just like a machine that says that he’s the best in the world at whatever he happens to be talking about. He’s the world’s leading expert on grass. He’s a great soccer player, at almost 80 years old and looking like he hasn’t taken a quick step in about 40 years. He would look great in shorts. I want to think that he’s taking the piss, but I think he’s deadly serious, in his own mind, in his own world. He’s delusional.

The article That Big, Beautiful Summit in Alaska by Patrick Lawrence (Scheer Post), although informative, ascribes much more consistency and reasoning to ‘Trump and his administration’s actions than the situation warrants. For example, much is made of Trump’s statement that he wants to end the war in Ukraine.

“No Western leader, if you have not noticed, has ever called for an end to the war. None among them has ever mentioned a peace accord for the simple reason the Western powers do not want peace with Russia. It is with this statement, then, that Trump signaled his determination to chart new territory.”

Sure, he might have said it. But will it happen? Highly unlikely. Trump says a lot on a long day. (From the original in Swiss-German: Trump seit viel, wann de Tag lang isch or in German: Trump sagt viel, wann der Tag lang ist..)

“To say Trump aligned with Putin, or got played or otherwise capitulated, is another way, a simpleton’s or cynic’s way, of denying or veiling reality. In my read, Trump listened to Putin’s case and has concluded, Yes, he is right. This is the ultimate reality long at issue and long unsayable. Trump has done no less and no more than speak this truth at last. The rest is rubbish.”

This is an incredibly charitable and hopeful—and, most likely, hopelessly optimistic—interpretation of Trump’s actions. The man is completely unpredictable. There is no through-line to his so-called reasoning. He seems to do whatever pops into his head at any time, often contradicting himself and his espoused principles, aims, and goals in one paragraph, and then seeming to enjoy spewing a stream of bullshit that purports to reconcile everything into a coherent worldview.

As one of history’s greatest con-men, perhaps he’s enjoying skating ever-closer to the line of completely unbelievable fabulation, trying to determine just how far he can go into utter unreality before his entire castle of lies collapses. He hasn’t found it yet. The more he lies, the more he declares that reality is wrong, the more people kowtow to him. He’s saying what they want to hear. The elites of other countries are in deep trouble and have no idea how to extricate themselves with their fortunes intact. Trump offers a way; follow him to a glorious future.

“Let us all look past the mountain ranges of propaganda, cognitive warfare, perception management and what have you and say what Trump is now saying: It is time to acknowledge forthrightly that Putin is right about the war and its causes, about the Biden regime’s purposeful provocations, about the larger questions of which it is merely a subset and about how most sensibly to negotiate a lasting settlement in the borderlands between Europe and Russia”

Trump's Nobel Peace PrizeThat is what we hope that Trump might be fooled into thinking he wants, if he can be convinced that this is a thing that will make him look good to people whose approval he desperately seeks. Or, good God, if it might get him a Nobel prize, in what would be a bribe more useful than having bestowed the prize on Kissinger or Obama.

The article Military Industrial Simple by Indrajit Samarajiva (Indi.ca) describes the U.S. empire in terms of a “bust out”, which is what an organization like the mafia does to businesses that they’ve otherwise bled dry. The bust-out is then setting the business premises on fire to collect the insurance money. He writes,

“LIghting the joint on fireA bust-out works where the mafia takes control of your restaurant (say), runs up bills on the joints credit, steals or sells goods out the back, and never pays the debt back. When it all goes to shit, they burn the place down for the insurance money, or just leave. This is broadly what private-equity (La Cosa Nostra for less spicy whites) has done to the US as a whole, ever since Ike warned about the military industrial complex. They took control of the American Republic after World War II, ran up forever war bills on the joint’s credit, overcharge or just steal money out the unauditable Pentagon, and never pay the mounting debt back. Now it’s all going shit and they’re burning the place down, dumping and pumping the entire US economy in a last orgy of insider trading.”

“A white-collar bust-out describes the military industrial complex from the imperial perspective. It’s the art of the steal, looting the imperial treasury by losing imperial wars. They don’t want the Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Ukrainian governments to succeed, they just want them to bleed (money) then move onto the next hypocrisy. It’s ultimately the good faith and credit of the US Republic that’s being busted out, used to fund a war machine that doesn’t work except for laundering money back into the Beltway Mafia.”

The Beltway Mafia are parasites, killing the host. But they’ve never learned to care because there has always been another host. But where do you go when you kill the biggest host around? Do they even think that far? Or do they only think: if I don’t do it, someone else will. And where will that leave me? Might as well get while the getting’s good. In an unprincipled landscape where there are literally no cultural or moral barriers holding back behavior destructive to the very fabric of society, there isn’t any other possible conclusion.

He makes another excellent point, writing that the U.S. causes all of the problems that its military is there to purportedly solve.

“America acts so troubled by the problems in the world, but that’s like a soap company acting troubled by dirt. It’s just advertising, and CNN and BBC get their cut of the blood money accordingly. America is the world’s biggest arms dealer and they create the world’s biggest problems and embiggen them through privatized propaganda. They create both supply and demand, forming a vicious circle that drives their business cycle.”

This is an excellent way of thinking about this, one that I hadn’t thought about before and which I will definitely be using in the future.

It is undisputed that the U.S. has the biggest military in the world, by at least an order of magnitude. It is similarly undisputed that the U.S. is the world biggest arms dealer, almost by the same margin. It is also the source of much of the world’s propaganda, marketing, and cultural influence.

How in God’s name do people think that these are not all working hand-in-hand? Of course the U.S.‘s immense propaganda organization is being used to convince the world that it needs the weapons that the U.S. creates. What else could it possibly be for? This is a country that has been run like a business for at least a century, if not longer.

It is doing what seemingly every large capitalist organization does: rather than considering in any way whether what it has to offer is of any value, it leverages the lucre it has accumulated from its prior antisocial behavior grants it to influence and strong-arm unwilling customers to continue buying its product, in an endless cycle of violence and futility.

As noted by Samarajiva , this description matches perfectly the creeds espoused in Goodfellas and The Sopranos. The 2022 book The Withdrawal by Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad describes the exact same mechanism.

Samarajiva goes on to explain that not only is the U.S. the biggest purveyor of violence, not only does it sell the most weapons in a world it considers hostile, as a way of justifying their own level of violence, but they’re not even interesting in “winning” the wars or battles they purport to be fighting—because that would end the lucrative market that they’ve created.

“It’s also much better if your solutions don’t actually work. The bombs just need to look like they work, so the suckers keep buying more. Thus America creates more terrorism everywhere they go to ‘eliminate terrorism’ (like in AFRICOM). Why the fuck would they want to eliminate terrorism? This would be like Dove eliminating dirt. They’re homicidal, not suicidal.”

And the U.S.—and most western—media is in on the game, getting their cut of the deal in exchange for selling the idea that the U.S. empire is dead-set on doing the thing that there is no way they would ever want to do: put an end to war and make peace.

“America loses repeatedly to nouns (terrorism, drugs, poverty) because they’re ultimately about numbers, everything else is just marketing. There is no sincerity in the American news any more than during the commercials. They are no more sincere about human rights and democracy than Coke is sincere about you having a good time with your friends.”

That is a devastatingly good description of the U.S. and its captured media. Samarajiva finishes up the bust-out analogy by putting Trump’s role in perspective.

“All that’s left is the dénouement of every bust-out. As Henry Hill said, “and then finally, when there’s nothing left, and when you can’t borrow another buck from the bank [coming] or buy another case of booze, you bust the joint out. You light a match.” And thus finally, from this perspective, Trump is not some aberration. He is the historical arsonist, arriving right on schedule.”

This is an eviscerating satire of the nattering careerist nabobs, unprincipled hypocrites all of them.

Writer can no longer stay silent by Tadhg Hickey (YouTube)

“JanusJanice McUturn here, writer. Guys, I think we can all agree, the images coming out of Gaza this week, they’ve ripped my heart out and flung it against a wall.

“It’s unacceptable and I now—through enormous personal courage, actually—I’m ready to use that blasted G-word. It’s a [whispered] genocide guys. I’m ready to tell you that it’s a [whispered] genocide guys and I can no longer stay silent.

“That’s what it is. I can no longer stay silent. Now, I was kind of delighted to stay silent for the last 19 months as many within my industry were paying the ultimate price for sticking their head above the parapet and just calling it what any sentient being would have to concede is a live-stream genocide—mostly people of color, by the way—but sure that was great for me. Less competition.

“But, I do feel now is the moment for me to come in. I mean, if you come in too early, you could be labeled an Islamist—whatever that means—come in too late, you’re a Holocaust denier. I feel, by coming in now, I’ve given myself the best chance of being commercially viable to both sides in a post-genocide world.

“Look, as a writer, I think we can all agree that’s where all the great literature comes from, doesn’t it? Just sitting on the fence, seeing which way the wind will blow and then going in the direction most expedient to one’s career?

“Now, if the wind blows the other way again, I just want to put on record, one more time, October 7th [Yells] Aaaaahhh! Absolutely condemn it in the strongest possible terms—like sick—but, uh, but yeah, just praying for peace, guys. [Simpers] Namaste.”

Scott Ritter is on fire in this interview about Donald Trump’s and Marco Rubio’s foolishness and evil.

Scott Ritter : Can Trump Bring Peace to Ukraine? by Judge Napolitano (YouTube)

“[…] what’s going on here is: Donald Trump is too stupid to live. I want him to succeed. I really do. I want every president to succeed but this is a man, and you just said it, ‘I don’t know if I will support the Constitution’—then get the hell out of the office! Because you took an oath to uphold and defend that Constitution and now you’re saying it’s too complicated for you?!? It’s too hard? It’s too expensive? Get the hell out! America is about the Constitution! It’s the only thing we’re about! We are defined by that document! And, when you deviate from that document, you say [that] you are un-American. And I’m here telling you, Donald Trump, you’re the most un-American son of a bitch that’s ever sat in the White House and that says a lot because I wasn’t a big fan of Joe Biden either.”

“I was optimistic early on that it would sink into Donald Trump’s dense little
orange head, but it didn’t. This is a narcissist. He can’t handle the fact that
Putin is going to win the war and Donald Trump isn’t going to get credit. That,
when this war ends, it’s going to be Putin’s victory. He can’t handle it. This man is so jealous of what’s going to happen on May 9th he can’t stand the fact that Vladimir Putin is going to sit there and have a victorious army march by celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany. Trump could have been standing side by
side with him but he can’t stand the fact that Jinping’s going to be there, that the Chinese leader is going to be there, that the world is going to be there,
Modi’s going to be there, everybody’s going to be there but him. Because Donald Trump doesn’t matter, not to Russia, not to China, and that’s the reality and he can’t stand this. This is a narcissist that we elected…

“Napolitano: But he could have gone [to Russia], and then he could have stayed for a week. And he could have cut a grand reset with Modi, with Xi, and with Putin. That’s what you and I and everybody on this show has urged him to do. And I guess Rubio said ‘don’t.‘

“Scott RitterRitter: Well, Rubio is the most un-American Secretary of State you can
imagine because Marco Rubio cares about Israel and he cares about the neocons. Those are the two forces that have combined to destroy this country.”

“Donald Trump could have won the Nobel Peace Prize. There could have been a signing ceremony on May 10th in Moscow, where Donald Trump ended the conflict in Ukraine and started working side by side with the Russians to end the conflict in the Middle East and create peace and prosperity everywhere. Then he wouldn’t have to commit suicide, you know, economically, with this stupidity of tariffs. Donald Trump could have been the leader America needs. Instead, he’s just a narcissistic idiot who sits there and puts out pictures of him[self] as pope, says he doesn’t respect the Constitution, and he doesn’t know a damn thing about Russia.”

I snipped the following citation from the article “When The Banality Of Evil Becomes Normalized, It Grows Unchecked.” by Francesca Albanese (ZNetwork) about a month ago.

“[…] the situation in the West Bank is not fundamentally different from what is happening to the Palestinian people as a whole. In Gaza, the attack has been genocidal in its intensity, but the same logic of destruction is being applied in the West Bank — though in a way that garners less attention, with fewer visible explosions. Palestinian communities are being forcibly displaced, their homes demolished, their hospitals destroyed, their farmlands burned.

“What worries me most is whether the world will recognize this genocide for what it is — the ability to see Israel’s violence as a systematic attack on the Palestinian people as a whole, across the entire occupied territory. Because that is exactly what it is.”

Gazan WastelandRecently, there have been murmurs of dissent from more fronts than usual. What did it take? It took Israel pushing the starvation so far that there are alarmed reports that 14,000 babies and children will likely starve to death in the next 48 hours. What did they all think was going to happen without food? Without drinking water?

They could have listened to their allies in Israel who explicitly and often said that the intent is to starve them until they leave. Or die. Either way.

But there were complaints. U.S. Senators were saying that they could no longer claim the moral high ground if Israel made the genocide this obvious. Apparently, things were just fine a few days ago, but now the balance is off. So israel threw a few crumbs over the fence. And the world will be satisfied that something is being done. And the weapons will flow.

This is, of course, madness. It is the height of cynicism.

Almost anyone you can talk to in the west is largely and at best mildly embarrassed to hear Palestine mentioned in otherwise polite conversation.

These days, people only get stirred up if the press is stirring them up. If the press uses that power to keep them from getting stirred up, then they’ll remain calm for a long time, anesthetized by propaganda.

Also, let’s be honest: most people know on which side their bread is buttered. When they weigh their pensions funds’ performance or their employment against the lives of a bunch of people clinging to tattered tents in a desert wasteland—who aren’t even really people, right? They’re animals, savages, criminals, terrorists—then personal interest wins out nearly every single time.

The west will pretend to care when it’s too late to save anyone.

That is all that is happening now.

I really like Chris Hedges as a writer, as a journalist, and as a person. He has impeccable instincts and principles. I don’t think that there is any way that he doesn’t know who Jason Stanley actually is. He interviewed him anyway, so that we could all have a look at how someone can sound like they’re on your side when they’re really falling far short.

Erasing History: How Fascism Works (w/ Jason Stanley) by The Chris Hedges Report (YouTube)

I waited long minutes to see if Stanley would discuss which current genocide is leading to the crackdown on universities, and realized that he was never going to. He incredibly adroitly avoided even discussing for a second WHY the universities have been cracking down on protest. The only mention of Palestine, Israel, or Zionism came from Chris, to which Stanley at least nodded relatively vigorously. He did not take the bait, though, instead keeping vague or instead taking a U.S.-domestic example of the “Michigan Management Act,” which to him I suppose has more salience to the discussion of modern colonialism than Palestine. I find myself utterly unsurprised that this interview focused laser-like on domestic policy.

On top of that, Stanley is also an American exceptionalist, unabashedly saying that the U.S.‘s education system is the best in the world—like a goddamned hayseed—and even doubling down and saying that no-one can even name a university in France or anywhere else. “Maybe the Sorbonne, ” he admitted. That’s a lesson in how to tell us how you really feel without telling us how you really feel. Even within the English-speaking world, Oxford and Cambridge come to mind. I’m sure China, the Arab world, Russia, Africa, etc. all have their own institutions of learning that they consider to be vastly superior to the elite indoctrination factories of the U.S.—factories like Stanley’s employer Yale.

One commentator said that this guy’s book was good, and in the same virtual breath, recommended Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny. I feel Timothy Snyder is not even close to fighting in the same morally clear weight class as Chris Hedges. Snyder’s book “On Tyranny”, though quite short, felt long. It was very much about Trump but didn’t mention him by name, positing 20 “rules” about tyranny, many of which were obvious reformulations of each other, and almost all of which were so vague that they often felt more like horoscopes. I’m mystified how he’s so popular or how he’s even a professor. I haven’t read “Black Earth”, though. Perhaps that’s better. But I doubt it.

Stanley is also a professor at Yale. It seems that that school is expert in hiring people who can very carefully discuss fascism, colonialism, and empire without ever discussing any of the parts that they consider too unsavory to mention. While some might chastise Hedges for not having pushed him on it, I think it was a good interview about what Stanley’s book likely contains, it stayed very much on a topic on which Chris has written, and it very much gave Stanley enough rope to hang himself by giving him ample opportunity to show us the very obvious—and immoral—lacunae in what he’s willing to discuss. Instead, Stanley very often took his examples from Nazis and Hitler’s Mein Kampf—over 80 years ago—and didn’t mention anything about U.S. foreign policy.

Even when discussing how fascists want to control schools and education in order to indoctrinate a love of one’s own nation, to the exclusion of all others, he mentioned only the U.S. It’s possible that he’s unfamiliar with the extreme level of indoctrination in Israel but I’m not buying it. I just think that he has carved out an immoral exception for Israel. It is tantamount to refusing to discuss it. This is intellectually and morally bankrupt.

This entire interview became a fascinating study in psychology and self-brainwashing. He didn’t even seem to have to dance around the subject of Israel to avoid slipping up. He simply had trained himself not to see it as a glaring example of all of the evils he discussed—fascism, educational control and indoctrination, propaganda and hate against the “other”, erasing history, colonialism, and genocide. He cheerily discussed all of these topics—in early 2025—and didn’t mention Israel once.

His book is called “Erasing History” and he didn’t spend one minute talking about Israel’s incredible campaign of indoctrination that convinces otherwise perfectly nice people to be ravening monsters against specific groups of people, and to consider theft, rape, murder, and even genocide to be not only ok but morally necessary when directed at those people. I keep using the word “people” as if Palestinians are considered people by most Israelis. I wonder whether Stanley thinks that they’re people?

Even when Chris had to point out that Stalinists didn’t kill the entire family, whereas Nazis did (when Stanley was starting to rail against communism as if it were worse than Nazism, like a good little, well-indoctrinated U.S.-American), Stanley agreed that that was “genocide” because they’d “killed entire families”, but then blew right past it. “That’s a great point, Chris.” Chris’s impassivity here was impressive because we absolutely know what he was thinking.

Stanley is a scholar for the state. He talks about fascist indoctrination and seems to be utterly unaware that his Israel lacuna is also indoctrination. His contribution is more insidious, in that he pretends to be against fascism but he’s just really against fascism that isn’t Israeli fascism. Look, I may be wrong about this, and he may just be utterly ignorant of what Israel is doing and he might be shocked—simply shocked—to find out what’s been going on.

Even toward the end, they discuss how “these are smart guys”—Trump, Cruz, etc.—who’ve been educated in the highest institutions of the U.S. Still, nothing. He doesn’t see the irony. He won’t see the irony that he teaches at Yale and he’s indoctrinating his students to not see Israel as fascism, colonialism, or genocidal. He just doesn’t see it.

To be clear, Trump et. al. have the same lacuna about Israel as Stanley and Snyder, but they don’t purport to be against fascism—instead, they openly embrace it as the way things should be run.

Late in the discussion, Stanley says “the opinion page of the NYT says that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are run by communist agitators,” but that’s such a strawman! Of course the elite institutions in charge of indoctrinating the next custodians of empire, each with endowments in the dozens of billions of dollars aren’t communist. This guy’s not very intellectually interesting except as an example of how an indoctrination system can produce people that seem like they’re supportive but are actually counterproductive. The best statements came from Chris.

When Chris cites about corruption from Stanley’s book and Chris says that “that’s the Trump administration right there,” Stanley responds with “and Putin” because he is, in the end, a good little liberal lapdog who almost certainly still believes in most of Russiagate and the Steele Dossier. I mean, he’s not bad, you know?

He says things like “when they say they’re against corruption, they just mean that the wrong corrupt people are in charge.” and “this is why unions are so important.” Yes! That’s right! But I can’t help but think that this dude only pops back up after having slept for four years during the Biden administration—because obviously there was nothing fascist, anti-democratic, or actively suppressive of free expression going on then.

He’s a good potential ally but he needs a few more rounds of deprogramming because his blind spots will make him incapable of focusing on the methods with the most leverage. It’s inconvenient to rail against an erasure of history while clearly suffering from a self-imposed version of the same.

A commentator on the video writes,

“He wants to equate anything done against universities with antisemitism, I guess. And I find that absurd. Hedges gently suggested that universities are deeply conservative servants of American power systems, but Jason would rather pretend that only Orange Man Bad.

“I’m not too clear on the rant as a whole. When they started talking about projection, haha! Government criminality is suddenly perceptible now that Trump is in office, but not before?”

To which I answered,

My thoughts exactly. Stanley is fine. He’s a potential ally. He has an enormous Israel lacuna. He has but a pale shadow of the moral and historical clarity that Chris has.

I am a more-than-occasional critic of John Oliver’s “criticism lite,” which takes aim only at pre-approved targets, perhaps most recently in John Oliver and SNL don’t cause enough offense. I do not expect him to say a word about Israel, for example, until the entire rest of the establishment media has indicated that the coast is clear.

Still, this video about the odious ADF is a good and funny entry in the war against stupid and disingenuous.

Alliance Defending Freedom: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) by LastWeekTonight (YouTube)

At about 07:40,

“One of its key founders was James Dobson, a man who looks less like a real person and more like AI’s answer to the question, “What do they look like without their hoods?””

Boom. 🎤 💧

At about 16:00,

“John: […] this testimony from a teenage girl named Grace about what had happened to her team at her state softball tournament

“Grace: We stepped onto the field motivated to go in and play our hardest and to display how hard we’d trained. But that spirit of determination was quickly dampened with one of confusion and doubt when we discovered that our opponents were fielding a biological male who identified as a female. Our entire team’s focus and motivation was affected as we grappled with the impact of this new player. Sure enough our opposing team won. The boy gave them an edge both physically and mentally that we couldn’t match. I had heard stories like this happening to other girls in other states but I never expected it would happen at my school.

“John: Well, I’ve got great news for you: it didn’t. It didn’t happen at your school at all because it turned out there was no trans girl on the opposing team. That team’s coach even told us “they only thought she was trans because she had short hair and was good.” [😂 ] And, while Grace’s team did lose, they also lost 16-6—an ass-whooping so bad no one player could be responsible for it. And, on top of all that, Grace isn’t just any old high schooler. It turns out she’s actually the daughter of Kristen Wagner. She’s basically the ultimate transphobic Nepo baby or, to put it more winsomely, transphobic person of nepotistic descent.”

At about 29:00,

“A metaphor for the ADFADF, though, is something different. It’s worked extremely hard to put a misleadingly friendly face on what is an utterly hateful ideology. And it benefits immensely from people not knowing just how poisonous and disingenuous it is.

“But for the record, this is a group that will talk winsomely about personal liberty, all while fearmongering about softball players that don’t exist, shitty studies that don’t apply,
and pedophile cakes that no one will ever order.

“And it might actually be important for everyone to know that at the end of the day, ADF at its core is really a lot like the pews at an imaginary donkey wedding, which is to say, absolutely full of shit.”

Are You Racist? by George Galloway | Oxford Union (YouTube)

I’d never seen this, so it’s new to me. Eleven years ago, George Galloway refused to debate an Israeli about apartheid. He claims that he was misled and would never have agreed to it. Of course, people claimed that he was being racist. He clarified in a manner that only a handful of people could, off the cuff and magisterially.

“[…] George Gallowaybecause of my time in South Africa, because of the decades that I worked against apartheid in South Africa, do you imagine that I would turn up at a university and debate apartheid with a supporter from South Africa of the apartheid system? I’d rather punch him in the face than debate with him. Why? Because apartheid is a racist poison. It is the worst kind of fascism and I would never debate with any supporter of South African apartheid, so why should I debate with a supporter of Israeli apartheid?”

On a side note, it continues to be utterly shameful that the Google transcription service doesn’t know certain words. The automatic transcription service could be a miracle of modern technology. It has instead been turned into trash by the idiots in charge of it. They neuter it with their policy. Instead of teaching it how to recognize curse words and eliding them, why don’t you teach it proper capitalization and punctuation? Why don’t you teach it the word “apartheid”, which it reliably fucks up six ways to Sunday, probably because some Israeli and Turkish pressure groups are saying ix-nay on the partheid-a-ay.

Another great book interview by Chris Hedges, again with an extremely erudite author who’s written a book about Gaza. Their discussion ranges to places that most are unwilling to go, like: why should the rest of the world grant primacy to the Jewish holocaust as a historical occurrence? Why should they even know about it when they’ve suffered their own holocausts, at the hands of the same empire that is browbeating them to bow in obeisance to the memory of the horror of the last holocaust it actually helped to stop.

The World After Gaza (w/ Pankaj Mishra) by The Chris Hedges Report (YouTube)

At 12:53,

“Pankaj: There is an accusation, which is often leveled against many people in Asian countries and African countries that they are indulging in holocaust-denial. And, often, there are people in Asia and Africa who are either really ignorant about this monstrous act of violence—which is the holocaust—and often there are people who are very extremely underinformed.

“And I think what is much less remarked upon, is the extraordinary level of a version of holocaust-denial in western countries. The fact that there is this long past of imperialism, of slavery, of enormous violence inflicted on many different parts of the world, many different populations across the world. If you today try to bring this up, or try to talk about it, you’d be denounced as a member of some woke conspiracy and dismissed or stigmatized or denounced. But this is something that’s been going on for an extremely long time, and I think among the other consequences, this has had an effect of seriously crippling any attempt at understanding the world as it exists today.

“The World After Gaza by Pankaj MishraThe fact that large parts of the world have a cultural memory, a historical memory of the atrocities that were inflicted on those parts of the world by western powers. And that that has actually gone into the making of their collective identity. And that that is how they see themselves in the world. That’s how they position themselves in the world. And of course that narrative—that they believe in—is now much, much more antagonistic, much more, in-a-way assertive, especially when it comes into contact with these western self-flattering narratives about how the west beat down two major totalitarian regimes, how it liberated the sort of Jews of Auschwitz, just very recently…

“Chris: which—I just want to interrupt—which, you as you point out in the book, isn’t true historically. The Soviets liberated almost all them [the concentration and death camps]

“Pankaj: Of course. […] There are ways in which you can spin all this, spin D-Day as far more important than all the contributions of the Red Army. The way in which history is taught in large parts of Western Europe and the United States, the fact that you still had as late as the early 2000s, the BBC broadcasting a documentary about the British Empire that made the British seem a globally benevolent force. It’s not at all surprising that there would be, today, amplifying propaganda about what is happening in Gaza today. These have been propagandist outfits for some time, sort of indoctrinating, brainwashing large populations. And so, I think this is a really serious problem that has to be addressed.”

In the chapter “The fundamental truths of the Holocaust”, they talk about how even renowned critics like Primo Levi noted that a terrible side-effect of the Holocaust was the “unleashing of evil”, as if the centuries of colonialism wrought upon the Global South (called the “Third World” at t the time) weren’t evil.

This institutional elision of evil perpetrated by the west against others is a real problem for being able to process current events and for choosing a way forward for the world. The Vietnamese are not, in any way, obligated to remember or to even know about the Holocaust (capitalized to emphasize its unique evil), as they have dedicated their institutional memory to the holocaust perpetrated against them by France, the United States, and a complacent west.

Pretending cancel culture never existed

Let’s start with a terrible take from a terrible source: the article The big idea: what do we really mean by free speech? by Farrah Jarral (Guardian) writes,

“What the right calls cancel culture, philosopher Arianne Shahvisi writes, “is often just the supersized celebrity version of what the rest of us experience all the time: consequences for our mistakes and bigotries. You do something shitty and people distance themselves from you, especially if you refuse to acknowledge your wrongdoing and make amends.””

This is why the Guardian is utter trash: they cite a philosopher, who expresses such a lowbrow analysis to reassure everyone that even philosophers agree with the dumb-ass, super-simplistic, and obviously wrong interpretation that they’re going to present. Do you want to be the dumbass who disagrees with a philosopher, whose job it literally is to think for a living?

The problem that reasonable people might have with cancel culture isn’t that they might be ostracized for doing “something shitty”. Obviously, that’s how people work—and how they’ve always worked. No-one wants to hang around shitty people who annoy or enrage them.

The problem that is of more concern is when people are ostracized for having the wrong opinions, ones that are perfectly legitimate to have. Everyone has a different idea of what they consider to be “firing offenses”. Some would think you should get fired for not supporting Israel hard enough. Is it being shitty to not support Israel? Is it being shitty to not support Ukraine? Is it being shitty not to care either way?

The article is just another in a long line of articles from a supposedly left-leaning periodical by a supposedly left-leaning author citing what is almost certainly a philosopher who considers herself to be left-leaning, all of whom espouse principles about freedom of speech as they would be understood by a first-grader—and that would be have been right at home in Khmer Rouge Cambodia or the Cultural Revolution in China. Get the f@&k out of here with your utterly simplistic analysis, Guardian. You’re trash.

I didn’t bother reading the rest of the article because what’s the point of wasting even more time when it starts like that? If it redeems itself later, then congratulations for burying the lede, I guess.

Pro-censorship is the obviously left position now

I’ve included the 25-minute video Facebook & Content Moderation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) by John Oliver (YouTube) as a link but not as a playable video because I don’t think that this show is really worth watching anymore. It was already very hit-or-miss—and kind of always has been—but it’s just far too superficial and supercilious now.

Now that Trump is in office, Oliver and staff don’t even really have to try anymore—and they are showing all signs that they won’t. They’re seemingly content to subside into the same mud-pit where you can find Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel, all of whom used to be much more subversive and interesting than they are now. Now they all cheerily kowtow to Empire.

In the video linked above, Oliver takes pains to convince his audience that Facebook never really censored anything while simultaneously lamenting that, without censorship, Facebook will become a cesspool.

Facebook Censorship

Who does Oliver think is to blame? Zuckerberg, kind of, but it’s really all Trump’s fault. Whereas Oliver explains that the Biden administration didn’t influence Facebook at all—or not really, not the way it’s been portrayed by that dastardly right-wing media, which comprises anyone reporting anything that Oliver and his PMC clique don’t already believe—Trump has completely changed how Meta is running one of its major properties.

It couldn’t possibly be because (A) Facebook’s user base skews toward 60+, (B) older people skew rightward, and (C) they all believe they’re being censored. Maybe changing how they censor was just pure financial calculation on Facebook’s part to keep its user base? Or, maybe, it really was a belief that moderation couldn’t be what it had become, which was prophylactic censorship that kept PMC prudes like Oliver delighted because they never, ever saw anything that might offend their delicate sensibilities. This includes not just right-wing stuff but also—and crucially—left-wing stuff. Progressive and true left-wing organizations experienced the most brutal censorship and will almost certainly continue to do so.

How do you even choose what to censor, FFS?

Almost no-one is will to consider that the most adult way to discuss the issue of censorship is to ask how we determine what we thinks needs to be censored. The tendency has been to censor unwanted political opinions, as noted above. That makes it quite easy to then censor things that you don’t like: first deem a group or organization fascist or extreme right-wing or even nazi and then you’re free to just ban all of that group’s posts and no-one would care because, well, what are you, a nazi-lover?

People are so banal and superficial in their opinions in that they have to constantly be reminded why censorship is bad because, unless they realize that they are being actively censored or that they are aware that information that might be interesting to them is being censored from them, they simply don’t care because they just assume that bad people are not getting their bad information.

People are so shockingly anti-intellectual that the discussion pretty much stops there. If they stop thinking about it for a second, then they completely forget that censorship is even happening. They literally have no object permanence. That’s how dumb they are. For a similar albeit more polite discussion, see survivorship bias and the algorithmic gaze: you can’t see what you can’t see by Etymology Nerd (Substack).

COVID message discipline broke people

Part of the backlash against censorship in the U.S. and Europe comes as a reaction to a disastrous COVID-information policy, during which information was brutally controlled, with the narrative shifting all over the place. Some opinions that were consistently blocked as misinformation turned out not to have even been misinformation. This matters even were you to believe that censorship is okay when the information is incorrect. I personally don’t because you never really know, do you? At any rate, people are pissed off and the AFD in Germany counts the backlash against the state’s COVID propaganda as a big reason for their success.

Joking about a different genocide

I will take John Oliver more seriously when he says the word Palestinian on his show even once. The genocide is well into its second year and comprises three seasons of his show and he’s never shown any indication that he will make a single show about the Middle East or Israel. It’s a bit weird, right? It’s almost like he has no principles. He did manage to mention a genocide in this most recent show but it was a reference to the Myanmar genocide, which Facebook was apparently alone responsible for. Or Trump was, I can’t remember.

I was shocked to hear people in the show’s skit talking about a genocide and then even more shocked to realize they were joking about a genocide that happened years and years ago, without mentioning the brutal information management and censorship surrounding Israel’s ongoing genocide. You can currently express whatever support for Israel on Facebook and Instagram that you want—and you can say the most horrific things that you want about Palestinians—and none of that has ever been censored.

There were so many, many Instagram videos of IDF soldiers committing war crimes that they themselves posted—and none of it was ever censored, even when Meta was still censoring information. John didn’t mention that censorship cutout, oddly enough. Still, maybe that kind of stuff will get a community note now? Nah. I bet those will also be suppressed.

And none of this should be suppressed! It’s all free speech. But that also means that speech that condemns a genocide is also free. And yet, Facebook continues to censor exactly those voices.

And now, the Trump administration has revoked the permanent residency and had ICE arrest of a permanent U.S. resident for having supported Palestinian rights. I am dying to know how Oliver is going to square that circle: will he just ignore the whole thing? Or will he find an angle to bang his drum about Trump taking away people’s rights without mentioning why the guy was picked up? He’d have to be really careful to avoid having to take stance on what Israel is doing. Oliver has supposedly moral bona fides to protect—but he also very clearly has paymasters who are calling the shots about which segments he’s allowed to run. I doubt he’s going anywhere near that third rail, but I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Pigeonholing, then canceling

Finally, the article The Right Wing Politics of Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi by Chris Green (ZNetwork) exhibits another form of censorship and suppression: pushing people with unwelcome opinions into filthy pigeonholes and then discarding them down the memory hole for being the thing they’ve been labeled as.

As you can well imagine, you don’t actually have to read or view anything that those people produce; all you need is a grudge and a lot of fellow travelers willing to spread you opinions without checking up on them at all. The author of the link above writes,

“At present Greenwald hosts a podcast called System Update on Rumble, the right-wing video platform in which the reactionary Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel has been a heavy investor. Thiel’s company Palantir was involved with the American national security state during the Obama administration in secretly digging up dirt on persons involved with supporting Wikileaks and Edward Snowden—this was, of course, before Greenwald made his right-wing turn. It should be noted that although Greenwald’s podcast substantially panders to right wing audiences, he has also used his forum to righteously attack Israel for its genocidal war on the people of Gaza.”

It’s nice that they at least seem to acknowledge that Greenwald—completely unsurprisingly for those of who actually listen to him—is on the right side of history, as far as the genocide of the Palestinians is concerned. They didn’t mention that he does occasional System Pupdates, in which he introduces the backstory of one of the hundreds of dogs that he has living in or near his house.

After having first heard him on This is Hell!, I guess this Eoin Higgins guy’s book is gaining a lot of attention. I like how everyone I’ve heard talk about it, including this review, seems not to have watched a second of Greenwald, or read a page of Taibbi before calling them right-wing cucks. People are just not interested in accuracy because it’s not necessary in order to gain popularity with the people whom they consider to be the cool kids.

Read through the citation above. Notice the phrasing. Rumble is not just a video platform, but a “right-wing video platform”, an accusation made again and again not because its purveyors are right-wing, or because only right-wing content is allowed on it, but because the site doesn’t censor the things that these censorious snowflakes can’t stand having exist in their world.

These people are smug scolds of the worst kind, who cannot understand that one would be horrified that the state would persecute someone like Trump for a complete bullshit like Russiagate because, to them, the target is the important thing, and not the reasons you’re shooting at it. To them, they already know that someone like Trump is bad, and so it doesn’t matter whether a given accusation is accurate; he deserves whatever you can throw at him because he is the devil incarnate.

It’s why the author can cheerfully call Peter Thiel a reactionary, just throwing out words without even understanding what they mean. The important thing is that the audience understands which words have negative connotation and will cry and cheer, calling for blood. Thiel is an execrable radical; there is little that is reactionary (extremely conservative) about his mission to take the world apart to suit his personal needs.

This unfaithful relationship with truth and meaning leaves fools like this author to write about things like Russiagate without once mentioning that it was a complete scam, a hoax that deluded a nation and turned an entire supposedly left-leaning liberal class into rabid warmongers who still haven’t woken up from their nightmare.

As usual, anyone who associates with anyone who is not pre-approved is considered not a journalist going after a story but a fellow traveler, guilty by association. Anyone who dared go on Tucker Carlson’s program to spout socially left-wing talking points was immediately written off as a traitor.

This is how these people think. It’s not even really fair to call it thinking, as that’s unfair to people who actually do think. It’s small-minded, mean-girl-clique bullshit that should have nothing to do with national discourse, but instead positively dominates it.

Philosophically, most people wholeheartedly embrace George W. Bush’s dictum, that “you’re either with us, or you’re against us.” They double down on this attitude by ostracizing as a heretic anyone who doesn’t believe everything they’ve been told to believe with the fervor that they’ve been told to believe it, banishing them to a wilderness filled with so-called fascists and so-called right-wingers.

That Greenwald tempered his attitude toward idiots like Alex Jones is not a bad thing. There’s a lot to learn about why Jones has appeal to so many. He is obviously unhinged but he’s also built an enormous media empire. People like Higgins and the author of this piece are completely uninterested in finding out why that is, because they’ve long since determined that they will censor people like Jones out of existence using state and corporate-media power rather than figuring out how he ticks and why people gravitate toward him.

If they were to invest the time and effort, they could perhaps address the problem of people following uninformed demagogues through education rather than punishment. But that’s not their style, because they’re also convinced that anyone who doesn’t already agree with them about everything is too stupid to do so. Or too racist to do so. Or whatever.

I only skimmed the remainder of the article (2/3 or so) because it went on to document how horribly right-wing Matt Taibbi is, a claim that is belied by simply reading anything that Matt Taibbi has written or watching five minutes of him on an interview or podcast. Taibbi’s great crime is thinking that free speech applies to everyone, rather than just people like Higgins, the author, and the opinion elites that they worship.

Official State Historians posing as revolutionaries

The article March 5, 2025 by Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American) is by an author whom I’ve seen gain no small amount of prominence in my newsfeeds since the ascension of Trump II. She writes,

“This system enabled leaders to avoid the censorship from which voters would recoil by instead creating a firehose of news until people became overwhelmed by the task of trying to figure out what was real and simply tuned out. Essentially, this system replaced the concept of voters choosing their leaders with the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing.”

If you didn’t know that this lady’s entire essay had been about Russia so far, you would think that she was describing the last 30 years of U.S. politics. She doesn’t mention the coincidence at all, which leads me to believe that she doesn’t notice it.

Similarly, when I read a prior paragraph, I kept waiting for her to mention that this view of the U.S.‘s so-called democracy was flawed, at best, and wildly unjustified, at worst. She wrote,

“When the Cold War ended with the crumbling of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, those Americans who had come to define the world as a fight between the dark forces of communism and the good forces of capitalism believed their ideology of radical individualism had triumphed. In 1989, political scientist Francis Fukayama famously concluded that the victory of liberal democracy over communism meant “the end of history” as all nations gravitated toward the liberal democracy that time had proven was fundamentally a better system of government than any other.

“Forty-five years after Churchill warned that the world was splitting in two, it appeared that democracies, led by the United States of America, had won. In that triumphant mood, American leaders set out to spread capitalism into formerly communist countries, believing that democracy would follow since capitalism and democracy went hand in hand.”

Again, I was left wanting, as she didn’t indicate in any way that this isn’t her actual viewpoint, held by an actual adult, and one who purports to be a historian, no less. This woman is being cited from all over the liberal mediasphere, completely without irony and completely uncritically. They consider her to be a beacon in the darkness. I feel ill.

I fear that her wildly inaccurate characterization of Ukrainian history is what counts as the standard view in her sphere, despite none of the main points lining up with the facts, particularly Paul Manafort’s involvement, which was part of the Steele Dossier, which was made up out of whole cloth by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. None of this is controversial and yet none of it is known in elite circles, for whom I can only imagine Richardson’s letters are intended.

Being a glutton for punishment, I persevered.

“To resurrect his political career, Yanukovych turned to an American political consultant, Paul Manafort, who had worked for both Nixon and Reagan and who was already working for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych won the presidency in 2010 and began to turn Ukraine toward Russia. In 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power and he fled to Russia.”

There is, to no-one’s surprise at this point, any indication that Ukraine suffered an unconstitutional coup—just that they “ousted” their president, as you do. In democracies, a president fails to be reelected, and is not “ousted”. It is clear that Richardson—along with anyone who holds the worldview she represents—only cares about details like this when she’s been ordered to deride a country that has been designated an official enemy.

There follow several paragraphs of a tired re-hashing of the standard Russiagate fare that I skimmed rather than read in detail.

As usual and as expected, she spends an inordinate amount of text condemning Trump for his lack of decorum. That his predecessors were also violent warmongers—far more so than Trump (so far)—doesn’t matter because it’s the language of violence that matters, not the effects of actual physical violence.

Since I’d seen this lady mentioned a few times, I decided to give one of her missives a shot, although with obvious trepidation. I was ready to be pleasantly surprised but instead I’m disappointed to find that a bunch of people I’ve been following for a while are now absolutely quaffing this kind of uninformed tripe posing as scholarly research and analysis—all day long and with gusto.

Nowhere in the entire missive does she take Trump to task for the actually evil things that he’s doing, like gleefully helping Netanyahu stomp Gaza even flatter. No, instead, she condemns Trump as a traitor for trying to end the war in Ukraine. i have neither the time nor the patience for such stupidity and obviously self-serving ignorance. You can take issue with Trump’s methods but, if you don’t start by acknowledging that bringing this war to early end is a good thing, then you’re a criminal and a fool who has no idea what’s going on and no moral footing.

The modern liberal lives without Irony

Finally, there’s the post One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Jason Kottke, which is published by a fool—who also recommends Cox Richardson at every chance he gets—recommending the book of the same name as the article’s title by Omar El Akkad. [1]

This is from a guy who hasn’t written about Israel even once because he’s terrified of losing his upper west-side and upper east-side subscribers from New York City. This is, in fact, the first time that I can recall him even obliquely referring to Gaza, although he calls it the “war in Gaza”, which is exactly what the NY Times—which he also reads religiously—wants him to call it, if he’s to refer to it at all.

He literally seems to have no idea that the entire book is about people like himself who are easily capable of ignoring a genocide until it’s safe not to ignore it.

The full title, of the book is,

“One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”

I think Kottke thinks that the book refers to Trump, which would be hilariously missing the point, but its just tragic. It’s the same kind of mistake that so many other people make—people whom so many look up to as thought leaders.

Uplifting Coda: Omar El Akkad

Omar El Akkad is an amazing person and I can only imagine that his book—the perfectly titled One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This—is equally amazing. See the 1-hour interview with Chris Hedges below. He very much takes people like Kottke and Richardson and Higgins to task, for example, when he devastatingly sums up their worldview with “[s]omebody who is served by the system doesn’t have to imagine anything else.”

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (w/ Omar El Akkad) by The Chris Hedges Report (YouTube)

At about 09:42,

“All of this sort of stuff, I think, makes perfect sense if you believe in a world where there are only two options: you are either wearing the boot or you’re having your neck stepped on. And, so, to speak up on behalf of anybody who’s having their neck stepped on is immediately assumed to mean, ‘oh you want to step on my neck.’ Those are the only sort of world views that are acceptable under that ordering of the world.

“And it’s disastrous […] because the obligations put on somebody who’s trying to imagine a better world are unlimited. If you and I both want something better than this, I guarantee you, within 5 minutes of talking about it, we will have some kind of disagreement as to what ‘better’ looks like, because the imaginative obligations placed on us are infinite.

“Somebody who is served by the system doesn’t have to imagine anything else and so can safely live within the confines of this fantasy where, yes, either these people be killed or those people will be killed; either this genocide happens this way, or an even worse genocide is going to happen. And it is such imaginative poverty. And it’s applicable to virtually every facet of life under an empire. It has to be this way because somebody has to do the killing and it may as well be us.”

At about 20:00,

“[…] when I wrote the the title of this book—when I was first thinking about it—I wasn’t thinking in terms of weeks, or even years. I was thinking, if I’m fortunate enough to live the average lifespan in this part of the world, by the end of my life, I’ll be watching a poetry reading in Tel Aviv that begins with a land acknowledgement.”

Remember that Russia is irredeemable

The following citation illustrates what I consider to be one of the dumbest (simplest? Most ignorant?) but extremely popular interpretation of the changing alignment of the U.S., NATO, Europe, and Russia in early 2025,

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.” Because the US is a Russian ally (or satellite?) now I guess.”

It comes from a post that I will snarkily title as Don’t End the War with Russia! by Jason Kottke (who doesn’t usually provide his own titles) because that can be the only interpretation: he’s lamenting that the U.S. might be following through on ending hostilities with Russia. He would rather continue a proxy war than speak to the dastardly Russians. Kottke mocks the Trump administration as having “allied” with Russia, which is, apparently, the worst thing that he can imagine. Kottke probably has no idea that he is—has become?—an 80s Republican and he certainly has no idea how brainwashed he is.

If you think I’m being unfair, his very next post is again untitled, but amounts to what I will call The NY Times told me to believe that Zelenskyy is an untouchable hero by Jason Kottke, which I think matches his sentiment. It includes the following,

“My god, Trump and Vance are just total fucking assholes. The US is openly aligning themselves with Russia against Ukraine and Europe, a major shift in international relations that dates back to the 1940s. I am so embarrassed to be an American right now.”

I wonder if Kottke will ever look back and feel any shame for his simplistic take on foreign affairs. Will he ever regret having sided with continued war when the chance for peace was available? Does he ever wonder why the U.S. needs to be at war with Russia?

Will he ever regret that he was “embarrassed to be an American” when the U.S. starting bringing a senseless and murderous war to an end, but he never evinced the same sentiment for the sixteen months of Israel’s genocide that occurred during and were wholly supported by Biden’s regime. He never even mentioned that it was going on, but peace with Russia is enough to make him want to renounce his citizenship. What sterling and totally banal principles.

Kottke even cites a piece of what Trump said to Zelenskyy, after the Ukrainian leader had interrupted and talked over him. Kottke essentially berates Trump for not just rolling over and giving him another $100B when Zelenskyy literally just told him that the U.S. is in grave danger from Russia, and the Ukraine is doing not just Europe, but also the U.S. a favor by fighting Russia. Colloquially, Zelenskyy has drunk his own Kool-Aid. Here’s how Trump responded,

“You’re gambling with World War III, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people say they should have,”

Um, yeah! I kind of feel like Kenan Thompson on Black Jeopardy when Tom Hanks gets another question right. Like, you can’t believe you’re hearing something you think is correct coming from the person who said it.

Support that which is worth supporting

Look, Trump is doing a lot of things. A lot of them are truly terrible, petty, wasteful, and occasionally evil. We should all try to focus our outrage on the things that are actually bad, like ethnically cleansing Gaza, rather than things that sound promising, like decreasing the chances of nuclear armageddon.

Kottke is not alone, of course, in joining the obligatory chorus of “anyone who thinks that Trump wasn’t disrespectful to ally Ukraine is a Russian plant”. The article Grovel Before The Great And Powerful Trump by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice) writes,

“But while the cadre of the Trump-dependent spew the talking points to gaslight a nation that watched the debacle in real time that it was Zelensky being disrespectful of Trump, the rest of the world isn’t buying. Russia loved it, watching Trump suck up to Putin, but European countries, one after another, watched in dread as they came to the realization that the post-World War II structure of the world had come to an end.”

You see what I mean? Greenfield barely has to put any thought or effort into it. It just writes itself. Trump is a Putin-loving agent of Russia, just like Greenfield’s favorite news sources have been saying all along. Accepting any outcome short of nuclear armageddon is a sign that you’re not being American hard enough, that you’re a Putin-loving traitor. If you’re not willing to blow up the entire world to defend the empire, then you’re not worth nothin’.

And honestly: wouldn’t any moral person—by which I mean someone who wasn’t more concerned with the growth of their own personal situation, despite that situation already being much better than most other people’s situations—absolutely welcome the end of the post-World War II structure of the world? You know, the structure in which the Global South has continued to be economically colonized and subjugated by a globe-spanning empire that enforces its will through violence.

It’s not that there’s nothing to save! But there is a lot to tear down. I, too, had hoped that we could get someone who was tearing things down for the right reasons—and Trump has cited a few good reasons like “too many people have died for nothing”—but this is what we have.

The iron grip of propaganda

The degree to which the west is in thrall to Ukraine makes for a fascinating study in psychology. It goes beyond self-interest. I think it’s that Zelenskyy has a charisma that works on a lot of powerful people, much like Netanyahu’s somehow does. And much like Trump’s does, as well. Trump even pointed it out when he said that he respected Zelenskyy’s game, how he seemed capable of waltzing into the U.S. again and again, leaving a couple of days later with yet another promise of dozens of billions of dollars for his country. Now the unstoppable force of one con man has come against the immovable object of another.

The message in a good part of the western press is that Trump is only an idiot, whose every single move is idiotic and harmful, whereas Zelenskyy is a war hero. It’s always instructive to observe brainwashing at work. Most of the people espousing this viewpoint would say that they’re against war and for peace. Or would they?

Are we really in a place where even people who would place themselves socially on the left support an empire, with its war-making and conquest? Do they really continue to believe, after decades of indoctrination, that it’s always, always, always the chosen enemy who is alone evil and that “our side” represents an unalloyed moral good? Even after having been show that the opposite is the case so many times in the past? Or do they just miss all of those memos? Or have they been led away from them by a media with ulterior motives to line their own pockets with revenue from so-called defense companies?

I’ve read other takes that describe the situation in Eastern Europe in early 2025 as a disgraceful sellout of Ukraine. Did they not read that the Biden administration admitted that they never had any intent of admitting Ukraine to NATO? That they never had any intent of supporting it with boots on the ground?

What is happening in these people’s heads? Are they such ethically shallow people that they think it better to continue to pour money into Ukraine, all the while lying to them about the depth of the alliance? They can’t all be shilling for the weapons companies, so some of them must have simply bought the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker.

Yeah, the meeting with Zelenskyy wasn’t pretty at the end [1]—you have likely only seen the last four minutes, but the meeting was almost 50 minutes long—but it was 100% USA. It was also refreshingly honest about the actual situation. The US is no longer interested in supporting an unwinnable war that is killing hundreds of thousands per year. How did people think this war was going to end? With Ukraine’s victory? How realitätsfremd.

So-called liberals won’t give up “their” wars

Europe is free to jump in and “defend itself” from the Russian invasion they can’t seem to shut up about. Either they legitimately fear this nonexistent threat or they’re cynically trying to support the only industry in Europe that even makes anything anymore: armaments. Europe is in deep shit economically, so what do they do? They kick up war. This is a lazy way of goosing the economy. There is no reason that anyone with a brain should believe these false narratives.

Just to be clear, though: Greenfield is openly for the continued genocide of Palestinians, so it’s not like he’s a moral compass. Kottke has never written a single word about the genocide because he’s afraid of losing subscribers. So, it’s not like they’re leading lights of moral and ethical clarity who are supporting Ukraine.

A little history because why not?

And it’s not about “supporting” Ukraine or not. Ukraine is an internationally recognized nation. No-one should be invading it. They were ethnically cleansing Russians in the eastern part of their country, in a grinding, long-running civil war that Zelenskyy was elected to end. Their giant neighbor had a problem with that but it left those Russians mostly to defend themselves.

Ukraine map by language

The problems began when Ukraine began working with the U.S. and NATO nations to set up “defenses” against Russia, right on Russia’s border with Ukraine. Ukraine went from being a huge trading partner to an actively hostile neighbor that was being funded by a giant empire that had been intent on ending Russia for decades.

None of what Russia did is surprising. It’s unclear what its alternatives were: capitulation? What could it have done other than to lay down and die? Should it have just allowed high-powered weapons on its borders—weapons that we all very well know would have eventually been used?

Once again, for the cheap seats: the invasion is illegal but it was not unprovoked. Russia is a large nation with an oversized military and a population that is small relative to its size. It was cornered and forced to react or be caught up in a net and trapped. Pretty predictably, it chose to fight back.

No-one supporting Ukraine considers anything that the U.S. did to Russia over the last 30 years to have been “attacking” it: not the sanctions, not the putsch in Ukraine, not the many “color” revolutions instigated by USAid and the CIA. Almost no-one either ever knew about those things or they’ve cheerfully forgotten, as it complicates their narrative. And they sure do love their narratives simple. Like Star Wars simple. LOTR simple.

Most of these fools have internalized that diplomacy is for pussies, that only force is worth an investment. The reasoning is that, were EU countries to talk to Russia or China, then they’d be consorting with the enemy and would have appeased. It’s laughable and childish and dangerous. Sit down and shut up while the adults talk. Trump is not an adult, and even he understands that you can’t just not talk to other nations. I welcome that we’re opening embassies again. FFS, how can that be a bad thing?

Trump is more of the same

And the sad thing is that so much of what Trump is doing is a continuation of standard American policy, just without wasting time bothering to put lipstick on the pig for people whose opinions he doesn’t care about. What did Biden retract or change of what Trump had done in his first term? Not as much as you think. The sanctions not only stayed in place, they were extended. The immigration policy was continued and extended in its cruelty and restrictiveness. Biden increased tariffs on dozens of countries, in particular China. Most people have no idea that these things even happened.

I saw a tweet that read,

“The liberal outrage and hatred for trump is largely because his lack of all pretence & decorum destroys the fairy tale of a benevolent US & reveals the thuggish empire it is. They always care more about appearance, rhetoric, and performance than actual policies and their impact.”

Amen. The policies are the same. Trump’s just got the mask off. Go ahead and be appalled, but be appalled for the right reasons rather than demanding that useless and evil wars continue. FFS.

This is a fantastic seven-minute refresher on what the first amendment means in the U.S.—specifically the right to free speech, The government is bound quite strongly to respect one’s right to say anything one wants, even if one is benefiting from a government program, like unemployment or a visa program. While the government is allowed to curtail benefits in the case of criminal prosecution—predicating them on being law-abiding—it cannot retract them based on one having expressed opinions counter to the prevailing regime’s policies.

Glenn Reacts: Defunding Universities over Speech is a MAJOR 1A Violation by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

“Consider this hypothetical: the US government or, let’s say a state government, opts to provide unemployment benefits to people who get fired, lose their job. Obviously, it doesn’t have to provide unemployment benefits. It decides that it’s going to.

“Imagine a law enacted by a state, say Massachusetts, that said, ‘if you support Donald Trump or express support for the Republican party, you will be ineligible to receive unemployment benefits. The only people eligible to receive unemployment benefits are those who take an oath to support the Democratic party.’ Everybody would immediately understand why that’s unconstitutional.

“And yet, you could justify that law based on the same distortion, the same warped rationale, as is being offered for the Trump administration’s actions this week, which is, ‘oh, look, the government doesn’t have to give you unemployment benefits. You can’t claim that it’s a violation of your constitutional rights if the government takes unemployment benefits away from you.‘

“And the obvious answer is: the state has the right to terminate unemployment-benefits programs for everybody if it wants, but it can’t withdraw them or deny them as punishment for a particular view. Nor can it condition receipt or the right to have those benefits on affirming a particular view. So, the fact that federal funding is optional doesn’t mean the government has the constitutional right to deny it to certain universities that allow a certain type of protest.”

First Amendment of the Constitution of the Unites States

This was an interesting 21-minute discussion about the importance of multi-polarity, multi-civilizational humanity. Dugin points out how the globalism that we’re seeing trying to take over everything has deemed itself the winner and chooses not to integrate anything from other, “conquered” civilizations. He cites the Chinese Confucian approach to law and philosophy, the Russian Orthodox Church, and so on, as deep and ancient influences on cultures and civilizations.

Alexander DuginHe calls out globalists for a devotion to “chronocentrism”, a focus on what is happening now, while ignoring everything that came before as ignorant and racist. Dugin is definitely conservative, but much more of the classic kind: in that he would like to keep that which has existed before.

I think it’s a good counterweight to the “move fast and break things” liberalism sold by those who propose their changes because they know that the world will become more accommodating to how they would like it to be. It’s easy to be a radical when the changes are exactly what will bring you more personal success. Our modern-day radicals push their own culture and language into every corner of the world so that their rich asses can travel there with less discomfort.

'The Globalists are the Racists:' Russian Analyst Aleksandr Dugin on the Loss of Cultural Identities by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

I am aware that we’ve been taught to have a knee-jerk negative reaction to Alexander Dugin as a maniacal racist. This is not in any way the impression that I got from listening to this interview. Maybe he was on good behavior but his views are much more nuanced than those of many of his detractors. He describes himself as anti-racist.

This video is but one part of a longer interview that comprises several others, many of which were also quite interesting.

• Is Russia an Authoritarian Regime?: Glenn Asks Russian Analyst Aleksandr Dugin in Moscow (5m)
• How Does Russia Define Victory in Ukraine?: With Russian Analyst Aleksandr Dugin (20m)
• Was Trump Ever Really Putin’s Puppet? Key Russian Analyst Aleksandr Dugin on Russiagate Hoax (5m)
• Was Trump Ever Really Putin’s Puppet? Key Russian Analyst Aleksandr Dugin on Russiagate Hoax (5m)
• Is Russia an Authoritarian Regime?: Glenn Asks Russian Analyst Aleksandr Dugin in Moscow (20m)

This is an absolutely brilliant 45-minute video: as history lesson, as political analysis, as military analysis. Many, many more people should be watching this.

In particular, the two sections comprising about 18 minutes and starting at 15:35, called “EU’s militarisation & Russia’s plans” and “EU’s fiscal discipline” are brilliant and are well-worth listening to in their entirety.

Vijay Prashad – The Collapse of NATO and Europe's Dilemma by acTVism Munich (YouTube)

At 04:56,

“Vijay PrashadTrump interestingly said, ‘look, this is not a prestige issue for us in the United States. We don’t care about winning or losing. We’re going to cut a deal, get out of this. It’s too expensive. There are no U.S. interests at stake now.‘

“For the Europeans, actually, they know, I mean Frederick Merz, the new chancellor of Germany is not a stupid man, okay? He knows that Vladimir Putin isn’t planning to send tanks into Berlin. The Soviets did that already: that was to liberate Germany from the Nazis. Very unlikely that they’re going to send Russian tanks into [Germany],

“Frederick Merz knows that, for the Europeans, Ukraine has become a prestige issue, much more than a security question. They cannot afford to lose. Trump says, ‘I don’t care about the prestige United States is the greatest country in the world. We can destroy anybody. We don’t have any problems here. We are not embarrassed by this. We’re going to cut a deal, save lives.‘”

At 07:28,

“It’s a prestige issue; this is not a security issue. These people are intelligent. They’re not stupid.”

At 08:59,

“This whole episode, since vice president JD Vance’s comments at the Munich security conference, this whole episode demonstrates, in a sense, Europe’s utter subordination to the United States. There is really no NATO. NATO is being shown, in this period, as effectively a shell company owned by the United States. If the US is not in the game, the Europeans can’t act.

“There was a study done that showed that Germany has basically just a few days of fighting ability against an adversary like the Russians—if they had to fight the Ukraine war, just a few days. France doesn’t even have that. They have a nuclear umbrella but they don’t have the conventional ability. Which working-class German—precarious German—is going to go and fight in Ukraine? Who in Britain and France? They’re not going to fight there.

“It’s a curious class substitution that’s happening. The Ukrainian middle class is fleeing as refugees to Western Europe and now they are expecting working-class Western Europeans to go and fight their battle.”

At 11:58,

“The populations want the war to end. So, a democratic question is, let’s listen to people. End the war. Thirdly, this war is expensive and increasing military spending is nuts. In Britain, Rachel Reeves has said they’re going to cut welfare. Why? Because she said, ‘we have to make the tough choices.’

“Every time they say, ‘we have to make the tough choices’ and whether you say this in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, whatever language they are lying to you.

“It’s not a tough choice. It’s an easy choice. Because when they say we got to make the tough choices, they make the same choice, which is, ‘let’s screw the poor to increase the military spending.‘ So that’s also going to be hurtful for the reasons why the war should end.

“For most of Europe, there’s no security challenge. The people don’t want it. The inflation has to be brought down. Because this is ridiculous. It’s just painful for the population.”

The article Trump bans transgender athletes from entering the United States by Isla Anderson, Evan Winters (WSWS) writes,

“SemenyaRubio justified the ban on international transgender athletes under the 1952 Immigration and Nationalities act, which authorizes a “permanent fraud bar” as punishment for “lying” on a visa application. The pretense is that a gender marker matching a transgender person’s gender identity, rather than one that aligns “with their sex assigned at birth,” amounts to “misrepresenting the purpose of their travel or sex,” which constitutes “fraud.” Such a “fraud bar” would lead to a lifetime ban on entry into the United States, with few opportunities for appeal.”

This is so petty, immoral, and stupid. How in God’s name can this be a priority for the State Department?

Rubio goes from a press conference for advancing an end to the proxy war with Russia to this one, announcing that trans-athletes will be banned for life from entering the U.S. because they’re “lying” on their visa applications?

Are they really willing to spend political capital on something so hateful and petty? Or do they think they have endless political capital? Why can’t we have peace with Russia without harassing of minority groups?

Still, the people who will absolutely explode about this new restriction—and quite rightly—also almost certainly want to keep the Ukraine steamroller going at all costs.

And neither party is interested in justice for—or even just less murdering of—the Palestinians. The “ceasefire”—in quotes because Israel never ceased firing; they ceased bombing—was an initial ruse that Trump probably hopes to be remembered by. He will instead be remembered for having continued the flattening of Gaza and its citizens that Biden had nearly completed.

And he will also be remembered for these spiteful stupid digs against people who’ve harmed no-one.
 

The article European Leaders Voice Support for Zelensky Following Heated Exchange With Trump by Kyle Anzalone (Scheer Post) describes Trump’s feelings about where he and Zelenskyy differ.

“Following the presser, Trump expelled Zelensky from the White House, and posted on Truth Social that the deal was off. “I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE,” he wrote.”

That statement seems surprisingly clear. I guess that most people will interpret the all-caps “PEACE” to mean “capitulation to Putin,” but that’s their loss. I think Trump might kind-of mean it. But he isn’t doing it on some sort of anti-empire principle, not for a pro-peace principle. Or not just that. There is enough evidence that Trump is an asshole but he has many times lamented the senseless loss of life. He only approves of lost life, lost livelihoods, and lost quality of life if it’s sensible, which usually means that either he or someone who will owe him a favor would benefit from it.

Another statement cited in the article was from,

Nataša Pirc Musar

“Nataša Pirc Musar, the President of Slovenia, posted on X, “What we witnessed in the Oval Office today undermines these values and the foundations of diplomacy. We stand firmly in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty.””

Note that this statement applies only to Ukraine. No-one else’s sovereignty matters at all to the EU, NATO, or the U.S. Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan—the list goes on and on. Even Greece’s sovereignty didn’t matter more to the EU than paying its biggest banks back ¢100 on the € that they’d loaned to Greece.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the EU and its leaders have principles when they say things like this. They don’t respect sovereignty, they cynically pretend to respect some countries’ sovereignty when it serves their interests. Trump, at the helm of the U.S., is no different. As far as he and his administration are concerned, Ukraine does not serve U.S. interests, so they are dropping them like a hot rock.

No-one in the current administration will acknowledge that it was many successive previous administrations—including the first Trump administration—that led Ukraine down this primrose path in the first place, but that’s honestly been the prerogative of the stronger partner since the dawn of time.

The same advice applies when you learn that the only one supporting a move toward peace is,

“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, “Strong men make peace, weak men make war. Today President [Trump] stood bravely for peace. Even if it was difficult for many to digest. Thank you, Mr. President!””

Orban has his reasons and they almost certainly have nothing to do with a general principle about respecting the sovereignty of other nations.

In the following seven-minute video, Glenn “responds” to a critique of the Trump administration, written by Chris Hedges and sent to him by a listener. I’m a bit confused by the response, though … it seems as if Glenn thinks that Chris Hedges supports the continuation of the empire. Chris’s admonition is not a lament for the end of the empire, it is more a warning to pay attention to and to influence what will replace it. I think Glenn should have Chris on his show to make himself more familiar with his work. I think they have a lot of points in common.

Trump DISRUPTING the DC Status Quo Should be Celebrated by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

While I think Glenn is right to be optimistic that things are going in a more peaceful direction, I think Glenn is taking too jubilant a tone, not at all considering that the Republicans and Trump don’t exactly have a good track record of being anti-war and pro-government-reduction. They have a terrible track record of it. I’ll believe Trump is heading in the right direction when we actually see a reduction in the military and homeland-security budgets, which are ginormous.

I think it’s correct to consider everything with cautious optimism, since the Trump administration is saying and doing some things that will rein in some of the excesses of empire. The Democrats are just as wrong to lament the end of the empire (they mostly don’t even understand that there is an empire, so they have no idea that they’re lamenting the end of it).

This was a great conversation that is absolutely worth the ~100-minute running time. Catherine eloquently and brashly discusses a lot of the topics and themes that she presents in her broadside against the PMC (Professional Managerial Class). I’ve included a bunch of cleaned-up transcription from the video.

Catherine Liu: Trauma, Virtue and Liberal Elites by Doomscroll /
Joshua Citarella (YouTube)

At about 12:00, Catherine says,

“I was like what are you doing girl? Like, how are you like assimilating your sexual assault, which is really bad a private thing—you haven’t even told members of your family and your closest friends—and this political situation? Like, why are you doing this?

“And I realize young people, who are media-savvy in a certain way—and I admired her political instincts always—are understanding, it’s like clickbait; it’s like drawing you in. […] What I would say is it’s almost a pass key to authenticity, that you get when you say ‘this has happened to me.’

“When I saw this—I’ve had a pretty like crazy childhood—and I when I saw this and I saw the look on her face, I was like, one: you really did go through something; and two: you should not be doing this on Instagram Live. It does not help you therapeutically. If I were a Mom, I’d be like ‘what are you doing?’ you know? I mean, she’s fine; she survived it.

“But I think that there’s a kind of online, massive, social-media convention about leveraging and instrumentalizing your suffering to accentuate your brand. I hate to be so crude about it but that’s what it has become. And one of the things about all of these women—Winfrey, AOC—is they say ‘I’m telling my story so that other women don’t feel alone.‘ And they say ‘me too’ … like this can become a movement and this can be healing. You know what? Telling your story as a billionaire, in Oprah’s case, does not heal anybody.

“But you’re selling a narrative of trauma and recovery. Where does actual recovery take place? Maybe actually in real life suffering, not through an app, not through broadcast. The real hard work of therapy—that fewer and fewer people want to do or and fewer and fewer therapists know how to do […]”

At about 23:30, they say,

“Joshua: There also seems to be a rising class resentment towards the PMC, particularly among working people—but kind of from everyone—and to certain degree I don’t blame them. I don’t like people who are richer than me. Like, I want their stuff, too.

“Catherine: Who are bossy. Who are telling you that they’re better people than you.

“Joshua: Telling you how to behave, yeah. And there’s a real cultural resentment of this professed moral superiority and that’s in the title of your book even—Virtue hoarders—why do they feel the need to have this moral superiority? Why are they hoarding The virtue? what value does that give to them on a really primitive, psychological basis?

“Catherine: I think it’s to disguise the guilt about how much better their lives are than the working class, and the divergence between the lives that you can have you know in a coastal-elite environment and the lives of the great majority of Americans, who are working class who live in the smaller cities and the rural areas. They’ve been basically abandoned by the public institutions that we live in. […]

“So it sucks. It sucks, this inequality. But, if you’re a liberal PMC person, you’re like, no, you want like, equity, right? You want everything to be rationalized and you want to stop suffering, you know, they’re always like, ‘raise awareness of suffering,’ ‘help people,’ and so they have this veneer of wanting to help people, but it’s very clear that […] they’re protecting their privileges at every single level and how do you justify having such a good life when most Americans are really suffering?

“You have to put a moral patina on it and this is a very, very Protestant thing. […] I think Calvin and then John Kelvin and Benjamin Franklin can all be the authors of is this idea: that God rewards the industrious and the virtuous, so if we have more wealth, it’s because we work harder and we’re more virtuous—and that’s how the PMC acts.”

“[…] look at their environmentalism: it’s all consumption-based; it’s not production-based.”

At 26:44, Catherine says,

“The layers of administrative BS, that the average American worker who works in a larger organization has to deal with now, has just expanded exponentially. Even as your work gets shittier, your working conditions get shittier—maybe you’re not getting your raises—the HR-like language of liberal sort of self-promotion as enlightened, this is just proliferating in ways that we could not imagine. Even your boss—was always bad but alien—but now your boss wants to care about you. And that’s like a different level of like invasion, and evil. Your boss wants to change the way you think about everything.”

At 46:10, Catherine says,

“How do we take down Blackstone? It’s very complicated. I don’t think the young callow leftist today, the average, even understands the complexity of capitalism and how it needs to be dismantled. So, I think there’s actually a lot of boiling discontent among the working classes, but how are we going to translate that into execution, into governmentality. We’ve been so enamored with anarchism and our bullshit, you know, like, larping politics, that we’re like ‘yeah let’s burn it down! Defund the police.‘ Like what do you do the day after? We don’t have anyone ready for the day after. Because we don’t respect work, actually. The left doesn’t respect work. It’s like a deskilled revolutionary.

“[…]

“So, we go back to these professors who have retreated into the institutions and one thing that I would say that what I do agree with you on in terms of the assimilation into their own self-interest is they’re really happy about culture wars because it makes them feel really important.”

At 53:00, she says,

“This goes back to what I was going to say about JD Vance and Josh Hawley: is that there’s enough rural history in their backgrounds or wherever they live to say we just need to give American families that kind of independence again, like homeschooling, charter schools, not help them, but reinvigorate the work ethic. And that the government programs have taken away people’s ideas of autonomy and that that is what is destroying the working class. That’s actually literally what JD Vance is saying: like, social programs make people lazy and drug-addled. Not the collapse of the industrial economy, or the dumping of 30 million oxycontin pills in West Virginia, Ohio, and Appalachia.

“No, it’s actually dependency. We have a phobia about dependency that really, turned dialectically in a positive way, would be about strengthening independence of mind. But the more these people try to do away with industrialization and go back to this sort of autarkic yeoman ideal, the more they are actually kneeling at the feet of people like Peter Thiel because they’re actually captured by the right-wing corporate capitalist.

“And those right-wing corporate capitalists, they’re libertarians. Like this is the heart of American libertarianism. It’s like, no government, no dependency, everyone gets their little whatever, their little plot of land, and then you can turn it into Microsoft, or you can, you know, lose it all at the casino. But it’s your activity, it’s your choice, it’s your individual responsibility.

“So, I’m saying that they come from this historically positive moment, that they’ve turned into a kind of corruptive version of a kind of nostalgic world, and they’re not actually facing the realities of industrial capitalism, because we are so codependent. We’re codependent on each other, codependent and interconnected in ways that the yeoman farmer never was. Let’s just think about the Interstate Highway Program. Is every libertarian going to build their own highway? No. This is a giant federal project, but when you were a yeoman farmer, you cleared like enough of your forest, so you could get connected to the road of the town, like you made your own road. Like doing your own research, that day is gone.”

At 55:40, she says,

“The Chinese elites—the Chinese PMC—they’re so used to having people do everything for them—South Asians and India, too—like, your cook, your driver, there’s just so many people, what we call low-wage people, and you—Latin American elites are the same way—it’s so freaking corrupting. I’m like, please, I just want to do my own thing. Like, I’ll go shop and like carry my bags, and these are my small American gestures like I’m an autarkic human farmer, I don’t want you to carry my bags. I know it’s, but it makes me not Chinese, right?

“People are like, oh just call a driver. I’m like, I can rent a car; I’ll drive myself. I know how to drive. But this kind of like, farming out to other people, this sense of like other people do my labor for me so I can think clearly, that is very feudal and aristocratic. And we were against that. That’s what makes America powerful, great, speaking of that’s what makes America great. Again. So let’s revive some of that like deep radical egalitarianism.”

At 01:20:30,

“Catherine: Mellon supports this kind of like environmental humanities that rebrands nature writing and even landscape painting into environmental art. And environmental humanities. They love that stuff. It’s like you can’t just be someone who’s like doing landscape painting or you can’t be someone who’s like doing nature writing. Now you’re like involved in the anthropocene. I mean, I can laugh and be like really bitter about it, but these are thought leaders.

“So this is why people might be nostalgic for monarchism, because actually Mellon is king of the humanities. They’re just pretending to be a liberal quasi-democratic organization with a board of directors, whatever. And you know, who else is like this? The MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur prize is—they’re trying to dictate the cultural direction and they often do and it’s a cabal. So I think the monarchist might be like, let’s just make the cabal institutionalized, with crowns and rights and ritual.

“Joshua: literally, that’s what they say is: let’s just formalize it. It already works like this, so let’s just let’s just make it official.

“Catherine LiuCatherine: Maybe I’m a monarchist.

“Catherine: Nobody will come out and say what I’ve said about Mellon because everyone’s hoping to get a Mellon grant, so I’m just going to say it right now. The people in the professoriat right now, if you want to ascend to higher rank, like, in the court of Mellon, you have to like genuflect, you have to conform to what their program is, you have to look at how they’re configuring the humanities and the arts…

“Joshua: You have to use the language of the court

“Catherine: You have to use their language of the court, so this is a court society. And it is so feudal because power has been—and money and capital is concentrated so deeply in One Foundation, right? There are other competing foundations maybe, but none can touch the Mellon at this point.

“So oftentimes, I feel like people in my class, who have tenure and you know who should be exercising academic freedom, they’re taking the knee for Mellon. They may not consciously know this, but there’s—in the early oughts, it was transnationalism, it’s you know, they’re key words that you have to shape your research—and I don’t want to be like too cold-war paranoid but it is totally anti-marxist, anti-materialist. Do not talk about labor; talk about identity.

“[…] I have the sense of my class as a class that’s supplicant to the capitalist class stepping on the heads of the working class even as we pretend to be like liberal caring people.”

US military and CIA interventions since WW2There are people who used to write quite well and have gotten incredibly lazy, repetitive, and just plain non-constructive and useless as information sources in just the last month. The drop in quality is noticeable because they’re once again cruising on their TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).

They are being lazy and stupid, acting as if the U.S. used to be good until one month ago, when Trump came back into power. They are acting as if things have gotten markedly and provably worse for everyone, when it’s really that they feel assailed in their own castles now. The people who are assailed no matter who’s in power haven’t noticed much of a difference.

I bet writing and commentating with TDS drives engagement numbers like crazy, though. I bet Hamilton Nolan [1] is doing serious subscriber numbers these days but his writing quality has noticeably decreased of late, unfortunately. It’s probably good for him personally; he’s doing much less work and making much more money. I’m not sure a socialist labor-supporter should have that as a top priority, but what do I know? Not much.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to watch this video but then I ended up being glad I had, because it included pretty decent analysis, calling out people who can’t remember that history is long and well-documented, regardless of their ideological needs.

Rachel Maddow Brings Back Russiagate INSANITY by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

At 06:45, Glenn says

“I also love the conceit that only now is the United States lining up with the world’s dictators. Does she have any idea who American allies are? What governments we’ve installed? Which governments we prop up? Did she watch Joe Biden go and meet with Mohamad bin Salman? After promising to turn the Saudis into outcasts after they got caught murdering a journalist from the Washington Post? As she watched the billions of dollars every year going from […] Washington to Cairo to prop up the incredibly violent brutal Egyptian dictator? Does she know anything about American history?

“These people really believe in this fairy tale, that the United States upholds the rules-based international order.

“The same country that cheered the ICC when it declared Putin a war criminal said, ‘oh that’s very good, ICC. That’s the right move. That’s very important what you did,‘ and then sanction them—the same court—when, a year later, they reached the same conclusion about America’s ally Israel. And then sanction the judges and the prosecutors responsible.

“Only in the United States and a few capitals in Western Europe can you still say that crap ‘oh the United States stands for the 80 years of the post World War I rules-based International order,’ and not provoke a laughing fit. Everyone outside of the United States understands that that is a joke.”

This was a sane and sober discussion of what is actually happening in the U.S. empire. Katie Halper and Aaron Maté have a long discussion with Brian Berletic about what USAID actually does, with its arms like the NED.

Extended episode: Former Marine DEBUNKS USAID Rumors by Useful Idiots (YouTube)

Former U.S. Marine Brian Berletic, who focuses on geopolitics in Eurasia and hosts the informative Youtube show The New Atlas, joins Useful Idiots this week as Elon Musk and the Trump administration are gutting USAID and attempting to move it under the control of Marco Rubio’s State Department.

Musk claims he’s “dismantling the Deep State.” Berletic, whose years as a marine gave him a harsh awakening about the reality of US hegemony, gives an in-depth analysis of what’s really going on.

He explains why each side is up-in-arms over the issue: Dems are painting USAID as an all-loving agency that is essential to upholding Democracy around the world, while Republicans are crying wokeism by finding relatively trivial expenses in the fine print. Neither, Berletic says, are highlighting the real, and much more nefarious issues with USAID.

“They have not mentioned foreign interference, regime change, subversion, stifling development, and they have not said that they are going to stop any of that.”

“And here’s a photo,” he shows us from the U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide, drafted in part by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “Just think about how tone deaf or brazen they are to post this picture. This is a picture of the Philippines, the U.S. conquered the Philippines. There was an uprising because they wanted to be an independent nation. The US military brutally suppressed it. Mass murder, concentration camps. This is all listed on the State Department’s website. And so they’re talking about insurgency, counterinsurgency, and USAID’s role in the counterinsurgency process.”

At 39:00,

“Brian BerleticBrian: I’m pretty sure that that’s what they’re doing: they’re just rebranding it [USAID]; they’re sharpening it; they’re streamlining it. They’re definitely not going to do away with it. Because they’re telling you their foreign policy, and it depends entirely on a tool like this [USAID].

“Aaron: The example that you raise of Georgia is so important, because it recently emerged that USAID spent more than $40 million on Georgia’s elections. $40 million! Compare that to the freakout in the US over allegations that a Russian troll Farm spent $100,000 on the 2016 election—when, in fact, the reality was it was about $46,000, but whatever, even if it was $100,000—so a Russian troll Farm spent $46,000 on social-media posts and ads that nobody saw, that weren’t even about the election (most of them) and there was just a national freakout for years during Russia-gate. This was blamed as the cause of Trump’s Victory—or as a major factor in Trump’s Victory—whereas we spend $40 million in Georgia’s elections and that’s considered to be totally normal.”

At 42:00,

“Brian: There are organizations attacking me. They’re going so far as claiming that I’m some sort of Russian or Chinese agent, when they themselves—the people attacking me: you can go to their website, you can look through their bio, and they themselves will admit that they’re receiving all kinds of US government money. […] I think you know they’re on the take. So they’re assuming that other people are [too] and the craziest thing is they’re trying to convince people that they stand for human rights and democracy and freedom. And they’re taking money from the absolute worst violator of human rights in this 21st century. No one else comes even close even.

“The things the US makes up about China that aren’t even true. But let’s just pretend for a minute they were true. It pales in comparison to what the US has openly done in front of the entire planet all throughout the 21st century and that’s who they’re taking money from.

“And then they’ll say, ‘Brian, the National Endowment for Democracy … it’s got the word ‘democracy’ in in its name! What’s wrong with that! It says democracy! You hate democracy?!?’

“And I tell them, ‘look at the board of directors. You have Elliot Abrams[, who’s] a convicted criminal. He’s on the board of directors. You have people like Scott Carpenter, who participated in the illegal occupation and illegal administration of Iraq. I mean, that’s who you’re taking money from.‘

“And so, it is immense hypocrisy. I believe that it’s unsustainable. And I think as multipolarism emerges, as a balance of power begins to grow, they’re not going to be able to get away with this. They’re not going to enjoy the impunity that they have almost certainly had all of these decades. They got away with it because there was no one else able to check and balance them. Now that there is—or soon will be—they have to start taking that into account.

“And I think that’s all secretary Rubio was talking about, when he was talking about a unipolar world. They’re worried about comeuppance, maybe they’re worried that they’re going to have to change their tactics, and the impunity that they’ve enjoyed for so long is over.”

At 51:36,

“The United States has been exploiting potential vulnerabilities for decades in regards to China. So we all hear about Tibet and the free-Tibet movement and, again, if you go to the [U.S.] State Department’s Office of the Historian, they have documents there admitting that there was a CIA operation arming militants in India and sending them over the border to kill Chinese soldiers in Tibet, to free Tibet. It was a CIA operation. It always was.

“The same goes for Xinjiang, China. This was the U.S.—together with Turkey, Saudi Arabia—importing a radical, politically perverted version of Islam, overriding the indigenous version of Islam that people there have practiced regenerations, radicalizing them, and promoting separatism. So, there was this—people may remember all the horrible violence and the Western media was very happy at the time to report all of this horrible violence because at the time China couldn’t control it—and so then there was this crackdown on the violence and then the West spun that as the infamous Uighur genocide that they’re still talking about.

“Hong Kong: they tried to promote separatism there. We remember the violent protests there.

“And, of course, Taiwan. This has been a project long in the making, building up a separatist administration there, arming them, which is still going on right now.

“So, these are the different projects the West is still working on, to pressure China within their own borders and then setting up this Global Network and setting up the battlefield, really, for a maritime blockade, an international maritime blockade. Even though they claim that China is this military threat to the entire world. In the think tank documents, they admit that China’s military is confined to China. It does not have the ability to project military power abroad, and so they know that, if they were to enact some kind of maritime blockade against Chinese maritime shipping, far from China, it would disrupt their economy, but the Chinese military wouldn’t be able to project power to do anything about it.”

At 01:07:05,

“Aaron: Putting aside the morality of that, does Ukraine even have access anymore to its most valuable rare-earth minerals? Because it’s my understanding that Russia actually has taken the territory where most of those resources are.

“Brian: Yes, absolutely. I mean, most of the mining was taking place in eastern Ukraine, and now eastern Ukraine is Western Russia, so what Rare Earth minerals?”

Values of rare-earth, critical minerals in Ukraine
 

Chris Hedges has some of the most interesting, and unique, interviews you can find. I’d never heard of Farah before but she was a great interview.

Arab Regimes and the Betrayal of Palestine (w/ Farah El-Sharif) | The Chris Hedges Report by The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel (YouTube)

The first 15 minutes were an absolute tour-de-force of history and erudition by Farah El-Sharif. She is extremely well-spoken and brilliant, works at Stanford, and “served as Stanford’s Abbasi Program’s Associate Director from 2021-2023”.

Check out the people in this video:

People mentioned in this video − including Muhammad

Farah was being interviewed, OK. Muhammad has no picture 😹. And I don’t think Chris would have chosen Jared Kushner to be highlighted as having been mentioned in his video. It’s true that he is mentioned, but I think that this is just how automation can give people the wrong impression from content.

I learned that plans for the global war on terror/Islam (GWOT) were hatched in 1979 or, at the latest, in 1982, by Netanyahu.

At 14:30, Farah says,

“We should not forget that this campaign that we are seeing now, is exactly out of Netanyahu’s kind of wet dream for the Middle East: to take all of it, essentially. In 1996—you know better than me, Chris, about the clean-break policy that was designed to take out seven countries in five years, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and then swallow the region whole. And for anybody to look at one regime-change and to say that that’s not part and parcel of this campaign…even the war on terror was cooked up in Tel Aviv in 1982, or even before in 1979, through the Jonathan Institute (Wiki Spooks) that Netanyahu himself founded.

“He said, ‘we’re done with the red threat. Now is the green threat, that of Islamic Terror.‘ And so, a lot of Muslims even internalize this war-on-terror rhetoric, and they themselves start being apologetic and say, ‘oh Islam is peaceful. Islam is this. Islam is compatible with democracy. Islam is compatible with civility.’ And I see that as a sign of decimated consciousness, not just double-consciousness. They don’t know their own faith. They don’t know their own history. And so, they start being apologetic about it and that is a position of weakness.”

I don’t even know what to transcribe because, whenever Chris Hedges speaks, it’s worth citing, and he speaks for nearly the entire 30 minutes, as Hill allows him to speak at length. This is an excellent distillation of the situation in the American Empire as it is, rooted in the historical context of both its own past, as well as similar contexts in the Roman Empire as well as in Italy and Germany in the first half of the 20th century.

Yuck it up, assholesThey discuss the failures of so-called liberalism at reasonable length. Hedges doesn’t waste any time pretending that Trump isn’t a threat but also doesn’t waste time pretending that the threat started with Trump—or that it would end with his departure. He talks about how Carter began the immiseration of the working class, with Reagan picking up the baton and taking credit for having begun it—and with Clinton having taking the machinery of Reagan and done even more downward-spiraling horrors with it.

Democracy doesn’t exist in the United States: Chris Hedges | UpFront by Al Jazeera English / Marc Lamont Hill (YouTube)

Maybe a short quote from 15:30,

“Chris: What was wokeness? Wokeness was—the corporations love it; they love it you know—is wokeness a woman CEO? No. It’s about empowering working-class women. It’s a complete inversion.
Marc: Do you see wokeness as a kind of superficial approach to dealing with identity politics or do you see identity politics itself…?
Chris: I see identity politics as furthering the goals and the rapaciousness of the corporate state […] wokeness in the hands of the ruling class has been used as a cudgel to essentially punish and scold the working class. And it is also about elevating their own status […]”

When Marc asked Chris about the quotation from scripture at Trump’s inauguration at 19:45, he responded that it was,

“Chris: Idolatry. Moloch, Worshiping at the feet of Moloch. It’s idolatry. It’s heresy, It’s the sacralization of human and political power, which is probably the greatest sin any religious institution can make.

“Look, the mega churches work like this—and I learned this from Hannah Arendt […]—they are essentially equivalent of the so-called German Christian Church, established under the fascists in Germany where, on one side, you had the Christian cross and, on the other, the Nazi flag.

“And let’s be clear, Marc, this church is bankrolled by the very billionaire class that we talked about. Why? Because with Magic Jesus. you don’t need labor unions; with Magic Jesus. you don’t need health care; because Magic Jesus is going to give you a Cadillac and make all your dreams come true.

“And that is a shift from a reality-based world into the world of magical thinking. And once people shift into that world of magical thinking. you can’t reach them through rational argument.”

Dwindling glaciersThe Umweltverantwortungsinitiative is best translated as “How do you say virtue-signaling in German?” Predictably, it failed. The following are some notes from conversations I had about the initiative with friends.

The referendum is basically Switzerland promising that it will be climate-neutral per citizen as a proportion of its population’s share of the world population.

I am basically for every country on the planet doing this thing but I also think that it has no chance of happening.

That would mean probably about at least a 90% reduction of CO2 output per person in Switzerland. A massive lifestyle and societal change. They list zero measures that they would enact to do this. That is left up to the Bundesrat, the Nationalrat, and the Kantonsrat.

They don’t dare mention that it would mean reducing cars massively, reducing flying massively, reducing imports of high-CO2 goods like chocolate and coffee, etc. … in which case absolutely no-one would vote for it. My God, it was 14 years ago that I read Heat, a book about how we could get to climate-neutral. Here are my 14-year-old notes: Citations from Heat by George Monbiot.

This initiative will not pass no matter which way we vote, so those who support fighting climate change can feel good about voting yes, and those who think the MARKET and TECHNOLOGY will fix everything can vote NEIN and feel all tickled pink about that. Either way, we’re in the shitter because no-one is doing anything about climate change but making it worse.

I’ll vote yes, but have no hope that it will pass — in which case CH can brag on the world stage that it has promised to do its part, which it absolutely will not be able to do — and also have no hope that they will pass a single measure even moving in the direction of CH fighting climate change any better than it already does.

If no-one else fights with us, it doesn’t matter one whit.

I’ll say “yes” because it lines up with my principles and with what I think we need to do if we want to keep the planet habitable for more than (maybe) our generation, but I also know that 30 years ago was when we should have started and doing stuff now is better than nothing, but it’s like farting into a hurricane.
 

What is the difference between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and Syria?

In both cases, a country has taken action to establish what it calls a “buffer zone” in a neighboring country that it finds threatening, out of what it considers to be legitimate “security concerns”. Security concerns arise whenever there is animosity between neighbors.

By dint of their respective overwhelming military advantage, Russia and Israel can force their neighbors to the table, to renegotiate an already existing agreement because new circumstances have affected the stability of that agreement. From its point of view, Russia not unreasonably views its immediate neighbor having enthusiastically expressed the interest of not only joining, but also pledging to improve the armed stance of, an alliance that has declared Russia a sworn enemy to be discomfiting. From its point of view, Israel not unreasonably views the destabilization of its immediate neighbors to be an increased security problem.

It is only when there is a far stronger member of the pair of neighbors that the weaker must even begin to consider capitulating to the other’s demands for more security. In both of these cases, the beleaguered nations are forced to consider doing something they’d rather not do, in order to buy a more stable peace.

One difference between Israel’s and Russia’s invasions is that Israel is the one responsible for the instability that makes them think they need a security buffer, while, in Russia’s case, it is NATO that is responsible for the instability that makes Russia think it needs a security buffer. Israel’s insecurity is a fevered imagining that they bring into being by provoking their neighbors. In the case of Russia/Ukraine, it is Russia which was and continues to be provoked. There is every reason to believe that there would have been no invasion without NATO and, in particular, the U.S. constantly fomenting unrest in bordering countries.

On the subject of Israel, the following two videos are useful for context.

Peter Beinart’s path to empathy

Peter Beinart on protest, Zionism & Gaza @ UMass-Amherst 11/19/24 by Media Education Foundation (YouTube)

This was a very good discussion—it was mostly a talk by Beinart—that starts off a bit slowly, and seems like it might teeter in a mediocre direction, but is quite rewarding if you stick with it. Beinart starts off by explaining that he couldn’t find empathy until he really saw the suffering for himself. That is, in the abstract, he wasn’t able to understand. I suppose it’s brave for him to admit to that, because it doesn’t reflect well on what used to be his morality.

However, it’s extremely important to show other people suffering from the same moral lapse—and the inability to empathize with people who aren’t in your situation is a moral lapse bordering on sociopathy—that it is possible to emerge from that shell, leave that silo, shed that cocoon to become a more enlightened and empathetic person.

He explains how he was blissfully unaware that his privilege was built on a hill of skulls. In that, he is very like most of us, so he’s a good messenger. Beinart (now) has his head on straight and I fervently hope that he, as a very prominent American Jew who used to think quite differently, can show people the path that he chose to bring himself to the right side of history. He is very well-read and very eloquent and expresses the necessary ideas well.

Life in the West Bank

25 years of resisting Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank | Witness Documentary by Al Jazeera (YouTube)

This ~45-minute documentary about people living in the West Bank is sad and touching. So much mainstream media portrays Palestinians as ravening revolutionaries. This documentary shows them as they are, nearly pathetically resigned to their fate and willing to make nearly any compromise. The balk only at the suggestion that they not exist at all. Unfortunately for them, that seems to be the only solution that the settlers who have declared war on them would be willing to accept.

There are some absolutely ghoulish scenes of settlers surrounding a farmer’s house and taunting them that their house will be destroyed soon. In other segments, we see the IDF show up and defend these settlers, throwing Palestinians off of their land.

This is pure plunder. Dress it up however you like, it’s plunder.

There is nothing refined or moral or high-minded about this. This is just mugging. It’s just taking someone’s stuff because you’re stronger. There is no more detail to add that will change this basic underpinning.

The settlers are taking that which is not theirs and that which they have not earned as a shortcut to their own personal safety, security, well-being, and success, all at the expense of people far weaker. There is nothing to be supported in this. It’s absolutely ghoulish to watch the settler children grinning and smiling as they watch their fathers torment poor farmers.

“98% of the permits that the Palestinians apply for is turned down.”

Well, of course they are. The permit system is just a way of wasting time. Permits only work in a system of equals, where there are conditions to be met that don’t have anything to do with who you are. Like, if you want a permit to build a shed, you should have to show that there would be room for snow to slide off of your new shed’s roof without destroying your neighbor’s bushes but you shouldn’t have to prove that your the last five generations on your mother’s side were Jewish.

Much of the video is in Arabic and Hebrew, but it’s subtitled in what I am forced to assume is a faithful manner.

When English was spoken, I heard very few (no?) NYC accents. In many other videos, the Israeli soldiers and other interviewees speak in what are, for me, very blatantly broad Brooklyn or otherwise NYC accents. It always makes me to wonder what the hell they’re all doing there and where their fervor for occupation and destruction of another people comes from? I guess it comes from being U.S.-American?

Craig Mokhiber talks to Ralph Nader

Israel’s Wall of Impunity by Ralph Nader et al. (Ralph Nader's Radio Hour)

This was overall an excellent show. Craig Mokhiber is eloquent, precise and nearly poetic in his description of the world.

Stick around for the wrapup, where you’ll be treated to “In Case You Haven’t Heard,” by Francesco DeSantis, who delivers a concise, no-nonsense, and information-rich reportage with masterful elocution and nearly unheard-of pronunciation of foreign names.

The article Given George Stephanopoulos’ Carelessness, ABC’s Defamation Settlement With Trump Seems Prudent by Jacob Sullum (Reason) writes,

“In an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R–S.C.) on ABC’s This Week last March, host George Stephanopoulos repeatedly and inaccurately asserted that Donald Trump, now the president-elect, had been “found liable for rape.” A week later, Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, noting that a jury had deemed Trump civilly liable for “sexual abuse,” not “rape.” Over the weekend, ABC News announced that it had reached a $15 million settlement with Trump in the form of a $15 million contribution to Trump’s presidential library. ABC also agreed to cover $1 million in Trump’s legal expenses.”

Sleazy Stephanopoulos: what's he thinking about?Words matter. Stop spreading disinformation. You can’t just willy-nilly change the names of the crimes for which people have been convicted to suit your personal preferences. If you don’t know the difference, then stop talking about it, or learn. It’s not like George Stephanopoulos isn’t a repeat offender on being fast and loose with facts. It’s basically been part of his job description as long as I can remember hearing his name—when he was policy advisor to Bill Clinton for most of Billy boy’s first term. [1]

The rest of the article explains that NYS had changed the definition of the word “rape” in 2023 so people now feel free to retroactively apply the new definition. This kind of thing just screams 1984 to me, even though the new definition of rape seems quite appropriate, “nonconsensual vaginal, oral and anal sexual contact,” which would have included Trump’s having forcibly fingered his victim in a clothing outlet’s changing room in the 90s. [2]

The thing I find myself in the awkward position of reminding people is that, as traumatizing as the experience was for the victim, it was 30 years ago and did not have geopolitical or national impact. It’s not even in the top ten of terrible, far-reaching, damaging things that Trump has done that has degraded or eliminated lives. Can we focus on hitting Trump for depraved acts that continue to cause harm, rather than pettily calling him names for things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things?

Stephanopoulos’s “journalism” is pure bullshit, just swatting at what he imagines to be low-hanging fruit for ratings. He’s not actually going after Trump for real shit—he and his cronies in the so-called left-wing media approve of all the more horrible things that Trump has done, is doing, and will do.

Trump gave a huge tax break to the rich. That caused and causes a lot more damage in many more people’s lives. He assassinated a top Iranian general after fooling him into coming to Iraq for high-level talks. He let Israel have the Golan Heights. He let them have Jerusalem. These things that he does are more far-reaching and relevant. We have to stop him from doing things like that. Focus.

Obviously, he has to stop sexually assaulting people too but he’s actually already stopped doing that. All of the charges against him stem from decades in the past. It’s not at the top of the list for most of the world’s population affected by the bull in the china shop that is the U.S. empire. Focus.

Calling him out for sexual abuse from the 90s—for which he’s already been convicted and sentenced—is a distraction and actually plays into his hands. People who tune in to that shit and ignore the real machinations of empire are complicit. ABC ended up buying a wing of his presidential library (God help us.)

He’s the f@&king president now. Again. Calling him a rapist just because it makes you feel like a hero—and gets you ratings—won’t make him less the president.

Simon ShusterThe interview in the video below was quite good for showing what “manufactured consent” looks like in person. Simon Shuster is an affable, seemingly reasonable person who represents exactly what the U.S. empire wants him to represent. When Aaron pushes back, though, he concedes that Aaron is right but then doubles down on his opinion anyway—and always expressed in a friendly manner, negating the disagreement for the untrained listener.

If you listen to what he’s saying, he admits that Ukraine did want to outlaw Russian as an official language (but that no-one really noticed), or that banning supposedly Russian-influenced media in Ukraine was unconstitutional (but that didn’t affect Ukraine’s dedication to democracy and freedom).

He’s a con man who doesn’t even know he’s a con man.

It’s like someone who’s taking money out of your wallet, while agreeing with you that crime is bad and that stealing is wrong.

Ukraine vs. Russia: Nuclear War, Frozen Conflict, or Peace? Debate w/ Simon Shuster by Useful Idiots (YouTube)

Aaron shows a tremendous amount of patience and really does an excellent interview, despite Shuster repeatedly accusing him of believing what are solely Russian talking points. Anything that doesn’t agree with Shuster’s (and the U.S. empire’s) narrative is de-facto Russian propaganda.

As Shuster reminded Aaron multiple times: he was there, in Ukraine and discussed everything in multiple conversations with Zelensky, and it’s all detailed in his book (which I wonder if he’s just assuming that Aaron hadn’t read it, as with pretty much all mainstream interviewers). Shuster also called Aaron intellectually lazy to his face? Like, he didn’t even notice that he was doing it. Aaron pretended not to notice.

Shuster can say things that amount to: Zelensky is an upstanding fighter for freedom and democracy who has, unfortunately and against the exhortations of his advisors, shut down free speech and most media in his country as he veers toward a full year past his elected term with no elections in sight … all without losing a step. He’ll admit to all of this but is so accustomed to people listening to his tone and not his words that he feels he can get away with it.

It reminds me of when Ted Danson was reading the gory details of a boxing match from the pages of Sports Illustrated to put a baby to sleep in Three Men and a Baby (IMDb):

“It doesn’t matter what I read, it’s the tone you use. She doesn’t understand the words anyway […]”

To Shuster’s credit: when Aaron says something that is partially drawn from Shuster’s book and partially drawn from Shuster’s own sources that is diametrically opposed to what he himself happens to be saying, he says, “that’s a fair point.” Soon after, though, he will state his previous conclusion as if he’d proven it. Instead, what he’d done is agreed with the information countervailing his argument and then reiterated his opposite conclusion, but in a tone of voice that implies agreement. The words disagree but the tone agrees.

At about 54:00, he answers Katie’s question about a possible nuclear war by saying that, again, he has relatives in Russia and that he has access to Russian media [1] and that the “flippant way” that they discuss nuclear war is “maddening”. Agreed. Wholeheartedly. Has he watched the U.S. media and the U.S. administration talk about nuclear war? What does he think of that? How much worse could it be? If you asked him whether the attitude toward nuclear war was similarly—if not equally—flippant, he would probably agree! But then he would continue to believe that the Russians were much, much worse—because that’s how he’s been programmed. He would be completely unperturbed. As proof, a little while later he says,

“Schuster: I agree with the consensus view that Russia needs to lose this war and be defeated in Ukraine, in order for it not to continue with its broader ideolological program of defeating the west, defeating NATO.”

Sure, Ok. I mean, that’s why your book is on the NYT best-seller list, dude. Noam Chomsky had your number a long time ago: If you didn’t believe what you believe, then you wouldn’t be in the position that you are. It’s a self-regulating system.

Shuster goes on to accuse Russia of waging a “civilizational war” (instead of the other way around) and that it is the West that is “trying to stop that” (again, instead of the other way around). He concludes with a smile, saying that this is the “consensus view”, knowing that the people he’s talking to know that already and are not accepting it but also knowing that he couldn’t possibly be expected to doubt the consensus view, else he wouldn’t be who he is.

“Katie: So you’re saying—and this is not a rhetorical question—that some kind of nuclear war is preferable to letting Russia win, for the sake of democracy?”

Shuster doesn’t disagree. How could he?

Instead, Shuster says that Zelensky told him, “Russia’s already hitting us with everything have; if they hit us with a nuke, then we’ll keep fighting.” This is so wildly out of touch with reality. Shuster can acknowledge that Russia is winning but then believes Zelensky when he says he’ll keep fighting no matter what. Ukraine is already having trouble fighting as it is. But it will continue fighting through a nuclear attack.

He knows that Russia isn’t interested in the goals he ascribes to it—European dominance and empire—because otherwise he would advocate fighting even harder against them.

The only thing that can happen now is that more people die but there will be no change to the result, unless NATO steps in with its own troops and directly attacks Russia. The only reason it doesn’t do that is because of the nuclear threat. Why doesn’t Shuster discuss that, if the goal is so important, why doesn’t NATO directly fight for Ukraine? If he believes that it’s a civilizational war, then he should be all-in, no?

Of course, he knows—and simultaneously cannot acknowledge—that this would start an all-out European war. He knows that Russia isn’t interested in the goals he ascribes to it—European dominance and empire—because otherwise he would advocate fighting even harder against them. But, at the same time, he cannot say that we should just reconcile with Russia and stop the bloodshed because he knows that the real goal for which he’s a cheerleader is to bleed Russia and weaken it. That is the goal that he is advocating for without directly advocating it. The propaganda about Russia wanting to wage a civilizational war is just that: propaganda intended to garner support.

It’s fascinating to watch him say things like,

“We’re not choosing between peace and nuclear-use; we’re choosing between ways to contain a very aggressive authoritarian regime that has set out to basically humble and destroy the West.”

…without at-all understanding how that could very much and much more believably be the Russian viewpoint, by replacing the final words “the West” with “Russia”. There would be no war without NATO pushing toward Russia. Russia hadn’t moved an inch westward for about 80 years. Most of the rest of world sees it that way, not the way that Shuster puts it.

Shuster has so much faith in the “brains up in the [U.S.] State Department and the Pentagon” that they are working in everyone’s best interests. It’s almost like he thinks they’re competent, amazing as that seems. He is a lackey for empire but an extremely affable one, so he’s all the more dangerous.

“If you allow Russia to swallow up Ukraine and get its way in Ukraine to neuter it militarily and so on, it won’t satisfy the appetites of the beast that Putin has unleashed with Russian militarism and expansionism.”

Breathtaking. 🤡👏👏👏

Breaking the Public Schools / Jennifer Berkshire by Chuck Mertz (This is Hell!) is an excellent interview about public-school funding with the very articulate—and clearly a trained podcaster—Jennifer Berkshire.

Jennifer BerkshireShe was a bit hesitant to go all-out revolutionary in some cases, preferring the more mealy-mouthed liberal-style formulations like (possibly paraphrasing here),

“It’s interesting that Republican representatives who otherwise oppose government expenditures are so generous with the public wallet when it comes to their wealthier constituents. That seems, at first gloss, a tad hypocritical.”

C’mon! It’s fu@&king crooked. They are utterly without principles, grubbing for money and power with not a single other overriding concern.

Just. Say. It.

We have to start saying it.

We can’t just keep watching them as they rob our f@&king houses, muttering “they really shouldn’t be doing that. Registered-letter time.”

No.

It’s torch and pitchfork time.

On a lighter note, the Question from Hell was “why can’t we have nice things?”. At about 19:00 minutes left, they read the answer “because we’re a nation built on genocide and slavery,” to which Chuck replied, “Ah, I see. They’ve got the same bumper sticker I’ve got.” This is a good line on its face…but it’s made funnier when you know that Chuck is legally blind.

2024 Election was the Oligarchic Elite vs. Corporate Elite (w/ Chris Hedges) (YouTube)

This is a fantastic and wide-ranging interview by Brianna. Hedges is at his morose and realistic best.

Near the end, they discuss the possibility of Hedges going on Rogan to teach him about Gramsci. I, for one, would absolutely watch the hell out of Chris Hedges on Joe Rogan. Joe would take a week off just to think about what had just happened.

Imagine Hedges bringing his message to Rogan’s audience. I really wonder what that would look like in terms of viewer numbers. Would the same people tune in or would they tune out?

They include a long clip of Noam Chomsky’s famous interview by Andrew Marr at 01:02:00 from 1996. I hadn’t seen the full clip in a long time. I pulled a bit of the transcript from Transcript of interview between Noam Chomsky and Andrew Marr (Feb. 14, 1996) in 2015 (scratchindog pisses on a tree) and the original video is linked below (30mins).

Noam Chomsky on Propaganda − The Big Idea − Interview with Andrew Marr (YouTube)

“Marr: This is what I don’t get, because it suggests that − I mean I’m a journalist − people like me are self-censoring.

“Chomsky: No, not self-censoring. You’re, there’s a filtering system, that starts in kindergarten, and goes all the way through, and it’s not going to work 100% but it’s pretty effective. It selects for obedience, and subordination, and especially I think…

“Marr: So stroppy people won’t make it to positions of influence.

“Chomsky: There’ll be behavioural problems. If you read applications to a graduate school you’ll see that people will tell you, he’s not, he doesn’t get along too well with his colleagues, you know how to interpret those things.

“Marr: I’m just interested in this because I was brought up like a lot of people, probably post-Watergate film and so on to believe that journalism was a crusading craft and there were a lot of disputatious, stroppy, difficult people in journalism, and I have to say, I think I know some of them.

“Chomsky: Well, I know some of the best, and best known investigative reporters in the United States, I won’t mention names, {inaudible}, whose attitude towards the media is much more cynical than mine. In fact, they regard the media as a sham. And they know, and they consciously talk about how they try to play it like a violin. If they see a little opening, they’ll try to squeeze something in that ordinarily wouldn’t make it through. And it’s perfectly true that the majority − I’m sure you’re speaking for the majority of journalists who are trained, have it driven into their heads, that this is a crusading profession, adversarial, we stand up against power. A very self-serving view. On the other hand, in my opinion, I hate to make a value judgement but, the better journalists and in fact the ones who are often regarded as the best journalists have quite a different picture. And I think a very realistic one.

“Marr: How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are.

“Chomsky: I’m not saying you’re self censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believe something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.

“Marr: We have a press, which has, seems to me, has a relatively wide range of views… There is a pretty small ‘c’ conservative majority, but there are left wing papers, there are liberal papers and there is a pretty large offering of views running from the far right to the far left for those who want them. I don’t see how a propaganda model can.

“Chomsky: That’s not quite true. I mean there have been good studies of the British press and you can look at them, by James Curran3 is the major one, which points out that up until the 1960s there was indeed a kind of a social democratic press which sort of represented much of the interests of working people and ordinary people and so on, and it was very successful. I mean in the Daily Herald, for example, had not only more… it had far higher circulation than other newspapers, but also a dedicated circulation, furthermore the tabloids at that time, The Mirror and The Sun, were kind of labor based. That, by the 60s, that was all gone. And it disappeared under the pressure of capital resources. What was left was overwhelmingly the sort of center-to-right press, with some dissidents, it’s true.

“Mann: I mean, we’ve got, I’d say a couple of large circulation newspapers which are left-of-center. Which are, which are, you know putting in neo-Keynesian views which the, you call the elites, are strongly hostile to.

“Chomsky: It’s interesting that you call neo-Keynesian left-of-center, I would just call it straight and center. The… I mean left-of-center is a value term.

“Marr: sure…

“Chomsky: But there’s, there’s… there are extremely good journalists in England. A number of them write very honestly, and very good material, a lot of what they write couldn’t appear here. On the other hand, if you look at the question overall I don’t think you are going to find a big difference. And the few, there aren’t many studies of the British press, but the few that there are have found pretty much the same results and I think the better journalists will tell you that. In fact, we, what you have to do is check it out in cases. Let’s take what I just mentioned, the Vietnam War. The British press did not have the kind of stake in the Vietnam War that the American press did, because they weren’t fighting, but just check sometime and find how many times you can find the American war in Vietnam described as a US attack against South Vietnam, beginning clearly with outright aggression in 1961 and escalating to massive aggression in 65. If you can find .001% of the coverage saying that you’ll surprise me. And in a free press a 100% of it would have being saying that. Now that is just a matter of fact, it has nothing to do with left and right.”

Julian AssangeI covered this in my notes at the time but it’s really worth repeating and celebrating that Julian Assange didn’t rot to death in a prison. It’s honestly the best news we’ve had at an international level. He wrote about it at the time in the article ‘I’m Free Because I Pled Guilty to Journalism’ by Julian Assange (Scheer Post). In the article, he took time to point out that, despite his 14 years of imprisonment, he’d gotten off comparatively easy, citing the plight of Joshua Schulte.

“In February this year, the alleged source of some of our C.I.A. revelations, former C.I.A. officer Joshua Schulte, was sentenced to 40 years in prison under conditions of extreme isolation. His windows are blacked out and a white noise machine plays 24 hours a day over his door so that he cannot even shout through it. These conditions are more severe than those found in Guantanamo Bay.”

This is how the elites punish disobedience: with extrajudicial and contra-constitutional torture, cruel and unusual. There are only the elites who wield extrajudicial power and the rest of us. The rest of us are arrayed against them; do not let them divide and conquer.

“If the situation were not already bad enough, in my case, the U.S. government asserted a dangerous, dangerous new global legal position. Only U.S. citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and other nationalities do not have free speech rights, but the U.S. claims its Espionage Act still applies to them, regardless of where they are. So Europeans in Europe must obey the U.S. secrecy law with no defenses at all.”

The following video isn’t very tightly edited at all but it has a good presentation by Assange as well as a quite-lengthy question-and-answer session. Assange begins speaking at about 28:30 or so.

LIVE: Julian Assange speaks at the Council of Europe | REUTERS by Reuters (YouTube)

I’ve included several transcripts of the parts I found the most moving or interesting below. [1]

At 01:25:00,

“The US-UK Expedition treaty is one-sided. Nine times more people are extradited to the United States from the UK than the other way around. The protections for US citizens being extradited to the UK are stronger. There is no need to show a primary case or reasonable suspicion, even when the United States seeks to extradite from the UK. It’s an allegation-extradition system. The allegation is alleged; you do not even have a chance to argue that it is not true. All the arguments are based simply upon: ‘is it the right person? Does it breach human rights?’ That’s it.

“That said, I do not think in any way that UK judges are compelled to extradite most people, and particularly journalists, to the United States. Some judges in the UK found in my favor at different stages in that process. Other judges did not. But all judges, whether they are finding in my favor or not, in the United Kingdom, showed extraordinary deference to the United States, engaged in astonishing intellectual back-flips to allow the United States to have its way on my extradition and, in relation to setting precedence that occurred in my case more broadly.

“That’s, to my mind, a function of the selection of UK judges, the narrow section of British Society from which they come, their deep engagement with the UK establishment, and the UK establishment’s deep engagement with the United States. Whether that’s in the intelligence sector, BAE—which is now the largest arms [actually] the largest manufacturer in the United Kingdom—a weapons company—BP, Shell, and some of the major banks. The United Kingdom’s establishment is made up out of people who have benefited from that system for a long period of time. And almost all judges are from it. They don’t need to be told explicitly what to do. They understand what is good for that cohort and what is good for that cohort is keeping a good relationship with the United States government.”

At 01:40:00,

“I was a computer scientist / programmer from a young age, studied mathematics and physics, … cryptography.”

He’s singing my song.

Man, am I just so happy to see this guy out of prison, still alive, still cogent, still incisive, seemingly mentally well and balanced, strong, and still fighting the good fight.

He concluded with:

“Just a few final words. In 2010, I was living in Paris. I went to the United Kingdom and never came back until now. It’s good to be back. It’s good to be amongst people who, as we say in Australia, who give a damn. It’s good to be amongst friends. And I would just like to thank all the people who have fought for my liberation and who have understood importantly that my liberation was coupled to their own liberation. That the basic fundamental liberties, which sustain us all, have to be fought for, and that, when one of us falls through the cracks, soon enough, those cracks will widen and take the rest of us down. So, thank you for your thoughts, your courage in this and other settings, and keep up the fight. Thank you.”

How eloquent.

What a refreshingly happy end to this chapter. The Empire did not get its way. He lives. He speaks. He is loved. [2]

Behind the News, 11/7/24 by Doug Henwood (Apple Podcasts) was an extremely dense podcast, starting with Henwood reading his excellent article It Was Always About Inflation (Jacobin) (from which I cited a few passages in Links and Notes for November 8th, 2024), before going in-depth on a survey of Israeli public opinion: politics, polls, and inclinations with the extremely lucid and quick Dahlia Scheindlin, who works for Ha’aretz, then moving on to James Foley and Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, who afford the war Ukraine the same treatment. It was just a devastatingly good podcast, packed into only 53 minutes. All meat; no fat.

Dahlia ScheindlinScheindlin’s statement that Israelis aren’t really thinking about Gaza, nor are they actively not thinking about it gibes with what I’ve heard anecdotally. This isf rom some notes I made from over the last several months:

Then I have these:

As Scheindlin said, Israelis’ overriding and only concern is the hostages. They have to focus only on that because it is the only potentially ennobling facet. They are well-aware that slaughtering two million people is not an appropriate response to having lost one thousand (or so, when you’ve subtracted the ones that the IDF killed).

It’s easier to convince themselves that, as long a single hostage remains, they can continue to smash at the Palestinians, who are just being bloody-minded about not releasing the hostages and therefore deserve whatever they get until they do release them. Israelis don’t know or care about the thousands of hostages that Israel has taken both before October 7th and in the past year. They don’t empathize and wonder what happens when the Palestinians say the same thing: we fight until we get our hostages back.

An unstoppable force versus immovable object.

Well, Palestinians are slipping closer and closer to becoming a theoretical people, but you understand what I mean, I hope.

Here are two videos of the inestimable Norman Finkelstein. The first one is just under ten minutes while the second is much longer: it starts at about 28 minutes into the 100-minute video.

'Gaza is GONE:' Prof. Norman Finkelstein on Israel's Destruction by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

“Norman Finkelstein: There’s no question in my mind what’s going to happen: Israel is going to say we’re not letting cement into Gaza. It already did that after Cast Lead. It said that Hamas will use the cement to build tunnels. ‘We’re not going to let cement in.‘ And nobody in the international community is going to quarrel with that.

“Hamas, they say, built 450 miles of tunnels, which I consider complete nonsense. All these numbers that everybody repeats moronically from the state of Israel. If they had built 450 miles of tunnels […] that would be larger than the tunnel system of the New York Subway system. The New York Subway system has 430 miles of tunnels. Are you going to tell me that Hamas built 450 miles in Gaza? It’s 26 miles long and five miles wide.

“But that’s the excuse that Israel is going to use and everybody will accept it. So, between the 45 million tons of rubble and the fact that Israel won’t let cement in—there is no Gaza anymore.”

Extended episode: Norman Finkelstein Isn't Giving Up by Useful Idiots (YouTube)

At 51:00,

“There’s no war in Gaza. The moment Israel, the moment the media reported, each day, the conflict under the subheadline…it would be the main headline, and the sub headline everywhere was the ‘Israel Hamas War’. The Israel Hamas War. The moment they got that sub headline, Israel won the propaganda war because they were depicting it as a war. There was no war in Gaza. There are no battles in Gaza. You search your memory, 365 days, do you remember one day when a battle was reported? What they do is they just flatten everything in their path. Pulverize it. And then, they move in, in order to blow up—they don’t even go into the tunnels, they blow up the shafts of the tunnels.

“There was no war in Gaza. It’s all a myth. That’s why you know, when you hear the talk…Israel says ‘we killed 18,000 fighters—Hamas terrorists.’ How would they know? How would they know who they killed? Gaza’s Ministry of Health doesn’t know. Because Hamas doesn’t wear uniforms. They don’t carry around IDs saying Hamas terrorist. So, the Ministry of Health hasn’t a clue whether this young male in front of them is Hamas or just was a young male who was walking in the street or in a building. So how would Israel know? It never actually fights Hamas militants. It may see some dead bodies on the ground but it doesn’t have a clue whether it’s a militant.

“Every time you see the Israeli figures…I could predict every figure Israel will produce from now till next year. You know how you know how many are produced? What numbers they’ll use? It’s very simple: whatever number Israel, excuse me, whatever number the Ministry of Health releases as total deaths…let’s say now they’re saying 42,000 right? So Israel is going to say we killed 21,000 Hamas terrorists. With this, they want to show the one-to-one ratio to prove they’re the most moral army in the world. Because other places, it’s 3-1 or 4-1, but here it’s 1-1, so all they do is take the total number killed, divide it in half, and say that’s the number of militants we killed, or terrorists that we killed. They don’t have a clue. There’s no fighting going on in Gaza. It’s a genocide.”

At 57:00,

“The South Africans, they went to the ICJ to say: ‘this is a genocide. It’s not a war.‘ And, if you read their application, they never use language like ‘a disproportionate attack’. They don’t use language like ‘disproportionate’. They don’t use the language like even ‘indiscriminate’. They use the language, ‘they’re targeting the civilians.‘ Do you know what a disproportionate attack means? It means you have a military target and you cause what’s called ‘excessive damage’ to civilians and civilian infrastructure.

“So, let’s say you want to attack Nala. You want to kill Nala. Does that justify killing 300 civilians? Or is it disproportionate? But a disproportionate attack presumes you are targeting a military site or combatants. But that’s not what’s been happening in Gaza. They’re not attacking military targets. If they hit a military target, it’s just by accident. It’s a statistical error if they hit—it’s the equivalent of a statistical error.”

From the accompanying article, Norman Finkelstein Isn’t Giving Up by Useful Idiots (Substack),

““I read this letter,” he tells us, “from sixty-five physicians from around the world who gave testimony as to what they observed. And every one of the physicians testified that the children who were coming into the hospital had bullet wounds to the skull or to the chest. No shrapnel. It wasn’t bombs and shrapnel. It was targeted bullet wounds to the skull and to the chest of children. What does that have to do with war?”

““There were fifty-four disabled children who used the school in the convent complex. They fired two shells at it. What does that have to do with war?”

“Norman also recalls meeting Hezbollah members, and shares what he got wrong about the organization. “Israel, he says, “is willing to kill for material benefit, and Hezbollah and Hamas are willing to die for survival” He also recounts his time meeting Hamas leaders, and explains Israel’s unfair advantage:

““Israel is the entrenched, concentrated manifestation of Western imperialism. It’s got deep roots. It’s got the whole Western system behind it, that Western system which won’t let go. It will nuke China before it lets go of its global dominance. And in order to defeat it, it requires a very long-term struggle and intense calculation.”

“[…] Norman explains this despair, and the generational hopelessness which lacks historical precedent.

““Our generation,” he laments, “has, for good reason, lost the belief, the conviction that we have the force of history behind us. That we have the force of justice behind us. Our generation believes there’s a good chance we’ll be defeated. There’s a good chance we’re not going to win.”

“But that doesn’t mean we should give up.

““The only thing I can say as a conclusion is you never know. You can only know one thing for certain: If you do nothing, it can only get worse.”

“It’s that certainty that he says keeps him going. “If you resist, there are moments where it looks very grim. And then there’s that folk song, it’s always darkest before the dawn. It’s this hope that keeps me carrying on. It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

““There’s another reality. There’s something in the human constitution that simply can’t do nothing. In the face of such death and devastation, you just can’t.””

The article Sinwar Is Dead, So What Happens Next? by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice) writes,

“The last moments of Yahya SinwarThe mastermind of the October 7th tragedy, Yahya Sinwar, was fortuitously killed. Other than the terminally ignorant, this is recognized as both a great thing and a necessity for the future of the middle east. Of course, it wasn’t necessary before, as so many clamored for a ceasefire while Sinwar remained alive and ready to do it again and again, a detail that didn’t seem to prevent fantasies of peace. But hey, now that he’s dead, it’s over, right?”

Yawn. Good ol’ Greenfield is back with another scintillating take on U.S. foreign policy and world affairs. He’s so insightful and nuanced, so aware of historical context, so aware of what is even going on right now, anywhere. I don’t really need to go any further, as he starts citing Thomas Friedman at length and there’s only so much dumbness I can handle in one blog post. I’m willing to fight through Greenfield’s opinions because he occasionally writes something good. When he starts off with the paragraph above, then moves to fighting with Friedman over whose uninformed, imbecilic and, frankly, completely immoral opinion is better, I am outtathere.

I did skip to the end, though, where he writes,

“[…] a future for Palestine is possible. It’s not possible as long as the primary goal is terror, destruction and death.”

He is, of course, talking about literally everyone but his precious, sainted Israel and U.S. I’m sure he doesn’t see the irony at all, nor would he were someone to point it out. He would only get very, very, very mad and then ban them from his comments.

Scott Ritter has a very strong pedigree and background but has some odd verbal and facial tics that make him look disingenuous. Sometimes he makes broad statements that are backed up by information that he has on good authority, but that he hasn’t presented. He also talks very quickly in a decidedly non-beginner-friendly style. Those looking to disagree with him will be able to do so quite easily. However, if you listen to what he says, you will learn something. And his analyses have been proven correct much more often than wrong over the last couple of years.

This video has a lot of information and is well-worth listening to. I’ve including citations below, outlining his equating the foreign policies of all American presidents—regardless of party—as well as his detailed descriptions of the Russian arsenal as well its potential extremely deleterious effects.

Scott Ritter : Is Israel Prepared for a Three-Front War? by Judge Napolitano's Judging Freedom (YouTube)

“When John F. Kennedy was briefed on the first nuclear employment plan after he became president in 1961, he walked out of the Pentagon. He said ‘and we call ourselves the human race. This is disgusting. You’re asking me to murder hundreds of millions of people. I can’t do that. You have to give me other options.‘

“But the war machine doesn’t have any other options. Lyndon Johnson almost got physically ill when he was briefed on it. So, too, Richard Nixon, who said ‘This is insanity. What are you talking about? You can’t ask me to make a decision that causes hundreds of millions of people to die.‘

“Every president’s been briefed on this war plan, up until George W bush, said ‘this is crazy’. Even Ronald Reagan, who was fighting the evil empire, couldn’t do it. He said ‘I can’t do it. That’s why we need Strategic Defense Initiative.‘ That’s why he went with nuclear disarmament.

“Only George W. Bush. when the Cold War ended and we suddenly weren’t facing mutually-assured destruction, said ‘hey, nuclear preemption could be in our benefit.’ And then, Barack Obama, who said ‘that’s bad,‘ he went along with it. Donald Trump doubled down by bringing in a new category of nuclear weapons, and Joe Biden has doubled down by changing our employment doctrine. American people, wake up. We’re the bad people in the world here. We’re the ones that have a policy of nuclear preemption and an employment plan designed to do that. So, as we edge towards a crisis with Russia. Stop thinking about the Russians nuking us; we start by nuking them. That’s the way it works.”

“That’s the point I’m trying to make here. The weapons that Russia would use against Ukraine in a situation where they have made the decision to take the government of Ukraine out—to take Kiev, the government sector, out—are non-nuclear in nature. They are strategic weapons.

“It’s called the Awangard. It’s a hypersonic warhead that’s loaded on to strategic missiles—old SS1-19s, the Sarmat, the new heavy missile, the Yars mobile missile—they all have regiments that are equipped with conventionally armed Awangards. These will hit at—impact on the ground at—26 times the speed of sound. That’s the equivalent of a 26-ton bomb. All right, we’ve seen what happens when a 1.5 ton or a three-ton bomb goes off. This will be a 26-ton bomb coming in at hypersonic speed. It will take out entire blocks.

“And all Russia has to do is sprinkle Kiev with a half-dozen of them and the city ceases to exist. Mind you, they can also do that to Brussels, to NATO headquarters, they can do that to the British, they could do that to anybody. These aren’t nuclear weapons and, when they do this, the impact will be so devastating, it’ll have a nuclear-like impact on the psychology of the West.”

I published most of this article in my notes in the middle of October 2024. This video still marks the longest that I’ve listened to Kamala Harris speak. Trump is a nightmare to listen to, but Harris also feels like every second is wasted. Give it a listen and see how you feel about it. I don’t generally listen to presidents anymore—I stopped analyzing State of the Union addresses when Trump became president—but, if there’s a silver lining to Harris’s loss, it’s that this kind of insipid abuse of language won’t be on the radar anymore.

Aloof MSNBC Host SHOCKED By Union Workers' Top Political Issues by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

Glenn Greenwald thankfully included a longer clip of the painful Kamala Harris “interview” with Oprah Winfrey, which sounded more like a therapy session cum sermon than a campaign stop.

It starts at 12;40. The text is ludicrous enough but, combined with her facial expressions, body language, and grating and supercilious tone, it’s even worse.

“Winfrey: What is on your heart to say to the American people as we have 47 days until November 5th? What’s on your heart to say to particularly those people who are still undecided or may be indifferent or on the fence still?

“Harris: We love our country. [syrupy smile]

“I love our country. [hand on heart]

“I know we all do. That’s why everybody’s here right now. We love our country. We take pride in the privilege of being American. [shoulders back, eyes seeking confirmation; Oprah settles back, hand to face, not offering it]

“And this is a moment where we can and must come together as Americans [hands entwined like a steeple with all the people],

“understanding we have so much more in common than what separates us. [lady nods in the background like she’s at church]

“Let’s come together with the character that we are so proud of about who we are. [sic] Which is, we are an optimistic people. [crazy-ass smile like she’d just expressed an idea akin to the theory of relativity]

“We are an optimistic people. Americans, by character, are people who have dreams [pops her fist] and ambitions [jumps in her seat a little] and aspirations. [hands held in front, nearly clasped, excited at the breakthrough brilliance of the ideas she’s expressing]

“We believe in what is possible. [points to the heavens] we believe in what can be [hand outstretched] and we believe in fighting [finger to heavens again] for that. That’s how we came into being. [sits up straight, throws shoulders back, holds hand wide, again as if having delivered a deep philosophical conclusion]”

This personality seems to contrived and fake. I would think that her campaign song should be Team America’s ‘America Fuck Yeah’, but she’s probably never heard of it.

America, Fuck Yeah! (YouTube)
 

I was pleasantly surprised at how cogent, well-reasoned, and calm Dore’s conversation with Hedges was. I’m used to his show, of which I usually only see 10–15-minute clips—and that only rarely—where he’s joined by a peanut gallery of yuk-yukkers and where he often plays videos in chopped-up snippets, analyzing and taking them apart, but it’s often a bit much.

The 52-minute interview below, though is very, very good. I’ve cited at length below the video.

The Liberal Class’s Ultimate Betrayal (w/ Jimmy Dore) | The Chris Hedges Report by The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel (YouTube)

At 05:58, Dore says

“The people who claim to be putting democracy on the ballot have zero democracy. And, for three election cycles now—for 2016, 2020, and 2024—they have zero democracy in their election process in the primary.”

“Even the speeches were ridiculous. There’s absolutely no class critique happening. It’s all identity politics. It’s all abortion, which by the way they’re giddy that the Supreme Court overturned abortion because now they have something to run on. That’s why they have to call Donald Trump—he’s going to make himself a dictator—they have to say that. Which is completely made up, right? We have a system of checks and balances and if he could do that, why didn’t he do it the first time? And then Donald Trump has to call Kamala Harris and Joe Biden communists, of course. That neither of those things are true—they’re corporate authoritarians—and so but it was especially depressing leaving that convention, cuz I guess I didn’t see it coming. I’d only been to one before and in there I was just surrounded by zombie, brain-dead, brainwashed delegates who didn’t care…they treated going to the convention like they were going to prom and it was honestly downright depressing.”

“[…] it’s like some kind of bizarre Kabuki theater of all these billionaires and millionaires pretending they’re working-class people.”

At 13:00

“When I saw Bobby Kennedy at that rally for Donald Trump—and it’s not that I believe Donald Trump is going to do what he says or or he’s going to allow Bobby Kenny to do what he says—it’s the crowd, right? So, the crowd was cheering ending the wars and investing that money back home. That was a stadium full of people. I had just come from a stadium full of people cheering on war and cheering on oligarchy and there they were saying that they were going to take on the oligarchy, […] they’re going to end the war, they’re going to make friends with our enemies in China and Russia. They were saying that they were going to take on Agra business. They were going to take on the corrupted FDA and our regulatory agencies and they were going to fight big corporations. And they were being cheered while they were saying that. So, it’s not whether I have put my faith in those politicians, but it’s good to see that there’s a stadium full of people who show up for a Republican that feel that way. So, that’s the only thing that gives me an ounce of hope for this country.”

At 15:45

“I think that there’s a good chance that she might be able to skate. I hope not. I hope that, at some point, she has to do something that is unscripted and then people kind of see through her. But people have been so…they’ve done such an effective job at demonizing Donald Trump and making him seem like he’s a special kind of evil that people are willing to overlook all. They’re going to overlook a rigged primary. They’re willing to overlook her being installed after they couped Joe Biden.”

At 17:00

“Rachel Maddow, who’s the most popular host on MSNBC, is coming out with a documentary about Russia and it’s called From Russia with Love. And it’s just…she just…they just didn’t stop. They just didn’t stop doing their McCarthyism. They just didn’t stop artificially propping up enemies in the service of them. I mean she is a complete and 100% puppet of the military-industrial complexes. And you know she Russiagated, which was debunked from day one on my show, but it was even debunked by the Muller report. There’s no evidence of any of that stuff and it didn’t matter one bit because the establishment isn’t going—you don’t have to pay a price for lying like that. And, in fact, you get rewarded. Now she went from making $7 million a year, now she makes $35 million a year, which, by the way, is $100,000 a day. That’s how much Rachel Maddow makes and that’s the lefty news people. So, I don’t think there’s any hope.”

At 30:00 or so, they said,

“Jimmy: The reason why they hate Donald Trump is because he’s such a political novice. And they can’t control him. Every once in a while, he will tell a big truth the president’s not supposed to tell. And the biggest one he told was when he was asked point-blank, ‘why are you leaving troops in Syria?’ and he said ‘For the oil. The oil is secured. It’s our oil. We’re taking the oil.‘ And you can’t say that. So now the whole world saw the president give away that the point of our foreign policy for the last 50 or 60 years is to invade smaller, weaker countries and steal their natural resources. He’s supposed to say this is because Assad’s oppressing his people and we’re trying to secure liberty for them. That’s what he’s supposed to say and didn’t. He just gave the game away.

“Jimmy: He said the same thing about Venezuela recently at a campaign rally. He said ‘Venezuela was ready to fall. We could have had all that oil. we could have had all that oil.’ And he just says it […] As Aaron Maté says, ‘he puts an ugly face on imperialism.’ And that makes it tougher for them to do their imperialism. […] It’s so much easier for the military-industrial complex to have a guy like Barack Obama or a black woman like Kamala Harris. This is why I said, at least when a Republican’s president and he does wars, sometimes the Democrats will go and protest him, right? […] Barack Obama dropped more bombs than George Bush and nobody noticed. Nobody said anything. They gave him a Peace Prize, right? And Kamala Harris is set to do the exact same thing. So, in that regard, it’s worse if Kamala Harris becomes president because the left goes to sleep when a Democrat is President, especially if it’s a president of color.

“Chris: Glenn Ford, who we lost a couple years ago—he used to edit the Black Agenda Report—he said the Democrats aren’t the lesser evil; they’re the more effective evil.

“Jimmy: Well, look at Bill Clinton. He was able to do things that George Bush the first was not allowed to do. He couldn’t pass NAFTA and then Bill Clinton comes in, gives the blue dog Democrats cover, they cut the legs out from beneath organized labor for ever since—for a generation at least—and then he go goes on to gut welfare, expand the police state, explode the prison population, deregulate Wall Street—which crashed the economy within 10 years—and who did that hurt most? The black and brown people. And then of course he had a private deal—as Thomas Frank taught us—to end Social Security and privatize it. But, thank God for Monica Lewinsky, that didn’t happen.”

This is an amazing if sobering interview. Thanks to Haim Bresheeth-Zabner for taking the time to tirelessly, quietly, and reasonably lay out his case. He spoke almost without interruption for over an hour about how Israel isn’t acting on its own, it’s working for Empire. But what is happening now doesn’t represent the interests of the country, “but not the leadership; the leadership is abandoning their humanity.” He talks at length about the very real danger of nuclear war. Every minute was fascinating and informative.

Extended episode: We Are Headed for World War – Former IDF Soldier Haim Bresheeth-Zabner by Useful Idiots (YouTube)

At 01:15:00,

“Since the 2021 and 2022 reports, Gaza was unlivable in terms of water, in terms of food, in terms of agriculture, in terms of the air quality. Every measure that you used to look at life in Gaza, it was unlivable. What do we actually say it is now? The UN said that it’ll take probably six decades to rebuild Gaza and 16 years just to remove the rubble. Now, what are the people of Gaza supposed to do now? When they don’t have any food coming into the north of Gaza?

“I’ll tell you one thing: the Nazis allowed very little food into ghettos in Europe before they destroyed them. And they calculated scientifically how much a human needs to stay alive. A child or a grownup—how much they actually require to stay alive. Just on that line that, a bit less, they will die, and that’s what they supplied. No fail, by the way. If Israel adopted that criterion in Gaza, […] a lot of people would have been saved already. Unfortunately, Israel has no plan of doing that. They actually don’t allow any food into North Gaza. Now, I don’t want to say this is like the Nazis or not. I’m saying I wish the Israelis adopted that criterion of feeding the people in Gaza. Now they don’t do that.

“And that means that there are no hospitals, no schools, no mosques, no facilities, amenities of any kind that allow life to continue in Gaza. On the other hand, the water is polluted, the earth is polluted with uranium, with phosphorus—including white phosphorus—with gases, that Israelis used. Life is impossible in Gaza and people are dying all the time. If they don’t die from bombs, they die from polio, they die from other diseases, and they die from the hostile environment that Israelis have created.”

At 01:18:00,

“Most of the people of Gaza come from just around Gaza. Let them return there. Let them live where there is water, where there is electricity, where food safety is not in question. And not only will they actually live but they will be the bridge to the future.

“Because this move to save from what the Israelis and the Americans and the rest of the West has created—a death trap for two-and-a-half million people—will now become the beginning of the return, the return of the refugees. And will be, if done properly, with all the dangers that I’m aware of—all the dangers we all are aware of—nothing is as dangerous as what the Israelis are doing and have done to Gaza—and what the Americans have done by supplying it.

“So, this is a project which is humanitarian, which is about the future of living together, sharing Palestine, and stopping the process of the last eight decades of war and destruction, stopping Zionism, getting rid of it and living like Jews lived in the Arab East and in southern Europe for 800 years under Muslim rule. It is possible. It is just. It is depending on all of us, working to save those who have survived and that will not survive much longer if we don’t do this.”

The elections are over and the Green Party did not even come close to getting 5% of the vote required to qualify for public funding in four years. Now that I’m writing it, it’s so stupid that it works this way. The parties that need money the most are the ones that can’t get it. The parties that need ballot access the most can’t get it. There is almost no hope of an electoral path to getting more than a single party with two heads in the U.S.

Still, here are a couple of good interviews with Butch Ware, who was the vice-presidential candidate for the Green Party. He is intelligent, well-informed, and funny. He seems like a nice guy. That’s already more than three strikes against him, though.

Dems Have 'No Hope' of Winning Election Warns Green Party VP Candidate Butch Ware by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

“Butch Ware: It’s not a protest vote that is designed to make the Democrats do anything. The Democrat Party has lost Muslim voters and it will not get them back. Participation in a genocide where you have offed 1/10 of the population of the third-holiest place in Islam. That loses you the Muslims forever. So the Democrats are never getting the Muslim vote back.”

“Butch Ware: I think that the Democratic party is about to go the way of the Whigs.

“Glenn Greenwald: […] It’s very obvious they would never be giving you air time and oxygen and attention if you weren’t actually a threat to them and that’s exactly what I said when I saw Keith Ellison follow AOC: their internal polling on this must be extremely disturbing to them.”

I think this is still correct but it’s going to take time. The Democrats have been increasingly weakened. While this election isn’t a death blow to them, it’s going to weaken them, possibly significantly enough that they won’t return to power for a while. It doesn’t matter, because the only way for them to return to power is by becoming more and more like the Republicans, eventually completely eradicating the myth that there are two parties.

Perhaps, at that point, there will be space for a third party. Right now, the third party is “non-voters”.

Voting for DEMOCRATS is WASTING Your Vote: Green Party VP Butch Ware by Bad Faith (YouTube)

“These are people that will never ever vote for a Democrat again. Ever. At any point in their life, ever. Never, ever. And the reason is the same reason that a Jew will never vote for the Nazis. It’s never going to happen. They’re dead. They’re done. They are going the way of the Whigs. They cannot survive what they have done to themselves. That party is going to be in shambles, broken and shattered in November. There is no surviving what their hands have wrought.

“And as I said on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman: anyone that tries to shield them from accountability for the evil that they themselves have done is complicit in the evil. You are the silencer at the end of their gun. So, all of these people in mainstream media—they’re going to be remembered the way that the Vichy regime is remembered in France. They are going to be remembered as collaborating with Nazis, except it is worse because we are actually the ones driving the genocide.

“This is our weapons, our policy. This is American imperialism being laundered through Israel so that it can have an anti-semitic tag sticking to it. And it doesn’t stick to the emperor, who’s stark naked. And the emperor that’s stark naked is Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Team Blue, Team Red. All the same genocides.

“In this election, we actually have an opportunity to consolidate power.”

Again, the analysis was correct: Jill and Butch did the best in Arab-American districts. However, there just aren’t that many of those. Also, it wasn’t the Greens that ended up consolidating power—it was the Republicans.

The Democrats can protest all they want, but they’re reeling. Their idiotic strategy is currently in tatters, exposed to all. It will take time and propaganda to paper over those gaps. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though.

The two-party system has a tremendous amount of money, as well as the support of the U.S.-American oligarchs, who are just happy with the way things are. They honestly do not care who becomes president. They make money either way.

I watched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for years. I stopped watching when Stewart and Colbert retired. John Oliver used to report for the Daily Show. Although I’ve long since stopped watching the Daily Show, I still watch John Oliver, although he’s often a bit frustrating. He has what seems like the right attitude, the right politics, a whole lot of empathy, a huge audience, and a global platform. But he still sticks to the extremely narrow channel of approved opinion.

The election is over, so no-one has to watch pre-election coverage anymore. You don’t have to catch up on your homework. Just as a public service announcement: you’re also not obligated to watch the shirt-rending and finger-pointing of post-election coverage either. You’ve almost certainly got better things to do.

Still, the video below is a typical example of how partisan these supposedly non-partisan shows are. If put right to it, they’ll say that, of course, they’re partisan, but they very often try to project the image that they’re taking on craziness, stupidity, and injustice, regardless of where they find it. They just happen to find most of it in the camp of the enemy, instead of closer to home, where their muckraking might actually do some good. It’s honestly hard to tell how much is a fear of offending the censors and how much is ideological blindness.

Election Subversion 2024: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) by Last Week Tonight (YouTube)

The vehemence with which John Oliver campaigns against Trump isn’t surprising but it is more than a little disappointing that it stops there. Where’s the “where’s Kamala?” episode? Where’s the one that discusses how Trump’s opponent can’t get a coherent thought out for fear of saying something that hasn’t been pre-approved by whatever passes for the Democrat leadership? That the only other candidate against Trump who has a chance of winning is 100% for the Israeli genocide?

For that matter, where’s the episode on the Israeli genocide, John?

Or, if you can’t touch that third rail, while you’re railing against Republican misinformation, where’s the episode about the complete myth of Russiagate? A myth that Democrats continue to cite every time they need billions from their Russia-tanked donors? Where’s the episode about the utter myth of Russia as the implacable enemy that keeps us bound up in vicious, costly wars? Where’s the show on these incredibly damaging myths? You know … myths that lead to wars? No? Too busy making fun of Q-Anon?

No, John, you won’t report on that stuff—because you know who your masters are or you literally can’t even tell that you’re missing those topics because your ideological blinders are so comprehensive. You can get edgy about brutalities at home—and kudos for that, attacking corporate entities who don’t happen to be sponsors—but you don’t go after the big fish because you know you’d lose your show.

The first show that sawed at your own branch of sponsorship or patronage—or whatever the hell keeps that show on the air at Max) would never get on-air. I don’t even know whether you’re frustrated with your inability to report on “real” issues or if your on-air persona is who you actually are. As Chomsky said long ago, in an interview with mainstream media: “If you didn’t believe what you believe, then you wouldn’t have that job.”

As You’re Not Crazy. This Genocidal Dystopia Is Crazy by Caitlin Johnstone puts it:

“The ones who know a genocide is happening but avoid making too much noise about it because they want to make sure the Democrats win the election are wrong. The ones who know it’s a genocide but don’t respond to this reality with the appropriate level of urgency, forcefulness and focus are wrong.”

It’s an appalling dereliction of duty for anyone like Oliver. There’s no avoiding that conclusion.

Watching SNL is just like watching John Oliver: the most interesting part is figuring out who their sponsors are by the negative imprint left by who they don’t lampoon.

SNL, just like Oliver, is 100% in the tank for the Democrats, so they have zero interest in getting the other 50% of the nation. Like Oliver, they just outright call anyone who’d not voting Democrat idiots. Just flat-out. No interest in understanding or bridging the gap. They have only superciliousness to offer, served up by someone who’s so dumb that they actually believe that they’re the intellectually superior half of the conversation. It can get grating.

As an example of where SNL can be funny while ostensibly lampooning billionaires’ flouting of labor law, they just had a pretty funny skit about Amazon Prime Day.

Weekend Update: Monica a Happy Amazon Employee on Prime Day by SNL (YouTube)

They didn’t go as hard as they could have—not even close—but it’s hard to imagine that Amazon and Jeff Bezos are sponsors.

“Prime day is sort of like Hanukkah in that they said it would last one day, but I worked eight straight days. Yeah, I worked so much, I had to make up a whole new day of the week. Floozday. Yeah. That’s when you close your eyes on Friday and wake up behind the wheel on Tuesday.”

After she fell asleep and Che woke her up, she apologized for lashing out because, “I was just a little disoriented to wake up and not be driving.”

This 23-minute video from early October, 2024 reports on the recent revelation from a Danish harbor master that—brace yourselves—there were several U.S. navy vessels in the vicinity of the attack on the day of the attack, with their transponders off. He’d been prevented from speaking out until now, when, presumably, it really doesn’t matter anymore. Germany’s over it, even though it has turned out to be the final nail in its coffin.

Nord Stream 'Mystery' SOLVED? by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

At 01:15,

“Let’s remember that the US, even before the war in Ukraine, wanted that pipeline gone. In fact, it was Trump, despite always being accused of being a Russian agent, who led the way in trying to badger the Germans and Western Europeans [into] not using, not buying natural gas from Russia, by saying, ‘we pay for your defense, why should you buy gas from Russia instead of from us?’ and their answer was, ‘well, it’s much cheaper to buy it from Russia. Russia is much closer. Their natural gas is produced more cheaply.‘

“But Trump said, ‘we don’t care. We’re paying for your defense. You should buy it from us, even if it’s more expensive.‘ So, the US hated this pipeline for a while.

“When Biden got into office on this wave of anti-Russian hatred, and then the war in Ukraine started, they basically explicitly—Biden and Victoria Nuland came out and said, ‘if the Russians invade Ukraine, you can say goodbye to the Nordstream 2 pipeline.’ So, the US threatened repeatedly, in public, to blow it up.

“And then, nine months later, when it was blown up, the Western media was like, ‘Oh my God! Who might have done this? A gigantic mystery! Could be anybody.’”

Bitingly sarcastic Glenn Greenwald is my favorite Glenn Greenwald.

At 04:20,

“[…] it was the Danish conducting the investigation. And, up until now, the Danish have refused to release the findings of that investigation. I wonder why? Probably not because they found that Putin did it …”

More of his biting sarcasm.

At 06:30,

“Nordstream II explosion, as seen on the surfaceThe harbor master claimed he, ‘wasn’t allowed to say a word.‘ But, today, John Anker Nielsen can reveal that four or five days before the Nordstream explosion, he was with the rescue service from Christiansø because there were some ships there with their radios turned off. It turned out that they US Navy ships.

“When the rescue service approached them, he was asked by the naval command to turn back. Therefore the harbor master leans toward the theory, as suggested by, among others, the American star journalist Seymour Hirsch, although without evidence, that the US was behind the sabotage.”

This is a six-minute video that presents its thesis at hyper-speed but really well. The thesis is in the title: Palestine must continue to be a football in order for capitalism—and empire—to convince itself that it is still in charge.

Jason Hickel: Why a Liberated Palestine Threatens Global Capitalism by Transnational Institute (YouTube)

I’ve cleaned up a large part of the transcript below.

“What explains this incredible paradox? It’s ultimately our system of production, the social and ecological crisis that we face, which appears unresolvable, is ultimately a symptom of our system of production. Capitalism, where our productive capacities—our incredible productive capacities—are organized overwhelmingly around what is most profitable to capital, and what can most facilitate accumulation in the core rather than what is obviously necessary to meet human needs and achieve our ecological objectives.

“And, so, we’re in this wild place, we’re just like, ‘oh, solving poverty is just going to take generations,’ right? If we’re lucky, we’ll get people above $1.90 a day by the end of the century, right? The climate crisis? Who can figure out how how to solve this? It seems intractable. None of this is true. It’s lies. These are problems that can be very easily solved and very quickly.

“The problem is, that we don’t have control over our own productive capacities, because we don’t have an economic democracy, right? Some of us live in political democracies, where, from time to time, we get to elect government officials but, when it comes to the economic system, not even the pretense of democracy is allowed to exist. And that is ultimately the contradiction we face.”

“I think this is a crisis that, at its root, is about capitalism, and can only be resolved by overcoming that fact. And the antidote to capitalism is economic democracy, that we should have collective democratic control over what we are producing, what the goals of our production are, who benefits from our production, and so on. And, when we do, we can solve these problems quickly, right? We know exactly what to do. The problem is we don’t have the power.”

“I think we have to be cognizant of the fact that a struggle for economic liberation in the south is fundamentally antithetical to the capitalist world economy, because accumulation in the core depends utterly on the cheapening of labor and resources in the global south. It depends utterly on that, and has for the past 500 years. And, so, any attempt by liberation struggles in the periphery to achieve economic independence, to use their own resources for their own development, for their own ecological transition, for their own human needs, is destabilizing for capital in the core—and capital reacts with the most extraordinary violent backlashes.”

Julian Assange: JournalistI had a conversation with a young friend, who’d admitted that he didn’t know who Julian Assange was. I wrote the following short bio for them.

Don’t feel bad that you don’t know who he is. He’d been incarcerated for over half of your life. Your media environment has been engineered to disappear him from the public eye. He’s not talked about in normal circles.

He is a journalist, the founder of WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks grew famous for (A) publishing only true information that (B) shone an extremely harsh and unfavorable light on the practices of the U.S. empire and its vassals.

As you can perhaps imagine, Wikileaks and whistleblowers were thus pursued relentlessly. Assange ended up holing up in the Ecuardorian embassy in London for ten years. He was made an Ecuadoran citizen. A change of government to one more amenable to the U.S. revoked his citizenship. The UK broke all laws of diplomatic immunity and sent its police into the embassy to get him out. They stuffed him in Newgate prison and tortured him.

He’d been, until July 2024, a de-facto political prisoner of the U.S. for 14 years. They finally stopped trying to extradite him when he “confessed to journalism.”

The precedent is grim, though. The U.S. reserves the right to pursue any citizen in any country for saying unfavorable things about it. Journalism is, in a sense, dead.

Leveling a whole village in LebanonEthnic Cleansing in Jabalia 2024

Photo by Onur Burak Akın − Lebanon

Imagine if that were your neighborhood.

Imagine if those were you and your neighbors, herded into the streets, made to stand in the sun with all of your worldly belongings in a torn bag, held in one hand, while, in the other, you brandish an ID issued by your oppressor, because the oppressor demands it.

You stand for hours.

Can you imagine it?

Of course not. Because things like that don’t happen to good people.

It only happens to those who deserve it, who aren’t even really people, when you think about it. They’re terrorists. Vermin. Better dead than alive.

It’s only the namby-pamby guilt-mongers whose opinions the oppressor is somehow and somewhat still beholden to that have this utopian notion that all people are equal and that everything that looks like a human actually is a human.

How naive.

The oppressor knows better.

It knows that some pigs are better than others. When the bad pigs get too shirty about their lot—when they start to talk about fairness and justice—then they just have to be put down even harder, to lessen the danger for the good pigs, to keep the good pigs happy, so that they don’t have to hear distracting things.

Any good pig will still be able to sleep at night. Easily and deeply.

Chris Hedges: The American Ruling Class Explained by The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel (YouTube)

A partial transcript from the 2-minute video.

“Our political class does not govern; it entertains. It plays its assigned role in our fictitious democracy, howling with outrage to constituents and selling them out. The squad and the progressive caucus have no more intention of fighting for universal health care, workers rights, or defying the war machine than the freedom caucus fights for freedom.

“These political hacks are modern versions of Sinclair Lewis’s slick con artist Elmer Gantry cynically betraying a gullible public to amass personal power—power and wealth. This moral vacuity provides the spectacle.

“As HG Wells wrote of a great material civilization halted, paralyzed. It happened in ancient Rome. It happened in Weimar Germany. It is happening here. Governance exists but it is not seen. It is certainly not democratic. It is done by the armies of lobbyists and corporate executives from the fossil-fuel industry, the arms industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and Wall Street. Governance happens in secret. Corporations have seized the levers of power, growing obscenely rich. The ruling oligarchs have deformed national institutions—including state and federal legislatures, and in the courts—to serve their insatiable greed.

“They know what they are doing. They understand the depths of their own corruption. They know they are hated. They are prepared for that, too. They have milixtarized police forces and have built a vast archipelago of prisons to keep the unemployed and underemployed in bondage. All the while, they pay little or no income tax and exploit sweat-shop labor overseas.

“They lavishly bankroll the political clowns who speak in the vulgar and crude idiom of an enraged public [Trump] or in the dulcet tones used to mollify the liberal class. [Harris] And, when they see one of their political puppets faltering, as Joe Biden was, they step in cut off the funds and stage a party coup.

“The media plays its anointed role in this farce as courtiers to the powerful, amplifying their fictitious narratives and lies. There are only a handful who call them out.”

If you think the current barrage of pro-Democrat propaganda is bad, remember that this has been going on all year. They started very early. For example, the article How Bad It Was by Richard Farr (3 Quarks Daily) writes about the Bush years. It’s essentially an essay that is a campaign ad for choosing the lesser evil, which is clearly the Democrats in the author’s eyes. They exhorted readers to choose now, and to start donating at least $25 regularly, even thought that’s a “pathetic” amount. How much money do these dopes need from regular people?

The next article on the same site was a carton Catspeak by Brooks Riley (3 Quarks Daily) that showed two cats talking to each other.

“First cat: Hillary called Tucker Carlson a ‘useful idiot’!

“Second cat: It’s the ‘useful’ part that bothers me.”

A real knee-slapper.

The cartoon was referencing Tucker Carlson’s interview of Vladimir Putin. The author had been instructed by his masters to promulgate the message that the interview was useless. I didn’t think it was; see my notes in Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin for over two hours.

The next article after that was called Orange Creamsicles: Facing the Idiotic Within our Borders by Mark Harvey (3 Quarks Daily). I didn’t even bother reading that one as it is festooned with a big picture of Trump supporters, who surely come under the wheels of the author’s incisive wit and political-analytical acumen. It probably also ends with an exhortation to send money to the Democrats.

It became much easier weeding out the news when a normally reliable source of essays has decided to function as an arm of the Democratic party for the next 10 months or so. This has continued for the next five months, with the intensity rising to fever pitch over the last several weeks. Even sources of fun cat pictures like Reddit have been completely co-opted like Agent Smith taking over NPCs in the Matrix.
 

The article Israel Raids Hospital by Liz Wolfe (Reason) is from February but the incident it describes has been repeated at least a dozen—if not dozens—of times since. It illustrates quite concisely how you should write about war crimes when you wholeheartedly support them. It hits all the standard notes:

• Attacking a hospital is a normal thing.
• It’s perfectly reasonable to tell everyone in a hospital to evacuate.
• The hospital is a enemy headquarters (this time it’s true!).
• The enemy uses human shields.
• The purpose of the attack is not to destroy the hospital, but to find hostages.
• None of this is your own fault. You’ve been forced into it by the enemy.

Check it out.

“News broke this morning that the Israeli military is beginning its raid of Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital, in the Gaza Strip. The BBC reported that one trauma surgeon said, from inside the building, that “tanks and snipers” currently surround the hospital from “all directions.”

“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have told all people inside the hospital to evacuate immediately so that it can begin its raid.

“The Israeli military reports that it has intelligence—including testimony from now-released hostages—that indicates that Hamas is using Nasser Hospital as an important spot for its military operations, which would be in keeping with the well-established pattern of Hamas using civilians, including the sick and wounded, as human shields. There is some belief among the Israeli military that either living captives or the bodies of hostages might be located at Nasser Hospital.

“Meanwhile, Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry officials claim that the IDF’s operation has destroyed critical areas of the hospital, crippling its operations and harming displaced people who were sheltering there.

“Both could be true, and Israel must continue weighing whether raids like these are worth the cost—a situation it’s been forced into in part due to Hamas’ callous disregard for human life.”

Gaza RubbleIt’s a tragedy that this is the kind of stuff that people regularly consume, believe, and then just go about their day, chirpily supporting whatever Israel needs to do in order to keep itself alive for one more day. You don’t even think about the fact that Israel has essentially normalized attacking hospitals as if that’s not a high crime of the Geneva Conventions. Of course these kinds of attacks all make sense when you’re literally fighting for your existence every day, when any reluctance or hesitation or mercy would result in the eradication of Israel and the extinguishing of the entire Jewish faith literally overnight.

But if that fiction is not your context, then everything that Israel is doing looks like a horrific war crime. It’s always this way: when the U.S. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11, there was tremendous domestic support since people had been told for months how their very lives depended on the U.S. “defending itself” in those countries. The indoctrination is incredibly strong; every time I return to this country and see what media they consume here, it all makes sense how people have no chance to think their own thoughts. They will do what they’re told. They can’t seem to turn away from it—and then they no longer even think they might want to, as they become totally engrossed in every mendacious and misleading detail.

In a similar vein, the article Biden is Right to Grant Temporary Refuge to Palestinian Migrants Already in US, but Should go Further by Ilya Somin (Reason) illustrates what it looks like when an author wholeheartedly believes in the unassailable righteousness of his (adopted) country’s existential clash with its implacable and incomprehensibly evil enemy.

Ilya Somin is a fool, but I scanned his short article anyway. He cited another fool, then wrote that he agreed with it. He starts off by saying that he agrees with the Biden administration that 6,000 Palestinians shouldn’t be forced to return to Palestine just because their visas have technically run out.

“[…] the Biden administration granted temporary refuge to Palestinian migrants currently in the United States, who might otherwise be subject to deportation. The grant of Deferred Enforced Departure status (known as DED) allows about 6000 Palestinians to remain in the US for an additional 18 months.”

“As the White House statement on the subject puts it, because of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, “humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territories, and primarily Gaza, have significantly deteriorated.” That surely understates the point: thousands of people have been killed, and much of Gaza leveled. There is less extensive, but still significant, violence on the West Bank. In addition, Gaza Palestinians are subject to Hamas’s brutal tyranny, which is awful, even aside from the war.”

While he acknowledges the destruction in Gaza and “violence on the West Bank”—I like how he writes “on” rather than “in” because he thinks the West Bank is literally the bank of a river—he doesn’t assign any agency to the violence until he attributes “tyranny” to “Hamas”. Somin and his peers are shockingly brainwashed.

Don’t worry. I didn’t judge him prematurely or harshly. He goes on.

“In my view, the primary blame for this situation falls on Hamas for using Gaza as a base for its horrific terrorist attacks, and then using the civilian population as human shields. But, regardless of the blame, it would be wrong to force Palestinian migrants (or anyone) to return to a deadly war zone—or to live under a system of quasi-medieval oppression.”

Israel doesn’t enter into this. It’s all Hamas. Israel has nothing to do with the destruction in Gaza, which, to his credit, he at least doesn’t pretend doesn’t exist, like so many other commentators of his ideological ilk.

“In a previous post, I explained why opening the door to Gaza refugees is the right thing to do on both moral and strategic grounds: it can save thousands of people from needless suffering and death, while also making it easier for Israel to defeat Hamas.”

It’s also 100% the goal of Israel to throw out all Palestinians and not let them back in. Not a single one of them is going to “go back” after all of this. Israel will not allow it and the attack is ensuring that there is nowhere to go anyway. There will be nothing left to which to return in Gaza.

“Why would anyone other than Hamas—especially the U.S.—support locking Gazans in like North Korea does? Since 1948, Arab states and the U.N. have refused to treat Palestinians like ordinary refugees, keeping them in a unique intergenerational limbo to provide a reservoir of resentment against Israel.”

What the f@&k are you talking about? Most Palestinians live in neighboring countries already. It’s interesting to see how Somin and others portray themselves as humanitarians who care about the plight of Palestinians, but treat the Israeli violence as completely without human agency, as if Palestinians are fleeing an earthquake.

“Letting Gazans leave not only would reduce human suffering; it would provide a test and incentive for postwar governance. Refugees often return to their home countries when governance stabilizes after a conflict. For this to happen, the new civilian administration would have to make it a place where Gazans want to live, not where they are prevented from leaving.”

“[…] suggest the US use its large-scale aid to Egypt as leverage to pressure the Egyptian government to let Gaza refugees leave.”

Did you get that?

1. Literally everything that’s wrong with Gaza is Hamas’s, if not the Gazans’ own fault.
2. Israel has nothing to do with it, as it’s just defending itself from Hamas’s violence.
3. Egypt is primarily at fault for the massacre and suffering for not letting Palestinians leave.

Nowhere there does Somin address the expressed and stated fact that any Palestinian who leaves Gaza or the West Bank now will never go back.

It’s kind of fascinating to read a few of these, but it’s tiring.

The article United Nations Warns Israeli Attack On Rafah Could Lead To More Hostages Being Rescued (Babylon Bee) is on a site that considers itself to be a Christian Satirical Online Magazine. It has fully bought—hook, line, and sinker—the Israeli narrative. It literally doesn’t care about Palestinians. Christian charity doesn’t enter into it.

If you’re feeling generous, you might assume that they have no idea what’s really going on. If you don’t know, then you’re in a majority of people living inside a carefully engineered media bubble that keeps out reality and maintains a sphere that allows you to go about your day without harshly judging literally everyone in your government and media. You either don’t know, or you don’t care. Both are bad; the second is worse.

The article Why the US Is Reimposing Sanctions on Venezuela? by Roger D. Harris (Antiwar.com) came out in February, so about six months ago. I took some notes on it before the U.S. decided to completely ignore the Venezuelan election results a few weeks ago.

So, how was it going in Venezuela before the election?

“Even with limited sanctions relief, Venezuela anticipated a 27% increase in revenues for its state-run oil company. Experts predicted a “moderate economic expansion” after having experienced the greatest economic contraction in peacetime of any country in the modern era. Venezuela was on the road to recovery.

“Then on January 30, the US rescinded the license for gold sales and threatened to allow the oil license to expire on April 18, which could cost $1.6B in lost revenue. The ostensible reason for the flip in US policy was the failure of the Venezuelan supreme court to overturn previous prohibitions on Maria Corina Machado and some other opposition politicians from running for public office.”

The U.S.: If you don’t let our CIA-funded candidates run for office, we will go back on our deal. Democracy FTW 🙌 . Who is Machado, you ask?

“Machado’s treatment by the Venezuelan government has arguably erred more on the side of leniency than severity. In most other countries, a person with her rap sheet would be behind bars.

“Back in 2002, Machado signed the Carmona Decree, establishing a coup government. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had been deposed in a military coup backed by the US. The constitution was suspended, the legislature dismissed, and the supreme court shuttered.

“Fortunately for democracy in Venezuela, the coup lasted less than three days. The people spontaneously took to the streets and restored their elected government. Machado, who now incredulously claims she signed the coup government’s founding decree mistakenly, was afforded amnesty.”

“The New York Times described the supreme court’s decision to uphold her ban as “a crippling blow to prospects for credible elections…in exchange for the lifting of crippling US economic sanctions.” In other words, the Venezuelans did not bow to blackmail and allow a criminal to run for public office.”

The New York Times taking the high road, as always. How in God’s name can anyone think of this newspaper as liberal or “leftist” in any way? It’s the state news service for an increasingly fascist empire. The U.S. uses incredible economic sanctions to squeeze Venezuela, then tries to force its candidates of choice into the elections. When those candidates don’t win, they cheerily start spreading rumors that the Venezuelan elections are corrupt.

They will continue to push sticks into Venezuela’s spokes until they cry uncle. Cuba never did but they paid a tremendous price for it. They ended up with a good deal more authoritarianism than they would have had they been able to trade and interact with neighboring countries more freely, without the Empire’s foot on its neck.

Try and stop us (Simpsons)The same thing is happening to Venezuela. Why Venezuela? Because of its oil. And also very much because the mafia does not like it when countries pretend that they don’t need the U.S. The U.S. doesn’t care about the people there in any way. It pays as much lip service as it needs to in order to continue doing whatever it wants with a minimum of domestic political blowback. The U.S. only has to pretend to care about the people living on top of what it considers to be its oil, by the self-declared Monroe Doctrine. Most people in the U.S. don’t even want it to pretend to care. They consider that to be “weak”. There’s really not a lot of daylight between U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, which is why they’re best buddies.

“Arguably, the US economy would benefit more by promoting commerce with some 40 sanctioned countries than from restricting trade. And the surest remedy for the immigration crisis on the country’s southern border is to end the sanctions, which are producing conditions that have compelled so many to leave their homes. Even US mainstream media has nearly universally concluded that sanctions “don’t work.””

They do work. They just don’t have the effect that the elite tell everyone they will have. I imagine that someone is benefitting mightily from these sanctions. Otherwise, they would have been lifted immediately. That the sanctions never lead to the espoused goals of the sanctions, that dozens of millions suffer in sanctioned countries, that the sanctions lead to increased emigration—and subsequent U.S. immigration—doesn’t matter at all. None of those are the real reasons for the sanctions. The sanctions are there to benefit one or more powerful groups.

To repeat: if the sanctions were harming the elites of Empire, then they would have stopped immediately. There are no salient drawbacks to employing the sanctions, and there must be an upside. I suspect that there is a strong financial one for a few individuals. There is also the upside of the Empire reminding the world who is in charge.

On that note,

“In 2015 President Obama declared a “national emergency.” Venezuela, he claimed, posed an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security of the US. That was not fake news. The imperial hegemon recognizes the “threat of a good example” posed by a country such as Venezuela. As Ricardo Vaz of Venezuelanalysis observed, Venezuela is “a beacon of hope for the Global South, and Latin America in particular, an affront to US hegemony in its own ‘backyard.’””

You see? Empire’s gotta burn down a store once in a while to convince everyone else to pay their protection money.

But I bet they’re all making mad cash on it, too.

I listened to the The Vladimir Putin Interview by Tucker Carlson (127 minutes), which is also available as Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview (Twitter). The article Tucker Carlson Interviews Vladimir Putin by Tucker Carlson (Scheer Post) includes a transcript found on the Kremlin’s website. You have to subscribe to Tucker Carlson to get the transcript from him. Those dirty commies in the Kremlin just gave it away for free.

Vladimir Putin

The interview was over two hours. What follows are just some longer quotes I took from the transcript, with a few notes of my own. I’ve cherry-picked the stuff that Putin said that I broadly—or even sometimes very specifically—agree that he expressed in a realistic and historically accurate way. Where I disagreed with something that he said, I’ve noted it. I may have missed something; it’s a long interview.

He spoke completely extemporaneously, without notes or a teleprompter. It was clear that he was expressing how he personally sees these topics of international import. He didn’t seem to be playing to his western audience in any way. Much of what he said, he’s already formulated in similar ways—if not occasionally identical ways—in essays and in other speeches he’s given.

This is not to say that he’s a hero, or even honorable, but only to say that, as the leader of a foreign power with no small amount of influence—even if, as he acknowledges, it’s not even close to that of the U.S. or China—there seems to be a lot of opening for reasonably working with Russia under Putin.

Russia asks that it not be treated as a vassal. If that cannot be guaranteed, then there is no need for negotiation and the chips will fall where they may. Putin clearly indicates that he doesn’t think that Russia is holding such bad cards. Their economy seems to be impervious to U.S. machinations. Putin speaks of an economy that is working for himself and other elites, but doesn’t speak at all of the troubles on the ground that affect the large majority of Russia’s population. This is not unlike how the U.S.—or probably any other nation—reports on its economy.

What is clear is that many of the roadblocks to, say, Germany having its natural gas or Ukraine having peace, have been thrown up by the west. Russia has some conditions, but they seem eminently reasonable, at least for initial discussions to begin.

Still, Putin starts off with a bald-faced lie.

“if you don’t mind I will take only 30 seconds or one minute of your time for giving you a little historical background.”

Why was that a lie? Because it wasn’t just “30 seconds or one minute”. He proceeded to recite a Russian history lesson with a focus on “Where does Ukraine come from?” that starts with “[t]he Russian state started to exist as a centralized state in 862.” It went on for about the first thirty minutes.

After a few minutes, Tucker interrupts with “I am losing track of where in history we are?”

“It was in the 13th century.”

Putin then positively leaps forward in time to 1654. After several more minutes, Putin says “[t]his briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things.”

The modern-day discussion begins in earnest after that, with Tucker asking Putin why, if he believes that Ukraine is such a hodge-podge of cobbled-together lands that are really mostly Russian and Hungarian, didn’t he just take it back at the beginning of his presidency, 22 years ago?

The answer is obvious: because it wasn’t causing trouble then. Ukraine means “border”; even its name derives from being Russia’s border to Europe. The Soviet Union had let go of so many other territories—Russia’s aim wasn’t to regain territory, it was to guarantee a modicum of regional stability and security for Russia itself.

With NATO pushing right up to Russia’s borders—through the hand-puppet of Ukraine—that was no longer possible. That, and the nearly decade-long civil war that had been fomented in eastern Ukraine, right on Russia’s border, made it long-term impossible for Russia to just stand by and watch NATO—the U.S.—militarize its border.

The U.S. was positively braying about how it not only had the right to take up Ukraine as its ally, but also to move some of its own nuclear weapons there. It was utter madness to anyone who wasn’t 100% in the tank for NATO’s—and primarily the U.S.‘s—view of how the world works.

“I understand that my long speeches probably fall outside of the genre of an interview. That is why I asked you at the beginning: ”Are we going to have a serious talk or a show?“ You said — a serious talk. So bear with me please.”

Deep breath. We’re up to 1991 now. He finishes up the history lesson. Tucker asks,

“But we have a strong China that the West doesn’t seem to be very afraid of. What about Russia, what do you think convinced the policymakers to take it down?”

This is ludicrous on its face. How can anyone think that the U.S. is not afraid of China? They’re sanctioning them to death and encircling them with bases. Putin answers,

“The West is afraid of a strong China more than it fears a strong Russia because Russia has 150 million people, and China has a 1.5 billion population, and its economy is growing by leaps and bounds — over five percent a year, it used to be even more. But that’s enough for China. As Bismark once put it, potentials are most important. China’s potential is enormous — it is the biggest economy in the world today in terms of purchasing power parity and the size of the economy. It has already overtaken the United States, quite a long time ago, and it is growing at a rapid clip.

“Let’s not talk about who is afraid of whom, let’s not reason in such terms. And let’s get into the fact that after 1991, when Russia expected that it would be welcomed into the brotherly family of ”civilized nations,“ nothing like this happened. You tricked us.”

We move on from there to the underpinnings of the current conflict in Ukraine. Putin reiterates the history of the Minsk agreement up until the end of 2021 and mentions, not for the last time, how the west just lies about everything, that they “simply led us by the nose,” which, well, he’s not wrong. The U.S.—and Europe in its wake—sees itself always as on the right side of history and in the moral role in anything that it does, so it sees no problem with simply lying to get what it wants. The ends justify the means, if Russia is to be vanquished.

“[…] the current Ukrainian leadership declared that it would not implement the Minsk Agreements, which had been signed, as you know, after the events of 2014, in Minsk, where the plan of peaceful settlement in Donbass was set forth. But no, the current Ukrainian leadership, Foreign Minister, all other officials and then President himself said that they don’t like anything about the Minsk Agreements. In other words, they were not going to implement it. A year or a year and a half ago, former leaders of Germany and France said openly to the whole world that they indeed signed the Minsk Agreements but they never intended to implement them. They simply led us by the nose.”

With the next treaty on the table in March/April of 2022—nearly immediately after the initial Russian invasion—he describes why the Russian troops left Kiev. It was not, as detailed in the western press, because they had turned tail and run.

“My counterparts in France and Germany said, ”How can you imagine them signing a treaty with a gun to their heads? The troops should be pulled back from Kiev. ‘I said, ‘All right.’ We withdrew the troops from Kiev.

“As soon as we pulled back our troops from Kiev, our Ukrainian negotiators immediately threw all our agreements reached in Istanbul into the bin and got prepared for a longstanding armed confrontation with the help of the United States and its satellites in Europe. That is how the situation has developed. And that is how it looks now.”

When Tucker asks him what he thinks of possible U.S. participation in the war, with actual boots on the ground, Putin responds,

“This is a provocation, and a cheap provocation at that.

“I do not understand why American soldiers should fight in Ukraine. There are mercenaries from the United States there. The biggest number of mercenaries comes from Poland, with mercenaries from the United States in second place, and mercenaries from Georgia in third place. Well, if somebody has the desire to send regular troops, that would certainly bring humanity on the brink of a very serious, global conflict. This is obvious.

“Do the United States need this? What for? Thousands of miles away from your national territory! Don’t you have anything better to do?

“You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt – more than 33 trillion dollars. You have nothing better to do, so you should fight in Ukraine? Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? Make an agreement, already understanding the situation that is developing today, realizing that Russia will fight for its interests to the end. And, realizing this, actually return to common sense, start respecting our country and its interests and look for certain solutions. It seems to me that this is much smarter and more rational.”

Tucker asks Putin why he doesn’t just tell the world what the U.S. did to the Nordstream pipeline if he has, as he says, proof that the U.S. secret services blew it up. Putin chuckles and responds,

“In the war of propaganda it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media and many European media. The ultimate beneficiary of the biggest European media are American financial institutions. Don’t you know that?”

Tucker acknowledges that Russia would probably not make much headway in the western press with their allegations, but wonders then why Germany doesn’t defends itself and its interests. The destruction of the pipeline put it directly in thrall to the U.S., paying four times the price that any other nation pays for its natural gas.

“Tucker Carlson: Yes. But here is a question you may be able to answer. You worked in Germany, famously. The Germans clearly know that their NATO partner did this, that they damaged their economy greatly – it may never recover. Why are they being silent about it? That is very confusing to me. Why wouldn’t the Germans say something about it?

“Vladimir Putin: This also confuses me. But today’s German leadership is guided by the interests of the collective West rather than its national interests, otherwise it is difficult to explain the logic of their action or inaction. After all, it is not only about Nord Stream-1, which was blown up, and Nord Stream-2 was damaged, but one pipe is safe and sound, and gas can be supplied to Europe through it, but Germany does not open it. We are ready, please.”

Putin mentions the “golden billion”, a phrase I understood immediately, but that I’d never heard before. I’m not sure if he understands the unstated irony that he and his cronies are very much in the golden billion, but that probably most of the populace over which he rules is not. Perhaps he is appealing to them? Or to the other nations of the BRICS, like Indonesia and India? It’s unclear, but he’s trying to lead us to think that he truly believes that the world would be better if wealth was divided in a more egalitarian manner.

Perhaps he does, as long as he personally doesn’t have to give anything up. At any rate, it is safe to say that he thinks that wealth and power should accrue to the nations to which it naturally falls, either by resources or by sheer hard work, rather than to the nations that manage to take what they want. Russia and China have that in common: they are not seeking empire in the way that the U.S. very aggressively does. This much is clear.

“The world should be a single whole, security should be shared, rather than meant for the ”golden billion“. That is the only scenario where the world could be stable, sustainable and predictable. Until then, while the head is split into two parts, it is an illness, a serious adverse condition. It is a period of a severe disease that the world is now going through.”

Putin probably has no idea how ironic it is for him to be lauding journalism, a field that he has decimated during his rule. Politskaya would like a word.

“I think that, thanks to honest journalism — this work is akin to work of the doctors, this could somehow be remedied.”

They quickly move on—though the subject of journalism would reappear at the end again—to the insanity of the U.S. wielding its most important asset as a weapon that damages the U.S. more than it does its intended targets. Putin talks about the US. Dollar and economic sanctions. I’ve quoted liberally from this section because it’s quite important to see how the stewards of the western economy either don’t know or don’t care that they’re destroying value for no reason. This, at a time when we need every reason we can get to fight climate change, rather than to fight stupid wars—either economic or military.

“As soon as the political leadership decided to use the US dollar as a tool of political struggle, a blow was dealt to this American power. I would not like to use any strong language, but it is a stupid thing to do, and a grave mistake.

“Look at what is going on in the world. Even the United States’ allies are now downsizing their dollar reserves. Seeing this, everyone starts looking for ways to protect themselves. But the fact that the United States applies restrictive measures to certain countries, such as placing restrictions on transactions, freezing assets, etc., causes grave concern and sends a signal to the whole world.

“What did we have here? Until 2022, about 80 per cent of Russia’s foreign trade transactions were made in US dollars and euros. US dollars accounted for approximately 50 per cent of our transactions with third countries, while currently it is down to 13 per cent. It was not us who banned the use of the US dollar, we had no such intention. It was the decision of the United States to restrict our transactions in US dollars. I think it is a complete foolishness from the point of view of the interests of the United States itself and its tax payers, as it damages the US economy, undermines the power of the United States across the world.

“By the way, our transactions in Yuan accounted for about 3 per cent. Today, 34 per cent of our transactions are made in Rubles, and about as much, a little over 34 per cent, in Yuan.

“Why did the United States do this? My only guess is self-conceit. They probably thought it would lead to a full collapse, but nothing collapsed. Moreover, other countries, including oil producers, are thinking of and already accepting payments for oil in yuan. Do you even realize what is going on or not? Does anyone in the United States realize this? What are you doing? You are cutting yourself off… all experts say this. Ask any intelligent and thinking person in the United States what the dollar means for the US? You are killing it with your own hands.

“Tucker Carlson: I think that is a fair assessment. The question is what comes next? And maybe you trade one colonial power for another, much less sentimental and forgiving colonial power? Is the BRICS, for example, in danger of being completely dominated by the Chinese economy? In a way that is not good for their sovereignty. Do you worry about that?

“Vladimir Putin: We have heard those boogeyman stories before. It is a boogeyman story. We are neighbours with China. You cannot choose neighbours, just as you cannot choose close relatives. We share a border of 1000 kilometers with them. This is number one.

“Second, we have a centuries-long history of coexistence, we are used to it.

“Third, China’s foreign policy philosophy is not aggressive, its idea is to always look for compromise, and we can see that.”

Putin expands on the topic of the shifting global economic picture, citing figures about the relative share of the G7 countries—it was the G8 until Russia was expelled only ten years ago in 2014!—versus the BRICS nations. The BRICS nations now account for more of the global economy, and certainly a large majority of manufacturing. The G7 have a much larger proportion of their share coming from banking and other financialized services.

And isn’t it wild that the ostracizing of Russia began in earnest (again) only a decade ago? Before that, there were sanctions, but they were milder. And before that, there was the crippling of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet. But still, Russia was still in the club a little bit, anyway. No alliances, no NATO, but they were in the G8. Then came the coup in Ukraine, provoking the annexation, and the nearly immediate banning of Russia from the G8. Their seat in the Security Council remains.

“Look, if memory serves me right, back in 1992, the share of the G7 countries in the world economy amounted to 47 per cent, whereas in 2022 it was down to, I think, a little over 30 per cent. The BRICS countries accounted for only 16 per cent in 1992, but now their share is greater than that of the G7. It has nothing to do with the events in Ukraine. This is due to the trends of global development and world economy that I mentioned just now, and this is inevitable. This will keep happening, it is like the rise of the sun — you cannot prevent the sun from rising, you have to adapt to it. How do the United States adapt? With the help of force: sanctions, pressure, bombings, and use of armed forces.”

Tucker asks about whether a change in U.S. leadership would help? Does Putin think that the Biden administration is particularly intractable?

“It is not about the personality of the leader, it is about the elites’ mindset. If the idea of domination at any cost, based also on forceful actions, dominates the American society, nothing will change, it will only get worse. But if, in the end, one comes to the awareness that the world has been changing due to objective circumstances, and that one should be able to adapt to them in time, using the advantages that the U.S. still has today, then, perhaps, something may change.”

Putin returns to the topic of the global economy, specifically with China’s and Russia’s role in it.

“Look, China’s economy has become the first economy in the world in purchasing power parity; in terms of volume it overtook the US a long time ago. The USA comes second, then India (one and a half billion people), and then Japan, with Russia in the fifth place. Russia was the first economy in Europe last year, despite all the sanctions and restrictions. Is this normal, from your point of view: sanctions, restrictions, impossibility of payments in dollars, being cut off from SWIFT services, sanctions against our ships carrying oil, sanctions against airplanes, sanctions in everything, everywhere? The largest number of sanctions in the world which are applied – are applied against Russia. And we have become Europe’s first economy during this time.”

Tucker asked Putin about the potential for change in the U.S. through electoral action, for fresh ideas of the sort Putin thinks that the U.S. needs in order to better fit into the global order that is emerging, whether it likes it or not.

“America is a complex country, conservative on the one hand, rapidly changing on the other. It’s not easy for us to sort it all out.

“Who makes decisions in the elections – is it possible to understand this, when each state has its own legislation, each state regulates itself, someone can be excluded from the elections at the state level. It is a two-stage electoral system, it is very difficult for us to understand it.

“Certainly there are two parties that are dominant, the Republicans and the Democrats, and within this party system, the centers that make decisions, that prepare decisions.”

Putin questions not only the wisdom, but also the morality, of trying to beat down any possible competitors on the global level. These competitors will exist by sheer force of numbers, no matter what. He cites Indonesia as a rising player, that just by the sheer size of its population and the accompanying manufacturing power, will take its rightful place among powerful nations soon enough.

“[…] it is necessary to continue ”chiseling“ Russia, to try to break it up, to create on this territory several quasi-state entities and to subdue them in a divided form, to use their combined potential for the future struggle with China. This is a mistake, including the excessive potential of those who worked for the confrontation with the Soviet Union. It is necessary to get rid of this, there should be new, fresh forces, people who look into the future and understand what is happening in the world.

“Look at how Indonesia is developing? 600 million people. Where can we get away from that? Nowhere, we just have to assume that Indonesia will enter (it is already in) the club of the world’s leading economies, no matter who likes or dislikes it.”

Back to Ukraine, with specifics about why Zelensky was elected and how he’s betrayed the people who voted for him, who’d elected him to make peace, to end the civil war. Instead, Zelensky expanded the civil war and provoked Russia into invasion. There were many, many ways to avoid the invasion. They would have required relinquishing some power to federalist territories in the east—as outlined in the Minsk agreements—but that seems eminently preferable to where Zelensky is steering the ship of state of Ukraine now.

“[Zelensky] came to power on the expectations of Ukrainian people that he would lead Ukraine to peace. He talked about this, it was thanks to this that he won the election overwhelmingly. But then, when he came to power, in my opinion, he realized two things: firstly, it is better not to clash with neo-Nazis and nationalists, because they are aggressive and very active, you can expect anything from them, and secondly, the US-led West supports them and will always support those who antagonize with Russia – it is beneficial and safe. So he took the relevant position, despite promising his people to end the war in Ukraine. He deceived his voters.”

Tucker asks why Putin doesn’t try harder to get negotiations going again? If he wants peace, then why doesn’t he go to the table with Ukraine. Putin responds that it is because Ukraine refuses to talk, that Russia has always been ready to negotiate—before the invasion and war, soon after the invasion, and ever since.

“President of Ukraine issued a decree prohibiting negotiations with us. Let him cancel that decree and that’s it. We have never refused negotiations indeed. We hear all the time: is Russia ready? Yes, we have not refused! It was them who publicly refused. Well, let him cancel his decree and enter into negotiations. We have never refused.”

At 01:50:00, he draws a comparison between the threat imposed on the world by a failure to control the production of nuclear weapons with that posed by AI. It’s impossible to stop it like we couldn’t stop gunpowder. There will come a time when we would need to regulate this internationally.

“Humanity has to consider what is going to happen due to the newest developments in genetics or in AI. One can make an approximate prediction of what will happen. Once mankind felt an existential threat coming from nuclear weapons, all nuclear nations began to come to terms with one another since they realized that negligent use of nuclear weaponry could drive humanity to extinction.

“It is impossible to stop research in genetics or AI today, just as it was impossible to stop the use of gunpowder back in the day. But as soon as we realize that the threat comes from unbridled and uncontrolled development of AI, or genetics, or any other fields, the time will come to reach an international agreement on how to regulate these things.”

Tucker asks about the NYT journalist who’s serving time in a Russian prison for espionage. Putin basically says: you have many cards to trade for him. Do so, and he’s yours. The only reason that Gershkovich is still in prison in Russia is because the U.S. refuses to negotiate and just wants him returned “for free”, when the U.S. has many prisoners that Russia would like back, people that they’ve similarly accused of spying for Russia while in the U.S. They traded for the basketball player (Griner?); they can trade for the journalist.

“I do not rule out that the person you referred to, Mister Gershkovich, may return to his motherland. By the end of the day, it does not make any sense to keep him in prison in Russia. We want the U.S. special services to think about how they can contribute to achieving the goals our special services are pursuing. We are ready to talk. Moreover, the talks are underway, and there have been many successful examples of these talks crowned with success. Probably this is going to be crowned with success as well, but we have to come to an agreement.”

Back to Ukraine and a potential settlement/peace agreement.

“Tucker Carlson: So, I just want to make sure I am not misunderstanding what you are saying — and I don’t think that I am — I think you are saying you want a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.

“Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it, we prepared a huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He affixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said: “We were ready to sign it and the war would have been over long ago, eighteen months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talked us out of it and we missed that chance.” Well, you missed it, you made a mistake, let them get back to that, that is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes?

“I know one can say it is our mistake, it was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014 in Donbas, as I have already said, by means of weapons. Let me get back to further in history, I already told you this, we were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991 when we were promised that NATO would not be expanded, to 2008 when the doors to NATO opened, to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and US military bases started to appear on the territory of Ukraine creating threats for us. Let us go back to coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly. But they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?”

Just as an aside, a commentator on Twitter reflected my reaction to the juxtaposition of this interview coming out and the “diagnosis” that Joe Biden is mentally unfit to stand trial,

“Vladimir Putin just spent 30 minutes going over the last 1,000 years history of Russia and Ukraine in detail without notes.

“Joe Biden can’t remember when his son died.

“God help us all”

The article The US/UK attack on Yemen and the global eruption of imperialist war by WSWS Editorial Board (WSWS) describes how the U.S. and UK opened a new front in their war on the middle east.

“[…] supposedly it is Yemen that is the “aggressor,” carrying out “unprecedented attacks” on US military forces deployed in the Red Sea, thousands of miles from the US border. American imperialism, which has a military larger than that of the next 10 countries combined, claims to be waging a “defensive” war on the other side of the world against a small, oppressed and impoverished country.”

Not for the first time, though, right? Vietnam was sold as a defensive war—defending against the specter of communism and the terrifying “domino theory”. Panama, Nicaragua, Grenada. They were all defensive. The U.S. is always defending its interests, so every act of aggression it perpetrates is, in fact, defensive. A rather banal rhetorical trick that otherwise-intelligent people seem to delight in falling for. It follows that preemptive attacks are also defensive. Since there is always a slight—perceived or actual—to which one can point, everything is defensive.

The Pentagon, which runs the by-far-largest military force that mankind has ever seen, stated, “We’re not interested in a war with Yemen. We’re not interested in a conflict of any kind.”

JFC. 🤦‍♂️

So there you go. They just spend one trillion dollars per year on occupation and war because the U.S. is defending itself. It’s true, though! The U.S. thinks the entire planet belongs to it. That notion—the notion of empire—must be defended from anyone who thinks otherwise—even against the other people living on it..

“For nearly a decade, the Houthis in Yemen have been subject to ruthless slaughter, waged by Saudi Arabia but armed and financed by the United States. According to the United Nations, 377,000 people have been killed in a genocidal campaign that has involved blockades resulting in mass starvation and disease. First under Obama and then under Trump, the US financed this assault with more than $54 billion in military equipment, aided and abetted by its imperialist allies, including the UK.

“The devastation of Yemen is part of more than 30 years of unending and expanding war, spearheaded and led by American imperialism, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990-91. This included the first Gulf War in 1990; the dismantling of Yugoslavia, culminating in the war against Serbia in 1999; the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001; the second war against Iraq in 2003; the war against Libya in 2011; and the CIA-backed civil war in Syria that began the same year.

“Every single administration since that of Bill Clinton has authorized military operations, airstrikes, and destabilization operations in Somalia, across the Gulf of Aiden from Yemen, seeking to control the critical waterway leading to the Suez Canal.”

That’s a good summary of the U.S. Empire’s defensive posture. Look—people don’t pay their protection money willingly. You gotta lean on ‘em a bit. Sometimes a lot, for those who are hard of hearing.

The goal has always been Iran

Like Iran.

“The launching of military strikes against Yemen marks a new stage in the deepening imperialist military offensive throughout the Middle East and beyond. The US and its imperialist allies are waging a de facto war against Iran, working to eliminate Iran’s military allies throughout the Middle East. The strikes against Yemen are directed at encircling Iran and provoking it into retaliation against US forces, which could be used to justify a full-scale war against Tehran.”

Bush II listed Iran as one of the baddies. The sanctions have continued since then uninterrupted. The only time most people hear about Iran is either when they’re being accused of trying to develop nuclear weapons (they’re not) or when an uprising looks ready to break the stranglehold that the mullahs have there—not that the U.S. would support an open, democratic regime there. It doesn’t need f*@kiing France there; it wants something like another Iraq: keep the cheap oil flowing under U.S. aegis, don’t get too uppity, and don’t think too much about stuff.

It’s incredible to think that the war on Iran was basically declared the second the mullahs took over and the U.S. never forgot about it. Through an unbroken chain of administrations led by both parties, the animus has remained, utterly unchanged. Biden’s foriegn policy is underpinned by the same precepts as Bush I or Bush II. Obama and Clinton looked no different. They all ran wars and incursions. Reagan and Carter as well. Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy were in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua. Truman mopped up Japan. Eisenhower was in Korea, for whatever reason. He was also quite busy squashing any leftist notions all over Europe, in Greece, Portugal, and Italy, among others.

If you’re at all interested in knowing more, check out William Blum’s Killing Hope (I read it in 2001, before I’d even started tracking my books) and Rogue Superpower (which I read in 2003, before I’d started writing notes for books). Or, like, anything by Noam Chomsky, but most especially his latest, which he wrote together with the inestimable Vijay Prashad, The Withdrawal

“Every war launched by the US and its imperialist allies has ended in one bloody debacle after the other, with millions of people killed. But each disaster only reinforces the determination of US imperialism to use war as a means to secure its global hegemony.”

That’s all it is. Everything else is just window dressing.

The Biden administration is a mad dog

The article Western Empire Bombs Yemen To Protect Israel’s Genocide Operations In Gaza by Caitlin Johnstone (Caitlin’s Newsletter) adds,

“[…] the US and the UK just bombed the poorest country in the middle east for trying to stop a genocide. Not only that, they bombed the very same country in which they just spent years backing Saudi Arabia’s genocidal atrocities which killed hundreds of thousands of people between 2015 and 2022 in an unsuccessful bid to stop the Houthis from taking power.”

This is all done to protect trade routes, to keep prices low. The attacks by the Houthis have resulted in no casualties. They’re annoying. They cause companies to lose money. Some stuff gets to some countries more slowly. The U.S. and UK bombed the Sanaa international airport in Yemen. WTF. No declaration of war. No attempt to negotiate. No consideration of alternatives. No congressional approval. Just a dictator shooting things. This is what people were afraid Trump would do. This is what I wrote at the time that Biden would likely do. He’s a merciless piece of shit. He always has been.

Apparently wars in Ukraine and Gaza are not enough for the Biden administration. Nothing ever makes them think it’s time to back down, or that it might be time to negotiate, or that things might be getting out of hand. Forget cold wars. Biden makes everything hot immediately. He’s fighting Russians directly in Syria—and proxy-fighting them in Ukraine. He’s funding and arming Saudi Arabia to flatten the Houthis in Yemen. He’s funding and arming the Israelis to flatten the Palestinians in Gaza—and supporting tons of violence in the West Bank as well.

This is mindless violence, all to quash any hopes of rebellion against the empire. All to prevent any change to the system that subjugates so many and funnels so much wealth toward Empire—and a handful of people in it.

Learning the lesson of violence

The world organizations are also proving to Yemen that attacking merchant vessels really is the only recourse, just like Israel convinced any Palestinians who dreamed of living without a boot on their neck that the only way to get it off is violence.

The article Technicality Could Sink Genocide Case v Israel by Joe Lauria (Scheer Post) goes into more detail, but the upshot is that South Africa brought its case against Israel without 100% proper notification prior to the case, so Israel says that there is no standing “dispute”, which means that South Africa shouldn’t have been able to bring the case, and that the court should actually not even agree to hear it because it didn’t follow procedure.

Basically, if you put your fingers in your ears and scream so that you can’t hear accusations, you can pretend to have been blindsided by an official accusation, just shocked at a court summons, upon which the court has to instead reprimand the accuser, telling them to start all over.

I suppose it’s a neat trick, that. Of course, it just means that international law is completely and utterly toothless unless it’s being wielded against poor nations to relieve them of their resources and to load them up with debt incurred to pay fines for crimes committed by dictators emplaced and propped up for decades by the same countries that now accuse, prosecute, convict, and sentence them. In other words, international law is only wielded against African nations.

It’s a sham, a scam—and it always has been. The “International rules-based order” is no stupider than what it purports to replace.

Lauria’s article writes,

“American academic Norman Finkelstein, told an interviewer: “It will completely discredit the Court if they issue a decision — we have decided not to pursue this case of genocide because we don’t think there is a dispute. That just can’t work.” ”

“Murray added:

““I am sure the judges want to get out of this and they may go for the procedural points. But there is a real problem with Israel’s ‘no dispute’ argument. If accepted, it would mean that a country committing genocide can simply not reply to a challenge, and then legal action will not be possible because no reply means ‘no dispute’. I hope that absurdity is obvious to the judges. But they may of course wish not to notice it…””

What do NYC liberals think?

All of the good little NYC liberals are lining up behind King Biden and his wars, of course. The article Houthis And The Blowhards by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice) is representative. It states that anyone who disagrees with him loves terrorism. He writes,

“These are our children, our academics, our overly-educated and unduly-passionate true believers that the terrorists are the good guys and these Israel, that the United States, both independently and in complicity with Israel, are evil.”

I didn’t misquote that. He is nearly incoherent in his rage. As usual, you can almost see the spittle flying over the keyboard, flecking the screen.

My, but how Mr. Greenfield likes to ascribe bad opinions to what he considers to be opponents, if only because they fail to unquestioningly love the things that he loves. He loves the USA and Israel, in no particular order. His context is that the U.S. modestly tiptoes through the world, minding its own business, and sometimes horrible, petty, small-minded, blinkered animals and terrorists wish harm on it and even try to do harm to it. The same story applies to Israel.

In his mind, there is no agency on the part of either of these countries. In his mind, they are always just reacting in as measured a manner as possible in order to prevent the next unprovoked, unforeseeable, completely unjustified, and utterly unexplainable attack on the unutterable magnificence that is the ship of state of these great nations. Anyone with a different context is automatically assigned the most ridiculous of opinions, the most straw-man-like of justification for their ideas, opinions, and world-view.

I’ve never seen him make any attempt to grapple with the real arguments that might be made. He always takes the biggest fools at their word—who, in fighting empire and against injustice, are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons—rather than taking on a real interlocutor, even if only a fictitious one.

The Houthis attacked shipping vessels, harming no-one. The U.S. and UK obliterated cities and an international airport, killing dozens of civilians. Greenfield will never analyze whether his “side” might be unjustified in doing so. It’s perfectly OK with him for his “side” to break all sorts of laws “defending itself” because laws are for other countries.

The epithet “terrorist” is exclusively for other states, certainly not his own or any with which he has developed an affinity. This is not a principle. This is just the same mush-brained American-liberal mindset that has helped build an empire. It’s great that he seems to be for justice for Americans wronged by the American court systems—that’s what he used to post about, almost exclusively—but this penchant for justice and fairness doesn’t extend beyond the border. And it certainly doesn’t extend to his precious Israel.

The article When META Met Society by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice) writes about the evils of META (Most Effective Tactics Available). The author cites an essay by Megan McArdle. Neither one of these fools can think of an example of META that corresponds to actual power. That perennial dipshit McArdle thinks that a 17-year-old swatting hundreds of people is a good example. Greenfield sticks to the obvious, as cited below.

“If you were big and strong, you could beat up someone small and weak. You could steal their wallet, watch and jewelry. The only thing that prevented this from happening constantly was the societal belief that this was wrong and bad, and that people who did this to other people were wrong and bad. ”

And here’s another one of his hobby-horses,

“The law prohibits the use of deadly force against another except in self-defense (with certain inapplicable exceptions). Protesters figured out that they could simply stand in front of a car, which would turn into a deadly weapon if intentionally driven into a person, and there wasn’t a damn thing the car could lawfully do about it. A handful of protesters could thus shut down thousands of cars, together with the thousands of people within them, to inflict misery for their cause with this one cool trick.”

He and McArdle agree that “dubious asylum claims” are a dastardly life-hack exploited by immigrants. The common thread in all of their examples is that they are perpetrated by people with little-to-no power who obtain power through a hack. This pisses off elitists like McArdle and Greenfield the most because they feel that “those people” should know their place. The system has been rigged against them, but they should still play by the rules. Fair is fair.

Except that no-one who actually has any power plays by those rules. That is what society teaches. Fake it ‘til you make it. Cheat big or go home. McArdle and Greenfield are probably more than well-off enough to be taking advantage of dozens of sleazy tax loopholes that let them enjoy much more of the benefit of their burgeoning investments than they would in a fair society.

Instead, they are focused laser-like on the evils of:

• Immigrants with only the clothes on their back taking advantage of a country whose immigration system is overwhelmed because it spends all of its money bombing and fomenting unrest in the countries those people come from.
• Mentally disturbed teenagers who use an unhinged and unquestioning and vastly overpowered and under-controlled police force to attack innocent people.
• Climate activists who prevent people from driving to their jobs by unfairly gluing themselves to the road.

None of these examples of META—let’s just call them “hacks”—are admirable, but they’re chump change. These examples are fleas on the back of the dog. The same dog that’s tearing everyone’s lives apart is complaining about the fleas and getting its victims to side with it.

Neither are any of their examples of the people who have real power in society. The real hack is to figure out how to make money without doing much of anything, or to figure out how to con the government out of a lot of money, then use that money to maintain the structure that let you get rich and to manipulate it into making you even richer.

I think it’s much more relevant to talk about “levers” instead of META or even “hacks”. Western civilization seems to have settled on running a society that’s inherently scammy. People will find ways to scam. They are encouraged to do so. The whole of modern society is a Swiss cheese of ethics and morals, where we’ve been taught that nothing means anything, unless you can get money.

Money by The Flying Lizards (YouTube)

It’s inevitable that the parchment of laws is going to get a bit holey as everyone who gets a lot of money pops holes in it. Go read some of Vince McMahon’s alleged text messages—the article Vince McMahon’s Disturbing Texts to Janel Grant in Trafficking Lawsuit Revealed by Subjoheet Mukherjee (Ringside News) includes enough of them to give you an appalling idea. Those will convince you that the problem is not at the bottom but at the top. The people taking the most advantage of the holes in society’s rules are the ones who made them.

McMahon’s text messages also illustrate how corrupt and debased a society is for obviously deranged people like him to be able to not only succeed, but basically win. As Some Thoughts On Vince McMahon by Chris Seaton (Simple Justice) writes,

“Why is a billionaire in his seventies who spends his days dictating his every word to professional assistants writing text messages like a drunken, horny 17 year old boy?”

Or why is he “allegedly sexually assaulting a young woman with his boss while she recovered from cancer treatments.”

But sure, let’s focus laser-like on how teenagers, climate activists, teen-aged climate activists, and desperate immigrants are tearing the country apart. A likely story (as my Mom loved to say). “Der Fisch stinkt vom Kopf,” as we say here in the DACH [1] region.

Jeremy Scahill was absolutely en fuego in this 90-minute interview. I’ve cleaned up the YouTube transcript—it gets most of the words, but includes verbal tics, has no punctuation, has a very cavalier attitude toward capitalization, and simply will not transcribe certain words correctly. Anyway, Jeremy and Briahna had a great conversation about terrible, terrible topics.

IDF Soldiers DESECRATE Gaza Cemetery and Other Israel BOMBSHELLS (w/ Jeremy Scahill) by Bad Faith (YouTube)

At around 24:00 they talk about the circumstances surrounding the recent defunding of UNRWA.

“Jeremy It’s hard to shock me. The Wall Street Journal on Monday—as all of this is happening—and the focus is on: there were 12 UNRWA employees that Israel…
Briahna Out of 30,000, by the way, we should say that it’s a huge agency. That represented 0.04% of all employees, but go ahead. I’m sorry.
Jeremy […] I mean it has this…has such whiffs of the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, which was based on lies. But the Wall Street Journal puts on its main web page—right at the top—what purports to be an article based on what they call an intelligence dossier, that says that it’s a far greater a problem than just these 12 individuals. That, in fact, a full 10% of UNRWA employees are connected to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“And, when you read down…to: “intelligence dossier.” It’s like I was having flashbacks to the Christopher Steele, Russia-gate stuff. But also to Judith Miller mushroom-cloud stuff, because if you dig into the article, what they’re saying is that the Israeli government provided this information to the United States government and then the Wall Street Journal was able to review it.

“And, you know, it’s all basically guilt by innuendo. And, you know, it was devastating because then—you know, people don’t read, they don’t check facts—it just becomes—even in the liberal comment-sphere—it became like, ‘see! […] it’s not just a few bad apples! This is pervasive throughout the organization.‘

“The lead author of that Wall Street Journal piece is herself a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces, who has boasted that her closest friend basically created the social-media strategy of the IDF. So, it basically was laundering, on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, an insidious, violent, propaganda campaign being implemented by a government that just had a devastating set of rulings issued against it for plausible violations of the genocide convention, in service of trying to further starve the people of Gaza.

“And that narrative that was set last week and then doubled down on by The Wall Street Journal, is now becoming the dominant narrative and Anthony Blinken—on Tuesday, Bri!—was asked about the evidence and he said publicly that the United States had not done its own investigation, but that the allegations are very, very credible. I mean: think about that statement. For America’s top diplomat to admit to the world that we didn’t bother to actually do our own investigation before we cut off funding to the most vital humanitarian organization operating in a country that is now under the watch of the world court for a potential genocide. That is the top diplomat of the United States saying we didn’t bother to even look into this ourselves.

“We just believe notorious liars who have lied from the moment that this thing started, who have lied for decades about the Palestinians, whose entire worldview is: dehumanize Arabs, dehumanize Palestinians, treat them as human animals. The United States is taking the word of that government to cut off funding to basically the only force in Gaza able to provide any meaningful aid and medical care right now, to a people that could well be found to be victims of genocide. This is, on a moral level, … I find it difficult to imagine a more immoral stance than that which the United States is taking at this moment on this issue.”

At 33:00 Jeremy talks about how accusing people who live in Gaza—as so many employees of UNRWA do—of knowing people in Hamas is utter nonsense, Of course they know people in Hamas; Hamas is the local government.

“So when you say—as the Wall Street Journal is alleging, based on this laundering of Israeli so-called intelligence—that 10% of these people had connections to Hamas or Islamic Jihad, I’m sure the number is far greater than that. Because what do you mean by connection? Hamas is not just the Qassam Brigade. Hamas is the ruling authority, whether you like them or not. They pick up the trash. They provide civil services. The laziness is also part of the banality of evil. The laziness among the public, who don’t even bother to check—well, what does that even mean? When I read ‘people are connected to Hamas,’ it’s like, well, of course, they are. This isn’t some scary smoking gun that you’ve produced for us. Hamas is much more complicated than the Qassam brigades and October 7th. This is a long story.”

At 46:00 Jeremy cautions Briahna to be careful about dismissing all claims of rape on October 7th, Just because there are some spectacular lies going around doesn’t mean nothing happened. It warrants a sober and serious investigation. Soldiers rape. They generally do it once they’ve occupied an area, not when they’re flying by in jeeps in a four-hour sortie, but it’s still possible. So, we have to hear from the victims, not people who claim they saw victims. There have been too many of those that have been utterly refuted. But we have to continue to listen and not close off. Israelis can be and are victims, too. Don’t stoop to the level of the worst of their government’s speakers.

“I think, on the one hand, we have the propaganda campaign, which clearly is riddled with lies, exaggerations, and is aimed at enforcing a dehumanization narrative that Israel hopes will continue to justify by its mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. On the other hand, you have—I’m sure you have civil servants in Israel and and people who work with survivors and victims of sexual violence that really do actually want to solve alleged crimes. And all I’m cautioning is that we be careful with running away with our own narratives.”

At 52:00 Jeremy discusses how the Israeli government’s tactic of making it seem like Arabs are so barbarous that they would rape anything is backfiring on them, for exactly the reasons listed above. In fact, Briahna’s amount of sympathy is noticeably limited for exactly that reason.

“If you just look at this exclusively through the lens of justice for victims, this conduct is contaminating the investigation. On the other side of this is part of a campaign to dehumanize Arabs and particularly Arab men/ It is an attempt to portray the enemy as savage barbarians who murder, loot, rape, and pillage for the sake of those things rather than that they’re engaged in an attack that from their perspective is one battle in a 75-year war for liberation.

“People accuse me of being pro-Hamas. If you go back and look at everything I’ve ever said about Hamas, all I do is state factual information about Hamas and that somehow is being pro-Hamas. No. It’s journalistic malpractice not to explain the stated intent or the response to allegations by a party that we’re being told is tantamount to the Nazis and Isis. It’s journalistically responsible to say ‘hey, we’re being told these guys are the new Nazis. Let’s do some fact-checking. Why don’t we see if that’s actually true. This is basic journalism.”

At 01:01:00 Jeremy talks more about journalistic malpractice, about how deferential the US media is to Israel’s narrative,

“The dominant sort of tone is always—the number one rule is “deference to Israel’s narrative”. That is the number one rule of how to cover anything involving Israel. You must refer to the narrative of the Israeli State […] I think that large American news organizations have done an immense disservice to the public in the way that they’ve covered this war, in general. But also dozens upon dozens of our colleagues have been murdered and their family members have been killed. […] Our colleagues are being murdered in broad daylight.

“[…] there is good journalism that’s out there. I just think that that the drum-beat coverage that we see to facilitate wars, all the lies that were repeated early on, when independent journalists were questioning them—we’ve talked about a lot of them today—they were going along with it. CNN promoted many of the most outlandish, obscene lies that Israel was deploying immediately to try to justify the slaughter that Netanyahu always knew he wanted to unleash on Gaza.”

Finally, at 01:14:00 Jeremy talks about how offensive it is for Biden to even be running for president, and how hollow it is for flacks like AOC to be shilling for him.

“Make an argument why people whose families have been murdered with American bombs—with the full support of the American political establishment—why they should be voting for Joe Biden, the man who has single-handedly made this all possible for Israel to do. My answer to AOC is: don’t run around telling people like me why we should vote for Biden. Let’s hear you publicly make the case why a Palestinian voter in this country—whose loved ones have been murdered—why should they be voting for Joe Biden and why should they be declaring that support in January of 2024 when the election is 11 months away?”

The more I listen to the Blowback podcast, the more it’s clear that the U.S. has never been ruled by good people—or by smart people. They may be intelligent but their ideology makes them stupid. Or they’re just stupid. Either way, none of them are good. None of them have anything approaching universal principles. They are nearly all at least self-serving hypocrites. They are nearly all raging egos, bastards who don’t take the blame for anything. They are more than occasionally actual monsters.

The U.S. Empire hates Cuba

In Cuba’s case, the institutional memory—the institutional hatred—is both breathtaking and persistent. The U.S. has never forgiven Cuba for its affront in throwing out its businesses. The Cuban Embargo continues, to this day. Cuba’s been tenacious for long decades. They repulsed an actual invasion.

Neither has the U.S. ever forgiven Iran for its revolution. Both countries will be revenged with eradication, come hell or high water. Iran’s time seems to be coming around again. The monsters running the U.S. Empire are getting antsy. They think they see an opportunity for more direct intervention, as they like to call it—such an anodyne term for what is effectively a wholly illegal assault on a sovereign nation.

The U.S. Empire hates Iran

The demonization of Iran is driven in large part by Israel, which led the charge to demand the U.S. bully Iran over nuclear weapons their neither had nor wanted. It’s deeply ironic, of course, that this witch hunt is egged on by Israel, which does have nukes, but shouldn’t. The U.S. applies completely different rules—the definition of hypocrisy. The inchoate hatred for Iran is palpable. Iran is back on the table because of the recent Israeli surge, which is shootings target in Syria and Lebanon.

They will pretend that they aren’t instigating a war, then react in shock at the first, tiny response from Iran. This is par for the course. The U.S. media meanwhile describes every disturbed grain of sand in the Middle East as being due to Iran’s malign influence. It’s only a matter of time before they all convince themselves that they’ve put enough energy into building the so-called case against Iran to justify a direct assault.

I don’t know why they bother with all of the rigamarole. Nothing ever happens to the U.S. on an international level, anyway. Nicaragua once took them to an international court—and won!—but the U.S. just ignored the verdict. Israel is following this template by ignoring the recent ICJ decision. U.S. and Israeli athletes will continue to attend international competitions. They will continue to take part in unimpeded international trade. They will take part unhindered in financial markets.

The U.S. Empire is not going to help Cuba

But let’s get back to Cuba. The article U.S. Policy is Exacerbating Cuba’s Growing Humanitarian Crisis by William M. Leogrande (Scheer Post) writes,

“Since 2022, 442,000 undocumented Cubans have arrived at US borders, more than 50,000 have come as legal immigrants, and tens of thousands more have emigrated elsewhere. Cuba is hemorrhaging its young, best-educated people. Migration is also a blow to the domestic economy. Last year, more than 12,000 doctors left. In Havana alone, there are 17,000 vacant teachers positions. Even Cubans earning good salaries working for foreign diplomatic missions and international organizations are leaving because they cannot envision a future for themselves in their homeland.”

“The humanitarian situation on the island cries out for a US response. Washington has offered Cuba humanitarian aid before. In 2008, in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Gustav, George W. Bush’s administration offered Cuba $6.3 million of aid, $5 million directly to the Cuban government without preconditions. Just last year, the Biden administration provided $2 million in the wake of Hurricane Ian to help rebuild housing in the hardest hit communities.”

$2 million! My goodness. So much money. What will they do with all of that aid?

“President Biden could take four simple steps to help ease the crisis:”

Spoiler alert: Lifting the blockade is not on the list.

“There are moments, John F. Kennedy wrote in Profiles in Courage, when politicians must choose between doing what’s politically expedient and doing what’s right.”

F@$k JFK. He only looks less bad relative to the psychos he surrounded himself with. He was an elitist racist. I don’t care what sort of fine words he wrote or said. When he had the chance, he did none of it. He was an anticommunist, sociopath-level capitalist with a bad temper and a chip on his shoulder—just like all of the rest of them.

Joe Biden is a jerk

“Joe Biden is known for his genuine empathy for others. Right now, he is focused on the acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the interminable war in Ukraine. But if the responsible senior officials in the State Department and National Security Council put Cuba on the president’s agenda and briefed him on the depth of the crisis there, maybe he would do the right thing.”

This is so unmoored from reality that it’s barely comprehensible. Joe Biden is not “known for his genuine empathy” (writing “for others” is redundant); Joe Biden is a notorious asshole. He always has been. His sociopathy and mania are directly responsible for the Ukraine and Gaza nightmares. He is president of the United States. He chooses the people to run these policies.

He chose to continue forcing Russia into a corner—he completely ignored two proposals from Russia in 2021. He wanted the Ukraine war. His unquestioning support for Netanyahu is directly responsible for Israel’s boldness in its most-recent war. He just opened a new war against Yemen—yes, a war. What else do you call attacking another sovereign nation and killing its citizens with missiles?

He’s not inflicted with those situations—he created them. He likes it this way. He doesn’t give a shit about anything other than being reelected. He’s a nightmare. Don’t hold your breath until he helps Cuba, FFS. You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’ve finished listening to the bonus episodes for season 2 of the Blowback Podcast, which is called “Cuba Libre”. When you really learn how the U.S. has just shat on that country for almost 65 years, you can’t possibly have the absolutely stupid hope that Joe Biden—of all f@$king people—is going to do a good goddamned thing for that island. And JFK! Don’t even get me started on that guy.

Kennedy’s speeches

Ok, fine. So I got started. I read one of his speeches. My notes on the Commencement Address at American University, Washington, D.C. on June 10, 1963 (JFK Library) are below. Read through and then see my conclusion to see why I think this is relevant for today.

“Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims–such as the allegation that ‘American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars . . . that there is a very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union . . . [and that] the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries . . . [and] to achieve world domination . . . by means of aggressive wars.’”

This is all true. He knew it at the time. Also I’m sure that he said the first sentence without noting the irony at all.

“it is sad to read these Soviet statements–to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning–a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.”

He didn’t follow his own advice. He’s just reading out loud. No-one since has listened either. He literally peppered this speech with statements that belie this one. Like the one about “find[ing] communism […] repugnant” below.

“No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.”

Except Cuba—right, Jack?

U.S. elected officials are really quite advanced in their bullshit. They just spew things that have nothing to do with reality. Clinton and Obama would really follow in this guy’s footsteps with their lofty rhetoric, almost none of which was true.

“As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity.”

This is such a shockingly ignorant and simple-minded thing to say—but people keep pointing me to this speech as indicative of JFK’s enlightened mindset.

“Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other.”

Again: so simplistic. He doesn’t consider anything other than trading blows on a field to be “war”. Demeaning the lives of thousands, possibly millions, just to exact petty revenges on the USSR was nothing to this man. He didn’t care about anything but projecting U.S. power. He never made a concession. He considered none of this violence, none of it was war. What an asshole.

“For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons.”

But you and your country did this ten times more than the USSR. You knew how far ahead you were. You lied about it. The USSR was always losing, always behind—there was never a “gap” for the U.S. to fill. Kruschev said that military buildup is good for capitalism whereas it is harmful to socialism.

“We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists’ interest to agree on a genuine peace.”

They are the ones that have to change, of course. The U.S. is so perfect that there is no room for improvement. All concessions and change and growth are for loser countries that haven’t yet achieved the enlightenment of the exceptional nation. It’s enough to make you want to throw up.

“To secure these ends, America’s weapons are nonprovocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.”

JFC JFK. This has never been the case. You’re high on your own supply.

“We are unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people–but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on earth.”

Oh f@$k off. This is ridiculous. Going back to before I was born, U.S. presidents were all sociopathic, deluded liars, just utterly unaware of how hypocritical they were—because their prime axiom is always that U.S. Americans are better. Correction: Elite U.S. Americans are better. They deserve to have everything as their noble birthright. Letting anyone else have anything would be a waste because they’re all too benighted to appreciate it. Filthy communists. Filthy natives. Filthy poors.

“The Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.”

Methinks he’s projecting quite a bit here. Jesus, Kennedy, do you even listen to yourself? Do you even bother to think for a second whether the behavior of the nation under your control exhibited the characteristics you seem to hold so dear? Or did it do literally the exact opposite at every opportunity? News flash, JFK: since your assassination, it has continued to do so—namely, not what you said you wanted. You never did it. And no-one since has, either. This has never been a priority. It’s just pretty shit to say when we want to tell the world how we demand it think of us. Judge us by our words, not our actions. Or else.

“The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of this Government since the 1920's. It has been urgently sought by the past three administrations. And however dim the prospects may be today, we intend to continue this effort–to continue it in order that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems and possibilities of disarmament are.”

You mean disarming everyone else, right? Because there was an armaments phase in the 1940s unlike the world has ever seen. The U.S. has never been about disarmament. I have no idea what he’s talking about. It’s pure fantasy.

“To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on the matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us achieve it.”

This is great. Did we end up doing that, though? I’m seriously asking because I don’t know. Did we actually stop atmospheric testing?

Yup, we did. Two months later with the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (Wikipedia). Heartfelt congratulations to JFK and the team.

“While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can–if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers–offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.”

This never happened, though. It’s hard to say whether it would have, had he not been assassinated. He talks pretty sometimes. So did Obama—who also did the opposite of everything he ever said. I’ve learned enough history to know that Kennedy also did other than he said, especially when it counted.

“The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough–more than enough–of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on–not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.”

“The U.S. will never start a war.”, will only “be prepared if others wish it.” Yeah, sure. That’s not how it worked out. It’s just words. Pretty words, but the world already has enough evidence to know that it was lies.

Back to today

If you managed to make it through that analysis of Kennedy’s long speech, you may have noticed that so many of Kennedy’s statements are still the exact same things that U.S. administrations are saying today. The U.S. keeps saying it doesn’t want war, as it bombs everyone in sight. It claims it doesn’t want conflict—because what it really wants is docile vassals that don’t fight back as they U.S. plunders them. The U.S. still demands that everyone else change to satisfy it. The U.S. continues to claim that its military serves only peaceful purposes. The U.S. has the world convinced that NATO is a peaceful, defense-oriented organization.

Too few people see this for the bullshit that it is. Too few people see that this mindset is kept up by the massive firehose of propaganda from the largest and most sophisticated media and brainwashing operation in history. Only so can the Empire keep all the balls in the air. Only so can the Empire convince the world that it loves nothing more than peace as it bristles with weapons and pounds everyone that disagrees into sand.

A friend asked me for my opinion on the situation in the middle east, specifically on Israel/Palestine. Hoo-boy.

I wrote something like the following, although I’ve enhanced it a bit.

Israel is interested in clearing all of the Palestinians off of that land. They will shoot them if they have to, but starving them into leaving the country is also acceptable. Once they’re finished in Gaza, they’ll finish up in the West Bank, where they’ve already increased the ferocity of the occupation. It’s mostly about plunder, with a soupçon of racist animus to keep everyone focused.

Israelis will continue to support this for the same reason that Americans support all of their own colonial activities: they are positively stewing in a sea of propaganda that keeps them terrified of largely imaginary or self-inflicted threats. Meanwhile their elites consolidate power and fortune.

I’ve been writing feverishly about it. I was actually quite surprised to see how much I’d written in the last 4 months about this topic.

🎥 = includes video interview
💕 = personal favorite because I remember making a particularly brilliant point

• 25.10.2023: Performative condemnation 💕
• 01,11.2023: Losing the plot completely
• 06.11.2023: Some commentators are still MIA
• 10.11.2023: Camps of various kinds
• 10.11.2023: Norman Finkelstein is on a tear 🎥 💕
• 10.11.2023: Amira Hass is on a tear 🎥 💕
• 10.11.2023: None of them ever had the moral high ground
• 13.11.2023: From their mouths to God’s ear 🎥 💕
• 23.11.2023: Moar unhinged commentary
• 19.11.2023: Osama bin Laden wrote an online rant
• 25.11.2023: Norman Finkelstein is shit-posting tragedy
• 28.11.2023: Indoctrinated citizens of empire can still be innocent 💕
• 10.12.2023: YES OR NO
• 11.12.2023: Gideon Levy is on a tear 🎥 💕
• 12.12.2023: Ilan Pappé is on a tear 🎥
• 28.12.2023: Analyzing Patrick Lawrence
• 26.12.2023: There is no word for “irony” in German
• 26.12.2023: Notice: Vivek Ramaswamy is just as full of shit as the rest of them
• 29.12.2023: Blowback: Iraq, Israel, and no-nothing know-it-alls 💕
• 30.12.2023: Picking on Israel’s war crimes 💕
• 30.12.2023: Cheerleading for the … what’s the opposite of underdog? 💕 [1]
• 30.12.2023: Empire decides 💕
• 30.12.2023: Strawman battles: rape is never OK!
• 04.02.2024: Finkelstein and Joy on Plagiarism and Slogans 🎥
• 06.02.2024: Keeping the empire in line

Those are just the actual articles I wrote, mostly extracted from my notes, of which there is a giant post, once per week, that you’re welcome to dig through for even more. But I honestly can’t imagine that anyone could stand it. I write for me.

It’s a bizarre thing that some countries just get to fly over other countries with their militaries—with their air force, to be more precise—and just bomb them on any day they feel like it. Like Israel just up and bombs Iraq, Lebanon, or Syria whenever it feels like it and no-one blinks an eye. The article US and UK Bomb Dozens of Sites in Yemen by Dave DeCamp (Scheer Post) writes that this just happened recently. No-one really cares—not enough to even dream of doing anything about it. No country that the U.S. would consider listening to has even objected. France? England? Germany? Nope. Nope. Nope.

You will barely read about it. Rounded down, no-one will learn that their country committed acts of war against other countries. It doesn’t matter. Why? Because those countries are defenseless. You’re allowed to bomb them. No-one says anything. The less of a danger a country is, the more likely it is that you’re allowed to bomb it without repercussions. That is how the world works. There is no rules-based order. There is no international justice. There are no democracies straining to bring enlightenment to benighted peoples. That’s just the horseshit they feed you to keep you quiet while they do what they want. There is only Empire. There is just might makes right. There is just certain countries getting to do what they want, when they want, to whom they want.

“Some members of Congress have criticized President Biden for launching the strikes in Yemen without congressional authorization. “The President needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle east conflict. That is Article I of the Constitution,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) wrote on X.”

Oh wow. He tweeted it. I’m sure the President gives a single, flying blue f$*k about that.

The essay Western Empire Bombs Yemen To Protect Israel’s Genocide Operations In Gaza by Caitlin Johnstone (Caitlin’s Newsletter) writes,

“[…] the US and the UK just bombed the poorest country in the middle east for trying to stop a genocide. Not only that, they bombed the very same country in which they just spent years backing Saudi Arabia’s genocidal atrocities which killed hundreds of thousands of people between 2015 and 2022 in an unsuccessful bid to stop the Houthis from taking power.”

This is all done to protect trade routes, to keep prices low. It’s not even that trade is being blocked. It’s just taking longer to deliver. BOMB THEM. The attacks by Ansarallah have resulted in no casualties. They’re annoying. They cause companies to lose money. Some stuff gets to some countries more slowly. The U.S. and UK bombed the Sanaa international airport in Yemen. WTF. No declaration of war. No attempt to negotiate. No consideration of alternatives. No congressional approval. Just a dictator blowing shit up. This is what people were afraid Trump would do. This is what I wrote before the last election that Biden would almost certainly do. He’s a merciless piece of shit. He always has been.

Apparently wars in Ukraine and Gaza are not enough. Nothing ever makes him think it’s time to back down, to negotiate, that things are getting out of hand. Forget cold wars. He makes everything hot immediately. He’s fighting Russians directly in Syria. He’s proxy-fighting them in Ukraine. he’s funding and arming Saudi Arabia to flatten Ansarallah in Yemen. He’s funding and arming the Israelis to flatten the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

This is mindless violence, all to quash any hopes of rebellion against Empire, all to prevent any change to the system that subjugates so many—and funnels so much wealth toward Empire—and a handful of people in it.

The article Go Straight to Jail by Jack Norton, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, and Judah Schept (The Baffler) discusses the effects of jails on the communities in which they’re located.

“These numbers represent real people—hundreds of thousands of people who are directly impacted by the violence of jail incarceration and detention, millions of people who are affected by the extraction that jail facilitates, and by the violence that is perpetrated on families and communities through policing and incarceration across the varied geography of the United States.”

Jails and prisons are state-sanctioned violence. The society wielding these tools hope that the effect will be to lower the overall level of violence. These measures do not in any way address the conditions that led to the original violence, Instead, the negative consequences aim to reduce the likelihood of that person using violence as a solution to those original, continuing—and likely exacerbated by incarceration—problems. We may not have started it—it’s arguable that society is responsible to a large degree for the violence it not only contains, but can be seen to engender with its policies—but we are definitely participating. It’s a cycle of violence.

“While incarceration has always been wielded as a class-war project […]”

“As John Irwin noted, the jail “was devised as, and continues to be, the special social device for controlling . . . the lowest class of people.””

True. The rich don’t get arrested; they barely even go to jail. They get fined, at worst. Poor people lose their lives for mistakes or as exaggerated reactions to societal transgressions that have far less reach and impact than rich-people crimes. When a poor person robs an apartment, that’s one victim. When a rich person steals a company’s pension fund, that’s thousands of victims. If the poor person is caught, they lose their family, freedom, livelihood, future. If the rich person is caught, they sit out a pre-trial period at their luxurious home or homes, then plea-bargain for a fine and no admission of guilt. Of course they get to keep the money.

Similar to the article Cheerleading for the … what’s the opposite of underdog?, the content below appeared in my Links and Notes for October 13th, 2023, which I managed to publish on October 23rd. I’ve edited things lightly, but I’m publishing these reactions again to have them in a separate article and because I think my initial take has aged relatively well.

The article The Spiral of Violence that Led to Hamas by Peter Singer (Project Syndicate) writes,

“Hamas reportedly holds roughly 150 hostages, and has said that it will kill one every time Israel bombs a Gazan home without warning. Hamas leaders surely remember that in 2011, Netanyahu, as prime minister, was willing to free over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of them terrorists, in exchange for the release of a single captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Against that background, they may believe that Israel will not be prepared to sacrifice the lives of the hostages in order to achieve its military objectives.”

They would be wrong, I suppose. It looks like Israel is calling them on it, telling them to put their money where their mouth is. That they hope for a prisoner trade has been the expressed intent of the kidnappings from the very first statement by Hamas, but we can, of course, disregard their actually stated goals and reasoning and instead imbue them with the goals and reasoning we’d like them to have instead. It makes things easier, I suppose. Israel has thus far been quite tight-lipped about the hostages—it seems almost as if they’re already treating them as martyrs. [1]

“When Hamas attacks Israeli civilians, it knows that this will lead to Israeli counterattacks in Gaza that are bound to kill and injure many civilians. Hamas locates its military sites in residential areas, hoping that this tactic will restrain Israeli attacks, or at least lessen international support for Israel.”

“How far Israel will go with its declared intention to deny electricity, fuel, food, and water to the two million citizens of Gaza, many of them children, is hard to know. What is certain is that Hamas’s brutal crimes do not entitle Israel to starve children.”

We know a bit more about how serious they are. They seem to be deadly, deadly serious about it. The first trucks went in—20 of them for 2.3m people—just yesterday, about 10 days after the shutdown. There were concerns about whether Egypt would try to smuggle weapons to Hamas amid the food and water supplies.

These are reasons that sound like they make sense until you realize that the alternative—doing nothing for days on end—probably meant the suffering and/or expiration of thousands of innocents, of children.

We have international treaties for a reason, but they’re not worth the paper they’re written on when signatories ignore the rules to which they’d agreed when it pleases them. They would, of course, like the rules to apply when they are in need, when they are being oppressed, but Israel, like the U.S., can no longer conceive of a world in which they would be on the back foot.

They’re not on the back foot now, not really, stop blowing smoke up my ass—so they don’t have to care if the whole international legal structure collapses. It doesn’t benefit them anyway. [2] Just like for the U.S., these international agreements that what they now perceive as weaker leaders of the past having signed are just getting in the way of their plans, of their empire, of their colonialism. [3]

If they would take a step back, they might be appalled to realize that they are being held back from doing horrific crimes by ethical and moral codes to which they in more clear-headed times agreed. In the current bloodthirsty atmosphere, such concerns are swept away before a sheet of red that obliterates all but vengeance. [4]

“And now what? Restore deterrence? How, exactly? Self-punishment in the form of a renewed occupation of Gaza? A land invasion is difficult to imagine. The atrocious level of destruction and casualties this would entail is one reason, with the many Israeli hostages now in Gaza providing additional insurance. The risk of Hezbollah opening an additional front from Lebanon in the north is another. Hezbollah’s capabilities dwarf those of Hamas, and a two-front war, with Iran possibly backing Israel’s foes, is an apocalyptic scenario. This is exactly why US President Joe Biden warned Israel’s enemies “not to exploit the crisis.” To drive home the point, Biden has ordered the US Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean.”

Singer’s certainty here now seems unwarranted. It’s unlikely that Hezbollah will join the battle. Israel is already bombing Syria and Lebanon preemptively, something that they are presumably allowed to do without reprobation by the international community. They haven’t dared attack Iran directly yet, but I’m really wondering whether the reaction of Europe would even be negative. After all, Israel is allowed to defend itself, is it not? [5]

They may force the point, by forcing the U.S. to put its money where its mouth is, following up with force on the side of a deranged, reckless, genocidal power that already had overwhelming superiority over its declared foe.

“Netanyahu’s machine of poisonous political disinformation is already at work disseminating a conspiracy theory according to which leftist army officers were responsible for the negligence that led to this dirty war. No one should be surprised that Netanyahu would resort to the infamous “stab in the back” narrative – a conspiracy theory also peddled by the Nazis in the 1920s and 1930s. How else could the inciter-in-chief explain his criminal negligence?”

“Israelis will question the conceptziyya that they can reap the benefits of a Western nation-state while being inured to the hardships their neighbors seek to inflict on them.”

The phrase “seek to inflict on them” seems a bit out of place considering the overwhelming power that Israel has. They are the only nuclear power in the region. They have managed to display a deranged, anything-goes approach to foreign policy in which no slight is ever forgiven, no matter how small, in which every slight is answered a dozen-fold.

No sane nation-state would attack Israel first, knowing that it is quite likely that a mushroom cloud will rise over their capital city, rising silently to the applause of all European and American leaders. So, no, I don’t think the Israeli fear of invasion by its neighbors is to be considered very likely. [6]

Naturally, Israel will take a page from Dick Cheney’s book, citing the 1% => 100% doctrine, rounding up a vanishingly small danger to a certainty that warrants preemptive attack—just to be on the safe side. It’s balderdash, of course, but it will be sold as a perfectly normal way to reason about things, a perfectly just way of handling the situation.

The next article The Insane Idea That Nations Get To Do War Crimes Whenever Something Bad Happens To Them by Caitlin Johnstone (Caitlin's Newsletter) writes,

“Dropping military explosives on children is just as wrong now as it was on October 6th. Wars of aggression were just as wrong on September 12th 2001 as they were on September 10th. But there’s this idiotic belief in mainstream culture that a nation experiencing a traumatic event means it gets to go on a murderous rampage until it feels better.

“As soon as the Hamas attack occurred we were inundated with messaging from the western political/media class which conveyed the idea that because something bad happened to Israel, Israel now gets to do a little genocide, as a treat. This is stupid nonsense, and should be rejected by all thinking people.”

“If you saw your friend stumbling around with his car keys in one hand and a bottle in the other after losing his job, you wouldn’t tell him you stand with him and support whatever it is he’s getting ready to do. You’d understand that people can make unwise decisions after something bad happens to them, and you’d do what you can to help steer them away from it.”

“The death toll from Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza has already more than doubled the death toll from the Hamas attack, and we can expect it to keep multiplying because there’s no meaningful opposition to the bloodshed. The United States, who as an indispensable backer of Israel could end all this with a word, has refused to draw a single red line on what Israel may or may not do if it wishes to retain US support — even its indiscriminate use of white phosphorus, which violates international humanitarian law. War crimes are being committed not just openly but announced in advance as Tel Aviv commits itself to the collective punishment of Palestinians with a complete siege of Gaza, and Israel’s allies have no objection to this.”

There are two points here: Hamas blew its whole load on October 7th. There will be no more meaningful resistance now. Perhaps they will be able to launch some of their rockets (Norman Finkeltstein said he’d read claims that they have 100,000 of them), but they’re unlikely to hit useful targets, like chemical factories, that could do real damage to Israel. Gazans are buttoned down and will suffer what Israel sees fit to mete out. [7]

Empire Shall RuleThe other point is that this is exactly what the major powers want to happen. They don’t green-light war crimes because they’re confused about what war crimes are. It’s because laws against war crimes are only there to be wielded against enemies. They don’t apply to anyone inside the circle of trust. If you’re useful to empire, then you get to do what you want. Empire will decide which laws apply to you based on your usefulness.

If you’re useful, you get a free pass to do whatever you like—and you never have to answer for it. If you’re not useful, or if you have something useful that Empire wants without paying for it, you are forced to pledge fealty to Empire, to mouth the words that it wants you to say, to “condemn” terrorists. To make nuance-free statements that are nowhere near to expressing your actual beliefs.

The article International Hypocrisy: The U.S., Once Again, Leads the Way by Robert Fantina (CounterPunch) contains many interesting citations from “Palestinian Ambassador to the U.K., Husam Zumlot” from his interview on BBC News.

“How many times have you interviewed Israeli officials (question by Ambassador Zumlot to the interviewer)? How many times? Hundreds of times. How many times has Israel committed war crimes, live, on your own cameras? Do you start by asking them to condemn themselves? Have you? You don’t.”

“You know why I refuse to answer that question (why he won’t condemn Hamas for its violence of last week)? Because I refuse the premise of it. Because at the very heart of it is misrepresentation of the whole thing. Because it is the Palestinians who are expected to condemn themselves.”

“You bring us here whenever Israelis are killed. Did you bring me here when many Palestinians in the West Bank, more than 200 over the last few months (were killed)? Do you invite me where there are such Israeli provocations in Jerusalem and elsewhere?”

The only time you will be given a voice is to say things that Empire wants. Empire cannot learn new things from you because it already knows everything there is to know.

It knows that it is Empire and that you are not. What could it possibly learn from you?

Your only job is to say the things that Empire wants you to say when it wants you to say them in order to enjoy a slight benefit, to bask in the warm, though oft wan and temporary, beneficence of Empire, to not lose your livelihood, your home, your family, your life.

This is the implicit bargain of living with Empire—the implied threat for non-compliance is always destruction of everything you hold dear. Empire doesn’t care because it doesn’t cost Empire anything, whereas it amuses Empire to throw your pitiful life away for its purposes, for its own enrichment, even if it’s a total waste—it still feels good to use its power.

And don’t go looking for consistency. Superficially, there is none. Bianca Graulau writes, “Filter the propaganda through this lens: the US empire will always choose sides based on its own interests.” That is 100% the correct context through which to process information coming from Empire.

More long-windedly, but still worth quoting, Fantina writes,

“The U.S. isn’t interested in human rights, international law or self-determination. Certainly it has no interest in peace in the Middle East. It is interested in power over the entire world and the profits that that power will bring them. So what if its hands are dripping with the blood of Palestinian children? Biden cares no more about that than George Bush cared about the blood of Iraqi children. No, the geopolitical goals of the U.S. are always front and center. Human rights and international law are nowhere on the U.S. list of priorities.”

This has been obvious for the long part of my lifetime during which I’ve paid attention to international affairs, with a focus on the affairs of Empire. It is of no value to listen to what Empire says; you must watch what Empire actually does.

The content below appeared in my Links and Notes for October 6th, 2023, which I managed to publish on October 21st. I’ve edited things lightly, but I’m publishing these reactions again to have them in a separate article and because I think my initial take has aged relatively well—especially as compared with that of European leaders like Frau Baerbock of Germany.

The article Netanyahu regime staggered by Palestinian uprising by Alex Lantier (WSWS) was published on October 8th and writes,

“The World Socialist Web Site condemns the vicious and obscenely hypocritical statements of President Joe Biden and leaders of the European Union denouncing the Palestinian resistance as “terrorism” while supporting without any reservations Israel’s onslaught on Gaza.”

“Pledging “rock-solid and unwavering” support for Israeli military operations against Gaza, Biden said: “The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the government and people of Israel. [1] Terrorism is never justified. Israel has a right to defend itself and its people.””

OMG 😱 the U.S. is so delighted to be able to wholeheartedly endorse the further tightening of the noose that they’ve been funding for years, but this time, because of the Palestinian attack—unprovoked, of course!—they feel like they can also reclaim the moral high ground, without doing any work at all.

This is such a slam dunk that of course all the EU and US leaders are going to take it. They don’t give a shit about anybody but themselves, but pretending to care about Israelis is not only lucrative, but more than occasionally politically necessary.

No-one ever lost an election for not caring about Palestinians. Quite the contrary.

Check out Baerbock, one of the truly worst, most ruthless, and most disgusting women in politics since … Hillary Clinton? Margaret Thatcher? Condaleeza Rice? Susan Rice? Samantha Power?

“German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock declared: “The odious violence of Hamas against civilians in Israel is unprecedented and unjustifiable. This terrorism must stop immediately. Israel has our full solidarity.””

Unprecedented! Not only unprovoked, but unprecedented! This, from a fucking German! A German is saying that Palestinian violence is unprecedented. You can’t make this shit up. She is the foreign minister—the top diplomat—of that once progressive country.

“The hypocrisy of these statements is staggering. As always, the sympathies of the imperialist powers are with the oppressors. Any manifestation of resistance by the oppressed is greeted with frenzied denunciations. The media ignores the fact that the Israeli government is led by a criminal, whose coalition is dominated by fascistic racists, and is engaged in efforts to suppress the constitution.”

The attacks are an act of desperation, of course. They knew exactly what would happen in response. I’m not sure whether they were just trying to tip Israel’s hand, to force them to actually do something so awful that even a reprehensible c*#% like Baerbock would have to shut the f*#% up and sit down while the adults do the talking.

“On Saturday night, in a bloodcurdling address to the nation, Netanyahu told “residents of Gaza” to “get out now, because we will operate everywhere and with full force.” Since his government blockades Gaza and does not let anyone leave, this is a declaration that Netanyahu sees Gaza’s entire population as a legitimate target. Asserting that “Hamas wants to murder us all,” Netanyahu pledged to “fight them to the bitter end” and that cities where Hamas operates would turn into “cities of ruin.””

Netanyahu will target civilians. He and his predecessors always have. The western world doesn’t care at all. The money continues to flow. [2]

Of course, no-one will actually pay any attention to what the “enemy” has to say about why it’s doing what it’s doing. Putin knows the feeling. We fail to listen to our own detriment. This is not about capitulation to violence, but in learning what it would take to avoid it and to determine whether that price is too high. If we categorically refuse to even learn what the price might be, we are dishonorable, reckless, and exceedingly stupid hypocrites.

Here is a part of Hamas’s declaration.

Al-Aqsa mosque

““As the Israeli occupation maintains its siege of the Gaza Strip and continues its crimes against our Palestinian people, while showing utmost disregard for international laws and resolutions amid US and Western support and international silence, we have decided to put an end to all of that. We announce a military operation against the Israeli occupation, which comes in response to the continued Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people and violations at the Al-Aqsa mosque.””

They are referring of course to the multiple attacks inside a mosque carried out by Israeli police over the last couple of years. Most recently, people swept through, spitting on people. On Biden’s watch, by the way. Utterly vile, but a neat tactic for provoking a violent response without actually striking first.

If history is any guide, Gaza is truly going to get curb-stomped, probably worse than they’ve ever been before. [3] As noted in Violence Begets Violence by Raouf Halaby (CounterPunch)

“Hamas and its supporters will no doubt claim Saturday’s attack on Israel to be a victory. And in truth, taking on one of the mightiest armies in the world is beyond belief. Breaking out of their open-air prison and with slingshots (Kalashnikovs, motorcycles, and a bulldozer), as compared to Israel’s infinite military might, the fifth strongest military in the world with proven air, land, and sea prowess, will be celebrated by Hamas and across the Near East as a victory.

“At best, it is a pyrrhic victory, one for which Palestinian citizens in Gaza and the West Bank, as happened in the past, will pay dearly. Since 2008 Israel has launched four major wars on Gaza, each of which was more brutal than the preceding one. I fear that the current Israeli avenging war, unlike the previous ones, will exact a very heavy price on the 376 square-mile enclave, the world’s largest open-air prison in which 2.3 million Palestinians exist.”

The next article A wounded, weakened Israel is a fiercer one by Haviv Rettig Gur (Times of Israel) was already laying the groundwork for what was to come.

“Hamas did everything it could to shock Israelis, to humiliate and horrify, kidnapping children, desecrating corpses, and then crowing about it to the world.

“And Israelis watched it all, minute by agonizing minute. And they agreed. Their weakness had become clear, unavoidable.

“And very, very dangerous.”

“And it will soon learn the scale of that miscalculation. A strong Israel may tolerate a belligerent Hamas on its border; a weaker one cannot. A safe Israel can spend much time and resources worrying about the humanitarian fallout from a Gaza ground war; a more vulnerable Israel cannot.

“A wounded, weakened Israel is a fiercer Israel.

“Hamas was once a tolerable threat. It just made itself an intolerable one, all while convincing Israelis they are too vulnerable and weak to respond with the old restraint.”

This is both true and a rallying cry. It’s also amazing that the author is expecting us to believe that either the current or any previous Israeli leadership has lost any sleep about the humanitarian fallout. I mean, I’m sure that there has been some restraint from just outright murdering every Palestinian that crosses their paths, but, from out here, in the real world, it doesn’t really look like much restraint is considered at all. If there’s any concern about humanitarian fallout, it’s lost in a rounding error.

Israel has been exposed as weaker than it projected and it will react in the same way that the U.S. did, when a similar thing happened to it over 22 years ago. The younger people of Israel face the same choice that we Americans did at that time: seek understanding, wonder what those scarred wizened visages meant by “chickens coming home to roost”, or double down, look inward, and lash out. [4]

It’s quite obvious what Israel, led by Netanyahu, will do. It remains to be seen how much of the population of Israel follows, in their heart of hearts. Most Americans followed. Some questioned. Those who questioned didn’t matter. Their opinions never do. There is no solace in being right when the world burns for so many others. [5]

The last article The Violence in Palestine and Israel Is the Tragic Fruit of Brutal Oppression by Seraj Assi (Jacobin) writes,

“The tragic scenes unfolding in Gaza and Israel are a chilling reminder that occupation and oppression bear a price. For the truth is that when you imprison two million people in 140 square miles, placing them under a merciless siege with no end in sight, with no way in or out, with drones and rockets buzzing overhead night and day, with constant surveillance and harassment, with scant control over their day-to-day lives — ultimately, the dispossessed will rebel.

“The violence was not unprovoked, as the mainstream media has depicted it. It has been brewing and festering in every corner of the country.

“In the West Bank, the Palestinian town of Jenin is still reeling from the devastation of a recent unsparing Israeli attack, which left the town a razed ghostland. The small town of Huwara has yet to recover from the deadly horrors unleashed by settlers on its residents.”

It’s not that Hamas didn’t commit war crimes. It’s more that the world shouldn’t be surprised that it did.

“During the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, settlers stormed into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in Jerusalem, staging provocative tours, harassing and beating worshippers, and spitting on Christians.”

It doesn’t justify the rocket attacks, but it goes a good way towards explaining them. If you want the rocket attacks to stop, you should consider all of the options: you could turn the screws even tighter, to make sure that no-one can get rockets. Or you could see what you would need to do for people to not even want rockets. That ship has probably sailed, but it might not be bad, as a thought experiment.

“The ongoing explosion in violence is the ugly reality of Israeli apartheid, the culmination of decades of occupation of a stateless people deprived of basic human rights and freedoms. Unless the root causes are dismantled — the siege lifted, the apartheid system and occupation ended — violence will continue to tragically haunt Palestinians and Israelis for years to come. [6]”

The article The Rot On His Own Side by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice) writes,

“There is no principle that enables Schumer, or Biden, or any liberal, to find common ground with people who can make excuses for rape, together with the litany of horrors perpetrated by Hamas.”

I’ve written about the author a few times because of the extremely sharp turn he took on October 7th, 2023. See Losing the plot completely on November 1, 2023, Some commentator are still MIA on November 6, 2023, and Moar unhinged commentary on November 23, 2023.

At the beginning of December, Greenfield was still setting up his strawmen and then knocking them down. I hope he’s having fun over there, but it seems much more like he’s going down a rabbit hole like James Howard Kunstler did a few years ago.

“The litany of horrors perpetrated by Hamas.” As if the things that happened almost two months ago are the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone ever—and as if nothing equally bad has happened since that we might also be paying attention to. Nope, just wallowing in misery and not all interested in any solution that doesn’t offer more misery. Now, he’s off and running on the RISE OF ANTISEMITISM.

“The same failure of principle that infects this ideological schism at its core, where decisions are made based not on substance, but on identities and which box they’re in. Black people are still very much subject to discrimination. Looting is wrong, even when done by black people. Rape is a heinous crime. Rape is still a heinous crime even when done by Palestinians. Even when done by Palestinians to Jews.”

He starts off strong here. It’s a topic he’s admirably addressed in the past. He’s a strong defender of the idea that identirarianism has been damaging to nearly everyone but its most adamant advocates.

But then he gets to the second part, which I’ve highlighted. Who’s he talking to here? Is there anyone worth listening to who’s saying that rape is sometimes OK? Is there anyone at all? Maybe a handful of yahoos who aren’t worth listening to? Is there any reason to continue to treat this idea like there’s a danger of it overtaking the Zeitgeist? What the hell are you arguing about?

Having doubts about whether people were raped before they blasted to smithereens with hellfire missiles is not the same as thinking rape is OK. Even the Israeli government stopped pounding the rape drum weeks ago. Why does Greenfield still mention it all the time, when even the Israelis have given up on that story? Did he not get the memo?

Does he really think he needs to fight the good fight, standing up for the rarely held principle that it’s not OK for Palestinians to rape Jews? Is he getting a lot of pushback on that? Or what is going on?

Once he’s worked himself up into a lather about this, he drops his final stroke of genius,

“[…] there is far more in common between the progressive left and the Nazis and Klan than there is with a principled liberal.”

Put up the straw man, then knock it down. Way to go!

I did not see that one coming.

The article No ‘End of History’ in Ukraine by Scott Ritter (Scheer Post) mentions Francis Fukuyama, citing him at length on what he meant by “the end of history”.

““Liberal democracy,” Fukuyama wrote, “replaces the irrational desire to be recognized as greater than others with a rational desire to be recognized as equal.” “A world made up of liberal democracies, then, should have much less incentive for war, since all nations would reciprocally recognize one another’s legitimacy. And indeed, there is substantial empirical evidence from the past couple of hundred years that liberal democracies do not behave imperialistically toward one another, even if they are perfectly capable of going to war with states that are not democracies and do not share their fundamental values.”

We've never been a liberal democracyThis is all just fine, sound, and admirable reasoning, It’s just that the elites in the U.S.—in their nearly unparalleled hubris—assumed that Fukuyama was talking about their country. In fact, given Fukuyama’s premise and definition, the conclusion should be that the U.S. cannot possibly be considered a liberal democracy. It is, in fact and instead, an empire.

It’s like the nearly incessant babble about free markets: it’s a good idea, in principle, but inapplicable because we don’t have free markets. We never have.

Ritter went on, citing Marx as counterweight to Fukuyama,

“Karl Marx, who famously observed that, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.””

The “Fukuyama school of thought”—such as it is—is just something invented to ostracize official enemies.

“Political scientists in the Fukuyama “end of history” school view this conflict as being derived by the resistance of the remnants of Soviet regional hegemony (i.e., modern-day Russia, led by its president, Vladimir Putin) over the inevitability of liberal democracy taking hold.”

It’s an adorable fairy tale for an empire to tell itself, but it’s an even more useful tool to convince its conquests to give up with less of a fight. These conquests know they’re in for a lot of pain if they don’t bend the knee. What better way to convince them to do it sooner than a fairy tale that will actually come true for a handful of elite members of the conquered? Instead of fighting the empire, the target of conquest ends up fighting against itself over table scraps.

And so it goes.
 

This kind of thing happens with awful regularity in the U.S. the Florida executes man after US Supreme Court denies his intellectual disability claim by Kate Randall (WSWS) is about a guy who is very obviously intellectually disabled. He is not ready for the world as she is. He had the kind of life that no-one would want to have, not in a million years.