The changing of the nuclear WMD status quo

It's worth noting that the Chinese Orbital Hypersonic Missile development means the UK is not geographically invulnerable in a conflict scenario with China. It might want to rethink the assumption it can just prod at China in the Pacific from a distance...

— Tom Fowdy (@Tom_Fowdy) October 17, 2021

This is going to be a long article.

I have taken various highlighted articles of interest and strung them together into a unified whole to give the reader the MOST ACCURATE picture concerning what is going on with all this flood of “hate China”, and “War is good” stuff spewing out of the United States today.

Well, if not China, how about invading Russia?

Russia says NO!

And if not invade Russia, then how about invading Australia?

Yes. these people are seriously off their trolleys.

Do you really want to know what is going on? Are the Chinese going to siphon off your “vital bodily” fluids and gobble up the world? And why are you forced to endure lies and distortions in favor of war?

It is a distraction, as MM as repeatedly stated, or is it something more?

What is going on?

Introduction

Ok, I’m minding my own business. I have just made myself a cup of coffee and went to my study and fired up both of my computers. (One, my active computer is running Lunix and I am doing driver installation activities. While the other is my “old computer” and it is limping along with a malware saturated Chinese OS.)

I fire up those “puppies” (computers) and “right off the bat“, this is what I see…

The War Is on With China | GOPUSA

With each passing week, it looks like World War III — between America and China — is coming sooner than we think. It’s not going to be fought with bullets or aircraft carriers, although the Chinese are building up their military in an aggressive and threatening way.

This will more likely be an all-out economic war for global supremacy. The yuan versus the dollar. The Nasdaq versus the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, America is asleep at the switch — at least, the Biden administration is. This is the worst possible time to be raising tax rates on American companies (Our business tax rates would be higher than China’s under President Joe Biden’s plan!), dismantling American energy (at a time when China is running 1,000 dirty coal plants with dozens more in construction), and running up the national debt (with China a major purchaser of the bonds).

Love Donald Trump or hate him, he was a president who put America first and recognized the predatory nature of the Chinese regime. He got tough with President Xi Jinping and overturned one-sided trade deals. His strategy was to do what former President Ronald Reagan did to win the Cold War: Make America tremendously prosperous by building up our strategic industries in a way that the Soviet Union or China couldn’t compete with.

The danger is that we now have a president in Biden who thinks that climate change is a bigger threat to the world than the Maoists in Beijing.

And make no mistake about it; the communists are back in charge in China. Jinping has basically announced himself to be president for life, as democracy and free elections fly out the window. China is also sprinting back to command and control fascist government and industry “cooperation.” That’s a model that will eventually implode, but as we learned from the Soviet menace, they can do a lot of damage to peace and prosperity in the meantime.

It’s no accident that China’s economy and stock market are faltering. In the last year, as the U.S. stock market has risen by about 20% (thanks to Operation Warp Speed), China’s Shanghai stock market went down 15%. They are sprinting toward socialism faster than we are… for now.

The Chinese stock market jitters reflect global investors’ irritation with the more frequent political interventions in business affairs. As Foreign Affairs magazine recently put it regarding these iron-fisted interferences into the business activities of its largest companies: “Xi has placed China on a risky trajectory, one that threatens the (free market) achievements of his predecessors.”

In short, events of recent months both militarily and economically confirm that the modern Maoists are firmly entrenched in Beijing, and capitalism is losing. Jinping’s administration simply doesn’t get what George H.W. Bush once so eloquently described as “that freedom thing.” Militant social controls and restraints on individual liberty are now being matched with economic controls on Chinese megacorporations that are trying to vie for industry supremacy in technology, biology, manufacturing and transportation. Is all of this reminiscent of Japan circa 1939?

What is the Biden administration’s response to these threats? The massive $5 trillion spend, tax and borrow bill he is steamrolling through Congress will impair American economic supremacy almost overnight. Under Trump, tax rate reductions led to a $1 trillion infusion of capital from around the world, coming back to these shores to build up our industrial might. Biden’s tax policies will have the reverse effect: deindustrialization.

We are, as a nation, now back to importing tens of billions of dollars of energy from OPEC and Russia instead of selling the hundreds of years’ worth of oil, gas and coal. Do the progressives who now run Washington really believe we are going to defeat the rising Communist China threat by building windmills? Do they think that redistributing income and wealth makes more sense than creating it?

Will we be in any economic shape to repel China’s militaristic advances in the South China Sea, in India, in Africa and perhaps on to the shores of Taiwan with the policies in place in Washington today? Doubtful.

The war with China is on. Right now, only one country is fighting — China. Let’s not let another Afghanistan catastrophe happen in Asia.

Sigh.

Right. Rigggghhhhht.

Only China is fighting. China’s economy is collapsing. China is taking over American industries with an iron-fist. The failures of America are all China’s fault. Yada. Yada. Yada.

Sure.

In your dreams.

In my nightmares, but in these assholes dreams.

They haven’t a clue as to what they are dealing with. These money grabbing, politically sensitive nitwits are leading the United States towards certain destruction. But you all have heard that before.

Right?

Notice how the author weaves politics with the global economic weight of the rest of the world. Nope you dunder-heads. Politics is meaningless, useless and dangerous when mixed with anything outside of it’s natural venue. Or haven’t you ever tried to discuss politics at the Thanksgiving table with strangers? Huh?

China doesn’t play politics.

China plays HARD-BALL.

Be careful for what you wish for. If China really wanted to fight instead of the dance-moves that it is currently engaged in, it would gallop at full “break neck” speed, and Lordy! You do not want to be in their way.

I’ll tell you what.

Understanding the world 101

I constantly tell my interns that Business = Relationships.

And it is very, very true. The most successful businesses have been built upon strong foundational relationships.

In a like way, Politics = Money.

When anyone is so enraptured about Politics you know that they are talking about money. And in particular, how THEY get money, keep money, acquire money, save money or manipulate money.

With this in mind, we can see that the author of the previous article was mixing Geo-Politics with China. And that tells us all we need to know. All this hate-China narrative is all about money.

And all this Drumbeat of hate-China is all about…

Money!

And what to they wish for?

War!

Idiotic fools.

If you pay any attention to history, wars ALWAYS, and without exception, originate from the wealthy class. In general, the wealthier the individuals are, the more expansive, brutal and awful the wars they generate, will be.

So who is driving the narrative for the USA to fight China in a war?

Meet the billionaires that got us to this point

From HERE. All credit to the author.

At MintPress, we have been at the forefront of exposing how Middle Eastern dictatorships and weapons contractors have been funneling money into think tanks and political action committees, keeping up a steady drumbeat for more war and conflict around the world. Yet one little-discussed nation that punches well above its weight in spending cash in Washington is Taiwan.

By studying Taiwan’s financial reports, MintPress has ascertained that the semi-autonomous island of 23 million people has, in recent years, given out millions of dollars to many of the largest and most influential think tanks in the United States. This has coincided with a strong upsurge in anti-China rhetoric in Washington, with report after report warning of China’s economic rise and demanding that the U.S. intervene more in China-Taiwan disputes.

These think tanks are filled with prominent figures from both parties and have the ears of the most powerful politicians in Washington. It is in their offices that specialists draw up papers and incubate ideas that become tomorrow’s policies. They also churn out experts who appear in agenda-setting media, helping to shape and control the public debate on political and economic issues.

Twenty years ago, a group of neoconservative think tanks like the Project for a New American Century, funded by foreign governments and weapons manufacturers, used their power to push for disastrous wars in the Middle East. Now, a new set of think tanks, staffed with many of those same experts who provided the intellectual basis for those invasions, is working hard to convince Americans that there is a new existential threat: China.

A fistful of dollars

In 2019, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) — for all intents and purposes, the Taiwanese embassy — donated between $250,000 and $499,999 to the Brookings Institute, commonly identified as the world’s most influential think tank. Taiwanese tech companies have also given large sums to the organization. In turn, Brookings Institute staff like Richard C. Bush (a former member of the National Intelligence Council and a U.S. national intelligence officer for East Asia) vociferously champion the cause of Taiwanese nationalists and routinely condemn Beijing’s attempts to bring the island more closely under control.

Last week, Brookings held an event called “Taiwan’s quest for security and the good life,” which began with the statement that “Taiwan is rightly praised for its democracy. Elections are free, fair, and competitive; civil and political rights are protected.” It went on to warn that the “most consequential” challenge to the island’s liberty and prosperity is “China’s ambition to end Taiwan’s separate existence.”

According to another organization’s latest financial disclosure, TECRO also gave a six-figure sum to the Atlantic Council, a think tank closely associated with NATO. It is unclear what the Atlantic Council did with that money, but what is certain is that they gave a senior fellowship to Chang-Ching Tu, an academic employed by the Taiwanese military to teach at the country’s National Defense University. In turn, Tu authored Atlantic Council reports describing his country as a “champion [of] global democracy,” and stating that “democracy, freedom and human rights are Taiwan’s core values.” A menacing China, however, is increasing its military threats, so Taiwan must “accelerate its deterrence forces and strengthen its self-defense capabilities.” Thus he advises that the U.S. must work far more closely with Taiwan’s military, conducting joint exercises and moving towards a more formal military alliance. In 2020, the U.S. sold $5.9 billion worth of arms to the island, making it the fifth-largest recipient of American weaponry last year.

Other Taiwan-employed academics have chided the West on the pages of the Council’s website for its insufficient zeal in “deter[ring] Chinese aggression” against the island. “A decision by the United States to back down” — wrote Philip Anstrén, a Swedish recipient of a fellowship from the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs — “could damage the credibility of U.S. defense guarantees and signal that Washington’s will to defend its allies is weak.” Anstrén also insisted that “Europe’s future is on the line in the Taiwan Strait.” “Western democratic nations have moral obligations vis-à-vis Taiwan,” he added on his blog, “and Western democracies have a duty to ensure that [Taiwan] not only survives but also thrives.”

The reason this is important is that the Atlantic Council is an enormously influential think tank. Its board of directors is a who’s-who in foreign policy statecraft, featuring no fewer than seven former CIA directors. Also on the board are many of the architects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and James Baker. When organizations like this begin beating the war drums, everybody should take note.

Perhaps the most strongly anti-Beijing think tank in Washington is the conservative Hudson Institute, an organization frequented by many of the Republican Party’s most influential figures, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice-President Mike Pence and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. The words “China” or “Chinese” appear 137 times in Hudson’s latest annual report, so focused on the Asian nation are they. Indeed, reading their output, it often appears they care about little else but ramping up tensions with Beijing, condemning it for its treatment of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Uyghur Muslims, and warning of the economic and military threat of a rising China.

Over the years, Hudson’s efforts have been sustained by huge donations from TECRO. The Hudson Institute does not disclose the exact donations any sources give, but their annual reports show that TECRO has been on the highest tier of donors ($100,000+) every year since they began divulging their sponsors in 2015. In February, Hudson Senior Fellow Thomas J. Duesterberg wrote an op-ed for Forbes entitled “The Economic Case for Prioritizing a U.S.-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement,” in which he extolled Taiwan’s economy as modern and dynamic and portrayed securing closer economic ties with it as a no-brainer. Hudson employees have also traveled to Taiwan to meet and hold events with leading foreign ministry officials there.

The Hudson Institute also recently partnered with the more liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) to host an event with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who took the opportunity to make a great number of inflammatory statements about the “ever more challenging threats to free and democratic societies” China poses; applaud the U.S.’ actions on Hong Kong; and talk about how Taiwan honors and celebrates those who died at the Tiananmen Square massacre. TECRO gave the CAP between $50,000 and $100,000 last year.

It is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), however, that appears to receive the most Taiwanese money. According to its donor list, Taiwan gives as much money to it as the United States does — at least $500,000 last year alone. Yet all of the Taiwanese government money is put into CSIS’s regional studies (i.e., Asia) program. Like Hudson employees, the CSIS calls for a free trade agreement with Taiwan and has lavished praise on the nation for its approach to tackling disinformation, describing it as a “thriving democracy and a cultural powerhouse.” Although acknowledging that the reports were paid for by TECRO, CSIS insists that “all opinions expressed herein should be understood to be solely those of the authors and are not influenced in any way by any donation.” In December, the CSIS also held a debate suggesting that “[w]ithin the next five years, China will use significant military force against a country on its periphery,” exploring what the U.S. response to such an action should be.

Like the Atlantic Council, the CSIS organization is stacked with senior officials from the national security state. Its president and CEO is former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, while Henry Kissinger — former secretary of state and the architect of the Vietnam War — also serves on its council.

The CSIS accepts money from the Global Taiwan Institute and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) as well. The former is a rather shadowy pro-Taiwanese group that appears not to disclose its funding sources. The latter is a government-funded organization headed by former Taiwanese President You Si-kun. Every year, the TFD publishes a human rights report on China, the latest of which claims that “the Chinese Communist Party knows no bounds when it comes to committing serious human rights violations” — accusing it of “taking the initiative” in “promoting a new Cold War over the issue of human rights” and trying to “replace the universal standing of human rights values around the world.” Ultimately, the report concludes, China “constitutes a major challenge to democracy and freedom in the world.”

The TFD has also been a major funder of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a far-right pressure group that insists that Communism has killed over 100 million people worldwide. Last year, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation added all global COVID-19 fatalities to the list of Communist-caused deaths on the basis that the virus started in China. The Foundation also employs Adrian Zenz, a German evangelical theologian who is the unlikely source of many of the most controversial and contested claims about Chinese repression in Xinjiang province.

In the past 12 months, TECRO has also donated six-figure sums to many other prominent think tanks, including the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Center for a New American Security, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MintPress reached out to a number of these think tanks for comment but has not received any response.

“It would be naive to believe that Taiwan’s funding of think tanks is not pushing them to take pro-Taiwan or anti-China positions,” Ben Freeman, the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, told MintPress, adding:

After all, why would Taiwan keep funding think tanks that are critical of Taiwan? There’s a Darwinian element to foreign funding of think tanks that pushes foreign government funding to think tanks that write what that foreign government wants them to write. Taiwan is no exception to this rule.”

TECRO is not just sponsoring American think tanks, however. It has also given funds to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a hawkish and controversial group described as “the think tank behind Australia’s changing view of China.” The country’s former ambassador in Beijing described ASPI as “the architect of the China threat theory in Australia” while Senator Kim Carr of Victoria denounced them as working hand-in-hand with Washington to push “a new Cold War with China.” ASPI was behind Twitter’s decision last year to purge more than 170,000 accounts sympathetic to Beijing from its platform.

“We must be ready to fight our corner as Taiwan tensions rise,” ASPI wrote in January, having previously castigated the West for being “no longer willing to defend Taiwan.”

ASPI — like Brookings, the Atlantic Council and others — are directly funded by weapons manufacturers, all of whom also have a direct interest in promoting more wars around the world. Thus, if the public is not careful, certain special interests might be helping move the United States towards yet another international conflict.

While the situation outlined above is concerning enough, the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative’s research has shown that around one-third of think tanks still do not provide any information whatsoever about their funding, and very few are completely open about their finances. Freeman maintains that, while there is nothing inherently wrong with foreign governments funding Western think tanks, the lack of transparency is seriously problematic, explaining:

This raises a lot of questions about the work they’re doing. Are their secret funders saying what the think tank can do in a pay-for-play scheme? Are the funders buying the think tanks silence on sensitive issues? Without knowing the think tank’s funders, policymakers and the public have no idea if the think tank’s work is objective research or simply the talking points of a foreign government.”

Freeman’s study of the Taiwanese lobby found that seven organizations registered as Taiwan’s foreign agents in the U.S. Those organizations, in turn, contacted 476 Members of Congress (including almost 90% of the House), as well as five congressional committees. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was their most frequent contact, the Californian being contacted 34 times by Taiwanese agents. Pelosi has been a great supporter of Taiwanese nationalists, successfully promoting pro-Taiwan legislation and proudly announcing that the U.S. “stands with Taiwan.”

Foreign agents working on behalf of Taiwan also made 143 political contributions to U.S. politicians, with former Alabama Senator Doug Jones the lead recipient (Pelosi was third).

Losing China, regaining Taiwan?

The reports listed above understand the dispute as purely a matter of Chinese belligerence against Taiwan and certainly do not consider U.S. military actions in the South China Sea as aggressive in themselves. That is because the world of think tanks and war planners sees the United States as owning the planet and having a remit to act anywhere on the globe at any time.

To this day, U.S. planners bemoan the “loss of China” in 1949 (a phrase that presupposes the United States owned the country). After a long and bloody Second World War, Communist resistance forces under Mao Tse-tung managed to both expel the Japanese occupation and overcome the U.S.-backed Kuomintang (nationalist) force led by Chang Kai-shek. The United States actually invaded China in 1945, with 50,000 troops working with the Kuomintang and even Japanese forces in an attempt to suppress the Communists. However, by 1949, Mao’s army was victorious; the United States evacuated and Chang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan.

The Kuomintang ruled the island for 40 years as a one-party state and remains one of the two major political groups to this day. The war between the Communists and the Kuomintang never formally ended, and Taiwan has now lived through 70 years of estrangement from the mainland. Polls show a majority of Taiwanese now favor full independence, although a large majority still personally identify as Chinese.

While many Taiwanese welcome an increased U.S. presence in the region, Beijing certainly does not. In 2012, President Barack Obama announced the U.S.’ new “Pivot to Asia” strategy, moving forces from the Middle East towards China. Today, over 400 American military bases encircle it.

In recent months, the United States has also taken a number of provocative military actions on China’s doorstep. In July, it conducted naval exercises in the South China Sea, with warships and naval aircraft spotted just 41 nautical miles from the coastal megacity of Shanghai, intent on probing China’s coastal defenses. And in December, it flew nuclear bombers over Chinese vessels close to Hainan Island. Earlier this year, the head of Strategic Command made his intentions clear, stating that there was a “very real possibility” of war against China over a regional conflict like Taiwan. China, for its part, has also increased its forces in the region, carrying out military exercises and staking claims to a number of disputed islands.

A new Director of National Intelligence (DNI) report notes that China is the U.S.’ “unparalleled priority,” claiming that Beijing is making a “push for global power.” “We expect that friction will grow as Beijing steps up attempts to portray Taipei as internationally isolated and dependent on the mainland for economic prosperity, and as China continues to increase military activity around the island,” it concludes.

In an effort to stop this, Washington has recruited allies into the conflict. Australian media are reporting that their military is currently readying for war in an effort to force China to back down, while last week President Joe Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to shore up a united front against Beijing vis-a-vis Taiwan.

In February, the Atlantic Council penned an anonymous 26,000-word report advising Biden to draw a number of red lines around China, beyond which a response — presumably military — is necessary. These included any military action or even a cyber attack against Taiwan. Any backing down from this stance, the council states, would result in national “humiliation” for the United States.

Perhaps most notably, however, the report also envisages what a successful American China policy would look like by 2050:

[T]he United States and its major allies continue to dominate the regional and global balance of power across all the major indices of power;… [and head of state Xi Jinping] has been replaced by a more moderate party leadership; and … the Chinese people themselves have come to question and challenge the Communist Party’s century-long proposition that China’s ancient civilization is forever destined to an authoritarian future.”

In other words, that China has been broken and that some sort of regime change has occurred.

Throughout all this, the United States has been careful to stress that it still does not recognize Taiwan and that their relationship is entirely “unofficial,” despite claiming that its commitment to the island remains “rock solid.” Indeed, only 14 countries formally recognize Taiwan, the largest and most powerful of which is Paraguay.

Along with a military conflict brewing, Washington has also been prosecuting an information and trade war against China on the world stage. Attempts to block the rise of major Chinese companies like Huawei, TikTok and Xiaomi are examples of this. Others in Washington have advised the Pentagon to carry out an under-the-table culture war against Beijing. This would include commissioning “Taiwanese Tom Clancy” novels that would “weaponize” China’s one-child policy against it, bombarding citizens with stories about how their only children will die in a war over Taiwan.

Republicans and Democrats constantly accuse each other of being in President Xi’s pocket, attempting to outdo each other in their jingoistic fervor. Last year, Florida Senator Rick Scott went so far as to announce that every Chinese national in the U.S. was a Communist spy and should be treated with extreme suspicion. As a result, the American public’s view of China has crashed to an all-time low. Only three years ago, the majority of Americans held a positive opinion of China. But today, that number is only 20%. Asian-Americans of all backgrounds have reported a rise in hate crimes against them.

Cash rules everything around me

How much of the United States’ aggressive stance towards China can be attributed to Taiwanese money influencing politics? It is difficult to say. Certainly, the United States has its own policy goals in East Asia outside of Taiwan. But Freeman believes that the answer is not zero. The Taiwan lobby “absolutely has an impact on U.S. foreign policy,” he said, adding:

At one level, it creates an echo-chamber in D.C. that makes it taboo to question U.S. military ties with Taiwan. While I, personally, think there are good strategic reasons for the U.S. to support this democratic ally — and it’s clearly in Taiwan’s interest to keep the U.S. fully entangled in their security — it’s troubling that the D.C. policy community can’t have an honest conversation about what U.S. interests are. But, Taiwan’s lobby in D.C. and their funding of think tanks both work to stifle this conversation and, frankly, they’ve been highly effective.”

Other national lobbies affect U.S. policy. The Cuban lobby helps ensure that the American stance towards its southern neighbor remains as antagonistic as possible. Meanwhile, the Israel lobby helps ensure continuing U.S. support for Israeli actions in the Middle East. Yet more ominously with Taiwan, its representatives are helping push the U.S. closer towards a confrontation with a nuclear power.

While Taiwanese money appears to have convinced many in Washington, it is doubtful that ordinary Americans will be willing to risk a war over an island barely larger than Hawaii, only 80 miles off the coast of mainland China.

Who specifically are these Taiwan billionaires?

From Forbes HERE.

Rank Name Net Worth Age Source
#1 Zhang Congyuan $13.8 B 73 shoes
#2 Tsai Hong-tu & Cheng-ta $9.2 B finance
#3 Daniel & Richard Tsai $7.9 B finance
#4 Wei Ing-chou, Ying-chiao, Yin-chun & Yin-heng $7.8 B food
#5 Jason & Richard Chang $7.2 B semiconductors
#6 Terry Gou $7.1 B 71 electronics
#7 Tsai Eng-meng $6.1 B 64 food, beverages
#8 Barry Lam $5.8 B 72 electronics
#9 Pierre Chen $5 B 65 electronics
#10 Lin Shu-hong $4.8 B 93 petrochemicals
#11 Samuel Yin $4.3 B 71 retail
#12 Andre Koo, Sr. $3.8 B 54 financial services
#13 Tsai Ming-kai $3.3 B 71 semiconductors
#14 Rudy Ma $3.25 B 81 finance
#15 Morris Chang $2.8 B 90 semiconductors
#16 Douglas Hsu $2.7 B 79 diversified
#17 Tseng Cheng & Sing-ai $2.65 B petrochemicals
#18 Lin Ming-hsiung $2.5 B 71 supermarkets
#19 K.C. Liu $2.47 B 67 manufacturing
#20 Bruce Cheng $2.42 B 85 electronics
#21 T.Y. Tsai $2.4 B 68 finance
#22 Wang Chou-hsiong $2.23 B 80 footwear
#23 Lin Chen-hai $2.2 B 74 real estate
#24 Scott Lin $2.05 B 88 optical components
#25 Chin Jong Hwa $2 B 63 auto parts
#26 Chen Tei-fu $1.9 B 73 herbal products
#27 Chao Teng-hsiung $1.8 B 77 real estate
#28 William & Wilfred Wang $1.79 B plastics
#29 Shi Wen-long $1.78 B 93 plastics
#30 Luo Ming-han & Tsai-jen Lo $1.75 B tires
#31 Xie Weitong $1.7 B 64 cobalt
#32 Chen Yung-tai $1.67 B 85 real estate
#33 Tony Chen $1.6 B 72 electronics
#34 Thomas Wu $1.57 B 71 finance
#35 Cho Jyh-jer $1.56 B semiconductors
#36 Archie Hwang $1.4 B 69 semiconductors
#37 Yeh Kuo-I $1.32 B 80 manufacturing
#38 Shirley Kao $1.31 B 65 food & beverage retailing
#39 Eugene Wu $1.3 B 76 finance
#40 Wang Ren-sheng $1.2 B 89 retail
#41 Wu Chung-yi $1.12 B 66 manufacturing
#42 Tsai Chi-jui $1.11 B 81 shoes
#43 Allen Horng & Tien-Szu Hung $1.1 B electronics
#44 Wu Li-gann $1 B 80 electronic components
#45 Tsao Ter-fung $880 M 74 food
#46 Lee Tien-tsai $870 M 83 beverages
#47 Quintin Wu $840 M plastic
#48 Yeh Min-yuen $830 M cybersecurity
#49 Huang Chung Sheng $810 M 64 recycling
#50 Ho Kuang-chi $740 M 58 restaurants

Meet their enablers that are pushing – pushing for war with China

So these billionaires are throwing money to American “think tanks” and political operatives. Where does this money go to? Who are the enablers of their desires?

So who are the enablers? Who is on the receiving ends of all this cash, money, gold, and jewels…

Neoconservatives (NeoCon)

President Donald Trump has hijacked the slogan “America First.” 

Once upon a time, it stood for nonintervention in foreign wars, now it stands for neocon intervention and forever war. 

The Trump presidency has embraced the neocon ethos of murder and “creative destruction,” based on the teachings of an arcane philosopher, Leo Strauss. 

The German Jewish emigre believed deception and permanent war are the foundation of the state, a state led by a sociopathic elite. 

Strauss believed, as Thomas Hobbes before him, that humans are inherently aggressive. He said this aggressiveness should be channeled into hostility and war against other people and nations. 

The neocons as of yet do not have a direct role in a Trump executive, but they are influencing the Trump administration through their foundations and think tanks, most notably the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. 

Donald Trump is a man with zero guiding or animating principles, but for one: the pursuit of adulation. 

The neocons, or some of them at least, gave him the praise he so desperately needs after he bombed Syria, canned the Iran nuke deal, loudly and abusively confronted North Korea and its eccentric hereditary leader, and has slowly but surely moved into the camp that believes China is a threat to America. 

The neocons are behind the scenes pulling strings that result in forever war and a body count now surpassing a million and a half souls. 

-Neocons: who they are and why they matter

From HERE.

The Washington Post has a reputation as liberal and even left-of-center, although its editorial pages are dominated by neoconservatives who support the idea of American exceptionalism and the extreme operational tempo of America’s military.

In the past week, we have been treated to a series of oped essays that are supportive of expanded American military power and a political, if not military, confrontation with China.

U.S. national media generally have been lazy in their treatment of our military—pandering to the military itself and resorting to retired general officers, such as Generals David Petraeus and Jack Keane, as spokesmen.  The media typically defend bloated defense budgets and fail to challenge the dangerous militarization of national security decision making.

The Washington Post is particularly supportive of a more militarized national security policy, including a possible “hot” military confrontation with China.

A Hot Shooting war with China!

A group of their oped writers, particularly Michael Gerson, David Ignatius, and George Will, argue that the United States needs to increase defense spending to “protect the country from a full range of global disasters.”

Ignatius, a long-time apologist for the Central Intelligence Agency, conceded the need for restoring the “right civilian-military alignment,” but offered former secretary of defense Robert Gates as his model because Gates “could be ruthless” with aides to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  Gates was, in fact, a captive of the uniformed military.

War in Space!

David Ignatius beats the drums for the just created U.S. Space Force, which inherits 86 space warriors graduating from the Air Force Academy.  War in space would be a catastrophe, and even Air Force chief of staff General David Goldfein concedes that in every war game that involves space, we “never come out winning.”

David Ignatius

(During my years at the National War College, China prevailed in every war game that revolved around Taiwan.)

This year’s defense budget appropriates more than $15 billion for space systems, when we should be looking for ways to demilitarize the space frontier—and not promoting another arms race.  No country is as dependent economically as the United States on access to space.

War in the South China Sea!

George Will wants a modernized and more lethal Marine Corps at a time when our most dangerous adversaries have developed “high volume, extended-range missile warfare” to deal with threats from the sea.  There is a reason why the Marines have not resorted to an amphibious landing since the first months of the Korean War, and that is the high risk and great difficulty of such operations.

George Will

President Harry S. Truman recognized the island-hopping success of the Marines in the Second World War, but he was right for wanting to abolish the Marine Corps at war’s end.  Chinese cruise missile technology already has made it certain that U.S. naval ships, including aircraft carriers, will not be able to get close enough to the Chinese Mainland to be effective, and the idea of island-hopping against China is pure fantasy.

Invade the Chinese mainland!

Michael Gerson, the leading speechwriter for President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” speech in 2002 that prepared the way for the invasion of Iraq, regularly refers to an “increasingly belligerent China.”  He believes that Biden would do well to recruit unnamed defense and foreign policy advisers from the Bush administration.  Does this mean Biden should bring back Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Bob Gates, and Condi Rice who are responsible for policies that have brought the longest period of continuous U.S. war fighting in our history?

Michael Gerson

Gerson even believes that Biden “should be actively persuading…respected military and intelligence figures who served in the Trump administration to publicly support him.”  Gerson’s usual suspects are not the answer.

An aggressive military policy against China!

On April 30, the Washington Post carried two additional opeds that endorsed an aggressive policy toward China, pointing to “superior force” as the “surest road to peace.”  Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2017-2018, argued that “superior Western economic, diplomatic, and military power” defeated the Soviet Union, and that the current challenge from the “Chinese Communists must be seen the same way.”

Nikki Haley

George Will believes that Joe Biden is great because he is willing to “stand up to China, and encourages Biden to “associate himself” with Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), who endorses the conspiratorial theory regarding the responsibility of the research laboratory in Wuhan for the viral outbreak there.  Cotton, the Cold War warrior, wrote in the Post on May 3 that the “Chinese Communist Party is our enemy.  It aims to displace the United States as the world’s preeminent economic and military power.”

Bio-Warfare is all China’s fault!

Another Washington Post oped writer, Josh Rogin is ignoring efforts of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to link the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic to the Wuhan laboratory.  In an oped on May 1, Rogin falsely credited Pompeo with calling for “depoliticizing” the issue of China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.  Pompeo prevented a communique at a recent G-7 meeting because he couldn’t get any of the European representatives to support his polemical accusations.  Nevertheless, Rogin cited Pompeo’s specious urgings that the issue of Beijing’s handling of the virus should not become “partisan.  It’s too serious a matter.”

Josh Rogin

Pompeo, the leading cheerleader in this campaign, has charged his hand-picked director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, with finding evidence implicating the research lab, according to the New York Times,.  However, there is evidence to suggest that Haspel will not accommodate her old boss.  Haspel has stood up to the White House on sensitive issues such as the role of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman in the sadistic killing of a dissident journalist; Russian hacking in the U.S. electoral process; and the origin of the Covid-19 virus.

Haspel’s intelligence analysts could inform Pompeo that it is counterproductive to maintain that the United States and its allies must keep China in “its proper place.” On the other hand, the Defense Intelligence Agency, well known for its willingness to politicize intelligence, recently changed its analytical position in order to accommodate the view that a research lab in Wuhan was the origin of the new pathogen.

Haspel has even protected the job and personal security of the CIA whistleblower whose report led directly to the impeachment process.

No time for diplomacy!

At a time when the Sino-American relationship is central to stabilizing the international arena, we are getting no discussion of the importance of mutual military disengagement in the area of the South China Sea and the need for smart diplomacy.  Washington and Beijing are compatible on important strategic issues that deal with the Korean peninsula; the importance of North Korean denuclearization; and the necessity of toning down the risk-taking proclivities of Kim Jong On.  In view of the continued uncertainty in North Korea, it is essential that Washington and Beijing have programmatic diplomatic discussions.

A diplomatic dialogue between Washington and Beijing on Korean issues could lead to possibilities for stabilizing the naval rivalry in the South China Sea as well as creating less friction over the issue of Taiwan.

We could send fewer guided-missile cruisers into the South China Sea; China could stop its provocative circumnavigation of Taiwan with fighters and strategic bombers.  Even a modest improvement in Sino-American relations would be advantageous, making the strengthened Sino-Russian relationship less threatening to the United States.

It makes no sense for the editorial pages of the Washington Post to assist the efforts of the military-industrial complex to strengthen its case for greater defense spending by exaggerating the so-called threat from China.

Every American president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama has endorsed a policy of engagement toward China, but Washington’s obsession with trade deficits has created the worst political and economic friction between Washington and Beijing since the first years of the Vietnam War.

And their hate-China narrative…

Why Do Editors Seek ‘Dark Sides’ Of China?

The dark side of China.

There seems to be an inflationary fascination with supposedly ‘dark sides’ of China:

The ‘dark sides’ of China meme did not only start after China had send the goddess Chang’e and Yutu the jade rabbit to the far side of the moon to look for the elixir of life.

There are quite a number of previous occurrences.

One wonders how such ‘dark side’ and ‘weaponizing’ memes happen …

The global media is owned by only 24 people

That’s how!

A new in-depth study has revealed that just 24 companies own the majority of the world’s biggest news outlets. Tech website AddictiveTips conducted the study to find out just consolidated media companies really are in The United States, The United Kingdom and Australia. While the results not be surprising, the study gives a fascinating insight into just how little variety there really is.

Tech blog AddicitveTips have conducted an extremely in-depth and detailed study into the ownership of the world’s media outlets. Their findings show that just 24 companies own the majority of the world’s most powerful news outlets.

The Study

AddictiveTips press release states that the purpose of their study is to;

“uncover the powerful companies and CEOs who control the bulk of today’s news – and present the findings in a tangible way.”

Digital media has become the main driver of news in recent years. Hardcopy newspaper distribution is in free fall, so the battle to control the narrative has moved online.

Rather than turning on the TV at 10pm for the news, you’re more likely to be watching Vox Pops online or seeing mainstream journalists revealing their big “scoop” directly on Twitter. Although the latter has come in for criticism recently, as the “scoop culture” has led to less fact checking so as to get the accolade.

Regardless of who you go to, it is highly likely that many of the outlets you use are connected by one thing; their owner. This study shows who chair the relevant companies. For example News Corp, owners of titles such as The S*n and The Times, are chaired by Australian Robert Thomson. In reality, we all know that the true owner is Rupert Murdoch.

Needless to say, this is a well conducted and researched study.

Methodology

To determine the companies and individuals that own the top news sites in the world, AddictiveTips identified the top owners of the news sites with the most monthly traffic as of September 2019. Data on average visitor traffic for the past one to three months and the relative rank of each news site came from Alexa, an Amazon company, and market intelligence provider SimilarWeb.

They identified the owners of the top 50 news sites globally, in the United States, in the U.K., and in Australia, respectively, using financial filings, corporate press announcements, and other public sources. They then isolated the 20 companies with the most visited sites in each geography, as well as other newsworthy media companies, and identified all of the properties in their online media portfolios, as well as the name of their highest-level owners, using financial filings, corporate press announcements, and other public sources.

  • For news sites that are owned by investment firms with a majority stake, the CEO or director of the investment firm was listed as the highest-level owner.
  • For news sites that are owned or directly (or indirectly) controlled
    by the government (as is the case of the BBC, who since 2017 has had its board members selected by the UK government), the head of government was listed as the highest-level owner.

A Changing Landscape

Several names are synonymous with media domination around the world: News Corp in the United States, the U.K., and Australia. Globo in Brazil & Yomiuri Shimbun in Japan.

While many of the oldest media conglomerates are as powerful as ever and still growing, the emergence of digital news has substantially altered the media landscape and allowed new companies to emerge as major players in the news industry.

Tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, as well as telecommunications conglomerates such as Verizon and AT&T, now rank among the top owners of the world’s media.

Asset Firms

In recent years, asset management firms and private investors have increasingly bought majority stakes in legacy newspapers and have come to dominate the list of the top media owners worldwide. In April 2019, for example, private equity firm Great Hill Partners acquired the Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion, and combined their digital news assets, which include Gizmodo, Jezebel, and The A.V. Club, into a new company named G/O Media Inc.

In August 2019, American investment firm KKR purchased the largest stake in Axel Springer SE, a German media group whose assets include Business Insider and Rolling Stone.

State Controlled or Owned

A significant share of the world’s media is owned by national governments. Through outlets such as PBS and NPR, the BBC, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the governments of the United States, the U.K., and Australia all have significant media holdings. State ownership of media in English-speaking countries is dwarfed, however, by the Government of China’s media holdings.

Who Owns UK News?

As can be seen above, online news media in the U.K. is still dominated by publishers of traditional print media, such as The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian.

Tabloid newspapers such as the Daily Mail, The S*n, and the Daily Mirror have a significant online presence in Britain. Several London-based news sites, such as The Economist and the Financial Times, have substantial readership outside of the U.K.

Murdoch’s News Corp, through News Corp UK, The Daily Mail and General Trust plc own many of the largest national news sites in the U.K. This web of companies can make it confusing for some to understand ownership.

Murdoch’s UK empire includes; The Time and the S*n to name a few. The control of so many outlets by so few leads to editors at supposed competing papers actually working in unison to control how a story runs.

Regional Proxies

Through its subsidiary Local World Holdings Ltd. Reach plc owns more than five dozen regional newspapers and their corresponding websites. The mass ownership of regional newspapers by media giants has led to a steep decline in actual local reporting. Instead, outlets copy and paste an article from a sister paper and run it under a different byline. This has created a network of regional proxies all parroting the same story with no local connection.

While the hard copy papers still run a majority of local stories. their corresponding websites run clickbait titles so as to gain advertising revenue; the only thing that keeps the UK online media alive.

The Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which it claims exists solely to control the finances of the Guardian and ensure its editorial independence.

The US Media

Online news in the United States is still dominated by publishers and broadcasters of traditional print and television news such as CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times.

Online-only news sites that have a major presence in the U.S. include Yahoo!, Huffington Post, and Reddit. Reddit is a majorly underestimated source of news, so much so that the leaked US/UK Trade Talk Papers sat on the site for two months before being noticed.

Some of the top media owners in the U.S. have dominated the news landscape for over a century, and continue to grow in the era of digital news. The Hearst name, for example, first appeared on a newspaper masthead in 1887. Today Hearst Communications owns dozens of newspapers and magazines throughout the country, each with a significant online presence.

Advance Publications, which was founded by Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. in 1922 and is still family-owned today, has a portfolio that includes Reddit, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and American City Business Journals.

However, as noted above, there have been new entries to the US news world. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos purchased the influential Wall Street Journal – WSJ, much to the annoyance of President Trump.

Disney are a major player in the US having purchased Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox in March 2019, it now holds titles such as Fox News, abc and has a stake in the above mentioned Hearst Newspaper group.

Australian News Ownership

From 1987 to 2006, Australia had specific legislation limiting foreign ownership of media companies on the continent, as well as restrictions on cross-ownership of media companies meant to preserve the diversity of news media.

Despite these restrictions, today Australia has a relatively high degree of media concentration. National online news media in Australia is essentially controlled by two companies: News Corp, through News Corp Australia, and Nine. Rural news media is largely dominated by Australian Community Media, whose portfolio includes over 170 regional newspapers and their corresponding websites.

Seven West Media also has a substantial news media portfolio that includes traditional newspapers, online-only news sites, magazines, and radio. The Conversation is one of the only major online news sites in Australia that is independently owned.

Australian media appears to have even less diversity than its UK and US counterparts.

Media Ownership Conclusions

As the concentration of online news has increased, so has public distrust in mass media. A recent Gallup poll shows that Americans remain largely mistrustful of the mass media, with just 41% currently having “a great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

In the UK, media trust is poor at best. Just 32% of adults in the UK say they trust the news media at least somewhat. 48% say their news media do a good job of getting the facts right, 46% say they provide coverage independent of corporate influence and 37% say their news coverage is politically neutral. When it comes to covering important topics like immigration, 44% of British adults say that the media is doing a good job. These are not exactly glowing figures for the UK mainstream media. They don’t seem to be able to get close to 50% trust in many cases.

Owners should be asking themselves questions with results like this, but they don’t, and they won’t. The fact is, people still visit their websites and generate profits through advertising, as long as the profits keep coming, they couldn’t care less about trust levels.

That is why at least in the UK, the media and press need to be majorly overhauled. Regional outlets need given back their independence, conglomerates controlling an entire narrative needs to end and the BBC needs a complete overhaul. The number of incidents in the 2019 General Election campaign of “inaccuracies” by the BBC is alarming. They are still the most visited and viewed news platform in the UK. If they are peddling blatant lies, something obviously needs to change.

Independence in the news is at an all time low. Profits for investors take precedent over good quality news. That needs to change. Perhaps you can start by visiting supporting other Independent News sites like this one.

OK. Where are we so far.

Well, we know who wants a war with China.

We also know how they are trying to provoke one, and where they are throwing their money towards.

We also know who their enablers are; they who take that money and run the media printing presses and make policy decisions for a war.

Finally we have seen how they, in turn, manipulate the media that they control. As well as examples of the uniformity of their onslaught.

So what?

So what if America, the United States, wants to launch an “incident” or two? What’s the worst to happen? A down turn in trade? Higher prices at the gas pumps? An increase in war related movies and news? So what?

Well…

It is not going to be like that at all. It won’t be a “pretend war”, it will be a serious, gut wrenching, lethal, lethal war at your front door.

Chinese MIRV

Keep in mind…

All military “war games” against China indicates the USA would lose…

…Very, very badly.

In fact, there isn’t a single war simulation, not one, that has the USA the victor or even a close draw. Each and every simulation for the last 18 years has had the United States defeated in a war with China.

But no worries.

China is a peaceful, prosperous nation that views Taiwan as it’s brothers and sister. No matter what bullshit the main-stream Western media is throwing at you…

Xi Jinping promises peaceful Taiwan reunification

Chinese leader says unity in the best interests of the people of the mainland and of the breakaway island. He’s right.
.
From HERE.
China’s President Xi Jinping said Saturday “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan “will be and can be realized”, days after Chinese warplanes made record incursions into the air defense zone of the democratically ruled island.

Self-governed Taiwan, which has never formally declared independence, lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.

“Realising national reunification by peaceful means best serves the interests of the nation as a whole including our brethren in Taiwan,” Xi said in a speech marking the 110th anniversary of a revolution that ended millennia of imperial rule and led to the founding of the Republic of China.

“Taiwan independence is the biggest obstacle to the reunification of the motherland and a serious hidden danger,” Xi warned.

A large portrait of Sun Yat-sen, a Western-educated doctor who led the 1911 revolution that toppled the Qing empire, towered over the stage as Xi spoke.

Sun founded the Republic of China, which remains the formal name of Taiwan, where defeated Nationalists fled after Mao Zedong’s Communist forces won the Chinese civil war in 1949 and established the People’s Republic.

“The complete reunification of our country will be and can be realised,” Xi said.

He also warned against foreign interference in Taiwan after a Pentagon official confirmed US special operations forces have been quietly training Taiwanese troops for months.

Did you read that?

Pretty simple.

Pretty clear.

Straightforward and direct.

Now, read how this speech was reported in the American Media. You know, the media that is controlled by only five people, and whom most are neocons…

China, Taiwan tensions spark debate inside Biden admin as Democrats push for more forceful response

CNN. From HERE.

Washington (CNN)The Biden administration is grappling with how to respond to China’s ramped-up aggression against Taiwan without accidentally starting a war, as bipartisan lawmakers pressure the President to get tougher on Beijing — and fast.

Huh?

Internally, assessments differ over how imminent the threat to Taiwan really is.

The Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command has watched with increasing concern as China has rapidly modernized its military and improved its training with an eye to Taiwan, sources say. But State Department officials are wary of taking a more aggressive approach, and intelligence officials have seen little evidence that China is preparing to invade.

Tensions have risen sharply in the region recently, however, and administration officials were caught off guard when China’s air force dramatically ramped up its incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone earlier this month.

Even before the most recent incursion, the Biden administration had discussed with Taiwanese officials the possibility of expediting the delivery of American-made F-16s to Taiwan, according to Taiwanese and US officials familiar with the talks. The sale of the 66 fighter jets was approved in 2019, but Taiwan hopes to speed up the actual delivery time—which normally can take up to 10 years—particularly in light of the recent Chinese provocations.

The stakes are high for President Joe Biden, who has made human rights and democracy a key part of his foreign policy agenda but who has also been determined to keep the US out of foreign conflicts. For decades, Washington has embraced the concept of “strategic ambiguity” in dealing with Taiwan, in which the US remains deliberately vague about whether it would come to the island’s defense in the event of an attack by China.

But the recent escalation by Beijing marked a major challenge to that posture and has led some Biden administration officials and lawmakers to reconsider that approach, all as the President has been trying to pivot his foreign policy priorities to the Indo-Pacific region.

It’s also led some in Congress to ratchet up pressure on the White House to change its posture.

“The time for strategic ambiguity is long past,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide. “In light of the clear and present danger Beijing poses to Taiwan’s vibrant democracy, the United States must be crystal clear in our intent — with both our words and our actions. In our current context, ambiguity has invited miscalculation and risk, and an effective deterrence posture can only come from clarity.”

The aide added that the Senate is exploring additional steps to provide Taiwan with “the security, economic and diplomatic support essential for our new era of strategic competition.”

In response, a senior administration official said that “U.S. support for Taiwan remains strong, principled, and bipartisan and we will continue to engage with Congress on these important matters.”

Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, who served as the State Department’s top human rights official under the Obama administration, also favors a tougher approach, and said it would be an error to think of Xi Jinping as bluffing in his threatening rhetoric. The Chinese leader has vowed to “smash” any attempts by Taiwan to declare independence, and said in a speech this month that “the historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled, and will definitely be fulfilled.”

Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski

“It is a consistent mistake of American foreign policy that we project our own pragmatic reasonableness onto others and assume that they don’t mean what they say,” Malinowski said.

Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, a retired Navy commander, has gone even further, arguing for Congress to give more leeway to the President to launch military operations abroad to defend Taiwan if necessary.

Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria

“The legal limitations on a president’s ability to respond quickly could all but ensure a Chinese fait accompli,” Luria wrote in an October 11 Washington Post op-ed, referring to the limits imposed by the War Powers Act. “My Republican colleagues introduced the Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act in February to grant the president the authority to act against an invasion of Taiwan and prevent a fait accompli. This act is a good starting point to address a legal dilemma.”

‘Nothing suggests’ an invasion

Still, that political pressure has run up against a degree of wariness from the State Department and intelligence community. Intelligence officials have not yet seen anything to suggest that China is readying a military offensive, according to people familiar with the intelligence assessments.

“It was certainly a dramatic escalation,” said one of the people, referring to the 56 Chinese aircraft that flew into Taiwan’s defense zone on October 4, the largest-ever incursion. “But nothing suggests that China is preparing for an invasion of Taiwan.”

Officials in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, meanwhile, are leery of taking a much more aggressive posture toward China over the Taiwan issue than the strategically ambiguous status quo.

Former deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, who was dispatched by Biden to Taiwan in April as part of an unofficial delegation aimed at showing support for the island, called the current situation “very dangerous” and said that ending the strategic ambiguity policy would only embolden Beijing further.

“All bets would be off,” he said, because China would see the shift as a “fundamental breach” of the agreements in place for decades.

“It is important for us to reassure Taiwan, but there are ways to do that and to enhance deterrence without sticking our finger in Beijing’s eye,” Steinberg added.

Biden himself has long been opposed to publicly declaring definitive US support for the island democracy in the event of a Chinese attack.

“The president should not cede to Taiwan, much less to China, the ability automatically to draw us into a war across the Taiwan Strait,” then-Senator Biden wrote in a 2001 op-ed. His 24-page national security strategy devotes one vague line to Taiwan, reading: “We will support Taiwan, a leading democracy and a critical economic and security partner, in line with longstanding American commitments.”

The senior administration official emphasized that the US “has an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” and “will continue to oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo.”

“President Biden voted for the Taiwan Relations Act himself and remains firmly committed to the principles therein,” the official said, “including that the United States will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability; and that the United States would regard any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific and of grave concern to the United States.”

Eyes on 2027

American defense officials said they see 2027 — the 100th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army and the final year of Xi Jinping’s third presidential term — as a key year in which Beijing could try to take Taiwan by force if peaceful unification has not yet been achieved.

Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng predicted earlier this month that China would actually have the “full ability” to invade even sooner, by 2025.

While Xi struck a more conciliatory tone in a speech last week, vowing a “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, it is unlikely that Taiwan would ever voluntarily give up their relative autonomy; Taiwan’s foreign minister last week said the island was prepared to “fight to the end” in the event of a war with China.

One defense official noted that for China, reuniting with Taiwan “is a matter of national pride.” But Steinberg, the former deputy secretary of state, said he believes that “China would like to avoid the use of force, because it would be counterproductive and risky to its interests.”

Danny Russel, who served as Deputy Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs until 2017, echoed that assessment.

"The Chinese foreign policy and propaganda community certainly wants to sow doubt in American resolve and convince Taiwan that America won't be there for them," he said. "But that is very different from whether Xi Jinping has the stomach for a fight with the U.S., an immensely capable nuclear power, and its allies."

That doesn’t mean things can’t spiral out of control, Steinberg cautioned. The region right now is a tinderbox, as the different sides try to leverage alliances and show off military prowess. The British-led Carrier Strike Group 21, for example, has participated in a multinational show of force in the Indo-Pacific, including through the South China Sea, most of which Beijing claims as its territorial waters.

"My personal view is that none of the sides want an [armed] confrontation, but everyone is afraid that if any side shows weakness or a lack of resolve, then the other side will misinterpret it," Steinberg said. "It's a security spiral, and there is no stability in a situation like this."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the number of F-16 fighter jets approved for sale to Taiwan in 2019. It was 66.
A very long and detailed article. All are opinions based on lies. I can’t make it any clearer than that.

OK, so we know the twisted propaganda, what now?

Well, there are many, many issues involved. The big one, of course is the absolute collapsing of the United States, and a near panic attempt to delay and forestall the really bitter end of the “grand experiment” in American “democracy”.

But you see, China plays the “long game”. They are playing 78 moves ahead in chess while the Untied States only thinks one move at a time. And that brings up some interesting issues.

Like this one…

China is a rising leader in IC fabrication, but America wants to stop that rise…

The Korea Times
October. 19. 2021
Biz & Tech2021-10-17 15:59
[ANALYSIS] Korea under pressure to mediate chip issue

Sharing chip info to US may force Samsung to share it to China

By Kim Yoo-chul
The current semiconductor shortages have illustrated the strategic significance of semiconductor manufacturing. The central point of today’s chip shortages is a classic supply-demand mismatch.
This means that demand for semiconductors is spiking while supply is fairly flat. As the construction of semiconductor factories costs billions of dollars, semiconductor shortages amid the continued pandemic have been directly impacting the “backbone industries” of the United States with many Wall Street investors forecasting supply-chain bottlenecks to continue throughout this year.
The United States, one of the top export markets for Korea, has been aggressively pushing chip-related policies mostly aimed at ensuring the country’s sovereignty in semiconductor production through massive subsidies.
Sanity Check. Look at a chart to see the real picture, before we go further with this article. 

The USA is a very minor export destination for Korea's IC chips.
Korea export markets.
The White House was offering to back billion-dollar programs in a bid to strengthen the long-term and a greater self-sufficiency of the U.S. semiconductor industry. Simply and precisely, this issue has become a political one. It’s fair to say that the United States, China and even Europe are on a clear track to politicize tech supply chains.
The U.S. Department of Commerce asked America's "Big 3" automakers and key industry players operating there ― including Intel, TSMC, Apple, Samsung Electronics and GlobalFoundries ― to submit their key semiconductor management-related data such as inventory levels, production targets and revenue estimates according to clients and technology development roadmaps by Nov. 8 this year.
.
The U.S. government stressed that the submission of the information should be voluntary.
But Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned industry executives recently that her team may invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) or other available tools to force such required data into their hands.
.
To FORCE them…
"What I told them is, 'I don't want to have to do anything compulsory but if they don't comply, then they'll leave me no choice',"
she said.

No option but to consider ‘China factor’

From Korea’s standpoint, given the country’s strengths in the chip sector, any decision to share such classified information with the United States will cause adverse results as China is equally important…
No. 

Look at the chart up above again. China is by far the largest and most significant buyer of these chips. With the United States being a very tiny and insignificant customer. So, people (!) they are NOT "equally important".
…and comparable to the United States in terms of the significance of trade.
Again. No. Unless you have the intelligence of a snail.

USA is 9%
China is 51%

They are NOT comparable. But the brain dead readership in the West really never bothers to check the raw data. They rely on the "journalists" to do so. Blind faith; it will "kick you in the balls" unless you are careful.
Samsung and SK have invested more than $15 billion in semiconductor plants in China.
"Things are becoming very complicated. 

However, the primary focus is that Samsung Electronics is advised not to share its classified chip data with the U.S. government. 

If it does that, then Samsung will be situated to submit confidential data to Beijing regarding its semiconductor business. That's a scenario I don't want to think about. 

Again, this is more about a matter of national security and intellectual property,"
…a high-ranking government official told The Korea Times, Sunday.
"Washington's request for Samsung to share classified information is totally unprecedented,"
…said Ahn Ki-hyun, a senior executive at the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association (KSIA). Analysts and officials are not ruling out the possibility of handing over acquired data to Intel, which announced its entry into foundry-chip making with Washington’s backing.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s top memory chip manufacturer, has been operating a massive foundry chip-making plant for more than a decade in the U.S. state of Texas. The tech giant is set to announce the location of its new $17 billion plant, also likely to be in Texas, when Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong signs off on the deal, possibly next month.
China is Samsung Electronics’ other key market.
.
It operates several chip plants in the neighboring country with assistance from Beijing ― similar to the arrangement with the United States. China has been massively boosting its investment in semiconductor capabilities.
Samsung, in this regard, has become sandwiched on multiple fronts between the United States and China.
They are being forced to choose. Select the Untied States, or their nearby nuclear armed neighbor, China, where 80% of their factories lie. -MM
This quote…
"Samsung can't handle this issue alone as it is too big for a private company to handle. 

The South Korean government needs to ask the White House and U.S. commerce department to minimize the scope of information that Samsung must share. 

Or Samsung Electronics and the government will need to lobby U.S. politicians on the points that it is already the top-tier foreign direct investor in the United States with large scale local employment and that it will remain as the most-trusted business partner there. 

The same appealing points could be applied when Samsung deals with China,"
…a senior industry executive said by telephone.
South Korea’s top trade negotiator Yeo Han-koo voiced the country’s uneasiness regarding Washington’s request to share chip data and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said he also relayed Korean chipmakers’ concerns about Washington’s request to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
The global semiconductor industry is following its typical cycle with overcapacity forecasted for 2023. This trend will threaten the bottom lines of major chipmakers, raising the possibility that some cash-intensive investment plans will have to be scaled back.

China is the leader in military artificial intelligence (AI) technology

At least that is what the Leadership of the United States AI Technology branch thinks. He caused quite a roar a few weeks ago when he resigned and all the neocon publication went bat-shit crazy over it. Then the furor died down.

US Air Force software boss resigns: ‘Battle over AI lost to China’

Nicolas Chaillan, 37, told the Financial Times after resigning: 'We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years.' 'Right now, it's already a done deal – it is already over in my opinion,' he added. 'Whether it takes a war or not is kind of anecdotal.'

From HERE.

That says the former software chief of the US Air Force to the Financial Times. According to Nicolas Chaillan, there is “good reason to be angry”.

Chaillan has spent the past few years working within the armed forces on ways to improve cybersecurity. The former Air Force chief software officer told the newspaper he resigned last week in protest at the slow pace at which the military is undergoing technological transformation. He also says that he cannot see the US being surpassed by China.

Chaillan, 37, said the US will no longer be able to compete with China in 15 to 20 years. “It’s already a done race. It’s already over, in my eyes,” he told the Financial Times. Chaillan also warned that cybersecurity in some government departments is still at “kindergarten” level.

The former top official said he wants to testify before the US parliament about the Chinese cyber threat to his country within weeks. Although that spends much more money on defense than China, according to Chaillan, this is not done in an effective way. He also complained that bureaucracy is hampering necessary reforms.

According to the former software chief, technologies such as artificial intelligence are much more important for the future of the US than, for example, new jet fighters such as the F-35. He called the discussion about ethics in the development of artificial intelligence a restraining factor in the US. Companies such as Google would also be reluctant to cooperate with the military in the field of AI.

The situation in China looks very different, according to Chaillan. There, according to the expert, companies are obliged to cooperate with the authorities and “huge investments are made” without taking ethics into account.

More…

China is the leader in military robotics.

All of the AI for them is mature and is used in industry inside of China. China has been producing military robots straight out of the movie “Terminator”, and they swim, fly, crawl, and walk. I’ll be you never heard about all that have you?

Well here’s some movies to get you a bit interested…

Video Here.

I wonder how the Western armies would feel if they confronted military robots that looked like funny fat bunny rabbits, cute attractive women, little big eyed children? I wonder how they would react to Tonka-truck sized walking grenades, robot dog bomb squads, and mini-nuke drones?

Video Here

Robotic farming is a mature technology. Can you even imagine what the military has MASS PRODUCED? I know that there are robot fish that are swimming bombs, as well as all sorts of things that would rest inside your worst nightmare.

Video Here.

Schools of robotic fish. Some with bombs, some with sensors. All under the control of the Chinese military and swimming all over the South China Sea.

Video Here.

And here’s a shark robot. I wonder if it has friggin’ lasers in it’s eyes?

Video Here.

China has advanced anti-satellite technology

Chinese scientists build anti-satellite weapon that can cause explosion inside exhaust
Researchers who built the device say it can lock itself into the thruster nozzles used by most satellites and stay there for long periods undetected
Scientists say the resulting blast would damage the target’s equipment and may be mistaken for an engine malfunction

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3153174/chinese-scientists-build-anti-satellite-weapon-can-cause

China is the leader in the rapid manufacture of nuclear weapons systems

Yah. China is the leader in manufacturing. Not only have they absorbed all the technologies needed and necessary for manufacturing, but they have developed an adjacent infrastructure to support those industries.

And it’s not just rubber ducks, hospitals, electric cars, and clothing. It also includes military systems and hardware. And we can see it. Though it is only briefly reported in the American media, China has created a formidable Naval Fleet that operates in the waters adjacent to China; the South China Sea. Unlike the United States, which spreads military project outward everywhere, China’s is concentrated next to China.

And it’s not just that. Consider the mass production of the nuclear armed MIRV ICBM the DF-41. Also known as a “scatter-gun” nuke delivery system.

The DF-41 missile has an operational range of more than 14,000 kilometers and can carry about 10 independently targetable nuclear warheads, capable of hitting anywhere on Earth, and this would make DF-41 the world's longest range missile, surpassing the range of the US LGM-30 Minuteman which has a reported range of 13,000 kilometers.

Yang Chengjun, a Chinese expert on missile technology and nuclear strategy and chief scientist of quantum defense, told the Global Times that the DF-41 is Chinese fourth-generation strategic nuclear weapon and has the longest operational range among all Chinese ICBMs. "This ICBM's research and development was very successful, and its technology is very mature. During testing, there was no failure record," Yang noted.

Wu Jian, editor of Defense Weekly under the Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening News, told the Global Times that the multiple transporter erector launchers of the DF-41 missile shown in the October 2019 parade proved that the People's Liberation Army had already built a massive and advanced system to support the use of this missile. "This proves that China has sufficient and reliable strategic nuclear power, and decision-makers have the confidence to show and use them to respond to any kind of nuclear threat from any country." Wu noted "No matter how advanced the missile is, it always needs a mature and comprehensive system to make sure it can accurately strike a target, which at least includes intelligence gathering, satellite surveillance, logistics, and construction of launching positions".

Public data shows that DF-41 is a rival of the 6th-generation missiles of some developed countries, such as the American LGM-30 Minuteman and the Russian RT-2PM2. The Chinese missile even has an edge with regard to some technologies. The DF-41 has a range of 12,000 kilometers and a deviation of some one hundred meters. It can carry six to 10 multiple maneuverable warheads, which makes it difficult to be intercepted. The missile is 16.5 meters in length with a diameter of 2.78 meters. It can be launched from road- and rail-mobile launcher platforms, as well as silo-based launchers.

China’s state-owned Global Times, on 23 January 2017, carried a report, which said the Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) missile would bring China “more respect.” The missiles that are capable of carrying 10-12 nuclear warheads were deployed near the China-Russia border, according the report, which did not go into further detail. there has been no authoritative information on whether China has a Dongfeng-41 strategic missile brigade, how many such brigades it has and where they are deployed. Two days earlier, Pingguo Ribao, a Hong Kong-based publication reported about the deployment. News of a potential deployment leaked much earlier.

Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military affairs commentator, noted that the new missiles would also have stronger penetration abilities and faster response times. "Only with these advantages can they have the chance to quickly penetrate through the missile defense system of the US."

Chinese military observers have widely connected China's efforts in improving its missiles' functions with the missile defense plans of the United States. At present, the US is developing a multi-level missile defense network including the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System, Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, and Sea-based SM-3 Missile Defense System.

Song said China's development of the new missiles is aimed at maintaining military balance to protect national security, not to seek hegemony, while the US is trying to break it by being ambitious in improving military technologies in both defense and attack. China has a "no first use" policy for nuclear weapons. "The US has been building its missile defense network like a shield, which other countries' missiles cannot penetrate. This for sure stimulated other countries to sharpen their 'spears.' Otherwise, if the US has both the strongest shield and spear, they could impose an aggressive strategy on us, and we would be driven into passivity," said Song.

China can detect all American stealth aircraft

China has reportedly developed an over-the-horizon maritime early warning radar system that can detect stealth aircraft far beyond visual range, an advanced capability that could threaten US fifth-generation fighters operating in the area.

-China Says New Radar Can Spot US Stealth Fighters

The solution?

Don’t put military fighters near Chinese airspace. Duh!

China has an enormous inactive military

The Chinese teach military discipline and warfare skills in elementary school through out elementary, middle and high school. The Pioneers is a paramilitary branch of the children that concentrates on military art to serve the nation. In middle school, all students must go through “boot camp”. And then in High School, students are carefully vetted to see what role or part of society that they can serve best.

While China has an enormous and huge military force, it is also integrated with other fighting organizations. Such as the police, the coast guard, the various civilian detachments and so on and so forth.

Were China to be attacked, it won’t be  just a small percentage of the people trying to defend the cities. It would be the vast bulk of society. From 5 year old kids in kindergarten, to 80 year old great grandfathers. You do not want to shake the Chinese hornet’s nest.

China uses nuclear weapons as part of it’s defensive posture. No escalation would occur.

A Chinese Way of War. The primary goal of a commander educated in the style of the ancient Chinese military classics was a rapid, easy victory, one obtained via a variety of tactics which have a long lineage within Chinese military historiography.

-A Chinese Way of War 

Chinese military doctrine is to control the course of any war from the onset. They do not believe in evolving into “stages of conflict”. They believe that a war is a war. And you treat it as such. They do not make a functional distinction between military forces landing on one of their islands, or a full assault on a city. If you attack them, they will attack back.

Tactical neutron bombs

From 1977 to 1988 China developed a neutron bomb, more formally known as an enhanced radiation weapon. Neutron bombs are specialized tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) with reduced blast effects and enhanced radiation. Similar to the BMD and ASAT puzzles, this weapon appears incompatible with China’s stated nuclear doctrine. 

-National Interest.

Unlike the United States, China has developed systems geared to kill the enemy while leaving their buildings, automobiles, bridges and factories intact. It is called a “neutron bomb”. The West does not employ these weapons because of the political fallout.

This is a special nuclear weapon that releases radiation instead of blowing up things massively. The amount of radiation is quick, and very, very lethal and dissipates rather quickly; on the order of months.

These are also huge weapons that can totally  kill everyone in a single city while leaving eh skyscrapers intact. The intended purpose is against military bases, and hardened underground sites, but they can (and in a war, would) be employed to empty out complete cities.

For instance, if used against Chicago or Atlanta, the entire city would be spared from destruction. It’s just that all the people would die a very painful death by radiation as they are on their knees vomiting out their hemorrhaging internal organs.

Scatter-gun swarm nukes

The American policy, since President Trump, has been to use micro-nukes to hit “high value” targets, and then use the threat of complete national nuclear annihilation if the attacked nation responds.

The Chinese policy is to use nuclear weapons from the moment they are attacked. They do not believe in escalation.

Thus any nation that attacks China, whether it is a proxy for the United States, or the actual United States; both types of nations will be hit with swarm nuke warheads. These are very deadly “shotgun” nuclear missiles that fire a barrage of nuclear bombs in clusters.

To say that they are similar to American MIRV ICBM’s is silly. And just shows how ignorant one is.

If, say, America launches a nuclear ICBM at China, the missile would contain three nuclear warheads. One for Beijing, one for Shanghai, and one for Hong Kong.

But if China launches a nuclear ICBM at the United States, it would contain ten nuclear warheads that would all be directed at a singular city. So New York and all the surrounding region would be pulverized into radioactive glass by ten, very, very large, and very, very dirty, nuclear bombs.

China is allied with Russia

China nukes are not “precision” ordnance

America is so proud of it’s precision ordnance; the ability to pinpoint targets, and take them out surgically.

But the Chinese (and the Russians), while they do have the ability to lay precision target ordnance, do not employ it.

They use a wholly different strategy. They believe in carpet swath attacks. Instead of placing a singular lone high value missile on a singular lone high value target, like the United States, they instead believe in leveling the entire area into obliteration.

While the United States might plan on striking say 20 high value target in a particular city, China would calibrate a nuclear warhead and destroy the entire city indiscriminately. That way all of the targets are removed, and sure there’s a lot of collateral damage, but “tough cookies”. You all shouldn’t have fucked with them in the first place. Ya God damn morons.

This policy is completely across the board. Not just strategic, but tactical and theater as well. China will eviscerate a complete area. While the United States and it’s vassals are busy trying to attack a hamlet, a building or a structure. China just rubble’s everything.

China does not play.

Financial Times says US intelligence officials reportedly caught by surprise by Beijing’s progress on weapons; Pentagon: ‘We hold China as our number one pacing challenge’

https://www.timesofisrael.com/china-secretly-tests-earth-circling-nuclear-capable-hypersonic-missile-report/

This is to tell the Western crusaders not to try their luck by starting another war.
The average number of times that China is taking the USA Pentagon by surprise is 6 times per year. (every two months) Average, of course.
This time, China has tested a new supersonic rocket, encircling the world. 
China tests earth-circling, nuclear-capable hypersonic missile:
https://lnkd.in/dTDKYu3z

China Tested A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System That Uses A Hypersonic Glide Vehicle: Report

Such a capability could potentially allow China to execute a nuclear strike on any target on earth with near-impunity and very little warning.

A report from Financial Times’ Demetri Sevastopulo and Kathrin Hille states that China has tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle that goes into space and traverses the globe in an orbital-like fashion before making its run through the atmosphere toward its target. There would be huge implications if such a system were to be operationalized, and according to this story, which says it talked to five officials confirming the test, the U.S. government was caught totally off-guard by it.

The trial flight is said to have occurred around August, with the boost-glide vehicle being lifted into space by a Long March 2C rocket. The launch of the rocket, the 77th of its kind, was undisclosed by Beijing, while the 76th and 78th were—the latter of which occurred in late August. The Financial Times says that the tested hypersonic glide vehicle missed its target by a couple of dozen miles, but that is hardly reassuring considering the capabilities that are apparently in development here. 

The foundation of this Cold War-era concept is commonly referred to as a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, or FOBS, but instead of carrying a traditional nuclear-armed reentry vehicle, this Chinese system would carry a hypersonic glide vehicle that would possess immense kinetic energy upon reentry. As such, it could make a very long maneuvering flight through the atmosphere at very high speeds to its target.

Here’s an interesting video…

The FOBS concept has long been a concern because of its potential to bypass not just missile defenses, but even many early warning capabilities. Compared to a traditional intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a FOBS can execute the same strikes but from highly unpredictable vectors. Range limitations also become a non-factor and the timing of an inbound strike is also far less predictable. But at least with a traditional FOBS ballistic missile system, some sort of projections could be made if the mid-course “orbital” vehicle can be tracked, although that could still be a real challenge.

That is not the case at all with a hybrid design like the one being claimed to have been tested here, which would be totally unpredictable.

The maneuvering hypersonic glide vehicle, descending from high-altitude at extreme speed, could travel thousands of miles to its target, which can be totally offset from a normal ballistic track. Complicating things more, these systems can attack from the south pole, not just the north where most of America’s ballistic missile early warning, tracking, and defensive apparatus is focused. Intercepting such a system would also be very challenging, especially considering U.S. mid-course intercept capabilities are focused on traditional ballistic missile flight profiles, which fly more of a parabolic trajectory and have generally known ranges of each stage of flight.

With a glide vehicle end-game delivery system paired with a FOBS, its vehicles can enter the atmosphere beyond the range of an interceptor’s exo-atmospheric mid-course kill envelope, with the glide vehicle weaving its way through the atmosphere to its final target. Traditional surface-based radar systems’ line of sight is also significantly reduced as the hypersonic glide vehicle travels in the atmosphere. Paired with the extreme speeds involved, this can make these systems nearly useless at providing any details regarding the impending attack.

Hypersonic glide vehicles themselves are also very tough to kill with no real defense against them available at this time. Elaborate defensive concepts are in the works, but their effectiveness will depend on just how fast these vehicles are traveling, their maneuverability, density in numbers, what third-party sensors are available to help in generating an engagement solution, and more. A hypersonic glide vehicle with the kinetic energy in its favor from an orbital-like delivery would likely be the very hardest to kill.

As we have repeatedly noted, the Financial Times also recognized the eyebrow-raising comments by U.S. Department of Defense officials recently on potential “non-traditional” delivery systems that could bypass America’s strategic defenses:

Last month, Frank Kendall, US air force secretary, hinted that Beijing was developing a new weapon. He said China had made huge advances, including the “potential for global strikes . . . from space”. 

He declined to provide details, but suggested that China was developing something akin to the “Fractional Orbital Bombardment System” that the USSR deployed for part of the Cold War, before abandoning it.“ If you use that kind of an approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM trajectory. It’s a way to avoid defenses and missile warning systems,” said Kendall.

In August, General Glen VanHerck, head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, told a conference that China had “recently demonstrated very advanced hypersonic glide vehicle capabilities”. He warned that the Chinese capability would “provide significant challenges to my Norad capability to provide threat warning and attack assessment”.

There is no shortage of concerns about China’s nuclear buildup within the DoD, and like Moscow, it’s only logical that Beijing would invest in delivery systems that circumvent U.S. early warning and defensive capabilities. The idea that at least some of the hundreds of supposed silos out in the Chinese desert being built to house new ballistic missiles could one day be armed with a weapon like this is very concerning. It also could be yet another major driver behind the Pentagon’s push to deploy a whole new space-based early warning and tracking system for hypersonic and ballistic missiles, including one capable of “cold layer” tracking of missiles in their midcourse stage of flight.

That layer would be absolutely essential in trying to defend against a FOBS, that is if a defense at all is actually feasible or even strategically sound. We are not talking about a rogue state here with a few advanced ballistic missiles. China would be able to deploy dozens or even hundreds of these at once. At a certain point, kinetic defenses against such a capability become a losing proposition and a very costly one at that.

Still, this was an early test aboard a full-on rocket used for traditional space access missions. It will take China some time to perfect such a system and package it in a quickly deployable militarized configuration. Major thermal and ablative issues also must be overcome, among others, but it’s not like China hasn’t been working diligently in the hypersonic boost-glide vehicle realm for many years.

Regardless, if this report ends up being fully accurate, one thing is likely: New calls for hugely expensive missile defense capabilities will be ringing loud and often on Capitol Hill, as well as demands to do whatever possible to bring China to the bargaining table in hopes of obtaining some type of strategic arms limitation treaty.

We will continue to update this story as more emerges, but for now, make sure you read the Financial Times’ excellent original report here.

Simon Black Comments

By the late the fifth century BC, after decades of war with its chief rival Sparta, the ancient Greek city-state of Athens was desperate for peace.

They wanted a decisive victory to end the war once and for all. So the citizens gathered together in their public assembly– essentially a democratic mob of 6,000 people– and voted to build a new, costly fleet of ships.

The strategy worked. And their new armada vanquished the Spartan navy in the Battle of the Arginusae Islands in 406 BC.

Sparta was on the ropes, and the Assembly cheered when news of their fleet’s victory reached Athens.

But then the Assembly found out that 25 of the 150 ships had been sunk by the Spartans, and that the Athenian crews of those 25 sunken ships had drowned in a storm.

The Assembly suddenly became furious, crying that the souls of those drowned sailors would wander purgatory for all of eternity because they didn’t have a proper burial.

So then the Athenian mob voted to execute eight of their top military commanders; the very same generals and admirals who had just won the battle and been called heroes, were now being put to death.

Socrates was one of the lone voices of dissent; yet the death sentences were still carried out despite his protest.

Then, only a few days later, the Athenian Assembly had a change of heart. The mob realized that they shouldn’t have executed their military commanders, so they then voted to execute the people within the Assembly who had proposed the executions to begin with.

During this insane dumpster fire of ancient democracy, Spartan leaders approached Athens with a peace deal, offering to end the war once and for all.

This was the entire reason that Athens had built a new fleet. They just wanted peace.

But they were so distracted by infighting and arguing about who to execute next, and who to blame, that the Assembly rejected Sparta’s peace offering.

Yet Athens’ military was now led by inexperienced admirals and generals, since they had just executed their best commanders. And Sparta quickly seized the advantage.

Within a few months the Spartan navy was ravaging Athenian territory, and soon laying siege to Athens itself. The war finally ended in 404 BC with Athens losing all sovereignty and falling under complete control of the Spartan Empire.

As the old saying goes, history doesn’t necessarily repeat. But it certainly rhymes. And I was thinking about this particular episode recently when it was reported earlier this week that China has just successfully tested its first nuclear-capable hypersonic missile.

In case you don’t geek out on military strategy like I do, suffice it to say that this is a huge deal, not just for the United States, but for the entire world.

For the past several decades, the United States has boasted the strongest, most technologically advanced military in the world.

And it would be foolish to think that this military strength hasn’t substantially contributed to America’s geopolitical and economic power.

The United States Marine Corps is essentially the biggest derivatives contract in the world. It’s the US government’s ultimate hedge, enabling it wage trade wars, sanction foreign banks, and bully anyone it wants into following US regulations.

The US military is even part of the reason why the dollar is still the world’s reserve currency, despite the US government being the largest debtor that has ever existed in the history of the world.

The US government, and the US economy, both derive substantial benefit from America’s military power.

And this is why China’s rapid military development is such a big deal.

China could destroy the United States in cyberwarfare. That’s pretty much a foregone conclusion. I mean… there are still system within the US Defense Department that use 5 ¼ inch floppy disks.

But even in conventional warfare, China is gaining rapidly. The Chinese Navy already the world’s largest fleet. And this is important because one of the biggest roles of a modern navy is to project military firepower over great distances.

China is investing heavily in this capability, feverishly building new ships and developing new technology.

It has massive stockpiles of cruise missiles, most of which have larger payloads and longer range than comparable US weaponry.

This week’s hypersonic missile launch is merely the latest proof; it’s technology that the US cannot counteract either, given that hypersonic missiles are more likely to be able to evade missile defense systems.

The Chinese wasted no time gloating their achievement, calling the launch “a new blow to the US’s mentality of strategic superiority. . .”

You’d think this would be a massive wake-up call to the US federal government.

The balance of power is shifting right in front of their very eyes.

Yet take a look at their priorities– spending trillions of dollars on ‘equity’ and ‘social justice’, which they claim will supposedly “cost nothing”.

They’re busy directing federal resources to target parents who are angry over the way their children are being educated.

They’re pushing people out of government service, whether through mandates, or through ideological purges to weed out those with conservative beliefs.

As the Center for Military Readiness reports, US Special Operations Command “intends to elevate diversity, inclusion, and equity above mission effectiveness and overall readiness.”

In fact a leaked Special Operations Command planning document states at least 12 times over twenty pages that “diversity and inclusion are operational imperatives” even though they provide no support to back up this assertion.

If that doesn’t freak you out, check out how certain medical schools are turning into orwellian nightmares where professors and other teachers are literally afraid to say “pregnant woman”.

https://www.plebity.org/conversations/gender-ideology-is-wreaking-carnage-in-our-medical-schools-an-eye-witness-report/

The Defense Department is exploring racial quotas in its promotion criteria. They’re planning to reduce physical fitness standards.

And military recruiting advertisements (along with those of the Central Intelligence Agency) are now focused on LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ diversity goals.

This behavior is so counterproductive that even the ancient Athenian assembly would stand in awe at its destructive stupidity.

American military recruitment advertisements compared to Russia and China

The stark contrast between the U.S. military’s woke recruitment ads and Russia and China’s impressive and menacing recruitment videos have people on social media taking notice. Russia’s video from 2017 shows a man compelled by a sense of national pride to serve in the military, where he is then seen subjected to rigorous and intensive training. In China, the advertisements focus on family, community, country and the need to defend and participate in it for the maintenance of social order, while in America the military recruits in support of gay and LGBT rights and Climate Change.

Oh, and this just came in…

I just received this urgent message.

China has urged its citizens to keep physical goods and not paper money.

There will be a huge round of inflation as the US, Japan, UK, Sweden, etc, are printing more and more money.

So the Chinese are planning not to accept USD but only their RMB for payments,

RECEIVED THIS CHINESE ARTICLE FROM CONTACTS IN GUANGZHOU...

This is an article circulating within China. It advises people to focus on buying Chinese items, and durable goods, and refrain from buying or trading in the West with anything other than other durable goods, or the RMB.
朋友,请你看清时势:
Friends, please observe the current situation clearly:
.
中国大陆开始施行自我保护措施了!
MAINLAND CHINA HAS BEGUN TO IMPLEMENT SELF-PROTECTION MEASURES!
.
一是保护国民安全,大幅度减少入境人员。
#1.   It is to protect the safety of the people and drastically reduce the number of people entering China.
.
二是保护国民资产,减缓实物出口。
#2.   Secondly is to protect national assets and slow down physical exports.
.
当美国疫情爆发而长期得不到有效防治时,该国人员隔离、生产停滞、迅速消耗存量物资,又拼命降息、只懂得印钞票进行所谓经济刺激,实际上这是用纸币来掠夺实物,当这个国家存货实物极度匮乏时,纸币就贱如卫生纸,雷同如冥币。
.
When the U.S. ( COVID-19 ) epidemic broke out and there was no effective preventive measures and control for a long time…  the country’s populations were isolated, production stagnated, and stocks of supplies quickly dwindled, and the Federal Reserve desperately cut interest rates ( to stimulate the economy ) including  PRINTING BANK NOTES for the so-called “economic stimulus”.
.
When a nation’s durables and their supporting industries industry becomes scarce, the banknotes of that nation will become cheap and useless, and as disposable as toilet paper. They are similar to plastic coins.
The coronavirus, and more precisely the handling of it, has been a disaster in the Western nations. As such. their solution to the economic impact of the botched handling of the pandemic caused an acceleration in the worthlessness of the currency.-MM
如果是国际货币,则掠夺的是其他生产国的物资。 生产国换取的外汇,因为疫情,吃穿住行购物旅游都无法实现,还不断的贬值,持币者大亏。
The the US dollar as the international currency is very dangerous. Using it is equivalent to plundering the materials, the labor, and the services of goods-producing nations.
Use of the USD is no longer sustainable or advised. -MM
Due to this COVID-19 epidemic…  food, clothing, housing, transportation, shopping, and travel could not be realized in the foreign exchange by the producing . country, and the value of the currency holders has  continuously depreciated.
Due to coronavirus, all normal international actions has been impacted. Those holding currency in the nations that have not been able to successfully manage the pandemic, has seen their currency depreciate. -MM
欧元、美元、英磅、瑞元,都是这样的货币,会逐渐冥纸化。 所以,中国明白了,哪一国疫情不治,大陆就不再拿实物去换冥币一样的外汇。
The Euro, the US dollar, the British pound, and the Swiss franc are all such currencies and will gradually become useless paper.  Therefore, China understands that in any country where the epidemic is not under control,  the Chinese will no longer exchange physical objects for foreign currency like these worthless plastic coins.
In trading with the West, it is important to note that all the currency that they use will soon become absolutely worthless. You can measure the future of the value of the currency by the economic turmoil caused by the coronavirus. -MM
高筑墙,广积粮,p自我内部循环,保证财富不流失,等待《以物易物》或人民币国际化。
Build high walls ( TO ISOLATE ), accumulate grains, internal trade and consumption and ensure that ‘wealth’ is not lost. Instead wait for the financial exchange method of “BARTERING FOR GOODS” or alternatively, the “INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE CHINESE RMB”.
Now, the Chinese people are put on warning. They must start to make arrangements to barter, or use the RMB in transactions. It is highly possible that wealth will start to be lost was inflation eats away at the value of the USD. -MM
我们有此行动,估计越南、印度、马来西亚、印尼… 等生产国也会采取类似关门措施。
We have taken this action, and it is estimated that Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Indonesia… and other producing countries will also adopt similar “CLOSE DOOR” MEASURES.
China is making this announcement along with Russia. It is expected that the rest of SE Asia will follow. -MM
大家都明白,谁拿实物换冥币,谁就是傻瓜。
Everyone understands that whoever exchanges  real physical things for THIS PLASTIC COIN is a fool.
Exchanging physical, substantive items in exchange for paper, plastic, or other non-durable items; items that are subject to the whims of politics, and their irrational actions, is a fool. -MM
美国这个月内,增发1.9万亿亿美元,欧盟,日元也是大量印钞票。
Just within this month, the United States has issued an additional 1.9 trillion US dollars, and the European Union and the Japanese also printed a large amount of money.
This is common knowledge. No surprises here. -MM
全世界都在靠印钞票度过危机,人民币何去何从这很重要。 跟风的话,通货膨胀,苦果自己吃;不跟的话,等于人民币在抵消货币的通货膨胀,损失还是自己。
The whole world is relying on PRINTING MONEY to survive the crisis. It is very important to watch how the RMB renminbi will fare.  If you follow the money printing trend, inflation will be the end result; and if you don’t follow the trend, it means that the renminbi will be  offsetting currency inflation ( when you trade and accept their Currency ) and thereby you sustain LOSSES.
If you trade with foreign nations and accept the USD in exchange for the products you make, you are taking a huge risk. China urges all nations to accept other means of payment; stable means, where possible. -MM
所以,我们玩得很绝,不降息,用人民币双边结算。 想买我的物品,要么拿实物,要么拿人民币,美元我不要了。
Therefore, we are maintaining  in an extremely stiff (difficult) situation and we will not cut our interest rates.
.
In the near future all trade will be settled bilaterally in Chinese currency the RMB. If you want to buy our goods, we will no longer accept USD. Instead you will need to pay us in RMB, or barter for them with other durable items.
China is laying down the line. No. Not only will China not buy up any American or Western debt, but that it will now start to insist in hard durable payment schemes for all items made in China. If you want iPhones, for example, then you should use RMB, or barter with an equivalent amount of beef, wine, or wheat. -MM
我们终于醒过来了,不再盲目大量出口,也看清许多国家”大量印钞票”只是在搜刮世界物质财富。
We have finally waken up…. we are no longer blindly exporting large quantities of products. We have also notices that many countries that are “printing a large amount of money” are simply just plundering the world’s material wealth in exchange for vapor.
The Big Giant has finally woken up. -MM
只要认清方向,永远不晚,我们不能再做赔本生意了,中国人照顾好自己的人民才最重要。
As long as we understand the direction… it is never too late. We refuse to do business at a loss. The most important thing is for the Chinese GOVERNMENT to take good care and look after the welfare of its people.
This is all reasonable. -MM
美国花一毛钱印了一张百元大钞(而且没任何贵重金属抵押), 要求买你的一百斤大米,这不是欺负人吗? 这是明目张胆的诈骗, 是无耻的掠夺。
The United States spent only ten cents to print a hundred-dollar bill (without any precious metal collateral) and asked to buy one hundred dollars value of your goods. Isn’t this cheating / bullshit?  This is a blatant fraud. It is a shameless plunder.
That's putting it mildly. When you couple the realization that all this fake money is then being used to attack, and demonize China; the source from whence the value is derived. -MM
美国想得很美,有求于中国帮他们度过危机,下一步可能停止贸易战,假装妥协,幻想用印出的大量美元疯狂抢购中国生产的物质,我们不会上当了。
The United States Painted a  BEAUTIFUL  Scenery and ASKS CHINA TO HELP THEM TIDE OVER THE CRISIS with a promise  to stop the trade war, PRETENDING TO COMPROMISE, and using THEIR USELESS DOLLARS  to buy Chinese-produced materials.
.
We will not be fooled AGAIN.
.
让美国人去自己玩吧,我们不奉陪了。【 請转发】
Let the Americans and play by themselves, we will no longer be participating.

A final warning

As if that isn’t enough to convince you, keep in mind that the US military is pretty much a “paper tiger“. Latest eg. :A phone call threat plus a shooter is enough to shut down an entire United States military complex.

You do not want to fuck with Asia. You have no fucking idea what your world will end up looking like. VIDEO.

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

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The Concrete Mixer by Ray Bradbury (Full text)

The following in one of Ray Bradbury’s short stories. It is titled “The Cement Mixer”. “The Concrete Mixer” is one of his earlier stories. It was first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in April 1949. In the story, a warlike race of Martians plans their glorious conquest of Earth but one of them, Ettil Vrye, foresaw defeat. He was given his choice of joining the Legion of War —or burning his beloved instead!

The Concrete Mixer

HE LISTENED to the dry-grass rustle of the old witches’ voices beneath his open
window:
‘Ettil, the coward! Ettil, the refuser! Ettil, who will not wage the glorious
war of Mars against Earth!’
‘Speak on, witches!’ he cried.
The voices dropped to a murmur like that of water in the long canals under the
Martian sky.
‘Ettil, the father of a son who must grow up in the shadow of this horrid
knowledge!’ said the old wrinkled women. They knocked their sly-eyed heads
gently together. ‘Shame, shame!’
His wife was crying on the other side of the room. Her tears were as rain,
numerous and cool on the tiles. ‘Oh, Ettil, how can you think this way?’
Ettil laid aside his metal book which, at his beckoning, had been singing him a
story all morning from its thin golden-wired frame.
‘I’ve tried to explain,’ he said. ‘This is a foolish thing, Mars invading Earth.
We’ll be destroyed, utterly.’

Outside, a banging, crashing boom, a surge of brass, a drum, a cry, marching
feet, pennants and songs. Through the stone sheets the army, fire weapons to
shoulder, stamped. Children skipped after. Old women waved dirty flags.
‘I shall remain on Mars and read a book,’ said Ettil. A blunt knock on the door.
Tylla answered. Father-in-law stormed in. ‘What’s this I hear about my
son-in-law? A traitor?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘You’re not fighting in the Martian Army?’
‘No, Father.’
‘Gods!’ The old father turned very red. ‘A plague on your name! You’ll be shot.’
‘Shoot me, then, and have it over.’
‘Who ever heard of a Martian not invading? Who!’
‘Nobody. It is, I admit, quite incredible.’
‘Incredible,’ husked the witch voices under the window.
‘Father, can’t you reason with him?’ demanded Tylla.
‘Reason with a dung heap,’ cried Father, eyes blazing. He came and stood over
Ettil. ‘Bands playing, a fine day, women weeping, children jumping, everything
right, men marching bravely, and you sit here! Oh, shame!’
‘Shame,’ sobbed the faraway voices in the hedge.
‘Get the devil out of my house with your inane chatter,’ said Ettil, exploding.
‘Take your medals and your drums and run!’

He shoved Father-in-law past a screaming wife, only to have the door thrown wide at this moment, as a military detail entered.
A voice shouted, ‘Ettil Vrye?’
‘Yes!’
‘You are under arrest!’

‘Good-by, my dear wife. I am off to the wars with these fools!’ shouted Ettil,
dragged through the door by the men in bronze mesh.
‘Good-by, good-by,’ said the town witches, fading away. . . .

The cell was neat and clean. Without a book, Ettil was nervous. He gripped the
bars and watched the rockets shoot up into the night air. The stars were cold
and numerous; they seemed to scatter when every rocket blasted up among them.
‘Fools,’ whispered Ettil. ‘Fools!’

The cell door opened. One man with a kind of vehicle entered, full of books;
books here, there, everywhere in the chambers of the vehicle. Behind him the
Military Assignor loomed.
‘Ettil Vrye, we want to know why you had these illegal Earth books in your
house. These copies of Wonder Stories, Scientific Tales, Fantastic Stories.
Explain.’ The man gripped Ettil’s wrist.

Ettil shook him free. ‘If you’re going to shoot me, shoot me. That literature,
from Earth, is the very reason why I won’t try to invade them. It’s the reason
why your invasion will fail.’
‘How so?’ The assignor scowled and turned to the yellowed magazines.
‘Pick any copy,’ said Ettil. ‘Any one at all. Nine out of ten stories in the
years 1929, ’30 to ’50, Earth calendar, have every Martian invasion successfully
invading Earth.’
‘Ah!’ The assignor smiled, nodded.

‘And then,’ said Ettil, ‘failing.’
‘That’s treason! Owning such literature!’
‘So be it, if you wish. But let me draw a few conclusions. Invariably, each
invasion is thwarted by a young man, usually lean, usually Irish, usually alone,
named Mick or Rick or Jick or Bannon, who destroys the Martians.’
‘You don’t believe that!’
‘No, I don’t believe Earthmen can actually do that’no. But they have a
background, understand, Assignor, of generations of children reading just such
fiction, absorbing it. They have nothing but a literature of invasions
successfully thwarted. Can you say the same for Martian literature?’
‘Well”’
‘No.’
‘I guess not.’

‘You know not. We never wrote stories of such a fantastic nature. Now we rebel,
we attack, and we shall die.’
‘I don’t see your reasoning on that. Where does this tie in with the magazine
stories?’
‘Morale. A big thing. The Earthmen know they can’t fail. It is in them like
blood beating in their veins. They cannot fail. They will repel each invasion,
no matter how well organized. Their youth of reading just such fiction as this
has given them a faith we cannot equal. We Martians? We are uncertain; we know that we might fail. Our morale is low, in spite of the banged drums and tooted horns.’
‘I won’t listen to this treason,’ cried the assignor. ‘This fiction will be burned, as you will be, within the next ten minutes. You have a choice, Ettil Vrye. Join the Legion of War, or burn.’

‘It is a choice of deaths. I choose to burn.’

‘Men!’
He was hustled out into the courtyard. There he saw his carefully hoarded
reading matter set to the torch. A special pit was prepared, with oil five feet
deep in it. This, with a great thunder, was set afire. Into this, in a minute,
he would be pushed.
On the far side of the courtyard, in shadow, he noticed the solemn figure of his
son standing alone, his great yellow eyes luminous with sorrow and fear. He did
not put out his hand or speak, but only looked at his father like some dying
animal, a wordless animal seeking rescue.
Ettil looked at the flaming pit. He felt the rough hands seize him, strip him,
push him forward to the hot perimeter of death. Only then did Ettil swallow and
cry out, ‘Wait!’
The assignor’s face, bright with the orange fire, pushed forward in the
trembling air. ‘What is it?’

‘I will join the Legion of War,’ replied Ettil.
‘Good! Release him!’
The hands fell away.
As he turned he saw his son standing far across the court, waiting. His son was
not smiling, only waiting.

In the sky a bronze rocket leaped across the stars, ablaze. . . .

‘And now we bid good-by to these stalwart warriors,’ said the assignor. The band
thumped and the wind blew a fine sweet rain of tears gently upon the sweating
army. The children cavorted. In the chaos Ettil saw his wife weeping with pride,
his son solemn and silent at her side.
They marched into the ship, everybody laughing and brave. They buckled
themselves into their spiderwebs. All through the tense ship the spiderwebs were
filled with lounging, lazy men. They chewed on bits of food and waited. A great
lid slammed shut. A valve hissed.
‘Off to Earth and destruction,’ whispered Ettil.
‘What?’ asked someone.
‘Off to glorious victory,’ said Ettil, grimacing.
The rocket jumped.

Space, thought Ettil. Here we are banging across black inks and pink lights of
space in a brass kettle. Here we are, a celebratory rocket heaved out to fill
the Earthmen’s eyes with fear flames as they look up to the sky. What is it
like, being far, far away from your home, your wife, your child, here and now?
He tried to analyze his trembling. It was like tying your most secret inward
working organs to Mars and then jumping out a million miles. Your heart was
still on Mars, pumping, glowing. Your brain was still on Mars, thinking,
crenulated, like an abandoned torch. Your stomach was still on Mars, somnolent,
trying to digest the final dinner. Your lungs were still in the cool blue wine
air of Mars, a soft folded bellows screaming for release, one part of you
longing for the rest.
For here you were, a meshless, cogless automaton, a body upon which officials
had performed clinical autopsy and left all of you that counted back upon the
empty seas and strewn over the darkened hills. Here you were, bottle-empty,
fireless, chill, with only your hands to give death to Earthmen. A pair of hands
is all you are now, he thought in cold remoteness.
Here you lie in the tremendous web. Others are about you, but they are
whole’whole hearts and bodies. But all of you that lives is back there walking
the desolate seas in evening winds. This thing here, this cold clay thing, is
already dead.

‘Attack stations, attack stations, attack!’
‘Ready, ready, ready!’
‘Up!’
‘Out of the webs, quick!’

Ettil moved. Somewhere before him his two cold hands moved.
How swift it has all been, he thought. A year ago one Earth rocket reached Mars.
Our scientists, with their incredible telepathic ability, copied it; our
workers, with their incredible plants, reproduced it a hundredfold. No other
Earth ship has reached Mars since then, and yet we know their language
perfectly, all of us. We know their culture, their logic. And we shall pay the
price of our brilliance.
‘Guns on the ready!’
‘Right!’
‘Sights!’
‘Reading by miles?’
‘Ten thousand!’
‘Attack!’

A humming silence. A silence of insects throbbing in the walls of the rocket.
The insect singing of tiny bobbins and levers and whirls of wheels. Silence of
waiting men. Silence of glands emitting the slow steady pulse of sweat under
arm, on brow, under staring pale eyes!
‘Wait! Ready!’
Ettil hung onto his sanity with his fingernails, hung hard and long.
Silence, silence, silence. Waiting.
Teeee-e-ee!
‘What’s that?’
‘Earth radio!’
‘Cut them in!’
‘They’re trying to reach us, call us. Cut them in!’
Eee-e-e!
‘Here they are! Listen!’

‘Calling Martian invasion fleet!’
The listening silence, the insect hum pulling back to let the sharp Earth voice
crack in upon the rooms of waiting men.
‘This is Earth calling. This is William Sommers, president of the Association of
United American Producers!’
Ettil held tight to his station, bent forward, eyes shut.
‘Welcome to Earth.’
‘What?’ the men in the rocket roared. ‘What did he say?’
‘Yes, welcome to Earth.’
‘It’s a trick!’

Ettil shivered, opened his eyes to stare in bewilderment at the unseen voice
from the ceiling source.
‘Welcome! Welcome to green, industrial Earth!’ declared the friendly voice.
‘With open arms we welcome you, to turn a bloody invasion into a time of
friendships that will last through all of Time.’
‘A trick!’
‘Hush, listen!’
‘Many years ago we of Earth renounced war, destroyed our atom bombs. Now,
unprepared as we are, there is nothing for us but to welcome you. The planet is
yours. We ask only mercy from you good and merciful invaders.’

‘It can’t be true!’ a voice whispered.
‘It must be a trick!’
‘Land and be welcomed, all of you,’ said Mr. William Sommers of Earth. ‘Land
anywhere. Earth is yours; we are all brothers!’
Ettil began to laugh. Everyone in the room turned to see him. The other Martians
blinked. ‘He’s gone mad!’
He did not stop laughing until they hit him.

The tiny fat man in the center of the hot rocket tarmac at Green Town,
California, jerked out a clean white handkerchief and touched it to his wet
brow. He squinted blindly from the fresh plank platform at the fifty thousand
people restrained behind a fence of policemen, arm to arm. Everybody looked at
the sky.
‘There they are!’
A gasp.
‘No, just sea gulls!’
A disappointed grumble.
‘I’m beginning to think it would have been better to have declared war on them,’
whispered the mayor. ‘Then we could all go home.’
‘Sh-h!’ said his wife.
‘There!’ The crowd roared.
Out of the sun came the Martian rockets.
‘Everybody ready?’ The mayor glanced nervously about.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Miss California 1965.
‘Yes,’ said Miss America 1940, who had come rushing up at the last minute as a
substitute for Miss America 1966, who was ill at home.
‘Yes siree,’ said Mr. Biggest Grapefruit in San Fernando Valley 1956, eagerly.
‘Ready, band?’
The band poised its brass like so many guns.
‘Ready!’
The rockets landed. ‘Go!’
The band played ‘California, Here I Come’ ten times. From noon until one o’clock
the mayor made a speech, shaking his hands in the direction of the silent,
apprehensive rockets.

At one-fifteen the seals of the rockets opened
The band played ‘Oh, You Golden State’ three times.
Ettil and fifty other Martians leaped out, guns at the ready.
The mayor ran forward with the key to Earth in his hands.
The band played ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,’ and a full chorus of singers
imported from Long Beach sang different words to it, something about ‘Martians
Are Coming to Town.’
Seeing no weapons about, the Martians relaxed, but kept their guns out.
From one-thirty until two-fifteen the mayor made the same speech over for the
benefit of the Martians.
At two-thirty Miss America of 1940 volunteered to kiss all the Martians if they
lined up.
At two-thirty and ten seconds the band played ‘How Do You Do, Everybody,’ to
cover up the confusion caused by Miss America’s suggestion.
At two thirty-five Mr. Biggest Grapefruit presented the Martians with a two-ton
truck full of grapefruit.
At two thirty-seven the mayor gave them all free passes to the Elite and
Majestic theaters, combining this gesture with another speech which lasted until
after three.
The band played, and the fifty thousand people sang, ‘For They Are Jolly Good
Fellows.’
It was over at four o’clock.

Ettil sat down in the shadow of the rocket, two of his fellows with him. ‘So
this is Earth!’
‘I say kill the filthy rats,’ said one Martian. ‘I don’t trust them. They’re
sneaky. What’s their motive for treating us this way?’ He held up a box of
something that rustled. ‘What’s this stuff they gave me? A sample, they said.’
He read the label. BLIX, the new sudsy soap.
The crowd had drifted about, was mingling with the Martians like a carnival
throng. Everywhere was the buzzing murmur of people fingering the rockets,
asking questions.

Ettil was cold. He was beginning to tremble even more now. ‘Don’t you feel it?’
he whispered. ‘The tenseness, the evilness of all this. Something’s going to
happen to us. They have some plan. Something subtle and horrible. They’re going
to do something to us’I know.’
‘I say kill every one of them!’
‘How can you kill people who call you ‘pal’ and ‘buddy’?’ asked another Martian.
Ettil shook his head. ‘They’re sincere. And yet I feel as if we were in a big
acid vat melting away, away. I’m frightened.’ He put his mind out to touch among
the crowd. ‘Yes, they’re really friendly, hail-fellows-well-met (one of their
terms). One huge mass of common men, loving dogs and cats and Martians equally.
And yet’ and yet”’
The band played ‘Roll Out the Barrel.’ Free beer was being distributed through
the courtesy of Hagenback Beer, Fresno, California.

The sickness came.
The men poured out fountains of slush from their mouths. The sound of sickness
filled the land.
Gagging, Ettil sat beneath a sycamore tree. ‘A plot, a plot’a horrible plot,’ he
groaned, holding his stomach.
‘What did you eat?’ The assignor stood over him.
‘Something that they called popcorn,’ groaned Ettil.
‘And?’
‘And some sort of long meat on a bun, and some yellow liquid in an iced vat, and
some sort of fish and something called pastrami,’ sighed Ettil, eyelids
flickering.
The moans of the Martian invaders sounded all about.
‘Kill the plotting snakes!’ somebody cried weakly.
‘Hold on,’ said the assignor. ‘It’s merely hospitality. They overdid it. Up on
your feet now, men. Into the town. We’ve got to place small garrisons of men
about to make sure all is well. Other ships are landing in other cities. We’ve
our job to do here.’
The men gained their feet and stood blinking stupidly about.
‘Forward, march!’
One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! . . .

The white stores of the little town lay dreaming in shimmering heat. Heat
emanated from everything’poles, concrete, metal, awnings, roofs, tar
paper’everything.
The sound of Martian feet sounded on the asphalt.
‘Careful, men!’ whispered the assignor. They walked past a beauty shop.
From inside, a furtive giggle. ‘Look!’
A coppery head bobbed and vanished like a doll in the window. A blue eye glinted
and winked at a keyhole.
‘It’s a plot,’ whispered Ettil. ‘A plot, I tell you!’
The odors of perfume were fanned out on the summer air by the whirling vents of
the grottoes where the women hid like undersea creatures, under electric cones,
their hair curled into wild whorls and peaks, their eyes shrewd and glassy,
animal and sly, their mouths painted a neon red. Fans were whirring, the
perfumed wind issuing upon the stillness, moving among green trees, creeping
among the amazed Martians.
‘For God’s sake!’ screamed Ettil, his nerves suddenly breaking loose. ‘Let’s get
in our rockets’go home! They’ll get us! Those horrid things in there. See them?
Those evil undersea things, those women in their cool little caverns of
artificial rock!’
‘Shut up!’
Look at them in there, he thought, drifting their dresses like cool green gills
over their pillar legs. He shouted.
‘Someone shut his mouth!’
‘They’ll rush out on us, hurling chocolate boxes and copies of Kleig Love and
Holly Pick-ture, shrieking with their red greasy mouths! Inundate us with
banality, destroy our sensibilities! Look at them, being electrocuted by
devices, their voices like hums and chants and murmurs! Do you dare go in
there?’
‘Why not?’ asked the other Martians.
‘They’ll fry you, bleach you, change you! Crack you, flake you away until you’re
nothing but a husband, a working man, the one with the money who pays so they
can come sit in there devouring their evil chocolates! Do you think you could
control them?’
‘Yes, by the gods!’
From a distance a voice drifted, a high and shrill voice, a woman’s voice
saying, ‘Ain’t that middle one there cute?’
‘Martians ain’t so bad after all. Gee, they’re just men,’ said another, fading.
‘Hey, there. Yoo-hoo! Martians! Hey!’
Yelling, Ettil ran. . . .

He sat in a park and trembled steadily. He remembered what he had seen. Looking up at the dark night sky, he felt so far from home, so deserted. Even now, as he sat among the still trees, in the distance he could see Martian warriors walking the streets with the Earth women, vanishing into the phantom darknesses of the little emotion palaces to hear the ghastly sounds of white things moving on gray screens, with little frizz-haired women beside them, wads of gelatinous gum working in their jaws, other wads under the seats, hardening with the fossil imprints of the women’s tiny cat teeth forever imbedded therein. The cave of winds’the cinema.
‘Hello.’
He jerked his head in terror.
A woman sat on the bench beside him, chewing gum lazily. ‘Don’t run off; I don’t
bite,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Like to go to the pictures?’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Aw, come on,’ she said. ‘Everybody else is.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Is that all you do in this world?’
‘All? Ain’t that enough?’ Her blue eyes widened suspiciously. ‘What you want me
to do’sit home, read a book? Ha, ha! That’s rich.’

Ettil stared at her a moment before asking a question.
‘Do you do anything else?’ he asked.
‘Ride in cars. You got a car? You oughta get you a big new convertible Podler
Six. Gee, they’re fancy! Any man with a Podler Six can go out with any gal, you
bet!’ she said, blinking at him. ‘I bet you got all kinds of money’you come from
Mars and all. I bet if you really wanted you could get a Podler Six and travel
everywhere.’
‘To the show maybe?’
‘What’s wrong with ‘at?’
‘Nothing’ nothing.’

‘You know what you talk like, mister?’ she said. ‘A Communist! Yes, sir, that’s
the kinda talk nobody stands for, by gosh. Nothing wrong with our little old
system. We was good enough to let you Martians invade, and we never raised even our bitty finger, did we?’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to understand,’ said Ettil. ‘Why did you let us?’
”Cause we’re bighearted, mister; that’s why! Just remember that, bighearted.’
She walked off to look for someone else.

Gathering courage to himself, Ettil began to write a letter to his wife, moving
the pen carefully over the paper on his knee.
‘Dear Tylla”’
But again he was interrupted. A small-little-girl-of-an-old-woman, with a pale
round wrinkled little face, shook her tambourine in front of his nose, forcing
him to glance up.
‘Brother,’ she cried, eyes blazing. ‘Have you been saved?’
‘Am I in danger?’ Ettil dropped his pen, jumping.
‘Terrible danger!’ she wailed, clanking her tambourine, gazing at the sky. ‘You
need to be saved, brother, in the worst way!’
‘I’m inclined to agree,’ he said, trembling.
‘We saved lots already today. I saved three myself, of you Mars people. Ain’t
that nice?’ She grinned at him.
‘I guess so.’
She was acutely suspicious. She leaned forward with her secret whisper.
‘Brother,’ she wanted to know, ‘you been baptized?’
‘I don’t know,’ he whispered back.
‘You don’t know?’ she cried, flinging up hand and tambourine.
‘Is it like being shot?’ he asked.
‘Brother,’ she said, ‘you are in a bad and sinful condition. I blame it on your
ignorant bringing up. I bet those schools on Mars are terrible’don’t teach you
no truth at all. Just a pack of made-up lies. Brother, you got to be baptized if
you want to be happy.’
‘Will it make me happy even in this world here?’ he said. ‘Don’t ask for
everything on your platter,’ she said. ‘Be satisfied with a wrinkled pea, for
there’s another world we’re all going to that’s better than this one.’

‘I know that world,’ he said.
‘It’s peaceful,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘There’s quiet,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘There’s milk and honey flowing.’
‘Why, yes,’ he said.
‘And everybody’s laughing.’
‘I can see it now,’ he said.
‘A better world,’ she said.
‘Far better,’ he said. ‘Yes, Mars is a great planet.’

‘Mister,’ she said, tightening up and almost flinging the tambourine in his
face, ‘you been joking with me?’
‘Why, no.’ He was embarrassed and bewildered. ‘I thought you were talking
about”’
‘Not about mean old nasty Mars, I tell you, mister! It’s your type that is going
to boil for years, and suffer and break out in black pimples and be tortured”’
‘I must admit Earth isn’t very nice. You’ve described it beautifully.’
‘Mister, you’re funning me again!’ she cried angrily.
‘No, no’please. I plead ignorance.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’re a heathen, and heathens are improper. Here’s a paper.
Come to this address tomorrow night and be baptized and be happy. We shouts and we stomps and we talk in voices, so if you want to hear our all-cornet,
all-brass band, you come, won’t you now?’
‘I’ll try,’ he said hesitantly.
Down the street she went, patting her tambourine, singing at the top of her
voice, ‘Happy Am I, I’m Always Happy.’

Dazed, Ettil returned to his letter.
‘Dear Tylla: To think that in my na’vet’ I imagined that the Earthmen would have
to counterattack with guns and bombs. No, no. I was sadly wrong. There is no
Rick or Mick or Jick or Bannon’those lever fellows who save worlds. No.
‘There are blond robots with pink rubber bodies, real, but somehow unreal, alive
but somehow automatic in all responses, living in caves all of their lives.
Their derri’res are incredible in girth. Their eyes are fixed and motionless
from an endless time of staring at picture screens. The only muscles they have
occur in their jaws from their ceaseless chewing of gum.
‘And it is not only these, my dear Tylla, but the entire civilization into which
we have been dropped like a shovelful of seeds into a large concrete mixer.
Nothing of us will survive. We will be killed not by the gun but by the
glad-hand. We will be destroyed not by the rocket but by the automobile . . .’

Somebody screamed. A crash, another crash. Silence.
Ettil leaped up from his letter. Outside, on the street two ears had crashed.
One full of Martians, another with Earthmen. Ettil returned to his letter:
‘Dear, dear Tylla, a few statistics if you will allow. Forty-five thousand
people killed every year on this continent of America; made into jelly right in
the can, as it were, in the automobiles. Red blood jelly, with white marrow
bones like sudden thoughts, ridiculous horror thoughts, transfixed in the
immutable jelly. The cars roll up in tight neat sardine rolls’all sauce, all
silence.
‘Blood manure for green buzzing summer flies, all over the highways. Faces made into Halloween masks by sudden stops. Halloween is one of their holidays. I think they worship the automobile on that night’something to do with death,
anyway.
‘You look out your window and see two people lying atop each other in friendly
fashion who, a moment ago, had never met before, dead. I foresee our army
mashed, diseased, trapped in cinemas by witches and gum. Sometime in the next
day I shall try to escape back to Mars before it is too late.
‘Somewhere on Earth tonight, my Tylla, there is a Man with a Lever, which, when
he pulls it, Will Save the World. The man is now unemployed. His switch gathers
dust. He himself plays pinochle.
‘The women of this evil planet are drowning us in a tide of banal
sentimentality, misplaced romance, and one last fling before the makers of
glycerin boil them down for usage. Good night, Tylla. Wish me well, for I shall
probably die trying to escape. My love to our child.’
Weeping silently, he folded the letter and reminded himself to mail it later at
the rocket post.

He left the park. What was there to do? Escape? But how? Return to the post late
tonight, steal one of the rockets alone and go back to Mars? Would it be
possible? He shook his head. He was much too confused.
All that he really knew was that if he stayed here he would soon be the property
of a lot of things that buzzed and snorted and hissed, that gave off fumes or
stenches. In six months he would be the owner of a large pink, trained ulcer, a
blood pressure of algebraic dimensions, a myopia this side of blindness, and
nightmares as deep as oceans and infested with improbable lengths of dream
intestines through which he must violently force his way each night. No, no.
He looked at the haunted faces of the Earthmen drifting violently along in their
mechanical death boxes. Soon’yes, very soon’they would invent an auto with six
silver handles on it!
‘Hey, there!’
An auto horn. A large long hearse of a car, black and ominous pulled to the
curb. A man leaned out.
‘You a Martian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just the man I gotta see. Hop in quick’the chance of a lifetime. Hop in. Take
you to a real nice joint where we can talk. Come on’don’t stand there.’
As if hypnotized, Ettil opened the door of the car, got in.
They drove off.
‘What’ll it be, E.V.? How about a manhattan? Two manhattans, waiter. Okay, E.V.
This is my treat. This is on me and Big Studios! Don’t even touch your wallet.
Pleased to meet you, E.V. My name’s R. R. Van Plank. Maybe you hearda me? No?
Well, shake anyhow.’
Ettil felt his hand massaged and dropped. They were in a dark hole with music
and waiters drifting about. Two drinks were set down. It had all happened so
swiftly. Now Van Plank, hands crossed on his chest, was surveying his Martian
discovery.
‘What I want you for, E.V., is this. It’s the most magnanimous idea I ever got
in my life. I don’t know how it came to me, just in a flash. I was sitting home
tonight and I thought to myself, My God, what a picture it would make! Invasion
of Earth by Mars. So what I got to do? I got to find an adviser for the film. So
I climbed in my car and found you and here we are. Drink up! Here’s to your
health and our future. Skoal!’
‘But”’ said Ettil.
‘Now, I know, you’ll want money. Well, we got plenty of that. Besides, I got a
li’l black book full of peaches I can lend you.’
‘I don’t like most of your Earth fruit and”’
‘You’re a card, mac, really. Well, here’s how I get the picture in my
mind’listen.’ He leaned forward excitedly. ‘We got a flash scene of the Martians
at a big powwow, drummin’ drums, gettin’ stewed on Mars. In the background are
huge silver cities”’
‘But that’s not the way Martian cities are”’
‘We got to have color, kid. Color. Let your pappy fix this. Anyway, there are
all the Martians doing a dance around a fire”’
‘We don’t dance around fires”’
‘In this film you got a fire and you dance,’ declared Van Plank, eyes shut,
proud of his certainty. He nodded, dreaming it over on his tongue. ‘Then we got
a beautiful Martian woman, tall and blond.’
‘Martian women are dark”’
‘Look, I don’t see how we’re going to be happy, E.V. By the way, son, you ought
to change your name. What was it again?’
‘Ettil.’
‘That’s a woman’s name. I’ll give you a better one. Call you Joe. Okay, Joe. As
I was saying, our Martian women are gonna be blond, because, see, just because.
Or else your poppa won’t be happy. You got any suggestions?’
‘I thought that”’
‘And another thing we gotta have is a scene, very tearful, where the Martian
woman saves the whole ship of Martian men from dying when a meteor or something hits the ship. That’ll make a whackeroo of a scene. You know, I’m glad I found you, Joe. You’re going to have a good deal with us, I tell you.’
Ettil reached out and held the man’s wrist tight. ‘Just a minute. There’s
something I want to ask you.’
‘Sure, Joe, shoot.’
‘Why are you being so nice to us? We invade your planet, and you welcome
us’everybody’like long-lost children. Why?’
‘They sure grow ’em green on Mars, don’t they? You’re a na’ve-type guy’I can see
from way over here. Mac, look at it this way. We’re all Little People, ain’t
we?’ He waved a small tan hand garnished with emeralds.
‘We’re all common as dirt, ain’t we? Well, here on Earth, we’re proud of that.
This is the century of the Common Man, Bill, and we’re proud we’re small. Billy,
you’re looking at a planet full of Saroyans. Yes, sir. A great big fat family of
friendly Saroyans’everybody loving everybody. We understand you Martians, Joe,
and we know why you invaded Earth. We know how lonely you were up on that little cold planet Mars, how you envied us our cities”’
‘Our civilization is much older than yours”’
‘Please, Joe, you make me unhappy when you interrupt. Let me finish my theory
and then you talk all you want. As I was saying, you was lonely up there, and
down you came to see our cities and our women and all, and we welcomed you in, because you’re our brothers, Common Men like all of us.
‘And then, as a kind of side incident, Roscoe, there’s a certain little small
profit to be had from this invasion. I mean for instance this picture I plan,
which will net us, neat, a billion dollars, I bet. Next week we start putting
out a special Martian doll at thirty bucks a throw. Think of the millions there.
I also got a contract to make a Martian game to sell for five bucks. There’s all
sorts of angles.’
‘I see,’ said Ettil, drawing back.
‘And then of course there’s that whole nice new market. Think of all the
depilatories and gum and shoeshine we can sell to you Martians.’
‘Wait. Another question.’
‘Shoot.’
‘What’s your first name? What’s the R.R. stand for?’
‘Richard Robert.’
Ettil looked at the ceiling. ‘Do they sometimes, perhaps, on occasion, once in a
while, by accident, call you ‘Rick?’
‘How’d you guess, mac? Rick, sure.’
Ettil sighed and began to laugh and laugh. He put out his hand. ‘So you’re Rick?
Rick! So you’re Rick!’
‘What’s the joke, laughing boy? Let Poppa in!’
‘You wouldn’t understand’a private joke. Ha, ha!’ Tears ran down his cheeks and
into his open mouth. He pounded the table again and again. ‘So you’re Rick. Oh,
how different, how funny. No bulging muscles, no lean jaw, no gun. Only a wallet
full of money and an emerald ring and a big middle!’
‘Hey, watch the language! I may not be no Apollo, but”’
‘Shake hands, Rick. I’ve wanted to meet you. You’re the man who’ll conquer Mars,
with cocktail shakers and foot arches and poker chips and riding crops and
leather boots and checkered caps and rum collinses.’
‘I’m only a humble businessman,’ said Van Plank, eyes slyly down. ‘I do my work
and take my humble little piece of money pie. But, as I was saying, Mort, I been
thinking of the market on Mars for Uncle Wiggily games and Dick Tracy comics;
all new. A big wide field never even heard of cartoons, right? Right! So we just
toss a great big bunch of stuff on the Martians’ heads. They’ll fight for it,
kid, fight! Who wouldn’t, for perfumes and Paris dresses and Oshkosh overalls,
eh? And nice new shoes”’
‘We don’t wear shoes.’
‘What have I got here?’ R.R. asked of the ceiling. ‘A planet full of Okies?
Look, Joe, we’ll take care of that. We’ll shame everyone into wearing shoes.
Then we sell them the polish!’
‘Oh.’
He slapped Ettil’s. arm. ‘Is it a deal? Will you be technical director on my
film? You’ll get two hundred a week to start, a five-hundred top. What you say?’
‘I’m sick,’ said Ettil. He had drunk the manhattan and was now turning blue.
‘Say, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would do that to you. Let’s get some fresh
air.’

In the open air Ettil felt better. He swayed. ‘So that’s why Earth took us in?’
‘Sure, son. Any time an Earthman can turn an honest dollar, watch him steam. The customer is always right. No hard feelings. Here’s my card. Be at the studio in
Hollywood tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. They’ll show you your office. I’ll
arrive at eleven and see you then. Be sure you get there at nine o’clock. It’s a
strict rule.’
‘Why?’
‘Gallagher, you’re a queer oyster, but I love you. Good night. Happy invasion!’
The car drove off.

Ettil blinked after it, incredulous. Then, rubbing his brow with the palm of his
hand, he walked slowly along the street toward the rocket port.
‘Well, what are you going to do?’ he asked himself, aloud. The rockets lay
gleaming in the moonlight silent. From the city came the sounds of distant
revelry. In the medical compound an extreme case of nervous breakdown was being tended to: a young Martian who, by his screams, had seen too much, drunk too much, heard too many songs on the little red-and-yellow boxes in the drinking places, and had been chased around innumerable tables by a large elephant-like woman. He kept murmuring:
‘Can’t breathe . . . crushed, trapped.’
The sobbing faded. Ettil came out of the shadows and moved on across a wide
avenue toward the ships. Far over, he could see the guards lying about
drunkenly. He listened. From the vast city came the faint sounds of cars and
music and sirens. And he imagined other sounds too: the insidious whir of malt
machines stirring malts to fatten the warriors and make them lazy and forgetful,
the narcotic voices of the cinema caverns lulling and lulling the Martians fast,
fast into a slumber through which, all of their remaining lives, they would
sleepwalk.
A year from now, how many Martians dead of cirrhosis of the liver, bad kidneys,
high blood pressure, suicide?
He stood in the middle of the empty avenue. Two blocks away a car was rushing
toward him.
He had a choice: stay here, take the studio job, report for work each morning as
adviser on a picture, and, in time, come to agree with the producer that, yes
indeed, there were massacres on Mars; yes, the women were tall and blond; yes,
there were tribal dances and sacrifices; yes, yes, yes. Or he could walk over
and get into a rocket ship and, alone, return to Mars.
‘But what about next year?’ he said.
The Blue Canal Night Club brought to Mars. The Ancient City Gambling Casino,
Built Right Inside. Yes, Right Inside a Real Martian Ancient City! Neons, racing
forms blowing in the old cities, picnic lunches in the ancestral graveyards’all
of it, all of it.
But not quite yet. In a few days he could be home. Tylla would be waiting with
their son, and then for the last few years of gentle life he might sit with his
wife in the blowing weather on the edge of the canal reading his good, gentle
books, sipping a rare and light wine, talking and living out their short time
until the neon bewilderment fell from the sky.
And then perhaps he and Tylla might move into the blue mountains and hide for
another year or two until the tourists came to snap their cameras and say how
quaint things were.

He knew just what he would say to Tylla. ‘War is a bad thing, but peace can be a
living horror.’
He stood in the middle of the wide avenue.
Turning, it was with no surprise that he saw a car bearing down upon him, a car
full of screaming children. These boys and girls, none older than sixteen, were
swerving and ricocheting their open-top car down the avenue. He saw them point at him and yell. He heard the motor roar louder. The car sped forward at sixty miles an hour.
He began to run.
Yes, yes, he thought tiredly, with the car upon him, how strange, how sad. It
sounds so much like . . . a concrete mixer.

The End

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