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Lafayette Cahill's avatar

The regime is doing everything it can to provoke a war with Russia and China.

The sad part is that most Americans don’t know anything about what their own government is doing around the world.

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Literally Mussolini's avatar

They already did provoke a war with Russia.

(They provoked an "unprovoked invasion".)

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Feb 4, 2023
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Fran's avatar

Well, they'll be singing a different tune should China get even by cutting off all those medicines they export to this country, or the key ingredients we need to make some of them. I think they'll really get pissed off when hospitals close, or their love ones die, because there are no antibiotics, and they'll die like their ancestors did, some because a tooth was infected.

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Kevin's avatar

No the feds won't. They will blame China. That is the game.

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Stephen Louis Paulmier's avatar

What do you call an American diplomat who freaks out over a Chinese balloon 🎈?

A Buffoon

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George Cornell's avatar

I put this in WaPo this am in response to the claim this was proof of China’s expansionism.

My reply below.

Huh? Expansionists? You forgot the biggest expansionist of all. The US. Your 800 foreign military bases in 70 countries? How can you afford to keep these up? The answer is you can’t. You have those bases and your interminable saber rattling at the expense of domestic issues which are literally killing you.

What the hell is wrong ?Your priorities are only accessible via colonoscopy?

You have crap health care with Third World longevity, passed a couple of years ago by Cuba and this year by China. Your education is weak, and you rank 26th for high school attainment beaten by China by the same amount you beat Kazakhstan, and that was 5 y ago. It’ll be worse now. Count on it. Your teachers have been ringing the alarm bell for years. And you say you’re going to outcompete China. Fat chance of that at this rate.

You lead the world or Western world in pollution ( and have done in sum since the Industrial Revolution). And in poverty, esp. child poverty, divorce, obesity, rape ( neck and neck with the Australians), murder, mass shootings, mass murder, racial murder, guns, nukes, chemical weapons, incarceration, etc.

But have one balloon go off course and you have people reaching for muzzles and rabies shots. Get a grip. Talk to birdwatchers. They love it when Asian and Siberian birds get blown over to America. You’re the same menace that got you voted greatest threat to world peace, years ago. Maybe not as good.

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Society's Stinky Parts's avatar

How did it go over? WaPoo likes to shadowban. The colonoscopy dunk is brilliant.

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Feral Finster's avatar

Celine's First Law readeth thusly: "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity."

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Outsider's avatar

Just as we have the dysfunctional Dept. of Homeland Insecurity and the Biden/Garland Injustice Dept.

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Steve Close's avatar

Exactly. Thousands of spy satellites in the sky far more capable yet a highly visible balloon drifting aimlessly has everyone freaked out. Even Tucker Carlson had his panties in a twist. I can't get over how stupid people are. Hurry, time to start bombing somewhere or we're all going to die!

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Literally Mussolini's avatar

I see Carlson as a fellow traveler on some issues, but I bookmarked that clip on the balloon. He let his "China hawk" perspective get the better of good sense.

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Starry Gordon's avatar

Come on. The US authorities and bigdeals panicking and freaking out about a weather balloon is priceless humor. It's beyond belief. Imagine an old-time military guy trying to work for these contemptible pantywaists.

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Literally Mussolini's avatar

Oh, I agree. It's hilarious.

(My only concern is that among these Thousands of Stooges bouncing and bopping off each other over a balloon, there is control of some serious instruments of death.)

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Contrarian 33's avatar

Of the 4,852 active artificial satellites orbiting the Earth as of January 1, 2022, the greatest number that is 2,944, belong to the United States. This is by far the largest number of any single country. With the technical gear they have on board satellites, their capability when compared to the Chinese balloon is breathtaking.

Now what are they doing up there?

Don't ask!

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The Revolution Continues's avatar

"Ask an empire apologist to show you how China is aggressing against the US and they'll start babbling about TikTok and balloons."

This. If this most recent media warmongering doesn't convince the public that the US is whipping us into a war fury, I don't know what else will. William Randolph Hearst might have said, "You supply the photographs, I'll supply the war," in the 1890s, but nowadays it's the US government that is saying, "You supply a weather balloon and we'll supply the nuclear war."

Sigh. We really need to get those clowns out of office before they start playing touch football with the nuclear codes.

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Eric Kamov's avatar

I seriously wonder exactly WHAT it will take, before the world's populations becomes FULLY AWARE of the stone cold fact, that the patently rogue United States of America [where Corporations are ’'Persons’' and Money is ’'Free Speech'’], HAS been, and CONTINUES TO BE - the greatest clear and present danger to ANY semblance of global peace and stability that has EVER existed, NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST??? . . . . 🙄

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George Cornell's avatar

After being nauseated by what the left-leaning channels were saying tonight I switched to Faux News to see if they were any more sane.

Nope. One angry uninformed mad dog after another, screaming at the viewer that Biden was derelict in letting this “spy plane” collect data on precious U.S. secret silos and bases. And that it was manoeuvrable up there in the jet stream ( fat chance) . The ballon was 19 buses long but shrank to 3 buses to make it more believable, while watching.

However it was an opportunity to spew hatred. The viewer heard about that ridiculous canard about genocide (via the CIA-funded Uighurs) and concentration camps when the Uighur population has risen several times faster than the Han. The reeducation centers were emptied three yrs ago.

Spittle fortunately does travel with tv transmission signals.

I’ve seen mad animals with distemper having more control of themselves.

They want war, it’s pretty clear. They can’t deal with there being no war for so long. This ain’t gonna be Granada, however.

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asher2789's avatar

Dude, not even six months after the end of the forever war did the war in Ukraine start. They already got another likely endless war, and they’re still not satisfied?

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George Cornell's avatar

Well you could even argue it never stopped, given the farce that was Russiagate and the regime change in 2014.

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asher2789's avatar

Yeah but we weren’t sending major weapons till recently, and that’s what actually matters is enriching the military industrial complex.

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George Cornell's avatar

You could say those were pretext and prologue but I take your point.

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Literally Mussolini's avatar

Your description of the crazed lunatics driven even madder by this balloon reminds me of Kevin Williamson's writing over at National Review about the Ukraine war during its early days. As I read, I could just picture his face beat red, with spittle flying, as he pounded away on his keyboard about sending in the US military to annihilate Putin and the Russians.

(Williamson has since moved on from NR.)

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Harry's avatar

You are right, Caitlin.

One thing I always laugh about is how the US officials, after sending murder robots to the foreign lands, start acting like nobody else in the world has a better understanding of international law than them. The #EmpireAtAllCosts cult has some of the most arrogant people in the world - they see a "vibrant democracy" in the US surrounding China militarily and a "breach of sovereignty" over a balloon.

I also have a newsletter which is focused at peeling away the illusions we live and develop our systems under.

It talks about the two biggest threats to humanity: climate change and nuclear war, animal cruelty, and the various propaganda tactics the elites use to prevent us from taking action against the above crises.

The most fundamental cause of our trajectory towards destruction is the human mind, or more specifically, the Ego. So, you will also see articles on transcending our ego.

https://awakes.substack.com

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asher2789's avatar

A weather balloon gone off course makes a hell of a lot more sense than a “spy balloon”. What could a spy balloon do that a spy satellite could not? Surely the Chinese and every other major power especially the US have spy satellites orbiting around for decades.

The political media class are fucking idiots and a danger to our society with the constant beating of their war chests like methed up gorillas. Last night we had record breaking cold in the northeast, the real temp was something like -46.3F atop mount mansfield when I went to bed, with a top wind gust of 127MPH and sustained 100MPH winds with a possible record breaking windchill of -108F. Not only that, but for a brief period, the stratosphere dropped to around 4000ft elevation.

Extreme cold is nothing new in New England, but what’s odd is usually such cold temps are accompanied by light winds at most, not hurricane force winds. If I were a world superpower I too would have a weather balloon out there measuring what the hell was going on.

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jamenta's avatar

"fucking idiots" is a great description of US political main stream media. Our country is neurotically bound to unchecked corporatism and militarism.

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Literally Mussolini's avatar

Sounds like my kind of weather.

A warm fire and good book.

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William Paul's avatar

Don't let the balloon distraction keep you from checking out Project Veritas's videos showing you that Pfizer was aware that the vaccine negatively affects women's menstrual cycles and fertility.

Getting permanently poisoned by government-sanctioned chemicals should make you realize that they want you fat, sick, isolated, depressed, distracted, and afraid: the better to control you, extract your wealth, and then discard you when you are old.

And they'll claim they're doing it all for your health, and the environment.

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asher2789's avatar

project veritas has zero credibility. im not saying the premise of your argument is wrong, but your source is about as reliable as faux news or newsmax.

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Jayk's avatar

"Ninety-nine red balloons

Floating in the summer sky

Panic bells, it′s red alert

There's something here from somewhere else"

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Feral Finster's avatar

That song was written, IIRC, in response to the Pershing missile crisis in West Germany.

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CarbonCopy's avatar

You seriously know your stuff!

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Feral Finster's avatar

"Koty wiedzą wszystko!" - Kot Filemon.

"Cats know everything!" Filemon the Cat, from a Polish children's TV show.

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Carol Diane Bevis's avatar

Yes, cats observe. There are different kinds of knowing.

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Doris Wrench Eisler's avatar

Flying balloons is what the US spends most of its time at, as in: "do you feel threatened by, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, South America Africa, Russia, Serbia , Libya, and, as Zizek would have it, "so on and so forth and so on ... " And if not, why not? And even when they flop over, these trial balloons, the US still insists these threats exist, and must and will be dealt with. "For their own good of course," as in a trial ballon re the Iraq threat to the West that had some support (Tony Blare?). Hope he's calmer these days.

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Feral Finster's avatar

The irony being that Zizek is a reliable cheerleader for Empire.

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Doris Wrench Eisler's avatar

He thinks he's so clever he can wrap us up in words. But then he forgets himself, and says things like,"The Nazis didn't go far enough". That's clear language.

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Feral Finster's avatar

The Slovenian Squealer.

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Doris Wrench Eisler's avatar

The people we like to call "intellectuals" these days don't have a consistent and rational thought in their heads. It's become a pejorative.

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Feral Finster's avatar

We confuse insight with glib symbol manipulation.

Cats don't really do or respond to symbol manipulation.

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Society's Stinky Parts's avatar

*unsheathes laser pointer*

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GordM's avatar

That was no ordinary balloon. My sources inform me that China was going to give America an angioplasty for Valentine's Day as a symbol of it's affection....and the USAF went and ruined the surprise.

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Kun Bela's avatar

At the same time, I would also like to add that the USA is doing its best to make enemies out of those who are its allies anyway ! Let's say that Ambassador Pressman's behavior in his host country, Hungary, where he succeeded in infuriating many millions of Hungarians with his pompous and hostile behavior would be aimed here ! Not to mention that Pressman already made a hostile statement during his congressional hearing about the country to which the State Department intended to send him, and now he is surprised that the Hungarians hate him like shit !

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George Cornell's avatar

The reincarnation of Buck Turgidson , one retired general Keith Kellogg from the Trump admin is on Faux at the moment, preorgasmically juiced about shooting down the weather balloon. And he has zero self-awareness. And we thought Buck was fictional.

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