This article / post is going to be all over the place. The theme behind it is that the largest and most powerful nation of the planet is thrashing about and imploding, and we all are watching it happen in real time.

We will cover various aspects through some other articles that I have dredged up from the internet. The first article discusses how China and Russia now view the Untied States and it is not flattering. In fact, both are accusing the United States fro waging wars, assassinations, and attacks against them. From the NGO “color revolutions”, to the bio-weapons carpet bombing of China, to the black operations in Russia, both nations are starting to get really irritated.

Diplomacy is a way that nations work and interact with each other. To fail in diplomacy is to risk war.

With this understood, just how capable is the United States in dealing with other nations on a diplomatic level?

American Diplomats Are Outclassed

“Butting Heads with China and Russia” with a sub heading of “American Diplomats Are Outclassed” written by Philip Giraldi on May 13, 2021. Edited to fit this venue, all credit to the author, and the usual disclaimers retain.

With the exception of the impending departure of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, if it occurs, the White House seems to prefer to use aggression to deter adversaries rather than finesse.

The recent exchanges between Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a meeting in Alaska demonstrate how Beijing has a clear view of its interests which Washington seems to lack.

Blinken initiated the acrimonious exchange when he cited…

“deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion toward our allies. Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability. That’s why they’re not merely internal matters, and why we feel an obligation to raise these issues here today.” 

He then threatened …

“I said that the United States relationship with China will be competitive where it should be, collaborative where it can be, adversarial where it must be” 

“I’m hearing deep satisfaction that the United States is back, that we’re reengaged with our allies and partners. I’m also hearing deep concern about some of the actions your government is taking.”

The Chinese Foreign Minister responded sharply, rejecting U.S. suggestions that it has a right to interfere in another country’s domestic policies,

“I think we thought too well of the United States, we thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols. 

The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. 

We believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image, and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world.” 

Yi had a point.

Ironically, most of the world believes that the U.S. represents a greater threat to genuine democracy than does either China or Russia.

In another more recent interview Blinken has accused the Chinese of acting “more aggressively abroad” while President Biden has claimed that Beijing has a plan to replace America as the world’s leading economic and military power.

U.S. United Nations envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield has also delivered the same message that Washington is preparing to take no prisoners, pledging to push back against what she called China’s “authoritarian agenda” through the various agencies that make up the UN bureaucracy.

Indeed, the United States seems trapped in its own rhetoric, finding itself in the middle of a situation with China and Taiwan where warnings that Beijing is preparing to use force to recover its former province leave Washington with few options to support a de facto ally.

Peter Beinart in a recent op-ed observes how the White House has been incrementally increasing its diplomatic ties with Taiwan even as it both declares itself “rock solid” on defending while also maintaining “strategic ambiguity.”

China understands its interests while the U.S. continues to be bewildered by Beijing’s successful building of trade alliances worldwide.

Meanwhile Russian President Vladimir Putin, reputedly an excellent chess player, is able to think about genuine issues in three dimensions and is always at least four moves ahead of where Biden and his advisers are at any time.

Biden public and video appearances frequently seem to be improvisations as he goes along guided by his teleprompter while Putin is able to explain issues clearly, apparently even in English.

A large part of Biden’s problem vis-à-vis both China and Russia is that he has inherited a U.S. Establishment view of foreign and national security policy options.

It is based on three basic principles.

First, that America is the only superpower and can either ignore or comfortably overcome the objections of other nations to what it is doing.

Second, an all-powerful and fully resourced United States can apply “extreme pressure” to recalcitrant foreign governments and those regimes will eventually submit and comply with Washington’s wishes.

And third, America has a widely accepted leadership role of the so-called “free world” which will mean that any decision made in Washington will immediately be endorsed by a large number of other nations, giving legitimacy to U.S. actions worldwide.

What Joe Biden actually thinks is, of course, unknown though he has a history of reflexively supporting an assertive and even belligerent foreign policy during his many years in Congress.

Kamala Harris, who many believe will be succeeding Biden before too long, appears to have no definitive views at all beyond the usual Democratic Party cant of spreading “democracy” and being strong on Israel.

That suggests that the real shaping of policy is coming from the apparatchik and donor levels in the party.

These include the neocon-lite Zionist triumvirate at the State Department consisting of Tony Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Kagan.

As well as the upper-level bureaucracies at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies.

All of which all support an assertive and also interventionist foreign policy to keep Americans “safe” while also increasing their budgets annually.

Such thinking leaves little room for genuine national interests to surface.

Biden’s Secretary of State Tony Blinken is, for example, the perfect conformist bureaucrat, shaping his own views around established thinking and creating caveats to provide the Democratic Party leadership with some, though limited, options.

Witness for example the current White House attitude towards Iran, which is regarded, along with Russia, as a permanent enemy of the United States.

President Biden has expressed his interest in renegotiating a non-nuclear proliferation treaty with the Iranians, now being discussed by diplomats without direct contact in Austria.

But Blinken undercuts that intention by wrapping the talks in with other issues that are intended to satisfy the Israelis and their friends in Congress that will make progress unlikely if not impossible.

They include eliminating Iran’s alleged role as a regional trouble maker and also ending the ballistic missile development programs currently engaged in by the regime.

The downside to all of this is that having a multilateral agreement to limit Iranian enhancement of uranium up to a bomb-making level is very much in the U.S. interest, but it appears to be secondary to other politically motivated side discussions which will derail the process.

A foreign and national security policy based on political dogma rather than genuine interests can obviously generate some disconnects.

Which is unlike either Russia or China, where red-lines and national interests are clearly understood and acted upon.

To cite yet another dangerous example of playing with fire that one is witnessing in Eastern Europe, the simple understanding that for Russia Belarus and Ukraine are front-line states.

States that could pose existential threats to Moscow if they were to move closer to the west and join NATO appears to be lacking.

The U.S. prefers to stand the question on its head and claims that the real issue is “spreading democracy,” which it is not.

Policy makers in Washington might consider what Washington would likely do if Mexico and Canada were to be threatened with foreign interference that might bring about their joining a military alliance hostile to the United States.

The American Establishment-driven foreign policy thinking clearly has trouble in accommodating the obvious understanding that the U.S. actually becomes more vulnerable…

…every time it interferes in China’s trade practices …

…or gives the green light for alliances like NATO to expand.

Expansion of the national security policy components often brings in another client state. And it is a client state that rarely has anything whatsoever to contribute and which, on the contrary, becomes a burden.

This client state ends up relying for their own security on overstretched American military resources.

In return, the expansion itself guarantees that a hostile and genuinely threatened Russia will take steps of its own to counter what it sees as a potential grave threat to its own security and national identity.

Quite simply, America’s national security should dictate that the United States treat China as a competitor rather than an enemy…

…while also disengaging from support and encouragement of Ukraine’s irredentist ambitions as quickly as possible.

A recent shipment of offensive weapons to Kiev should become the last such initiative and speeches by American politicians pledging “unwavering support” for Ukraine should be considered unacceptable.

Washington should meanwhile reject any clandestine attempts to overthrow Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus and make clear to Vladimir Putin that it will not support any NATO expansion into Eastern Europe…

… which admittedly was a pledge already made when the Soviet Union collapsed that was subsequently ignored by President Bill Clinton.

Thanks to Bill, America is now obligated to defend not only Western Europe but also Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, the Baltic States and tiny little Montenegro.

In short, United State engagement in complicated overseas quarrels should be limited to areas where genuine vital interests are at stake.

In fact, by that standard one should begin to emphasize the security impact of the crisis on America’s southern border, which has a completely different genesis and is being driven by politics.

As British statesman Lord Palmerston said in 1848 …

“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” 

The United States government would be very wise to be guided by that advice.

And Russia and China are taking notice and standing up to the US Bully

This article goes on, and on as many do. But please pay attention to the interesting dynamic here.

America, the United States, is out of control. There is a deeply embedded oligarchy group that is running amok and pushing all the buttons that are saying “WE DEMAND WAR!” And there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can stop them, control them, or mitigate them. They are out of control.

And the rest of the world are taking notice and deciding to work together, far away outside the clutches of the American military empire.

So in order to reason with these psychopathic entities, both the Soviet Union and China have established “red-lines” that will result in ferocious military action.

All in all, I think that both Russia and China have been very tolerant so far. But they cannot keep this situation stable for long. The United States is flailing about wildly with no control. It’s only a matter of time when things will go from dangerous to…

…death.

Consider this article, and when you do, keep in mind how the rest of the world view the insanity that is now the United States.

Putin Rewrites the Law of the Geopolitical Jungle

“Putin Rewrites the Law of the Geopolitical Jungle” found on UNZ. And written by Pepe Escobar on April 23, 2021. . Edited to fit this venue, all credit to the author, and the usual disclaimers retain.

Putin’s address to the Russian Federal Assembly – a de facto State of the Nation – was a judo move that left Atlanticist sphere hawks particularly stunned.

The “West” was not even mentioned by name.

Only indirectly, or via a delightful metaphor, Kipling’s Jungle Book. Foreign policy was addressed only at the end, almost as an afterthought.

For the best part of an hour and a half, Putin concentrated on domestic issues, detailing a series of policies that amount to the Russian state helping those in need – low income families, children, single mothers, young professionals, the underprivileged – with, for instance, free health checks all the way to the possibility of an universal income in the near future.

Of course he would also need to address the current, highly volatile state of international relations.

The concise manner he chose to do it, counter-acting the prevailing Russophobia in the Atlanticist sphere, was quite striking.

First, the essentials.

Russia’s policy…

 “is to ensure peace and security for the well-being of our citizens and for the stable development of our country.”

Yet if …

“someone does not want to ...

...engage in dialogue...

... but chooses an egoistic and arrogant tone, Russia will always find a way to stand up for its position.”

He singled out …

“the practice of politically motivated, illegal economic sanctions”

…to connect it to…

“something much more dangerous”, 

…and actually rendered invisible in the Western narrative:

“the recent attempt to organize a coup d’etat in Belarus and the assassination of that country’s president.” 

Putin made sure to stress,

“all boundaries have been crossed”.

The plot to kill Lukashenko was unveiled by Russian and Belarusian intel – which detained several bad actors…

…who were backed, by who else, yes, the US intel.

The US State Department predictably denied any involvement.

Putin:

“It is worth pointing to the confessions of the detained participants in the conspiracy...

...that a blockade of Minsk was being prepared...

... including its city infrastructure and communications, the complete shutdown of the entire power grid of the Belarusian capital. 

This, incidentally means preparations for a massive cyber-attack.”

And that leads to a very uncomfortable truth:

“Apparently, it’s not for no reason that our Western colleagues have stubbornly rejected numerous proposals by the Russian side to establish an international dialogue in the field of information and cyber-security.”

“Asymmetric, swift and harsh”

Putin remarked how to…

 “attack Russia” 

…has become…

“a sport, a new sport, who makes the loudest statements.” 

And then he went full Kipling:

“Russia is attacked here and there for no reason. 

And of course, all sorts of petty Tabaquis [jackals] are running around like Tabaqui ran around Shere Khan [the tiger] 

– everything is like in Kipling’s book – 

...howling along and ready to serve their sovereign. Kipling was a great writer”.

The – layered – metaphor is even more startling as it echoes the late 19^th century geopolitical Great Game between the British and Russian empires, of which Kipling was a protagonist.

Once again Putin had to stress that…

"we really don’t want to burn any bridges. 

But if someone perceives our good intentions as indifference or weakness and intends to burn those bridges completely or even blow them up, he should know that Russia’s response will be asymmetric, swift and harsh”.

So here’s the new law of the geopolitical jungle – backed by Mr. Iskander, Mr. Kalibr, Mr. Avangard, Mr. Peresvet, Mr. Khinzal, Mr. Sarmat, Mr. Zircon and other well-respected gentlemen, hypersonic and otherwise, later complimented on the record.

Those who poke the Bear to the point of threatening …

“the fundamental interests of our security will regret what has been done, as they have regretted nothing for a very long time.”

The stunning developments of the past few weeks …

• the China-US Alaska summit,
• the Lavrov-Wang Yi summit in Guilin,
• the NATO summit,
• the Iran-China strategic deal,
• Xi Jinping’s speech at the Boao forum

All now… now coalesce into a stark new reality: the era of a unilateral Leviathan imposing its iron will is over.

The era of the Powerful Leviathan United States imposing it’s will is over.

For those Russophobes who still haven’t got the message, a cool, calm and collected Putin was compelled to add…

"clearly, we have enough patience, responsibility, professionalism, self-confidence, self-assurance in the correctness of our position...

... and common sense when it comes to making any decisions. 

But I hope that no one will think about crossing Russia’s so-called red lines. 

And where they run, we determine ourselves in each specific case.”

Back to realpolitik, Putin once again had to stress the…

 “special responsibility” 

of the

“five nuclear states” 

to seriously discuss

“issues related to strategic armament”. 

It’s an open question whether the Biden-Harris administration…

… behind which stand a toxic cocktail of neo-cons and humanitarian imperialists…

… will agree.

Putin:

“The goal of such negotiations could be to create an environment of conflict-free coexistence...

... based on equal security, covering not only strategic weapons such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, heavy bombers and submarines, but also...

... I would like to emphasize...

... all offensive and defensive systems capable of solving strategic tasks, regardless of their equipment.”

As much as Xi’s address to the Boao forum was mostly directed to the Global South, Putin highlighted how

“we are expanding contacts with our closest partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the allies of the Collective Security Treaty Organization”, 

and extolled

“joint projects in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union”, 

billed as

“practical tools for solving the problems of national development.”

In a nutshell: integration in effect, following the Russian concept of a

 “Greater Eurasia”.

“Tensions skirting wartime levels”

Now compare all of the above with the White House Executive Order (EO) declaring a

“national emergency” 

to

“deal with the Russian threat”.

This is directly connected to President Biden …

… actually the combo telling him what to do, complete with earpiece and teleprompter…

… promising Ukraine’s President Zelensky that Washington would …

“take measures” 

…to support Kiev’s wishful thinking of retaking Donbass and Crimea.

There are several eyebrow-raising issues with this EO.

• It denies, de facto, to any Russian national the full rights to their US property.
• Any US resident may be accused of being a Russian agent engaged in undermining US security.
• A sub-sub paragraph (C), detailing “actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in the United States or abroad”, is vague enough to be used to eliminate any journalism that supports Russia’s positions in international affairs.
• Purchases of Russian OFZ bonds have been sanctioned.
• As well as one of the companies involved in the production of the Sputnik V vaccine.
• Yet the icing on this sanction cake may well be that from now on all Russian citizens, including dual citizens, may be barred from entering US territory except via a rare special authorization on top of the ordinary visa.

Which is very similar to the EO that made the same demands on Chinese citizenry that have toes to the Chinese government.

The Russian paper Vedomosti has noted that in such paranoid atmosphere the risks for large companies such as Yandex or Kaspersky Lab are significantly increasing.

Still, these sanctions have not been met with surprise in Moscow.

The worst is yet to come, according to Beltway insiders: two packages of sanctions against Nord Stream 2 already approved by the US Department of Justice.

The crucial point is that this EO de facto places anyone reporting on Russia’s political positions as potentially threatening

“American democracy”. 

As top political analyst Alastair Crooke has remarked, this is a

“procedure usually reserved for citizens of enemy states during times of war”. 

Crooke adds,

“US hawks are upping the ante fiercely against Moscow. Tensions and rhetoric are skirting wartime levels.”

It’s an open question whether Putin’s State of the Nation will be seriously examined by the toxic lunatic combo of neocons and humanitarian imperialists bent on simultaneously harassing Russia and China.

But the fact is something extraordinary has already started to happen: a “de-escalation” of sorts.

Even before Putin’s address, Kiev, NATO and the Pentagon apparently got the message implicit in Russia moving two armies, massive artillery batteries and airborne divisions to the borders of Donbass and to Crimea…

… not to mention top naval assets moved from the Caspian to the Black Sea.

NATO could not even dream of matching that.

Facts on different grounds speak volumes.

Both Paris and Berlin were terrified of a possible Kiev clash directly against Russia, and lobbied furiously against it, bypassing the EU and NATO.

Then someone – it might have been Jake Sullivan – must have whispered on Crash Test Dummy’s earpiece that you don’t go around insulting the head of a nuclear state and expect to keep your global “credibility”.

So after that by now famous “Biden” phone call to Putin came the invitation to the climate change summit, in which any lofty promises are largely rhetorical, as the Pentagon will continue to be the largest polluting entity on planet Earth.

So Washington may have found a way to keep at least one avenue of dialogue open with Moscow.

At the same time Moscow has no illusions whatsoever that the Ukraine/Donbass/Crimea drama is over.

Even if Putin did not mention it in the State of the Nation.

And even if Defense Minister Shoigu has ordered a de-escalation.

The always inestimable Andrei Martyanov has gleefully noted the

“cultural shock when Brussels and D.C. started to suspect that Russia doesn’t ‘want’ Ukraine. 

What Russia wants is for this country (Ukraine) to rot and implode without excrement from this implosion hitting Russia. 

West’s paying for the clean up of this clusterf**k is also in Russian plans for Ukrainian Bantustan.”

The fact that Putin did not even mention Bantustan in his speech corroborates this analysis.

As far as “red lines” are concerned, Putin’s implicit message remains the same: a NATO base on Russia’s western flank simply won’t be tolerated.

Paris and Berlin know it.

The EU is in denial.

NATO will always refuse to admit it.

We always come back to the same crucial issue: whether Putin will be able, against all odds, to pull a combined Bismarck-Sun Tzu move and build a lasting German-Russian entente cordiale (and that’s quite far from an “alliance’).

Nord Stream 2 is an essential cog in the wheel – and that’s what’s driving Washington hawks crazy.

Whatever happens next, for all practical purposes Iron Curtain 2.0 is now on, and it simply won’t go away.

There will be more sanctions.

Everything was thrown at the Bear short of a hot war.

It will be immensely entertaining to watch how, and via which steps, Washington will engage on a “de-escalation and diplomatic process” with Russia.

The Hegemon may always find a way to deploy a massive P.R. campaign and ultimately claim a diplomatic success in “dissolving” the impasse.

Well, that certainly beats a hot war.

Otherwise, lowly Jungle Book adventurers have been advised: try anything funny and be ready to meet “asymmetric, swift and harsh”.

What about American allies?

What do the American allies think? Here we look at the new rabid anti-China neocon Oz-land; a new American territory filled with people who are willing to die for “freedom”, “democracy”, and Washington DC!

I know, I know.

But apparently the Morrison government believes that having a war with China will be great for the people. Which surprises me. I always thought that Australians were hard-scrabble folk, with good heads on their shoulders and a easy-going fair-dink um’ attitude.

I guess that I need to readjust my thinking.

Like I said, I am often wrong about things. A good 50% of the time.

Once was a hegemon: Australia and the decline of the US

May 20, 2021

All credit to the author, and the usual disclaimers.

Australia’s Indo-Pacific obsession hides a radical global geopolitical shift. Australian policymakers will persist in making poor choices unless they accept that the US hegemony has passed a tipping point, and America has already become just one great power among others.

Australia’s policy community has become comfortable with the familiar, distinctive, and acceptable pattern of world order the Americans established.  The universalist claims of the US’s order are now internalised and any alternative seems unthinkable.

Unthinkable!

Ah. Many things in Australia are unthinkable!

Ian Clark maintains “that hegemons are much more than dominant powers”.  Denis Florig writes hegemony

“requires not only the hard military and economic power to enforce dominance when necessary, but also the ideological, political, and institutional power to persuade others to accept the rules and norms of a system largely designed and operated by the hegemon and its allies.”

This is the rules-based order over which Australia is nostalgic.

Hegemony is deep and pervasive.

Michael Mazarr refers to indirect power, which “involves influencing how people think—how they conceive their interests and very identities—rather than trying to coerce or bribe them into making a specific choice. It shapes what others believe they want, and why”.

This has been the flavour of American hegemony since the middle of last century.

America has shaped a weltanschauung and embed norms and values among other political cultures, and its hegemony has come to be seen as a legitimate, and an appropriate and rightful, use of its power.  Any other organising framework for politics, society, or international relations other than the US promoted market-based capitalism and its evangelising democracy has become unimaginable. Life in the American hegemony has seemed natural and ordained, especially for Australians.

However, the democracy and capitalism America promoted have lost their lustre and Americans themselves have lost the passion for promoting democracy abroad.  Now majorities or very substantial minorities in the US, France, Germany, and the UK believe their political systems need a major overhaul. In addition, half of all Americans, Germans, and British believe their economic system requires major reform. That figure is 70% in France.  The ideological engine of the hegemony is spluttering.

America now displays a seemingly irredeemable racism and growing anti-democratic illiberalism, in a violent and divided nation where wealth is over-concentrated and poverty entrenched. Externally America has established a record of military overreach and failed adventures, and is increasingly reduced to using the coercive power of the dollar and sanctions where once it could have persuaded and relied on shared views. However, whether consciously or not, the slogans “Make America Great Again” and “Build Back Better” are admissions of loss.

Europeans doubts have grown about the US’s willingness and capacity to come to their aid in a crisis following the Trump interregnum and the American obsession with the Indo-Pacific. The US cannot commit to the security of Europe and confront China at the same time, this will necessitate a significant reshaping of the strategic environment. This unease is pronounced among both experts and the public; as seen in the recent increase in publications on European strategic autonomy (see here, here, here, here, and here for example) and opinion polls. These concerns haven’t been alleviated by Joe Biden’s election.

That the US is no longer the hegemon doesn’t mean it won’t be an important actor for a long time to come, although history shows economic and military prominence can collapse relatively quickly. However, America remains rich and powerful with enormous economic, military, and social capital. But its loss of capacity to shape world events, deliver security and democracy, and determine the global order is on show on Ukraine’s borders, and in the Black and Azov Seas, Venezuela, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Yemen, and Tigray, where its influence is marginal.

Most tellingly has been the inability of the US to take a multilateral leadership role over the illegal Israeli actions against Gaza, which will set back Middle East politics a generation, or to resolve the egregious human rights abuses and destruction of democracy in Myanmar, a part of the ASEAN purported to be at the centre of the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Multilateralism, democracy, and human rights are the banners of the Biden Administration.

The understanding of hegemony put forward by Clark, Florig, and Mazarr effectively excludes a succession of hegemony to China.

Certainly China aims for international pre-eminence and seeks the diminution of America’s dominant role in world affairs. Many of the norms, values and institutions America has spread will outlast its hegemony. Even where China’s ambition to succeed it, which it’s not, the US would be capable of stifling its prospects.

The waning of a hegemony is an unpredictably complex matter and it presents new and difficult foreign policy challenges.

There is a cognitive dissonance about the power shift in the current US Administration, and a sense that replicating past actions and behaviors will restore the former situation.

A mistaken belief that the hegemony can be rehabilitated and that legitimacy can be regained.

Cleaving too close to America will find Australia in awkward or irretrievable positions.

The state capitalist model might out compete, or at least match, the US in technology, trade, and investment across the globe. Not only the Europeans, but nations generally will act in the interests of their own populations and seek benefits from great powers opportunistically in the absence of a hegemon.

Increasingly Australia will have to navigate a world where there are multiple versions of events and differences over right and wrong, and where states will line up in accord with their interests as they interpret them.  The decisive great power actor(s) in any situation will be context specific. The delineation of spheres of influence and shifting balance of power arrangements among powers will require Australia to be nimble, smart, and independent.

A hegemon free environment will be more fluid and offer more chances for middle powers to play-off great powers and engage in temporary alliances to advantage.

It’s about time Australia lifted it’s vision and saw the bigger picture.

What’s the worst that could happen?

And there is the effort to “contain” China using Australia and NGO efforts…

And so we have this article. Written on May 9, 2021, Found HERE, and all the regular disclaimers apply.

Progress Report: US Encirclement of China

Brian Berletic
21st Century Wire

Tensions between Washington and Beijing are not merely the recent results of former US President Donald Trump’s time in office – but rather just the latest chapter in US efforts to contain China that stretch back decades. 

Indeed, US foreign policy has for decades admittedly aimed at encircling and containing China’s rise and maintaining primacy over the Indo-Pacific region.

The “Pentagon Papers” leaked in 1969 would admit in regards to the ongoing US war against Vietnam that:

…the February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain China.

The papers also admitted that China, “looms as a major power threatening to undercut [American] importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against [America].

The papers also made it clear that there were (and still are), “three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China: (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.”

Since then, it is clear that from the continued US military presence in both Japan and South Korea, the now two decades-long US occupation of Afghanistan on both Pakistan’s and China’s borders, and the emergence of the so-called “Milk Tea Alliance” aimed at overthrowing Southeast Asian governments friendly with China and replacing them with US-backed client regimes – this policy to contain China endures up to today.

Assessing US activity along these three fronts reveals the progress and setbacks Washington faces – and various dangers to global peace and stability Washington’s continued belligerence pose.

The Japan-Korea Front

Military.com in their article, “Here’s What It Costs to Keep US Troops in Japan and South Korea,” reports:

In all, more than 80,000 U.S. troops are deployed to Japan and South Korea. In Japan alone, the U.S. maintains more than 55,000 deployed troops — the largest forward-deployed U.S. force anywhere in the world.

The article notes that according to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the US spent “$34 billion to maintain military presences in Japan and South Korea between 2016 and 2019.”

The article cites the GAO providing an explanation as to why this massive US military presence is maintained in East Asia:

“…U.S. forces help strengthen alliances, promote a free and open Indo-Pacific region, provide quick response to emergencies and are essential for U.S. national security.”

“Alliances” that are “strengthened” by the physical presence of what are essentially occupying US forces suggests the “alliance” is hardly voluntary and claims of promoting a “free and open Indo-Pacific region” is highly subjective – begging the question of to whom the Indo-Pacific is “free and open” to.

And as US power wanes both regionally in the Indo-Pacific as well as globally, Washington has placed increasing pressure on both Japan and South Korea to not only help shoulder this financial burden, but to also become more proactive within Washington’s containment strategy toward China.

Japan is one of three other nations (the US itself, Australia, and India) drafted into the US-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – also know as the “Quad.”

Rather than the US solely depending on its own military forces based within Japanese territory or supported by its Japan-based forces, Japan’s military along with India’s and Australia’s are also being recruited to take part in military exercises and operations in and around the South China Sea.

India’s inclusion in the Quad also fits well into the US 3-front strategy that made up Washington’s containment policy toward China as early as the 1960s.

The India-Pakistan Front

In addition to recruiting India into the Quad alliance, the US helps encourage escalation through political support and media campaigning of India’s various territorial disputes with China.

The US also targets Pakistan’s close and ongoing relationship with China – including the support of armed insurgents in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.

Recently, a bombing at a hotel in Quetta, Baluchistan appears to have targeted China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Ambassador Nong Rong.

The BBC in its article, “Pakistan hotel bomb: Deadly blast hits luxury venue in Quetta,” would claim:

Initial reports had suggested the target was China’s ambassador. Ambassador Nong Rong is understood to be in Quetta but was not present at the hotel at the time of the attack on Wednesday.

The article also noted:

Balochistan province, near the Afghan border, is home to several armed groups, including separatists. Separatists in the region want independence from the rest of Pakistan and accuse the government and China of exploiting Balochistan, one of Pakistan’s poorest provinces, for its gas and mineral wealth.

Absent from the BBC’s reporting is the extensive and open support the US government has provided these separatists over the years and how – clearly – this is more than just a local uprising against perceived injustice, but yet another example of armed conflict-by-proxy waged by Washington against China.

As far back as 2011 publications like The National Interest in articles like, “Free Baluchistan” would openly advocate expanding US support for separatism in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.

The article was written by the late Selig  Harrison – who was a senior fellow at the US-based corporate-financier funded Center for International Policy – and would claim:

Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.

Of course, “Islamist forces” is a euphemism for US-Persian Gulf state sponsored militants used to both fight Western proxy wars as well as serve as a pretext for Western intervention. Citing “Islamist forces” in Baluchistan, Pakistan clearly serves as an example of the latter.

In addition to op-eds published by influential policy think tanks, US legislators like US Representative Dana Rohrabacher had proposed resolutions such as (emphasis added), “US House of Representatives Concurrent Resolution 104 (112th): Expressing the sense of Congress that the people of Baluchistan, currently divided between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country.”

There is also funding provided to adjacent, political groups supporting separatism in Baluchistan, Pakistan as listed by the US government’s own National Endowment for Democracy (NED) website under “Pakistan.” Organizations like the “Association for Integrated Development Balochistan” are funded by the US government and used to mobilize people politically, constituting clear interference by the US in Pakistan’s internal political affairs.

The Gwadar Port project is a key juncture within China’s growing global network of infrastructure projects as part of its One Belt, One Road initiative. The US clearly opposes China’s rise and has articulated robust strategies to counter it; everything up to and including open war as seen in the Pentagon Papers regarding the Vietnam War.

The recent bombing in Baluchistan, Pakistan demonstrates that this strategy continues in regards to utilizing local militants to target Chinese-Pakistani cooperation and is one part of the much wider, region-wide strategy of encircling and containing China.

The Southeast Asia Front

Of course the US war against Vietnam was part of a wider effort to reassert Western primacy over Southeast Asia and deny the region from fueling China’s inevitable rise.

The US having lost the war and almost completely retreating from the Southeast Asia region saw Southeast Asia itself repair relations amongst themselves and with China.

Today, the nations of Southeast Asia count China as their largest trade partner, investor, a key partner in infrastructure development, a key supplier for the region’s armed forces, as well as providing the majority of tourism arrivals throughout the region. For countries like Thailand, more tourists arrive from China than from all Western nations combined.

Because existing governments in Southeast Asia have nothing to benefit from by participating in American belligerence toward China, the US has found it necessary to cultivate and attempt to install into power various client regimes. This has been an ongoing process since the Vietnam War.

The US has targeted each nation individually for years. In 2009 and 2010, US-backed opposition leader-in-exile Thaksin Shinawatra deployed his “red shirt” protesters in back-to-back riots – the latter of which included some 300 armed militants and culminated in city-wide arson across Bangkok and the death of over 90 police, soldiers, protesters, and bystanders.

In 2018, US-backed opposition groups took power in Malaysia after the US poured millions of dollars for over a decade in building up the opposition.

I visited and I was sitting there with many of the leaders the new leaders of this government, many of whom were just our partners we had been working with for 15 years and one of the most senior of them who’s now one of the people running the government said to me, ‘gosh IRI you never gave up on us even when we were ready to give up on ourselves.’

…guess what one of the first steps the new government took? It froze Chinese infrastructure investments.

A US-Engineered “Asia Spring” 

Just as the US did during the 2011 “Arab Spring” – the US State Department, in a bid to create synergies across various regime change campaigns in Asia, has introduced the “Milk Tea Alliance” to transform individual US-backed regime change efforts in Asia into a region-wide crisis.

The BBC itself admits in articles like, “Milk Tea Alliance: Twitter creates emoji for pro-democracy activists,” that:

The alliance has brought together anti-Beijing protesters in Hong Kong and Taiwan with pro-democracy campaigners in Thailand and Myanmar.

Omitted from the BBC’s coverage of the “Milk Tea Alliance” (intentionally) is the actual common denominators that unite it – US funding through fronts like the National Endowment for Democracy and a unifying hatred of China based exclusively on talking points pushed by the US State Department itself.

Circling back to the Pentagon Papers and recalling the coordinated, regional campaign the US sought to encircle China with – we can then look at more recent US government policy papers like the “Indo-Pacific Framework” published in the White House archives from the Trump administration.

The policy paper’s first bullet point asks:

How to maintain US strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence, and cultivating areas of cooperation to promote regional peace and prosperity?

The paper also discusses information campaigns designed to “educate” the world about “China’s coercive behaviour and influence operations around the globe.” These campaigns have materialized in a propaganda war fabricating accusations of “Chinese genocide” in Xinjiang, China, claims that Chinese telecom company Huawei is a global security threat, and that China – not the US – is the single largest threat to global peace and stability today.

In reality US policy aimed at encircling China is predicated upon Washington’s desire to continue its own decades-long impunity upon the global stage and the continuation of all the wars, humanitarian crises, and abuses that have stemmed from it.

Understanding the full scope of Washington’s “competition” with China helps unlock the confusion surrounding unfolding individual crises like the trade war, the ongoing violence and turmoil in Myanmar, bombings in southwest Pakistan, students mobs in Thailand, riots in Hong Kong, and attempts by the US to transform the South China Sea into an international conflict.

Understanding that these events are all connected – then assessing the success or failure of US efforts gives us a clearer picture of the overall success Washington in encircling China.  It also gives governments and regional blocs a clearer picture of how to manage policy in protecting against US subversion that threatens national, regional, and global peace and stability.

And inside of the United States what do the sheeple think?

Indeed, the rest of the world is starting to put it’s collective feet down, and they are turning to the combined might of Russia and China which now together is a massive and formidable force to put America in it’s place.

But the dumb-asses don’t quite get it.

They are that fucking stupid.

Of course, Joe and Suzy average in the United States know none of this. They are all lost in some kind of Twilight Zone adventure that they are living. But as the United States thrashes about, certainly the people; the citizenry must be aware of what is going on. Right?

It’s difficult to tell from what constitutes “news” these days…

• CRYPTO CRASH!
• BILLIONS WIPED
• BOOM AND BUST?
• CHINA CRACKDOWN
• TEXAS BANS MOST ABORTIONS…
• Gov signs ‘fetal heartbeat’ bill…
• Hundreds of PPP Loans Went to Fake Farms in Absurd Places…
• USA-Russia showdown looms as top diplomats meet in Iceland…
• China releases first images taken by its Mars rover…
• Billy Porter Reveals He Is Living With HIV…Breaks 14-Year Silence…
• ‘We’re all screwed:’ Kimmel rips network TV…
• Dick Wolf Will Lord Over THREE Nights This Fall…
• MICROSOFT employee says ‘toxic culture’ flowed from top…
• Gates picked out women to fulfill self’…
• Chip Crisis Danger Zone; Record Wait Times…
• Homebuyers applying for ever bigger mortgages as prices soar…
• Face recognition, fake identities, digital surveillance: Post office covert ops…
• Book details Obama thoughts on Trump…
• ‘Corrupt motherf—er,’ ‘racist, sexist pig,’ and ‘f—ing lunatic’…
• Brink of fertility crisis: Plummeting sperm counts caused by everyday products…
• Why are young men so scared of sex?
• Hiring troubles prompt employers to eye automation, machines…
• New York AG’s office opens CRIMINAL probe into Trump Org…
• MORE HEAT ON THE DON…
• HE PLANS TO ACTIVATE MAGA RALLIES FOR BATTLE!
• Jets off to New Jersey, but GOP Florida still in ex-president’s thrall…
• MAG: Country on Cusp of New Era…
• Capitol Cops Hammer Republicans for Blocking Riot Commission…
• Turkey’s anti-Israel obsession reaches new heights…
• No sign of Gaza ceasefire as fighting rages…
• Biden Tells Bibi He Wants ‘De-Escalation’ NOW…
• Fears of ‘third intifada’…
• Mob Violence Fueled by Groups on WHATSAPP…
• Germany vows to crack down on antisemitism at protests…
• Police Investigate Jewish Hate Crime Attack At BEVERLY GROVE Restaurant…

Let’s take a look at what is going on right now inside of America.

If Everything Is Going To Be Just Fine, Why Do The Shortages Just Keep Getting Worse?

“If Everything Is Going To Be Just Fine, Why Do The Shortages Just Keep Getting Worse?” written on  May 18, 2021 by Michael Snyder. Edited to fit this venue, all credit to the author, and the usual disclaimers retain.

They keep telling us that economic conditions are improving, but if that is true why are the shortages worse than ever?

For a moment, I would like to take you all the way back to 2019.

Before the pandemic came along, we didn’t have any shortages.

If you wanted something, you just went to the store and got it or you ordered it online.  Prices were low, global supply chains were functioning smoothly, and to most people it seemed like it would stay that way for the foreseeable future.

But then the pandemic hit, and “panic buying” caused short-term shortages of certain items such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

It was understandable that people would want to hoard those things, because there was a lot of fear in the air.  But we also knew that those shortages were only going to be temporary.

Now here we are in 2021, and we were told that things would be getting back to normal by now.

But instead, there are severe shortages everywhere around us.

In fact, the shortages are far worse than anything that we experienced in 2020.

For example, did you know that dozens of important drugs are in short supply?

According to the official FDA website, there are shortages of more than 100 drugs in the United States right now…

If you found yourself in a situation like this, you can check the FDA’s drug shortage tracking system.

Right now there are currently about 120 drugs listed as having a shortage.

On the website, if you type in a drug name in the database search field you can see if and why it’s in short supply. You can also see whether it is scheduled to be discontinued, and when the supply may start flowing again.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Shortages just continue to get worse for the home building industry as well…

“Builders are delaying starting new construction because of the marked increase in costs for lumber and other inputs,” said Mike Fratantoni, senior vice president and chief economist with the Mortgage Bankers Association, in a report Tuesday.

He added that supply shortages for appliances are also putting a damper on new home building activity.

Just over our northern border, the shortages have gotten really severe.  In some cases, the construction of homes “is months behind schedule” because the shortages have gotten so bad…

Home builders across Canada are getting hit by a string of supply-chain disruptions, resulting in widespread product shortages and explosive costs for the industry.

In some cases, home construction is months behind schedule as developers struggle to source everything from lumber to PVC pipes, insulation to windows. Builders are also holding back on presales, unable to accurately price their homes too far in advance, given that material costs can fluctuate wildly on a daily basis.

When asked about these shortages, one home building executive said that “it’s getting worse and worse every day”…

“The whole supply chain is out of whack,” said Matt McCurrach, president of Homex Development Corp. in Kamloops, B.C.

“It’s getting worse and worse every day,” added Sue Wastell, president of Wastell Homes in London, Ont. “Literally every day, we’re finding out something else is not arriving when it was scheduled to. … We’ve never seen anything like this.”

Of even greater concern is the global shortage of computer chips.

This is something that I discussed extensively in my recent article entitled “A Severe Computer Chip Shortage Will Last ‘A Few Years’, And This Could Plunge The Global Economy Into Utter Chaos”.

Just about every industry that you can name is extremely dependent on equipment that uses computer chips, and CNN is telling us that this shortage “is going from bad to worse”…

The shortage is going from bad to worse, spreading from cars to consumer electronics. With the bulk of chip production concentrated in a handful of suppliers, analysts warn that the crunch is likely to last through 2021.

According to Goldman Sachs, 169 US industries embed semiconductors in their products. The bank is forecasting a 20% average shortfall of computer chips among affected industries, with some of the components used to make chips in short supply until at least this fall and possibly into 2022.

Actually, as I pointed out the other day, many executives now expect the computer chip shortage to extend into 2023.

For automakers, this is rapidly becoming a complete and total nightmare.

During the first quarter, global auto production was down by about 10 percent due to the chip shortage, but Ford has announced that production in the second quarter will be down by about 50 percent…

Investors have heard plenty about the current state of capacity problems for months. Roughly 2 million cars—or about 10% of quarterly global automotive production—weren’t built in the first quarter because of no chips. Ford Motor (ticker: F), one of the auto makers feeling the shortage most acutely, said in late April that it expects to lose about 50% of planned second-quarter production.

A 50 percent decline in production?

That is nuts!

If automakers can’t make vehicles, then they will have to start laying off workers.

Unfortunately, that is precisely what just happened at one factory in northern Illinois…

Some 1,600 jobs are being cut at a Jeep Cherokee factory in northern Illinois as automakers continue being plagued by the global shortage of semiconductors.

The U.S. arm of Stellantis, formerly known as Fiat Chrysler, said Friday it was cutting one of the two work shifts at its Belvidere Assembly Plant as of July 26. That could result in the layoffs of 1,641 workers, company spokeswoman Jodi Tinson said.

The economic optimists keep telling us that better days are right around the corner, but those better days never seem to materialize.

Instead, employment is still way below pre-pandemic levels, global supply chains are in a state of complete and utter chaos, and we are facing severe shortages of just about everything…

Copper, iron ore and steel. Corn, coffee, wheat and soybeans. Lumber, semiconductors, plastic and cardboard for packaging. The world is seemingly low on all of it. “You name it, and we have a shortage on it,” Tom Linebarger, chairman and chief executive of engine and generator manufacturer Cummins Inc., said on a call this month. Clients are “trying to get everything they can because they see high demand,” Jennifer Rumsey, the Columbus, Indiana-based company’s president, said. “They think it’s going to extend into next year.”

The difference between the big crunch of 2021 and past supply disruptions is the sheer magnitude of it, and the fact that there is — as far as anyone can tell — no clear end in sight. Big or small, few businesses are spared. Europe’s largest fleet of trucks, Girteka Logistics, says there’s been a struggle to find enough capacity. Monster Beverage Corp. of Corona, California, is dealing with an aluminum can scarcity. Hong Kong’s MOMAX Technology Ltd. is delaying production of a new product because of a dearth of semiconductors.

If this is the “recovery”, what will things look like when the next severe economic downturn hits us?

In my entire lifetime, I have never seen such widespread shortages.

Those that are running things keep insisting that they have everything totally under control and that things will eventually get back to normal.

You can believe them if you want, but millions of others are preparing for a future in which their optimistic assessments of the future turn out to be very, very wrong.

Do You Get The Feeling That Events Happening Now Are Leading Us Into An Endless Global Nightmare?

“Do You Get The Feeling That Events Happening Now Are Leading Us Into An Endless Global Nightmare?” written on May 11, 2021 by Michael Snyder. Edited to fit this venue, all credit to the author, and the usual disclaimers retain.

2021 was supposed to be the year that life went back to normal.

Obviously that is not happening, and so a lot of prominent voices out there are going to be forced to update their narratives.

Global events have really started to accelerate, and so many of the things that the “doom and gloomers” have been warning about are starting to happen right in front of our eyes.

For example, on my websites I have been talking about Israel a lot in recent months, and now it appears that the region is on the brink of war.

So far, more than 700 rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza, but by the time you read this article that number will probably be even higher.  In response, the IDF has conducted a series of dramatic strikes inside Gaza, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is promising “to attack harder and increase the pace of attacks”…

‘Hamas will be hit in ways that it does not expect,’ Netanyahu said. ‘We have eliminated commanders, hit many important targets and we have decided to attack harder and increase the pace of attacks.’

Joe Biden and other world leaders are begging for peace, but neither side appears to be inclined to back down.

Every time Israel retaliates, Hamas just launches even more rockets at Israeli cities, and they are insisting that this is their “right”…

“We have the right to respond to the Israeli offensive and protect the interests of our people as long as the Israeli occupation continues the escalation,” Hamas said in a statement.

So here we go.

As I discussed yesterday, this situation has the potential to get wildly out of control very rapidly.

On Tuesday, the skies above Tel Aviv looked like something out of a science fiction movie as Israel’s Iron Dome intercepted countless incoming rockets from Gaza.  Could you imagine living in fear that a rocket could explode right next to you at any moment?

If that was happening in this country, millions of Americans would be screaming for Biden to nuke somebody.

Meanwhile, the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack has caused massive gasoline shortages up and down the east coast of the United States.  On Tuesday evening, the Drudge Report breathlessly declared that more than 1,000 gas stations had run out of gasoline, and Zero Hedge was reporting that some people were waiting in line for up to five hours in a desperate attempt to fill up their vehicles.

Up until recently, just about the only thing that we were missing from the economy of the 1970s was the long gas lines, but now here we are.

North America’s largest petroleum pipeline has been shut down for just a few days, and now much of the southeastern quadrant of the country is absolutely paralyzed.

Do you think that there is a lesson to be learned here?

Of course there is.  Once again we see how incredibly vulnerable we are to any sort of a major disruption.  If the unprecedented power grid failure in Texas a few months ago was not enough of a wake up call for you, this definitely should be.

At this point, we are being told it is uncertain whether or not the Colonial Pipeline will be able to restore operations by this weekend…

If the Colonial Pipeline is not back in business by the weekend, prices could continue to rise at the pump and there will be broader localized fuel shortages across the southeast and mid-Atlantic regions.

Eventually, the flow of gasoline will be restored and everyone along the east coast will be able to fill up their vehicles again.

But the crazy inflation that we are witnessing right is not going to go away.

For years, economic “doom and gloomers” have been warning that if we kept recklessly creating, borrowing and spending money that really bad things would happen.

How many times have we heard about “the death of the dollar” and the dangers of wildly inflating our currency?

Well, it turns out that the “doom and gloomers” were dead on accurate.  Inflation is one of the biggest stories of 2021 so far, and we just got another confirmation of how bad things are getting out there…

The median price for a single-family home in the U.S. rose the most on record in the first quarter, as buyers fought over a dearth of inventory, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Prices jumped 16.2% from a year earlier to a record high of $319,200. The growth eclipsed the 14.8% rate in the fourth quarter, which was the highest in data going back to 1989, the group said in a report Tuesday.

But at least home prices are not rising as fast as the price of cotton is.

If you can believe it, the price of cotton is up more than 50 percent over the past year.

Of course the price of corn is rising even more rapidly.  As I discussed the other day, the price of corn is up about 50 percent just since the turn of the year.

Needless to say, lumber still has everyone else beat.  The price of lumber has actually risen more than 200 percent over the past 12 months.

A lot of comparisons have been made to the horrible inflation that the U.S. experienced during the 1970s, but really I think that we need to go all the way back to the 1930s for a more accurate parallel to our current situation.

At this point, we are becoming more like the Weimar Republic with each passing day.

But if you think that things are really bad now, just wait, because you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Everywhere you look, systems are failing, society is crumbling and evil is growing.  Even the Secret Service, who are supposed to be the best of the best, are now plagued by endless scandals and widespread incompetence.

This is not a drill.  A widespread societal collapse is now underway, and it is going to get progressively worse.

This is the time of our endless nightmare, but nobody is going to ever be allowed to wake up from it.

It Took Just A Couple Of Days For Madness To Descend Upon America Once Gas Shortages Began

“It Took Just A Couple Of Days For Madness To Descend Upon America Once Gas Shortages Began” written on May 12, 2021 by Michael Snyder. Edited to fit this venue, all credit to the author, and the usual disclaimers retain.

Did you react calmly when you learned that a cyberattack against one of our most important pipelines was causing thousands of gas stations to run out of gasoline?

Sadly, lots of Americans didn’t.

There was yelling, there was screaming, there was lots of hoarding, vehicles were waiting in line for hours at stations that still had gas, and there were reports that brawls were even breaking out between frustrated motorists.

Even though we knew that the shortages were just going to be temporary, people were “panic buying” gasoline as if the apocalypse had arrived.

In fact, one energy expert said that this was “the worst panic buying for gasoline since the Carter Administration”…

“This is the worst panic buying for gasoline since the Carter Administration,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service.

Kloza said outages at more than 10,000 gas stations are spreading “like a bad rash” on the East Coast. Much of the problem is people are buying gasoline at twice the normal rate in the Florida peninsula, as well as in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

For some individuals, just filling up their tanks with gasoline was not enough.  Motorists began to fill up any containers that they had on hand with gasoline, and some of the things we witnessed were incredibly stupid.  For example, you should never, ever try to fill up plastic bags with gasoline.

I know that sounds obvious, but apparently so many people were doing this that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission felt that it had to send out a tweet telling people to stop.

The more gas stations that ran dry, the worse the panic buying frenzy became.

At first we were told that 1,000 stations were out of gas, and then it was 2,000 stations, and finally we were told that more than 10,000 stations were out.

In certain major cities, nearly all of the gas stations have run dry.  Just check out these numbers…

The supply crunch appears to be much worse in some major metro areas. GasBuddy reported outages Wednesday morning impacting 71% of the stations in metro Charlotte, nearly 60% in Atlanta, 72% in Raleigh and 73% in Pensacola.

All of this happened because a single pipeline got shut down by a cyberattack.

The Colonial Pipeline is 5,500 miles long, and it supples approximately half of the gasoline for the east coast.  On Wednesday evening, the company finally announced that operations were restarting, but they warned that it is going to take several days for things to “return to normal”…

Colonial Pipeline initiated the restart of pipeline operations today at approximately 5 p.m. ET.

Following this restart, it will take several days for the product delivery supply chain to return to normal. Some markets served by Colonial Pipeline may experience, or continue to experience, intermittent service interruptions during the start-up period. Colonial will move as much gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel as is safely possible and will continue to do so until markets return to normal.

But something doesn’t add up here.  The pipeline is being restarted, but the company has announced that it has absolutely no plans to pay the ransom to the hackers…

Colonial Pipeline reportedly has no plans to pay rumored $5 million-plus ransom to Russian hackers who have paralyzed the key gas pipeline, as President Joe Biden vows to get the fuel crisis ‘under control’ with pressure mounting on his administration to do more.

Do the hackers no longer pose a threat to the pipeline?

I don’t understand.

Either the pipeline never needed to be shut down in the first place, or the hackers are still in a position to cause major damage if they carry through on their threats.

Someone needs to explain which of those alternatives is true.

Meanwhile, we just learned that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is trying to shut down another important pipeline…

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer says Enbridge Inc. has until Wednesday to shut a huge crude pipeline that crosses the Great Lakes. The Canadian company says it’s got the law on its side, and the oil will keep flowing.

The standoff is the latest milepost in the increasingly tense dispute over Line 5, a 540,000 barrel-a-day line that supplies half of the oil and propane used by parts of the U.S. Midwest and Ontario.

Is she crazy?

Needless to say, we have had the answer to that question for quite some time.

But what she is trying to do now is beyond insane.  Why in the world would anyone try to shut down a pipeline when there are gas shortages happening all over the country?

Well, Governor Whitmer is apparently concerned that the pipeline “is too exposed to potential accidents”…

Whitmer argues the pipeline, built in 1953, is too exposed to potential accidents where it crosses at the Straits of Mackinac in the northern part of the state. But the two sides are in a court-ordered mediation, and Enbridge plans to keep the line running while that plays out — prompting Whitmer to threaten to sue to take any profits it makes.

Are you kidding me?

She could have waited until this current crisis has passed, but Whitmer has decided that action must be taken immediately before any “potential accidents” are allowed to happen.

Is Whitmer really this incompetent, or is another agenda at work?

We really don’t know what is going on behind the scenes.  We are told that a “ransomware gang” attacked the Colonial Pipeline, but it actually could have been anyone.

It could have been terrorists, it could have been another county, it could have been an attack from inside our own country, or it could have been the work of some smelly overweight guy chomping down Oreo cookies in his mother’s basement.

We just don’t know.

But this just shows us how deeply vulnerable we are.

If disrupting a single pipeline for just a few days can cause this much chaos, what in the world is going to happen when we are facing multiple long-term national emergencies?

To me, this is another major league wake up call.

Global events are starting to spiral out of control, our enemies know where our weak spots are, and this crisis has once again shown how easy it is to push American citizens into a state of utter madness.

What does all this mean?

Here’s my MM executive summary.

• The United States is a corrupt oligarchy-ruled military empire.
• Those at the functional leadership level are impotent at a number of levels.
• The entire government mechanism is careening out of control.

Other nations are observing this.

• The USA solution to domestic unrest is to engage in a major war.
• Russia, and China have established “red lines” that are fixed and which will result in terrible consequences if crossed.
• America is prepping for a major war anyways.

If you were Russia or China, what would you do? I argue that much of what they are doing is not being publicized, and are hidden from most people. And common sense dictates that proper thought and careful measures be taken.

• Work at a frenzied pace to fortify all defensive measures. Militarily, socially, electronically, technologically, and politically.
• Put military leadership in both command centers, and work together.
• Test your offensive and defensive capabilities.

But what else?

• Strengthen and enlarge intel collection operations.
• Enlarge and expand black operations targeting regional threats.
• Prepare a “first strike” doomsday plan.

And as far as the sheeple inside of America, what is going on?

• Keep them ignorant.
• Have them “chasing their tail” regarding vaccinations, politics, and social re-engineering.
• Create a frenzy of hate towards both China and Russia so that many Americans want to go to war.
• Make life difficult for Americans so that they will get very angry.
• Provide a scapegoat of China / Russia to blame all the discomfort upon.
• Meanwhile inflation is starting to eat everything, and prices are rising.
• The trade war has been a fiasco for American industry and the American consumer.
• Unemployment levels already high are going to increase.

Now, with all that being stated on the global politics side of things, let’s take a look at this article…

…because there is a “wild card” at play here that is not being reported.

Erased Alien Tech Proofs: Keshe Technology confirmed ‘Very Real’

Erased Alien Tech Proofs: Keshe Technology confirmed ‘Very Real’. Gordon Duff, Senior Editor written on April 6, 2021. Edited to fit this venue, all credit to the author, and the usual disclaimers retain.

Several years ago, one thing became clear — that if Keshe technology was real, the world would change, and hydrocarbons would be a thing of the past as fuel, and that our world economy, an energy slave economy, was dead. It goes further.

What Is Keshe Plasma Technology?
Keshe plasma technology gives us access to the uncontrollable open source technology that builds our universe, and is transforming our lives.
Click to download KESHE_TECH_SUMMARY_v10.pdf

Governments, the US, Israel and Britain, have been contacted about “sharing” technology that would, if Keshe is right, make the planes, missiles and even the billion dollar cradle to grave surveillance nightmare useless.

Now we can share what we do know, the basis for Keshe theory.

For the Keshe machines…

… for Keshe’s irritating language of “magravs” and “plasma” is very real.

His “crap” actually makes electricity “out of thin air” just like he said and, if that is true…

… and it is…

… then the whole thing is going to burn to the ground, the whole sick mess.

As of today, we can categorically state that Keshe tech is very real, that physics we are taught in school, physics the US publicly espouses as valid, is not. 

We had known that several major aerospace companies were involved in projects, not only outside conventional science but much further, including time travel, thought inducement and deep space exploration, all using capabilities beyond conventional reality.

We now know that though it all may not be true, much of it is now “probably” true and some of the “impossible” is certainly true.

We begin:

Iranian nuclear physicist and peace activist, Mehran Keshe, has officially announced that it was his technology that brought down an American RQ170 Sentinel drone over Iran and disabled the AEGIS destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, in the Black Sea.

The US has given no plausible explanation for the downing of the RQ 170:

We have, during the past few weeks, been able to verify that Keshe energy units do actually work. We had test results from other sources, but we did our own:

Veterans Today began investigating Mehran Keshe several years ago.

Some of this story we have told before, so please be patient.

Keeping it short as possible, I assigned Colonel Hanke, who works with DARPA on energy projects, along with Mike Harris, to work with the Keshe group.

Then I sent Dr. Riccardo Maggiore of MIT to visit Keshe in Italy.

We then went further and there was a good reason.

Iran had captured an American RQ170 stealth drone, something impossible.

Moreover, Keshe had two groups of painfully inept detractors, a pair of cabals from the “free energy community,” a group that makes the new “truther” groups seem impressive. For those unaware, there is a huge online community of fraudsters who haunt the anti-vacc and natural medicine websites.

To learn about these folks, simply google “keshe” and you can list them.

One in Morocco was picked up and questioned last week about missing children and another, in Belgium (and Netherlands, depending on day of the week) showed up on an INTERPOL notice tied to a “trafficking and slavery” complaint.

Where my notice was tweaked was when MI 6 started to trip over themselves in their usual delightfully “oh so British” fashion, as Michael Shrimpton puts it.

We knew this…

Keshe had worked in Iran with a massive budget on projects unrelated to anything arms inspectors have looked at.

Keshe doesn’t do missiles or bombs.

We also know that China has taken a strong interest in Keshe.

Our concern is how China is volunteering to throw endless funding to move Keshe medical and “other” tech from the “imaginary physics” stage to operation.

Either we all trust China, something I am not totally averse to doing, or begin playing with governments we long ago discovered can’t be trusted.

There is no easy way out of this.

Trust China/Iran/Russia or Trust America

A little over two years ago, Preston James wrote an article that seems almost prescient in light of recent intelligence:

Secret Space war XIII: Alien Partners tell Putin, “Don’t Worry, We’ve Got Your Back”

“Do Russians now have access to Space War Weapons based on back-engineered Alien ET technology gained through a new treaty negotiated between Putin and a certain group of Alien ETs who are enemies of the group controlling the World Zionists (WZs) and the International Zionist Crime Syndicate (IZCS)?”

(Video was taken down on you-tube and is no longer available. Which is why I always tell people, set up your own website and install your own videos there, or similar systems.)

So what is the “wild card” and how does it play out?

Well, whether it is this technology or something else, or whether it is reverse engineered or home-gown, or whether it is an invention by a mad scientist does not matter.

What does matter is that there is a very high likelihood that the Chinese / Russians and Iranians are in possession of technologies that the United States / UK, and Israel do not have. This gives them advantage.

As we have seen during the 2020 Naval flotilla fiasco in the South China Sea.

Those that run the United States oligarchy and it’s minions are not technology, nor military people. They are of a different disposition. And they are flailing wildly about. The American people are caught up in a vice and they will be the ones who will pay the prices that these maniac oligarchy generate.

While times are certainly testy, they are never the less, still following the fourth turning predictions.

…

If you can believe this; we are just building up to the event. There is still a couple of years to go yet.

The danger period is approaching; 2023 through 2026, centered around 2025.

Hold on to your britches boys and girls. Dicy times are a coming.

Taking note of “The Fourth Turning” and the Strauss and Howe generational theory of predictive behavior in America, we note that they predicted a Crisis Catalyst in 2005 and a Climax in 2020.

If the Crisis catalyst comes on schedule, around the year 2005, then the  climax will be due around 2020, the resolution around 2026. 

What will  America be like as it exits the Fourth Turning? History offers no  guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly wrong—the  possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to incurable plagues,  from terrorist anarchy to high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume  that Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible  tragedies that have overtaken so many others: not just temporary  hardship, but debasement and total ruin. 

Since Vietnam, many Americans  suppose they know what it means to lose a war. 

Losing in the next Fourth  Turning, however, could mean something incomparably worse. It could  mean a lasting defeat from which our national innocence—and perhaps even  our nation—might never recover. As many Americans know from their own  ancestral backgrounds, history provides numerous examples of  societies that have been wiped off the map, ground into submission, or  beaten so badly they revert to barbarism.

Indeed, the dates are close but seem to be off by a few years.

In our case, it appears that the “Crisis catalyst” did not occur in 2005 as predicted. It occurred in 2008 with the Wall Street “too big to fail” debacle.

That is three years later.

What does Mr. Howe say?

Below is a brief essay originally published on 3/11/19 by Neil Howe discussing the typical progression of each “Turning”. It remains more relevant than ever amidst our current zeitgeist. It was written nearly a year before 2020 showed it’s ugly, ugly face.

NH: We live in a tumultuous time in American history.

 The 2008 financial crisis and all its hardships, was the catalyst  that tipped us into this age of uncertainty. It marked the start of a  generation-long era of secular upheaval that will continue to run its  course over the next decade or so. This is the generational theory I  laid out in “The Fourth Turning,” a book I co-authored with William Strauss in 1997.

 The Fourth Turning explains the rise of a figure like  President Trump. In Trump’s Inauguration Day speech, he painted a bleak  picture of “American carnage,” of “rusted-out factories scattered like  tombstones across the landscape of our nation” with “mothers and  children trapped in poverty in our inner cities.”

 Looking abroad, it’s unclear whether America will turn inward and fall prey to nativism or maintain it’s nearly seventy year role as  leader of the Free World. Other countries are becoming similarly insular. Britain voted to exit the European Union and we’ve heard  anti-E.U. rumblings echoed throughout Europe from France to the  Netherlands.

 Other nations and peoples around the world are looking to either fill  the vacuum in global leadership or exploit it to advance their own ambitions. We’ve seen the thunderous rise of Chinese economic clout, the calculating geopolitical maneuvering of a resurgent Russia, and the barbarous chaos wrought by the so-called Islamic State.

 In many ways, this era of uncertainty follows the natural order of  things. Like Nature’s four seasons, the cycles of history follow a natural rhythm or pattern. Over the past five centuries, Anglo-American society has entered a new era – a new turning – every two decades or so.

 At the start of each turning, people change how they feel about themselves, the culture, the nation, and the future. Turnings come in cycles of four. Each cycle spans the length of a long human life, roughly eighty to one hundred years, or a unit of time the ancients called the saeculum.

 The First Turning is called a High.
 This is an era when institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, even if those outside the majoritarian center feel stifled by the  conformity.

 America’s most recent First Turning was the post-World War II  American High, beginning in 1946 and ending with the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, a key lifecycle marker for today’s older Americans.

 The Second Turningis an Awakening.
 This is an era when institutions are attacked in the name of personal  and spiritual autonomy. Just when society is reaching its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of social discipline and want to recapture a sense of personal authenticity. Young activists and spiritualists look back at the previous High as an era of cultural poverty.

 America’s most recent Awakening was the “Consciousness Revolution,”  which spanned from the campus and inner-city revolts of the mid 1960s to  the tax revolts of the early ‘80s.

 The Third Turning is an Unravelling.
 The mood of this era is in many ways the opposite of a High. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and  flourishing. Highs follow Crises, which teach the lesson that society  must coalesce and build. Unravelings follow Awakenings, which teach the  lesson that society must atomize and enjoy.

 America’s most recent Unraveling was the Long Boom and Culture Wars,  beginning in the early 1980s and probably ending in 2008. The era opened with triumphant “Morning in America” individualism and drifted toward a pervasive distrust of institutions and leaders, an edgy popular culture, and the splitting of national consensus into competing “values” camps.

 And finally we enter the Fourth Turning, which is a Crisis.

 This is an era in which America’s institutional life is torn down and rebuilt from the ground up—always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. Civic authority revives, cultural expression  finds a community purpose, and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group.

 In every instance, Fourth Turnings have eventually become new  “founding moments” in America’s history, refreshing and redefining the  national identity. Currently, this period began in 2008, with the Global  Financial Crisis and the deepening of the War on Terror, and will extend to around 2030. 

If the past is any prelude to what is to come, as  we contend, consider the prior Fourth Turning which was kicked off by  the stock market crash of 1929 and climaxed with World War II.

 Just as a Second Turning reshapes our inner world (of values, culture  and religion), a Fourth Turning reshapes our outer world (of politics,  economy and empire).

 To be clear, the road ahead for America will be rough. But I take  comfort in the idea that history cycles back and that the past offers us  a guide to what we can expect in the future. Like Nature’s four  seasons, the cycles of history follow a natural rhythm or pattern.

 Make no mistake. Winter is coming. How mild or harsh it will be is anyone’s guess but the basic progression is as natural as counting down the days, weeks and months until Spring. 

Exerpts from the book The Fourth Turning

In 1860-1861 southern states took the Lincoln victory as a de-facto proof that the North would increasingly seek to impose its will upon the south (they were right, but losing the war actually made it happen faster and more completely). 

What people generally forget is that all states had large militias that were beholden ONLY to the states, and people had much more belief and legal adherence to the individual states, than now. 

Terrorist actions do not start a war, because you cannot really go to war conventionally against terrorism. What happened in the 1860's is that state governments formed a new nation in rebellion. 

Personally I don't think the Left or the Right, as a whole, have the balls to do this today. But I guess we'll see. Eventually the threats become real enough that it's hard to ignore them and just hope everything goes back to normal.

-Aerindel, SoJ_51 and Observer

This is straight from the book …

“Something happened to America at that time,” recalled U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye on V-J Day in 1995, the last of the 50-year commemoratives of World War II.  “I’m not wise enough to know what it was.  But it was the strange, strange power that our founding fathers experienced in those early, uncertain days.  Let’s call it the spirit of America, a spirit that united and galvanized our people.”  Inouye went on to reflect wistfully on an era when the nation considered no obstacle too big, no challenge too great, no goal too distant, no sacrifice too deep.  A half-century later, that old spirit had long since dissipated, and nobody under age 70 remembered what it felt like.  When Joe Dawson reenacted his D-Day parachute drop over Normandy, he said he did it “to show our country that there was a time when our nation moved forward as one unit.”

The Eternal Return

On the earthen floors of their rounded hogans, Navajo artists sift colored sand to depict the four seasons of life and time.  Their ancestors have been doing this for centuries.  They draw these sand circles in a counter-clockwise progression, one quadrant at a time, with decorative icons for the challenges of each age and season.  When they near the end of the fourth season, they stop the circle, leaving a small gap just to the right of its top.  This signifies the moment of death and rebirth, what the Hellenics called ekpyrosis.  By Navajo custom, this moment can be provided (and the circle closed) only by God, never by mortal man.  All the artist can do is rub out the painting, in reverse seasonal order, after which a new circle can be begun.  Thus, in the Navajo tradition, does seasonal time stage its eternal return.

Like most traditional peoples, the Navaho accept not just the circularity of life, but also its perpetuity.  Each generation knows its ancestors have drawn similar circles in the sand—and each expects its heirs to keep drawing them.  The Navaho ritually reenact the past while anticipating the future.  Thus do they transcend time.

Modern societies too often reject circles for straight lines between starts and finishes.  Believers in linear progress, we feel the need to keep moving forward.  The more we endeavor to defeat nature, the more profoundly we land at the mercy of its deeper rhythms.  Unlike the Navajo, we cannot withstand the temptation to try closing the circle ourselves and in the manner of our own liking.  Yet we cannot avoid history’s last quadrant.  We cannot avoid the Fourth Turning, nor its ekpyrosis.  Whether we welcome him or not, the Gray Champion will command our duty and sacrifice at a moment of Crisis.  Whether we prepare wisely or not, we will complete the Millennial Saeculum.  The epoch that began with V.J.-Day will reach a natural climax—and come to an end.

An end of what?

The next Fourth Turning could mark the end of man.  It could be an omnicidal armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing.  If mankind ever extinguishes itself, this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly.  But this end, while possible, is not likely.  Human life is not so easily extinguishable.  One conceit of linear thinking is the confidence that we possess such godlike power that—at the mere push of a button—we can obliterate nature, destroy our own seed, and make ourselves the final generations of our species.  Civilized (post-Neolithic) man has endured some 500 generations, prehistoric (fire-using) man perhaps 5,000 generations, Homo Erectus ten times that.  For the next Fourth Turning to put an end to all this would require an extremely unlikely blend of social disaster, human malevolence, technological perfection, and bad luck.  Only the worst pessimist can imagine that.

The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity.  The Western saecular rhythm—which began in the mid-fifteenth century with the Renaissance—could come to an abrupt terminus.  The seventh modern saeculum would be the last.  This too could come from total war, terrible but not final.  There could be a complete collapse of science, culture, politics, and society.  The “Western Civilization” of Toynbee and the “Faustian Culture” of Spengler would come to the inexorable close their prophesiers foresaw.  A new dark ages would settle in, until some new civilization could be cobbled together from the ruins.  The cycle of generations would also end, replaced by an ancient cycle of tradition (and fixed social roles for each phase of life) that would not allow progress.  As with an omnicide, such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation (like today’s America) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet.  But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence.

The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation.  It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify.  This nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, Etruria ten, the Soviet Union (perhaps) only one.  Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival.  Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a threat in more than one battle.  In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most horrible war in history.  In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed.  In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale.

Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum.  Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere.  Afterward, there would be a new mood, a new High, and a new saeculum.  America would be reborn.  But, reborn, it would not be the same.

The new saeculum could find America a worse place.  As Paul Kennedy has warned, it might no longer be a “great power.”  Its global stature might be eclipsed by foreign rivals.  Its geography might be smaller, its culture less dominant, its military less effective, its government less democratic, its Constitution less inspiring.  Emerging from its millennial chrysalis, it might evoke nothing like the hope and respect of its “American Century” forbear.  Abroad, people of goodwill and civilized taste might perceive this society as a newly dangerous place.  Or they might see it as decayed, antiquated, an Old New World less central to human progress than we now are.  All this is plausible, and possible, in the natural turning of saecular time.

Alternatively, the new saeculum could find America, and the world, a much better place.  Like England in the Reformation Saeculum, the Superpower America of the Millennial Saeculum might merely be a prelude to a higher plane of civilization.  Its new civic life might more nearly resemble that “shining city on a hill” to which its colonial ancestors aspired.  Its ecology might be freshly repaired and newly sustainable, its economy rejuvenated, its politics functional and fair, its media elevated in tone, its culture creative and uplifting, its gender and race relations improved, its commonalities embraced and differences accepted, its institutions free of the corruptions that today seem entrenched beyond correction.  People might enjoy new realms of personal, family, community, and national fulfillment.  America’s borders might be redrawn around an altered but more cogent geography of public community.  Its influence on world peace could be more potent, on world culture more uplifting.  All this is achievable as well.

Conclusion

2020 was not the Climax; the Crisis of the Forth Turning in America. That still lies ahead of us.

I hope it never comes to this. In lieu, I can see the Balkinization of the country take place, sides would move to designated areas and set up permanent camp. There may be 2, 3 or more countries within the US before the dust settles.

-Survivalist Boards

A climax is a major event. It is typically marked by full-scale discord and absolute totality of full-scale war. That did not occur in 2020. That is not occurring now.

2020 was marked by a “pandemic”.

It was actually an intentionally released bio-weapon on China to “suppress it”, while unleashing a mild strain on Americans to inoculate them.

Most Americans (through their media) believe that either [1] it is a hoax, or [2] it is a new strain of flu that is sweeping the globe.

It is neither.

It is a bio-weapon attack on China by the neocon Trump administration, lead by John Bolton, gone terribly wrong.

Xi Peng and Putin do not get their intel from Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, and CNN. They get it from their Intel divisions. And both nations have a full picture of what is going on, has gone on and will go on further.

Both nations (China and Russia) filed a formal complaint against the United States for launching this bio-weapon (and all the others that it launched in late 2020). And while Americans ignored this complaint, pretending that it is meaningless, it did do something.

It marked the start of Russia and China teaming up militarily against the United States.

…

United States. (With the UK, Canada, Israel, and Australia.) Today there is isolated America. Confused. Arrogant. Thrashing and moaning. Demanding all sorts of things.

The Rest of the World. And the rest of the world, lead by Russia, and China, that are very carefully and very precisely planning to stop all this nonsense once and for all.

Adjusting the dates

“It seems I always underestimate the ability of sociopathic central  bankers and their willingness to destroy the lives of hundreds of  millions to benefit their oligarch masters. I always underestimate the  rampant corruption that permeates Washington DC and the executive suites  in mega-corporations across the land. And I always overestimate the  intelligence, civic mindedness, and ability to understand math of the  ignorant masses that pass for citizens in this country. It seems that  issuing trillions of new debt to pay off trillions of bad debt,  government sanctioned accounting fraud, mainstream media propaganda,  government data manipulation and a populace blinded by mass delusion can  stave off the inevitable consequences of an unsustainable economic  system.”

-The Burning Platform

Adjusting the Strauss and Howe dates to account for the delay in the catalyst, messes things up a bit.

There is a nice graphic that I composed for your purposes of planning out the next few years. I hope that it is helpful. Adding three years, gives us…

• “Crisis catalyst” in 2008.
• Climax in 2023.
• Resolution in 2029.

.

Of course, you could argue the 2020 was the “climax” simply because it was one Hell of a shitty year. But you all know, it was a shitty year for everyone on the globe. Not just Americans. I argue that it was just foreplay for bigger stuff to come.

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

New Beginnings

.

Articles & Links

Master Index

.

• You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
• You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
• You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
• You can find out more about the author HERE.
• If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
• If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

A song and dance. 
A long and elaborate explanation or presentation. Primarily heard in US. 

Dog And Pony Show

Meaning of Idiom ‘Dog and Pony Show’ A dog and pony show is a presentation, marketing event, or any other event which has a lot of style and seems very polished and professional, but which has no real content. In a dog and pony show, no real information is presented, and nothing much is accomplished.

As is the case with many business owners. Once their business gets "off the ground", they send their families off to other nations "for a better life". I guess she thought that the USA would somehow be better. - I don't. I attribute this belief to be an emotional reaction due to a massively funded pro-America propaganda campaign that has been in place for decades.

Pollution

China as described by Western media.

”Obama is in charge now, he’ll fix everything. My president is black, my lambo is blue, if you say anything against Obama, you’re not cool.”

"Since very few Americans paid attention to what their government did across the globe, they cannot recognize the whole “what goes around comes around” now happening to them."

A “Rules based order”.

It sounds so “Just” and “nice”.

NOT!

Ah. It sounds so nice.

Most people have never heard of the term “Rules Based Order” until the March 2021 meeting in Alaska between the United States and China. It was at that meeting where the United States demanded that China abide to American led, “Rules Based Order”, or suffer the consequences.

Well, up until that point in time, it was well understood that the world should follow the United Nations in global disputes. Every nation in the world would have their say at this one-world government body, and avoid conflicts, trade disputes and cultural errors.

The single outlier to this system has been the United States which has, since the 1970’s violated the UN charter at will. It has done so in the following manner;

• If the UN agrees with American actions, then the USA will observe UN protocols.
• If the UN disagrees with American actions, then America will ignore the UN.

This is known as “rubber stamping” in the United States. After a while it becomes the expected way of conducting business.

Rubber Stamp
A person or organization that automatically approves or endorses a policy without assessing its merit; also, such an approval or endorsement. For example, The nominating committee is merely a rubber stamp; they approve anyone the chairman names , or The dean gave his rubber stamp to the recommendations of the tenure committee. This metaphoric term alludes to the rubber printing device used to imprint the same words over and over. [Early 1900s]

-The Free Dictionary

Which has been increasingly the case over the last few decades, accumulating to the Donald Trump administration which pretty much said that the UN was worthless and America will do what it it feels like, and the UN be damned.

The brash harshness of this reality was codified in American policy and made public at the March 2021 Alaska summit. Where as a “Rules Based Order” was demanded of China.

A Rules Based Order states…

• America makes the rules.
• You will follow and obey American rules.
• You will not listen to the United Nations.
• If you fail to obey American demands, America reserves the right to obliterate you.

…

Yikes!

It sounds so harsh.

Well… that’s because it is.

It is harsh.

But that’s EXACTLY what is going on, and thus it is no wonder why China, and Russia and the rest of the global community reacted so harshly to the fiasco that was the Alaska meeting.

A few weeks have passed, and people around the world are “getting their heads” around this situation. They have pretty much determined that the United States has decides to act on it’s own, and not follow the United Nations. This is known as “unilateralism“, and is very very dangerous. It is the thing that started World War I, World War II, and all genocides that has ever occurred in history.

Unilateralism
Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. 

Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find disagreeable. 

As a word, unilateralism is attested from 1926, specifically relating to unilateral disarmament. 

The current, broader meaning emerges in 1964. It stands in contrast with multilateralism, the pursuit of foreign policy goals alongside allies.

-Wikipedia

First Article.

This is a very timely and well written editorial that is “spot on” and demands reprinting. It’s one of those clear-as-day, and simple-as-shit, articles that takes a complex issue and spells it out in black and white as plain as day.

I enjoyed reading this, and couldn’t wait to post on MM. It was forwarded to me by a dear friend and it is truly worth every consideration. Of course, it comes from here, all credit to the author and please take note that it was modified to fit this venue for editing purposes. So without much fanfare, here’s the article…

Rules-Based Order’ Is Cover for Destructive Western Hegemonic Ambitions

Hegemony

...ascendancy or domination of one power or state within a league, confederation, etc., or of one social class over others  

Editorial

“We noted that Russia sees some Western countries’ attempts to promote unilateral approaches in circumvention of the established collective mechanisms for developing international law-based solutions as one of today’s key challenges. We consider developing certain rules behind the back of the greater part of the international community and then imposing them on others as universal norms unacceptable and dangerous practice.”

“We are witnessing situational coalitions and partnerships being created outside the UN, which arrogate to themselves the right to speak and act on behalf of everyone else”.

“Realizing that it is impossible to impose their unilateral or bloc priorities on other states within the framework of the UN, the leading Western countries have tried to reverse the process of forming a polycentric world and slow down the course of history…

“Toward this end, the concept of the rules-based order is advanced as a substitute for international law. It should be noted that international law already is a body of rules, but rules agreed at universal platforms and reflecting consensus or broad agreement. The West’s goal is to oppose the collective efforts of all members of the world community with other rules developed in closed, non-inclusive formats, and then imposed on everyone else. We only see harm in such actions that bypass the UN and seek to usurp the only decision-making process that can claim global relevance.”

The rapidly shifting international distribution of power creates problems that can only be resolved with real diplomacy. The great powers must recognize competing national interests, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.

Glenn Diesen is a professor at University of South-Eastern Norway. He is also editor of ‘Russia in Global Affairs’ and is a contributing expert at the Valdai Discussion Club. His research focus is the geoeconomics of Greater Eurasia and the crisis of liberalism. He specializes in Russia’s approach to European and Eurasian integration, as well as West-China dynamics. He is the author of several books: ‘The Decay of Western Civilisation and Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft’ (2018); ‘Russia’s Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia’ (2017); and ‘EU and NATO relations with Russia: After the collapse of the Soviet Union’ (2015).

“We noted that Russia sees some Western countries’ attempts to promote unilateral approaches in circumvention of the established collective mechanisms for developing international law-based solutions as one of today’s key challenges. We consider developing certain rules behind the back of the greater part of the international community and then imposing them on others as universal norms unacceptable and dangerous practice.”

“We are witnessing situational coalitions and partnerships being created outside the UN, which arrogate to themselves the right to speak and act on behalf of everyone else”.

“Realizing that it is impossible to impose their unilateral or bloc priorities on other states within the framework of the UN, the leading Western countries have tried to reverse the process of forming a polycentric world and slow down the course of history…”

“Toward this end, the concept of the rules-based order is advanced as a substitute for international law. It should be noted that international law already is a body of rules, but rules agreed at universal platforms and reflecting consensus or broad agreement. The West’s goal is to oppose the collective efforts of all members of the world community with other rules developed in closed, non-inclusive formats, and then imposed on everyone else. We only see harm in such actions that bypass the UN and seek to usurp the only decision-making process that can claim global relevance.”