The problem is both are targets, but targets of different groupings in the neo-con and neo-liberal branches of the elites.
One grouping, the Victoria Nuland/Antony Blinken neo-cons are eurocentric with family history hatred of things Russia and work for resource (oil, minerals, foodstuffs) groupings of American Oligarchy, the old money. They want to split up Russia and "stans, stripping them of resources ala South America.
The other branch, William Burns, et al neo-libs, work for the new money, the fashion goods, high tech industry, Silicon Valley, Pharma, etc, who want China (and India) kept down as a source of cheap labor, and to eliminate intellectual competition from their sectors.
The dithering back and forth between a pivot to Asia (re-enslave China): or deconstructing Russia isn't anything new, it was already a serious issue under Obama, a man of no principals and no convictions. That plus it burned him that Putin was smarter.
Because for 20 plus years when it was needed the USA has lacked a president with the intellect, convictions, and holding power to stay any single course, the constant jostling between the neo-cons and neo-liberals over doing their masters bidding has thrown the ships tiller back and forth. It's just luck and timing that Russia came out first on the beating stick.
Very good. They form fluid cliques that through the constant switching as stock portfolios move entangle the string so that they pull more than their own, without intention and often at cross purposes.
And now here we are with Russian and Chinese officials openly discussing their plans to create a multipolar world while Chinese pundits crack jokes about the US empire's transparent ploys to turn Beijing against Moscow over the Ukraine invasion:
"Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?
A short memory is an infectious American disease. No one remembers Korea, the Chinese involvement, when even at that very early stage of its development into a major power after being used and abused by all and sundry during WWII, it was still able to supply all that was required to fight the USA, still stuck (by choice ) with 30,000 troops) on the the border, between North and South Korea, also known as the Military Demarcation Line.
And that was a very long time ago. The feeble Joe Biden hadn't even reached puberty at that time so probably missed seeing the ability of country like China change its allegiances, if and when required. Look at it now. If he and his war stooges think there is one chance in a million of convincing China to ever see the imperialist USA as a better associate / partner / friend than Russia, it is time for him to discard his role as front man for BlackRock, Vanguard and Big Pharma and join a Washington church group whose sole motivation is the 'second coming', because that will be the only thing which will save him from an ignominious end.
Of course, he would need to check with Israel to see if the 'second coming' is OK with them first.
I do remember the Korean War, though far from puberty. My two favorite cousins fought over there, and when they came back they were grim, shattered men, no longer any fun. But I did have my GI Joes and fun comic books of brave American pilots shooting down the dastardly gook in their Migs.
Years later, my students took me to the War Memorial in Dan Dong. I was fascinated by all the US war material on display--mess kits, eye glasses, uniforms, weapons, and even diaries. Most striking, though, was a wall-sized poster of Chinese pilots dressed in flight gear, set to fly out and fight the Americans. I literally wept seeing those brave, handsome young men, because I knew from history and my comic books that they would be dead soon after.
Fighting China will not be good; now, those pilots have superior planes to the US corporate behemoths that are designed not to be effective but to be costly.
I do believe going after Russia really is the prelude to war on China; that the neocons move freely with neoliberals to preserve hegemony, and they think all the time, plan, plan, plan. That their thoughts are fantisies is beside the point.
I just posted "Putin's Peace, Petrodollar Pain: the petroruble is Putin's Omicron to end the West NATO virus." It quotes from Aaron Mate, the US Peace Council, Scott Ritter & Michael Hudson. And I've added Putin's speech after invading, so readers can hear from the horse's mouth.
I highlight some important points for those unwilling to go to your post.
<Quote>
"Its silence on Zelensky's recent banning of 10 opposition parties suggests a similar reception."
<Quote>
"So exactly which diplomatic options were not exhausted? What were Russia’s non-military choices in the face of Ukraine’s years-long shelling and military operations against the Donbass?”"
I agree with the US Peace Council's goals as stated in the article. But people need to know that they are suppose to be a Russian propaganda outlet. That hardly means that their web site should be ignored or that they are promoting anything other than a desire for peace in the face of American Oligarchy aggression. Americans just do not understand the situation. They are so immersed in "Putin BAD" propaganda from America's media that it is impossible for them to realize who the real enemy is. The 700+ Billionaires that run America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Peace_Council
<Quote>
"All of the Russian oligarchs who had hidden their stolen wealth abroad are now bankrupt and broke."
What an amazing gift to Russia!
I sure hope folks will get to the long Michael Hudson quote. He exposes the US Oligarchy for the evil they are.
<From Putin's speech>
"To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack. When it finally acted, it was too late."
<From Putin's speech>
I will explain what this means: the military personnel of the Ukrainian army who do this will be able to freely leave the zone of hostilities and return to their families.
I am going to submit your article to OpEd News. They usually accept the "Quick Links" I've posted. Sometimes those links generate quite a bit of discussion. I find it incredible how close-minded those who support the US are. Their response always comes down to "But PUTIN BAD!" They dress it up by talking about "Putin Apologists" and they bristle at being called "Empire Apologists". No matter how much evidence is provided to support an anti-Oligarch position, they refuse to acknowledge it.
I have the same experience in Reddit, where voices of rationality seeking peace with Russia are banned.
I discovered the late Professor Stephen F Cohen, renowned Russia expert, pre and post Soviet. He recounts how the Yeltsin years practically destroyed Russia with US finance capital and neoliberal academic creating the oligarchs (people like Bill Browder, Jeffery Sachs, et al) while finance made fortunes. Putin was expected to be pliant, sober replacement for Yeltsin, but he turned out to be at heart a nationalist and put a stop to the 'Big Steal'. According to Professor Cohen, he corralled the oligarchs, letting them keep their loot but to cease capital flight and stop interfering with government. This was the beginning of "PUTIN BAD". Putin took their toys away, and the neoliberals never forgave him.
I find it quite strange that nobody in the US power-think-tanks realised that they were actually pushing Russia into the arms of China. Russia tried over & over to join NATO, and/or form an alliance with it, and with Europe & the US. Even back in the time of the Maidan coup in Ukraine, the EU was not offering Ukraine a very attractive deal, which is why they started to look to Russia (a fatal move for their independence, of course).
Did they really not realise?
Was it just unbelievable arrogance?
Or did they maybe have the destruction of Russia as a goal all along? After all, the western oligarchs who treated Ukraine - and Russia back in the 1990s - as their piggy banks, probably would have just preferred for Russia to collapse, if not completely spontaneously, then with a little help from their "friends".
Remember that Victoria Nuland bragged about the US spending $5billion on democracy promotion? That kind of money buys a lot of loyalty, changes a lot of minds. The CIA's Nazis had no trouble hating Russia, they had been doing so since WW II, but it took really good propaganda to convince the majority of Ukrainians that joining with the US/NATO/EU complex would solve their problems and make them prosperous. It was a chimera, of course, as the Ukraine's government corruption in service to Ukrainian oligarchs was the problem, but it is always easier to look outside for solutions than inside.
Meanwhile whilst Australia fixes its sycophantic gaze with one eye on London and the other on Washington, it missed the obvious Chinese move into the Solomon Islands. Papua New Guinea is next! Then guess what - Australia has Chinese military bases around us just like USA has military bases around China. Australia has become the knight that "protects" Washington's king. Australia now risks being the example of what could come next for the USA if USA continues with its policy of unipolar dominance.
I hope the Aussies will wake up to the fact that the US Oligarchy will have no problem sacrificing a "knight" in furtherance of its need to acquire "more". Look at how they set up Zelensky. The US government is definitely NOT playing at a Bobby Fisher level.
Nor at my level, I'd have already resigned -- in fact, I don't think I'd have ever entered the game.
Is there a Chess Player that everyone knows is a fool/tool who still manages to get great press because he wears the right clothes?
Is that suppose to be "fool/tool" or "fool-tool"? Whatever, Joe Biden would be my #1 pick at the moment.
Australia has already been bought up by Chinese interests. They have a 99 year lease on the Port of Darwin, and similar control of many our energy companies, FFS! Not to mention all the agricultural land, mining rights, and water rights they have acquired, at a bargain price most of the time. Plus a politician or 2 (or more) in both major parties, and the Greens as well. And well established intellectual property incursions into any defence plans and technology we might have. For a more complete picture, read "Silent Invasion” by Clive Hamilton (published in 2016 so things will have forged way ahead in the intervening years). I found it as an e-book in my local library, so you don't even need to fork out $$.
As seizure of the central bank assets of Iran, Venezuela, and Russia demonstrates, ownership of any physical property in a western country is a liability and not an asset. China must rue its purchases in Australia, USA, and the other thieves in the den. What good did property "rights" do Japanese Americans, 50 years late and ¢3 on the $ was the "survivor's" compensation. For that matter, what good has the property rights of the Aboriginal people done them, ethnic cleansing in compensation for all their losses.
Washington is engulfed by sociopaths and narcissists, who, like the Roman emperors at the end of that empire, make decisions now, based on a might and set of ideals long dead, by their time, and replaced by only greed and bluster.
What we're seeing are policies driven by the marriage of unaccountable corporate and political power exactly as Eisenhower described in his Military Industrial Complex speech. Populations are reduced to propagandized props, just along for the ride. Our ultimate destination would seem to require the use of a rather large handbasket.
The hysterical, foaming at the mouth hatred of Russia, is proving to be a winning formula so far as ostensible public opinion is concerned - and that is never reliable, given the polished, seamless propaganda machine - and the template for dealing with China, if Russia fails in its objective. China is a much larger economy and population, but smaller land mass, and Russia has the oil, rare metals and nuclear capability to match the West's. China has reiterated its loyalty to Russia, it has no limits, so together they are formidable. But Russia was seen as the gateway, the hole in the dike -if the idea of regime change could be leveraged and managed, whereas that is far more problematical in China where popular elections are not a consideration.
The greatest danger is the failure of the West to understand it, really understand, at both the intellectual and gut level. Perhaps the sanctions will bring it home because they are calculated to backfire with resonance: it would then be a case of shooting yourself in both feet - but saving your life. And the planet itself.
It strikes me that America‘s gonna be torn asunder by internal division: culture war. Maybe the unipolar hegemon will be China. America is being looted, people see it and they are both pissed off and armed to the teeth. I think America’s founders were prescient when they enshrined the right to “keep and bear” in that constitutional amendment, you know, #2.
I have wondered how much of the culture war bullshit is a Chinese psyop. I think the CCP is even scarier than the WEF/globalist plutocrats and their allies in the U.S. government. I think the U.S. government and WEF are despicable, but I think the CCP is a greater evil. And yeah, 2A could be the last best bulwark against global Totalitarianism.
Jay Gould asserted he “could hire one-half the farmers to shoot the other half to death,” and it's been extended to the working class. the rampant race dog whistles and low education of the general populace makes me think he would be the perfect political thug for our times. The guns are allowed, as George Washington also desired, so that the working class can be used to thin out the working class.
They'll be watching specially arranged shows from behind the bullet proof Perspex of their club houses: clubbing of children, women, and the elderly, or the shooting of several men lined up to save bullets, all taking place in the parking lots.
I just checked I see you read Tiabbi. In his peace where he reviews Martin Gurri’s book the revolt of the working class - March 18 2021 - he quotes a lady at a Trump rally who said she’s voting for Trump because: “ fuck everything “ . That’s it dude, that’s the zeitgeist
Oh my I thought I was bad! 😂. They will get there just reward, fantastic. Yes it would appear that we are destined for chaos that’s just the way this place has been set up. I too would blame god but I’m an atheist, so I blame the elite.
Trump 2024 will be an absolute spectacular circus. Revenge, the bloviating orange monster let loose upon the elite. I am on his side.
Heck, Apple STILL manufactures in China....zero tariffs! After all that (frankly, racial) hoopla...dint affect Corporate Murica ONE WHIT. So much for principles. Oh , but cost increases DID get passed in. Thank You DC!
Wow, once again Caitlin is on point. The preservation of the Pax Americana as the singular world empire is something the intelligence industry is willing to kill humanity to achieve. They would happily rule over a graveyard earth than lose power to another.
I think you could argue they’ve already demonstrated that by their priorities being beyond the reach of even a colonoscope. So social outcomes are appalling. Longevity is now almost ten years less than the Japanese. For 330 million people that’s about 50 million lifetimes lost to the Japanese. 50 million people, if you like. But they have plenty of time to rag on about an obscure Chinese tennis player who chooses not to answer her phone for a few weeks or about sandbars in the S China Sea. We are witnessing in real time the unravelling of a once great country.
I think the geocide on the working class of the USA falls directly on the American Capitalist Class, and not the Chinese, Haitians, Vietnamese, and other peoples to whom their livelihood was off-shored.
I’ve tried to point out to Americans that they have been responsible for the greatest genocide in recorded history. When the white man came there were an estimated 100 million Natives in the Americas. The last US census finds ~ 2 million , few full blooded.
This dwarfs the next two, ranked by number, deaths of blacks in the American slavery enterprise and the ~ ten million killed by Leopold in the Congo.
The Uighur “genocide” is a preposterous fabrication by the US, gainsaid by plenty of data. It comes from the State Dept. and CIA , via Uighur expats, heavily funded by the US.
They say things have lightened up for the Uighurs. They have released the forced detentions and the reproductive issues have calmed. You’re aware the only data available show their population has soared vs the Han. The second the odious David Frum started to bleat about the Uighurs you knew it was going to be some kind of psyop.
But please don’t buy into the BS that Americans give a flying about Muslims in China, any more than they cared about the Kurds in Iraq, the reading capabilities of Afghan women, or wanted to protect Vietnamese peasants from communism by murdering 2 million plus of them.
The Chinese take the long view of these matters. In fact in contrast to the way the US treats Natives ( by hiding the remnants) they worked hard with the Uighurs in their way. I don’t support what they did but it was a response to the crime, unemployment, refusal to learn Chinese, collaboration with the CIA , terrorist acts, and lack of any contribution to society, at least in the eyes of the Chinese.
Yes they’ve been heavy handed. And it hasn’t worked. What do you suggest? You comment as if America had solved their Native dilemma.
Have you visited an American Native reservation recently? Or had it been appropriated for a mall? What is your suggestion for the Uighur crime rate, terrorist acts, frequent refusal to work or be educated, even to learn Chinese, their flouting of reproductive laws the Chinese themselves obey, and their alleged collaboration with the CIA?
Thanks for the recommendation, uninvited as it was. Several things Phil.
1)Stop the CCP stuff. They are communist in name only, and they are no more communist than America is democratic.
2) you seem to have a very blinkered view of the world class atrocities that befell American Natives.
3) I suggest you start by visiting the Avalon Project at Yale where all the treaties are laid out.The systematic lying cheating and stealing which characterized the outcomes of these treaties had nothing to do with smallpox
4) what did, was the invention of biowarfare by Jeffrey Amherst ( vide your Amherst College) whose writings survive and identify how his men gave the Natives smallpox infected blankets to kill them.
5) the Chinese have a long history of non invasion, with the exception of former China. The memory of what the “devil incarnate” did to them in the Opium wars is still fresh. Read about Confucian principles. Your abject lack of education is showing. As it does with every mad dog invasion.
6) I don’t ignore what Beijing does. I examine it carefully. I have to, because American MSM has become 24 / 7 BS propaganda-heavy.
7) we agree on the taking of children from their culture and parents. But vide the residential Native Schools.
8) saying anything is better than the American Empire hardly constitutes praise. What isn’t better?
9) look at there here and now, you say. I have. Visit your reservations.
They’ve lifted 850 million people out of poverty in a few short years. You? You lead the Western world in it, especially child poverty. You’re the biggest frauds the world has ever known. And I don’t mean that in an unkind way.
You've been consistently dishonest so I have no reason to believe you ever lived in China or taught Uighur girls.
I have visited China, and know China quite well and they have no beef with the minority populations, unlike western nations (see race relations in the US/UK/AUS). What you are doing is called projection. You are projecting what the west has done to first nations. How many native Americans and Australians speak their native tongue?
Caitlin, te adoro; Tu artículo, es más interesante de lo que esperaba, lo que no sabíamos y lo que si se, se me hubiese escapado; Lo cierto, es que China solo entro en el tablero de ajedrez, por el exceso de ambición de ee.uu. ¿Quién les diría a estos cretinos de imperialistas y genocidas hasta la medula, que la Globalización sería un premio para las plebes Globales y el fin del imperio? Algún dia el dicho de que la avaricia rompería el saco, no está mal del todo, como proverbio estrella ¿Quién lo diría de una certinidad, como un proverbio, ni, aunque fuere confuciano? fg.
The problem is both are targets, but targets of different groupings in the neo-con and neo-liberal branches of the elites.
One grouping, the Victoria Nuland/Antony Blinken neo-cons are eurocentric with family history hatred of things Russia and work for resource (oil, minerals, foodstuffs) groupings of American Oligarchy, the old money. They want to split up Russia and "stans, stripping them of resources ala South America.
The other branch, William Burns, et al neo-libs, work for the new money, the fashion goods, high tech industry, Silicon Valley, Pharma, etc, who want China (and India) kept down as a source of cheap labor, and to eliminate intellectual competition from their sectors.
The dithering back and forth between a pivot to Asia (re-enslave China): or deconstructing Russia isn't anything new, it was already a serious issue under Obama, a man of no principals and no convictions. That plus it burned him that Putin was smarter.
Because for 20 plus years when it was needed the USA has lacked a president with the intellect, convictions, and holding power to stay any single course, the constant jostling between the neo-cons and neo-liberals over doing their masters bidding has thrown the ships tiller back and forth. It's just luck and timing that Russia came out first on the beating stick.
I like Gonzalo Lira's description of the 700+ American Billionaires, each with one string tied to the puppet. No wonder the dance is so herky-jerky.
Your two branch theory works good enough though.
Very good. They form fluid cliques that through the constant switching as stock portfolios move entangle the string so that they pull more than their own, without intention and often at cross purposes.
Apply Occam's razor, don't look for a genius master plan, particularly when it's evident genius isn't present, it's just the casting of the die.
From Caitlin.....
And now here we are with Russian and Chinese officials openly discussing their plans to create a multipolar world while Chinese pundits crack jokes about the US empire's transparent ploys to turn Beijing against Moscow over the Ukraine invasion:
"Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?
A short memory is an infectious American disease. No one remembers Korea, the Chinese involvement, when even at that very early stage of its development into a major power after being used and abused by all and sundry during WWII, it was still able to supply all that was required to fight the USA, still stuck (by choice ) with 30,000 troops) on the the border, between North and South Korea, also known as the Military Demarcation Line.
And that was a very long time ago. The feeble Joe Biden hadn't even reached puberty at that time so probably missed seeing the ability of country like China change its allegiances, if and when required. Look at it now. If he and his war stooges think there is one chance in a million of convincing China to ever see the imperialist USA as a better associate / partner / friend than Russia, it is time for him to discard his role as front man for BlackRock, Vanguard and Big Pharma and join a Washington church group whose sole motivation is the 'second coming', because that will be the only thing which will save him from an ignominious end.
Of course, he would need to check with Israel to see if the 'second coming' is OK with them first.
I somehow don't see Joe Biden as doing too well, in the event of a second coming! Or Judgement Day.
I do remember the Korean War, though far from puberty. My two favorite cousins fought over there, and when they came back they were grim, shattered men, no longer any fun. But I did have my GI Joes and fun comic books of brave American pilots shooting down the dastardly gook in their Migs.
Years later, my students took me to the War Memorial in Dan Dong. I was fascinated by all the US war material on display--mess kits, eye glasses, uniforms, weapons, and even diaries. Most striking, though, was a wall-sized poster of Chinese pilots dressed in flight gear, set to fly out and fight the Americans. I literally wept seeing those brave, handsome young men, because I knew from history and my comic books that they would be dead soon after.
Fighting China will not be good; now, those pilots have superior planes to the US corporate behemoths that are designed not to be effective but to be costly.
I do believe going after Russia really is the prelude to war on China; that the neocons move freely with neoliberals to preserve hegemony, and they think all the time, plan, plan, plan. That their thoughts are fantisies is beside the point.
I just posted "Putin's Peace, Petrodollar Pain: the petroruble is Putin's Omicron to end the West NATO virus." It quotes from Aaron Mate, the US Peace Council, Scott Ritter & Michael Hudson. And I've added Putin's speech after invading, so readers can hear from the horse's mouth.
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/putin-peace-petrodollar-pain
Thanks so much for putting this together.
I highlight some important points for those unwilling to go to your post.
<Quote>
"Its silence on Zelensky's recent banning of 10 opposition parties suggests a similar reception."
<Quote>
"So exactly which diplomatic options were not exhausted? What were Russia’s non-military choices in the face of Ukraine’s years-long shelling and military operations against the Donbass?”"
I agree with the US Peace Council's goals as stated in the article. But people need to know that they are suppose to be a Russian propaganda outlet. That hardly means that their web site should be ignored or that they are promoting anything other than a desire for peace in the face of American Oligarchy aggression. Americans just do not understand the situation. They are so immersed in "Putin BAD" propaganda from America's media that it is impossible for them to realize who the real enemy is. The 700+ Billionaires that run America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Peace_Council
<Quote>
"All of the Russian oligarchs who had hidden their stolen wealth abroad are now bankrupt and broke."
What an amazing gift to Russia!
I sure hope folks will get to the long Michael Hudson quote. He exposes the US Oligarchy for the evil they are.
<From Putin's speech>
"To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack. When it finally acted, it was too late."
<From Putin's speech>
I will explain what this means: the military personnel of the Ukrainian army who do this will be able to freely leave the zone of hostilities and return to their families.
I am going to submit your article to OpEd News. They usually accept the "Quick Links" I've posted. Sometimes those links generate quite a bit of discussion. I find it incredible how close-minded those who support the US are. Their response always comes down to "But PUTIN BAD!" They dress it up by talking about "Putin Apologists" and they bristle at being called "Empire Apologists". No matter how much evidence is provided to support an anti-Oligarch position, they refuse to acknowledge it.
I have the same experience in Reddit, where voices of rationality seeking peace with Russia are banned.
Thanks again for your article.
I discovered the late Professor Stephen F Cohen, renowned Russia expert, pre and post Soviet. He recounts how the Yeltsin years practically destroyed Russia with US finance capital and neoliberal academic creating the oligarchs (people like Bill Browder, Jeffery Sachs, et al) while finance made fortunes. Putin was expected to be pliant, sober replacement for Yeltsin, but he turned out to be at heart a nationalist and put a stop to the 'Big Steal'. According to Professor Cohen, he corralled the oligarchs, letting them keep their loot but to cease capital flight and stop interfering with government. This was the beginning of "PUTIN BAD". Putin took their toys away, and the neoliberals never forgave him.
I find it quite strange that nobody in the US power-think-tanks realised that they were actually pushing Russia into the arms of China. Russia tried over & over to join NATO, and/or form an alliance with it, and with Europe & the US. Even back in the time of the Maidan coup in Ukraine, the EU was not offering Ukraine a very attractive deal, which is why they started to look to Russia (a fatal move for their independence, of course).
Did they really not realise?
Was it just unbelievable arrogance?
Or did they maybe have the destruction of Russia as a goal all along? After all, the western oligarchs who treated Ukraine - and Russia back in the 1990s - as their piggy banks, probably would have just preferred for Russia to collapse, if not completely spontaneously, then with a little help from their "friends".
Remember that Victoria Nuland bragged about the US spending $5billion on democracy promotion? That kind of money buys a lot of loyalty, changes a lot of minds. The CIA's Nazis had no trouble hating Russia, they had been doing so since WW II, but it took really good propaganda to convince the majority of Ukrainians that joining with the US/NATO/EU complex would solve their problems and make them prosperous. It was a chimera, of course, as the Ukraine's government corruption in service to Ukrainian oligarchs was the problem, but it is always easier to look outside for solutions than inside.
Meanwhile the REAL globalist Empire glories in and profits from the squabble.
The UN/WEF alliance has no nationalistic limitations hobbling its think tanks.
It takes a simple binary view of the world which Thomas P Barnett used to call the CORE vs the GAP.
If you live in the GAP you have two choices: Migrate or die.
If you live in the CORE you have no choice. Accept migrants, poverty and debt.
You will own nothing and be happy.
https://francesleader.substack.com/p/the-totalitarian-global-coup?s=w
Meanwhile whilst Australia fixes its sycophantic gaze with one eye on London and the other on Washington, it missed the obvious Chinese move into the Solomon Islands. Papua New Guinea is next! Then guess what - Australia has Chinese military bases around us just like USA has military bases around China. Australia has become the knight that "protects" Washington's king. Australia now risks being the example of what could come next for the USA if USA continues with its policy of unipolar dominance.
I hope the Aussies will wake up to the fact that the US Oligarchy will have no problem sacrificing a "knight" in furtherance of its need to acquire "more". Look at how they set up Zelensky. The US government is definitely NOT playing at a Bobby Fisher level.
Nor at my level, I'd have already resigned -- in fact, I don't think I'd have ever entered the game.
Is there a Chess Player that everyone knows is a fool/tool who still manages to get great press because he wears the right clothes?
Is that suppose to be "fool/tool" or "fool-tool"? Whatever, Joe Biden would be my #1 pick at the moment.
Australia has already been bought up by Chinese interests. They have a 99 year lease on the Port of Darwin, and similar control of many our energy companies, FFS! Not to mention all the agricultural land, mining rights, and water rights they have acquired, at a bargain price most of the time. Plus a politician or 2 (or more) in both major parties, and the Greens as well. And well established intellectual property incursions into any defence plans and technology we might have. For a more complete picture, read "Silent Invasion” by Clive Hamilton (published in 2016 so things will have forged way ahead in the intervening years). I found it as an e-book in my local library, so you don't even need to fork out $$.
As seizure of the central bank assets of Iran, Venezuela, and Russia demonstrates, ownership of any physical property in a western country is a liability and not an asset. China must rue its purchases in Australia, USA, and the other thieves in the den. What good did property "rights" do Japanese Americans, 50 years late and ¢3 on the $ was the "survivor's" compensation. For that matter, what good has the property rights of the Aboriginal people done them, ethnic cleansing in compensation for all their losses.
Or any bank,.securities or commodities account in a western bank, dealer, etc..
That's a good point. However, Australia vs China is not quite the same as US vs Russia, and I can't quite see them being that provocative!
Washington is engulfed by sociopaths and narcissists, who, like the Roman emperors at the end of that empire, make decisions now, based on a might and set of ideals long dead, by their time, and replaced by only greed and bluster.
What we're seeing are policies driven by the marriage of unaccountable corporate and political power exactly as Eisenhower described in his Military Industrial Complex speech. Populations are reduced to propagandized props, just along for the ride. Our ultimate destination would seem to require the use of a rather large handbasket.
The hysterical, foaming at the mouth hatred of Russia, is proving to be a winning formula so far as ostensible public opinion is concerned - and that is never reliable, given the polished, seamless propaganda machine - and the template for dealing with China, if Russia fails in its objective. China is a much larger economy and population, but smaller land mass, and Russia has the oil, rare metals and nuclear capability to match the West's. China has reiterated its loyalty to Russia, it has no limits, so together they are formidable. But Russia was seen as the gateway, the hole in the dike -if the idea of regime change could be leveraged and managed, whereas that is far more problematical in China where popular elections are not a consideration.
The greatest danger is the failure of the West to understand it, really understand, at both the intellectual and gut level. Perhaps the sanctions will bring it home because they are calculated to backfire with resonance: it would then be a case of shooting yourself in both feet - but saving your life. And the planet itself.
It strikes me that America‘s gonna be torn asunder by internal division: culture war. Maybe the unipolar hegemon will be China. America is being looted, people see it and they are both pissed off and armed to the teeth. I think America’s founders were prescient when they enshrined the right to “keep and bear” in that constitutional amendment, you know, #2.
I have wondered how much of the culture war bullshit is a Chinese psyop. I think the CCP is even scarier than the WEF/globalist plutocrats and their allies in the U.S. government. I think the U.S. government and WEF are despicable, but I think the CCP is a greater evil. And yeah, 2A could be the last best bulwark against global Totalitarianism.
2a, love it.
Jay Gould asserted he “could hire one-half the farmers to shoot the other half to death,” and it's been extended to the working class. the rampant race dog whistles and low education of the general populace makes me think he would be the perfect political thug for our times. The guns are allowed, as George Washington also desired, so that the working class can be used to thin out the working class.
And the elite what of them?
They'll be watching specially arranged shows from behind the bullet proof Perspex of their club houses: clubbing of children, women, and the elderly, or the shooting of several men lined up to save bullets, all taking place in the parking lots.
Do they get off Scott free? Is there an upheaval coming, Will there be blood?
If there is a god, then he might reward them for giving him the kind of show he set this place up for.
I just checked I see you read Tiabbi. In his peace where he reviews Martin Gurri’s book the revolt of the working class - March 18 2021 - he quotes a lady at a Trump rally who said she’s voting for Trump because: “ fuck everything “ . That’s it dude, that’s the zeitgeist
Oh my I thought I was bad! 😂. They will get there just reward, fantastic. Yes it would appear that we are destined for chaos that’s just the way this place has been set up. I too would blame god but I’m an atheist, so I blame the elite.
Trump 2024 will be an absolute spectacular circus. Revenge, the bloviating orange monster let loose upon the elite. I am on his side.
Heck, Apple STILL manufactures in China....zero tariffs! After all that (frankly, racial) hoopla...dint affect Corporate Murica ONE WHIT. So much for principles. Oh , but cost increases DID get passed in. Thank You DC!
Wow, once again Caitlin is on point. The preservation of the Pax Americana as the singular world empire is something the intelligence industry is willing to kill humanity to achieve. They would happily rule over a graveyard earth than lose power to another.
I think you could argue they’ve already demonstrated that by their priorities being beyond the reach of even a colonoscope. So social outcomes are appalling. Longevity is now almost ten years less than the Japanese. For 330 million people that’s about 50 million lifetimes lost to the Japanese. 50 million people, if you like. But they have plenty of time to rag on about an obscure Chinese tennis player who chooses not to answer her phone for a few weeks or about sandbars in the S China Sea. We are witnessing in real time the unravelling of a once great country.
China has been conducting genocide for decades, but US companies have not said a peep and we just had the Olympics there. 10% for the big guy!
I think the geocide on the working class of the USA falls directly on the American Capitalist Class, and not the Chinese, Haitians, Vietnamese, and other peoples to whom their livelihood was off-shored.
I hope you haven’t swallowed that BS about the Uighurs.
Really? You're on Caitlin's blog and you are regurgitating US lies about China's "genocide"?
I’ve tried to point out to Americans that they have been responsible for the greatest genocide in recorded history. When the white man came there were an estimated 100 million Natives in the Americas. The last US census finds ~ 2 million , few full blooded.
This dwarfs the next two, ranked by number, deaths of blacks in the American slavery enterprise and the ~ ten million killed by Leopold in the Congo.
The Uighur “genocide” is a preposterous fabrication by the US, gainsaid by plenty of data. It comes from the State Dept. and CIA , via Uighur expats, heavily funded by the US.
They say things have lightened up for the Uighurs. They have released the forced detentions and the reproductive issues have calmed. You’re aware the only data available show their population has soared vs the Han. The second the odious David Frum started to bleat about the Uighurs you knew it was going to be some kind of psyop.
But please don’t buy into the BS that Americans give a flying about Muslims in China, any more than they cared about the Kurds in Iraq, the reading capabilities of Afghan women, or wanted to protect Vietnamese peasants from communism by murdering 2 million plus of them.
The Chinese take the long view of these matters. In fact in contrast to the way the US treats Natives ( by hiding the remnants) they worked hard with the Uighurs in their way. I don’t support what they did but it was a response to the crime, unemployment, refusal to learn Chinese, collaboration with the CIA , terrorist acts, and lack of any contribution to society, at least in the eyes of the Chinese.
Yes they’ve been heavy handed. And it hasn’t worked. What do you suggest? You comment as if America had solved their Native dilemma.
Have you visited an American Native reservation recently? Or had it been appropriated for a mall? What is your suggestion for the Uighur crime rate, terrorist acts, frequent refusal to work or be educated, even to learn Chinese, their flouting of reproductive laws the Chinese themselves obey, and their alleged collaboration with the CIA?
Or even you can't lambast China and then ignore what Washington does.
Thanks for the recommendation, uninvited as it was. Several things Phil.
1)Stop the CCP stuff. They are communist in name only, and they are no more communist than America is democratic.
2) you seem to have a very blinkered view of the world class atrocities that befell American Natives.
3) I suggest you start by visiting the Avalon Project at Yale where all the treaties are laid out.The systematic lying cheating and stealing which characterized the outcomes of these treaties had nothing to do with smallpox
4) what did, was the invention of biowarfare by Jeffrey Amherst ( vide your Amherst College) whose writings survive and identify how his men gave the Natives smallpox infected blankets to kill them.
5) the Chinese have a long history of non invasion, with the exception of former China. The memory of what the “devil incarnate” did to them in the Opium wars is still fresh. Read about Confucian principles. Your abject lack of education is showing. As it does with every mad dog invasion.
6) I don’t ignore what Beijing does. I examine it carefully. I have to, because American MSM has become 24 / 7 BS propaganda-heavy.
7) we agree on the taking of children from their culture and parents. But vide the residential Native Schools.
8) saying anything is better than the American Empire hardly constitutes praise. What isn’t better?
9) look at there here and now, you say. I have. Visit your reservations.
They’ve lifted 850 million people out of poverty in a few short years. You? You lead the Western world in it, especially child poverty. You’re the biggest frauds the world has ever known. And I don’t mean that in an unkind way.
You've been consistently dishonest so I have no reason to believe you ever lived in China or taught Uighur girls.
I have visited China, and know China quite well and they have no beef with the minority populations, unlike western nations (see race relations in the US/UK/AUS). What you are doing is called projection. You are projecting what the west has done to first nations. How many native Americans and Australians speak their native tongue?
I have had the same conclusion for some time now...we are playing with Fire here...
Caitlin, te adoro; Tu artículo, es más interesante de lo que esperaba, lo que no sabíamos y lo que si se, se me hubiese escapado; Lo cierto, es que China solo entro en el tablero de ajedrez, por el exceso de ambición de ee.uu. ¿Quién les diría a estos cretinos de imperialistas y genocidas hasta la medula, que la Globalización sería un premio para las plebes Globales y el fin del imperio? Algún dia el dicho de que la avaricia rompería el saco, no está mal del todo, como proverbio estrella ¿Quién lo diría de una certinidad, como un proverbio, ni, aunque fuere confuciano? fg.