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The U.S. is now involved in more than 130 wars or none, depending on your definition of ‘war.’ Or it is involved in one worldwide “War Against Terror,” that successive U.S. Administrations, with Congressional support, have used to justify U.S. military operations in at least 134 countries, where they are engaged in direct combat operations, conduct special covert missions, act as military advisers, or train foreign troops or militias.
The problem is that our traditional definition of “war” is outdated, and so is our imagination of what war means.
World War II was the last time Congress officially declared war. Since then, the conflicts we’ve called “wars” — from Vietnam through to the second Iraq War — have actually been congressional “authorizations of military force.”
And more recently, beginning with the War Powers Act of 1973, presidential war powers have expanded so much that, according to the Congressional Research Service, it’s no longer clear whether a president requires congressional authorization at all to engage in war.
The recent US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will likely be the last time, in the foreseeable future, that the United States wages war in the way that’s most familiar to us: a lot of combat troops on the ground in a foreign country with lots of money and support and an ostensibly achievable objective.
US troop presence in Iraq peaked at 187,900 in 2008. In Afghanistan, it peaked in 2010 at 100,000.
On paper, it looked like the United States was fighting two wars. But the reality was much more complicated, and it’s only gotten more complicated. So how many wars is the US fighting right now?
Somewhere between zero and 134+.
Here’s the rationale:
Total # of wars: 0
Congress hasn’t declared war since 1942 so there is no war right now.
Okay, that makes no sense.
Look at a funding profile over time. It’s very clear.
x
From this graph, we can CLEARLY see that American spending on weapons and military are clearly indicative of America waging active wars.
To ignore that outrageous and obvious “tell tale” is to act the fool.
Total # of wars: 6
This maybe sounds more reasonable.
Consider the definition of war put forth by Linda Bilmes (Harvard Kennedy School) and Michael Intriligator (UCLA), who defined war in a 2013 paper as “conflicts where the US is launching extensive military incursions, including drone attacks, but that are not officially ‘declared.’”
By that definition, the United States is at war in six places right now:
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Somalia
Yemen
Ukraine
Total # of wars: 8
If you include nations that have American military, American military uniforms, weapons and systems, and is led with / by American generals. This then, adds two additional nations to the list above.
South Korea
Taiwan
Total # of wars: 134+
Whoa! Surprising, right?
In 2013, the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) — one of the nine organizational units that make up the Unified Combatant Command — had special operations forces (SOFs) in 134 countries.
The American military were either involved in combat, special missions, or advising and training foreign forces.
Since most of what SOFs do is classified, all we know about them is what we get told about them. Here’s what we’re told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff: What are SOFs?
“Special operations forces (SOF) are small, specially organized units manned by people carefully selected and trained to operate under physically demanding and psychologically stressful conditions to accomplish missions using modified equipment and unconventional applications of tactics against strategic and operational objectives.
The unique capabilities of SOF complement those of conventional forces.”
And what do they do?
“Joint special operations (SO) are conducted by SOF from more than one Service in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments to achieve military, diplomatic, informational, and/or economic objectives employing military capabilities for which there is no broad conventional force requirement.
These operations may require low visibility, clandestine, or covert capabilities.
SO are applicable across the range of military operations.
They can be conducted independently or in conjunction with operations of conventional forces or other government agencies and may include operations through, with, or by indigenous or surrogate forces.
SO differ from conventional operations in degree of physical and political risk, operational techniques, use of special equipment, modes of employment, independence from friendly support, and dependence on detailed operational intelligence and indigenous assets.”
Examples: These tasks include;
special reconnaissance (SR),
direct action (DA),
unconventional warfare (UW),
foreign internal defense (FID),
counterterrorism, counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
SOCOM admited to having forces on the ground in 134 countries around the world (in 2014).
That doesn’t mean its forces are carrying out capture or kill raids in every country, but it’s almost impossible to know where and when different operations are taking place.
That’s especially true when it comes to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), an operational command within SOCOM that operates with an enormous amount of autonomy and secrecy — and, some would say, little accountability.
Founded after the failed mission to rescue American hostages in Tehran in 1980 and designed to handle similarly complex operations in the future, JSOC was a classified and little used command on Sept. 11, 2001.
Since then, it’s more than tripled in size, received an ever-increasing share of funding, and has conducted operations in dozens of countries.
(Journalist Jeremy Scahill wrote in depth about JSOC in his 2013 book, “Dirty Wars.” That’s where the following information comes from.)
JSOC was introduced to the world on May 1, 2011, when Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in a nighttime raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The raid was a collaboration between the CIA and an agency almost nobody had heard of: JSOC. “We’re the dark matter,” a Navy SEAL told the Washington Post of JSOC in 2011. “We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen.”
We know more about JSOC now, thanks to investigative reporters like Scahill and Mark Mazzetti. JSOC’s core is made up of three acknowledged “Special Missions Units” (SMUs).
You know these folks from TV and movies:
Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment (Delta Force),
the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVRGU or “Seal Team Six”),
the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.
In addition to the SMUs, JSOC has its own intelligence division, the Intelligence Support Activity, and often oversees the 75th Ranger Regiment, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (the “Night Stalkers”), and other special operations forces. JSOC, along with the Special Activities Division at the CIA, have been the leading edge of counterterrorism.
Journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin found that JSOC has carried out counterterrorism operations in…
Iraq,
Afghanistan,
Algeria,
Iran,
Malaysia,
Mali,
Nigeria,
Pakistan,
the Philippines,
Somalia,
Syria,
Ukraine,
Taiwan,
Yemen.
An anonymous source with close ties to JSOC gave Scahill an even more expansive list that included those countries along with Indonesia, Thailand, Colombia, Peru, and several countries in Eastern and Central Asia.
“The world is a battlefield and we are at war,”
The source told Scahill of the logic that drives JSOC.
“Therefore the military can go wherever they please and do whatever it is that they want to do, in order to achieve the national security objectives of whichever administration happens to be in power.”
Add such nations of Iran, Bolivia, Kenya and more to the list and it seems really hard to keep track of all the killing, and wars that the United States is involved in.
Total # of wars: 1
“The world is a battlefield” isn’t just a vague, hawkish worldview — it’s a legal understanding of military force in the age of a single, global war: the War on Terror.
The world is a battlefield thanks in large part to the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which Congress passed on Sept. 14, 2001 and which gives the President of the United States broad power to fight terrorism around the world.
It reads in part:
“The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determined planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2011, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
A video that discusses what is next
Yuppur. The USA has Taiwan in it’s sights. Please check out this “must see” video…
Conclusion
So how many wars would you say the United States is now fighting?
Not reported that way in the West, eh? But, yeah. That’s exactly what has happened.
This article is VERY IMPORTANT.
I am configuring it using my MM "huge smorgasbord technique". Thus, it includes food, girls, and other things. It's fun, interesting, and it absolutely stops Trolls and 'Bots. You will find these little green comment boxes throughout the article, and I welcome you all to comment using them. Because if you wait until the end of the article, you will have forgotten much of the various, diverse content provided.
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Warning: A lot of videos here. To watch them either reload the embedded video (most are under one minute long) or click on the link above the video. They are well worth the time to watch.
I came across this excellent TASS article summarizing the 4 February 2022 Russia/China Joint Declaration. It’s a helpful reminder, on just how far-reaching the Declaration is and the principles it’s based upon.
These are some the many, many key paragraphs, although there are more:
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China. We have been talking a great deal about strategic interaction. This is a real embodiment of this interaction," Maslov said.
Given the rejection by the West of everything Russian and Chinese, it actually seems probable that the Declaration went unread by American “high officials”, meaning Blinken, Austin and Sullivan, since they already had formalized their escalation plans.
The American “leadership” are still following their check-lists and scripts.
But the reality is something very different. Russia and China have unified. They are as one singular nation, and they coordinate as one singular nation.
It’s not just a treaty. It is the de facto union of Russia and China together.
It is the formation of a new POWER BLOCK.
It is equivalent to when the 13 American states formed the “United States” of America in 1776. It is equivalent to when the European Union was formed, and NATO was created. It is really, really BIG news.
Yet…
The entire West is pretending, or unaware, of the reality. They still are treating Asia as separate nations. They think there’s Russia. They deal deal with Russia. Then once dealt with, they “pivot” to China. Then they deal with China. Then once, Russia and China are done with, they take on India. Then, once India is finished, the “mop up” with Iran.
That’s the plan.
And it relies on a world that does not exist any longer.
Let’s look at how important this unification of Asia is. We will do so through the lens of history.
The formation of the United States
The 13 colonies were the group of colonies that rebelled against Great Britain, fought in the Revolutionary War, and founded the United States of America. Here’s the 13 colonies list:
Connecticut
Delaware
Georgia
Maryland
Massachusetts Bay
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Virginia
In late 1774, a group of Patriot leaders at the Continental Congress meeting set up their own government to resist Great Britain, and, on April 19, 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War were fought at Lexington and Concord. During the war, each of the 13 colonies formed a Provincial Congress to lead them, now that they no longer accepted the laws of Great Britain.
On July 4, 1776, the thirteen colonies declared themselves free and independent states at the Second Continental Congress by signing the Declaration of Independence. This document unified the thirteen colonies into one nation known as “The United States of America”.
In many ways, this is exactly what has just occurred in Asia.
There are two nations;
Russia
China
On February 4, 2022, a very signifigant document was signed that unified the two nations into one solid singular nation. The treaty and agreements are tighter and stronger, and more substantive that the US Constitution that binds the United States together. The agreement if far stronger than the EU that bonds Europe together. It is a new kind of agreement. Better. Stronger. More detailed, than anything ever seen on this planet previously.
Russia-China Partnership Agreement
On February 4, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have signed a joint statement in Beijing before the Winter Olympics opening ceremony held in China.
This statement was accepted as a bold declaration of the “New World Order” and the partnership between the two states without any limitations.
The statement can be divided into four parts:
the manifest on the new world order,
Grand Eurasian Partnership,
the United States (US) aggression, and
cooperation against US aggression.
It should be noted that it is much more than just an inclusive agreement and it will change the balance of power in world politics.
About the New World Order, the sides believed that a new period has started in international relations, and global society demands a new international order based on development in a multi-polar world. Also, the sides suggested that multi-lateral ties have been quite significant in foreign policy and aimed at developing global governance. In addition to that, they offered a powerful United Nations is needed to provide multi-polar in international relations. In addition to that, the G20 format was supported instead of G7 since it is much more inclusive. Also, China and Russia believed that they played and will play an active role in the WTO.
On Grand Eurasian Partnership, the sides have declared that the relations between the two countries are much stronger than it was in the Cold War Period. Also, China’s continuing economic and political project is known as the “Belt and Road” Initiative (BRI). In the statement, it was claimed that following the BRI, a new Grand Eurasian Partnership would be established, contributing to cultural, economic, political, and historical relations of the region.
Russa and China against NATO. China and Russia have declared that they are against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as it approached the Black Sea region and started to try to contain Russia in the latest Ukraine-Russia conflict. The sides believe that NATO is following the mentality of the Cold War period; however, as mentioned before, the world order is changing, as they suggested. Besides NATO, the sides indicated that the policies of the US in the India-Pacific region are dangerous and threatening the peace-building attempts in the Asia-Pacific region. They claimed that Russia and China are concerned about the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which provides for deeper cooperation between its members in areas involving strategic stability, in particular their decision to initiate collaboration in the field of nuclear-powered submarines.
Against the United States. On the other hand, the most crucial element of the joint declaration was the alliance against the US. The sides declared that the US could escalate the colorful revolutions in the region and stand against that. Also, the sides have put their views on contrasting against terrorism, that they will not let politicization of terrorism, and using terrorism as a tool of interrupting the domestic politics of any country. The two countries highlighted that they would stand against the sanctions of the US by struggling with economic inequality.
Responses
Some responses were given after the declaration of that Joint Statement.
United States. It says (paraphrasing) “It’s a trivial attempt to circumvent our power and influence.” The US officials stated that, with the Joint Statement, that it was of no real consequence. They said that, China’s Xi Jinping could not protect Russia from sanctions. That, in their mind, was the sole purpose of the agreement.
Australia. The Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Marise Payne criticized the Agreement. Australia stated,
“The joint statement lays out a vision of the world that differs from Australia’s and our allies’ and partners’, and I’m convinced it includes all of our Quad partners.”
Also, in an interview with the ABC on Wednesday, she claimed that the tight security situation at the Russia-Ukraine border did not overshadow the importance the US places on the Indo-Pacific region. Further, Russia and China have slammed the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy, rejecting the establishment of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region. She said Australia is very worried about the Russian military build-up along the Ukraine border and called for a reciprocal conversation to de-escalate the situation.
United Kingdom. The chair of the UK’s parliamentary defense committee, Tobias Ellwood, also claimed that “Russia provides oil, gas and military hardware. China, in return, provides advanced technology,” he wrote, adding that:
“Today, we are seeing the birth of a potent anti-democratic alliance. It is on track to see the world shear into two spheres of competing influence. And we have let it happen.”
Which has me scratching my head. has this Bozo Tobias Ellwood actually read the document. It actually clearly states…
"The sides believe that democracy is a means of citizens' participation in the government of their country with the view to improving the well-being of population and implementing the principle of popular government."
Joint statement by Russia, China formalizes bilateral alliance — analyst
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
In their joint statement two countries described the principles they would rely on in developing global cooperation, Alexey Maslov notes
MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. The joint statement Russia and China adopted on Friday outlines the principles of new global cooperation and formalizes their bilateral alliance, the director of the Moscow State University’s Asia and Africa Institute, expert of the discussion club Valdai, Alexey Maslov, told TASS on Friday.
“This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China. We have been talking a great deal about strategic interaction. This is a real embodiment of this interaction,” Maslov said.
He stressed that in their joint statement Russia and China described the principles they would rely on in developing global cooperation.
“These principles are absolutely not new ones,” he remarked. “In fact, the statement heralds a return to the original UN principles that were laid down back in the 1940s and 1950s.”
The expert believes that the document is a clear sign the countries “share common values, a common understanding of democracy and the idea of the national nature of this democracy, pool together many international projects, the EAEU and the One Belt-One Road and also discuss interaction in the Arctic.”
Maslov stressed that the security issues mentioned in the statement were the most important of all. “A whole list of new types of security was determined there, including cybersecurity, on which the countries will cooperate,” he said.
The analyst stressed that the countries respected each other’s positions. “China does not threaten the interests of Russia and avoids intervention in Russian affairs. Likewise, Russia does not meddle in China’s affairs,” Maslov said.
New era of international relations
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
Maslov explained that the “new era” of cooperation was characterized by the need to restore trust in the broadest sense: in world trade, in the military field, in the economy and so on.
“The countries propose if not a program, then at least a declaration of principles a future world is to be based on,” he added.
The expert stressed that this statement “formalizes polarization of forces, and not a confrontation,” because the countries merely declare the principles they rely upon. Maslov stated that other countries were free to join in.
“If some other countries, not necessarily Western ones, for instance, countries in Southeast Asia are prepared for joining the statement or beginning discussions, they will find that this declaration as such is not a closed one for the simple reason other countries may pledge to adhere to the same principles,” he stated.
Maslov sees no risk this statement might cause an escalation of tensions in relations with the West, because it concerns an absolutely parallel process.
“In this respect the document will by no means trigger an escalation. On the contrary, it will rather show that the issue has another side to it. At least, the fact that Russia and China adhere to a different stance,” Maslov concluded.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday arrived in Beijing and held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. This is Putin’s first visit to China since the beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The Russian-Chinese summit level negotiations ended with the adoption of a joint statement on international relations that were entering a new era and on global sustainable development…
…
This massive document outlines a framework for unity between Russia and China. It does the EXACT SAME THING as what the document which unified the thirteen colonies into one nation known as “The United States of America”.
Old-Fashioned Patty Melts
Sure everyone has eaten a thousand hamburgers, but how many patty melts have you eaten?
Patty Melt done properly.
Everything about these Old-Fashioned Patty Melts is perfect, from the beef patty smothered in cheesy, oniony goodness, to the toasted and buttery rye bread. This sandwich is sure to have you saying “Ooh, it’s so GOUDA!”
What You’ll Need
2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 small onion, thinly sliced
3/4 pound ground beef
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
4 slices rye bread
4 slices Gouda cheese
1/4 cup Thousand Island salad dressing
What to Do
In a large skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter; saute onion 6 to 8 minutes, or until it starts to brown. Remove to a bowl and cover.
Shape beef into 2 oval patties; sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
In the same skillet over medium heat, cook patties 5 to 7 minutes per side, or until no longer pink in center. Remove from skillet and keep warm.
Spread remaining butter over one side of each slice of bread. Place in skillet buttered side down, and toast until lightly browned.
To assemble a sandwich, place a slice of cheese on a piece of toast, top with a beef patty, half the onion slices, and half the salad dressing. Top with another slice of cheese and piece of toast; repeat with second sandwich, then serve immediately.
Notes
We love some coleslaw as a go-along to this delicious sandwich, so why not make your own by whipping up a batch of some delicious Country Coleslaw!
.
Read this. This is the actual document and translated…
Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development
February 4, 2022
Background
At the invitation of President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir V. Putin visited China on 4 February 2022. The Heads of State held talks in Beijing and took part in the opening ceremony of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games.
The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, hereinafter referred to as the sides, state as follows.
The Statement on the New Union
Today, the world is going through momentous changes, and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation.
It sees the development of such processes and phenomena as
multipolarity,
economic globalization,
the advent of information society,
cultural diversity,
transformation of the global governance architecture
and world order;
there is increasing interrelation and interdependence between the States;
a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world;
and the international community is showing a growing demand for the leadership aiming at peaceful and gradual development.
At the same time, as the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection continues, the international and regional security situation is complicating and the number of global challenges and threats is growing from day to day.
Some actors representing but the minority (on the international scale) continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force;
they interfere in the internal affairs of other states,
infringing their legitimate rights and interests,
and incite contradictions, differences and confrontation,
thus hampering the development and progress of mankind, against the opposition from the international community.
The sides call on all States to pursue well-being for all and, with these ends, to
build dialogue and mutual trust,
strengthen mutual understanding,
champion such universal human values as
peace,
development,
equality,
justice,
democracy and freedom,
respect the rights of peoples to independently determine the development paths of their countries
and the sovereignty and the security and development interests of States,
to protect the United Nations-driven international architecture
and the international law-based world order,
seek genuine multipolarity with the United Nations
and its Security Council playing a central and coordinating role,
promote more democratic international relations,
and ensure peace, stability and sustainable development across the world.
I
The sides share the understanding that democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States, and that its promotion and protection is a common responsibility of the entire world community.
The sides believe that democracy is a means of citizens’ participation in the government of their country with the view to improving the well-being of population and implementing the principle of popular government.
Democracy is exercised in all spheres of public life as part of a nation-wide process and reflects the interests of all the people, its will, guarantees its rights, meets its needs and protects its interests.
There is no one-size-fits-all template to guide countries in establishing democracy.
A nation can choose such forms and methods of implementing democracy that would best suit its particular state, based on
its social and political system,
its historical background,
traditions and unique cultural characteristics.
It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one.
The sides note that Russia and China as world powers with rich cultural and historical heritage have long-standing traditions of democracy, which rely on
thousand-years of experience of development,
broad popular support and
consideration of the needs and interests of citizens.
Russia and China guarantee their people the right to take part through various means and in various forms in the administration of the State and public life in accordance with the law.
The people of both countries are certain of the way they have chosen and respect the democratic systems and traditions of other States.
The sides note that democratic principles are implemented at the global level, as well as in administration of State.
Certain States’ attempts to impose their own ”democratic standards“ on other countries,
to monopolize the right to assess the level of compliance with democratic criteria,
to draw dividing lines based on the grounds of ideology,
including by establishing exclusive blocs and alliances of convenience,
prove to be nothing but flouting of democracy and go against the spirit and true values of democracy.
Such attempts at hegemony pose serious threats to global and regional peace and stability and undermine the stability of the world order.
The sides believe that the advocacy of democracy and human rights must not be used to put pressure on other countries.
They oppose the abuse of democratic values and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states under the pretext of protecting democracy and human rights, and any attempts to incite divisions and confrontation in the world.
The sides call on the international community to respect cultural and civilizational diversity and the rights of peoples of different countries to self-determination.
They stand ready to work together with all the interested partners to promote genuine democracy.
The sides note that the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights set noble goals in the area of universal human rights, set forth fundamental principles, which all the States must comply with and observe in deeds.
At the same time, as every nation has its own unique national features, history, culture, social system and level of social and economic development, universal nature of human rights should be seen through the prism of the real situation in every particular country, and human rights should be protected in accordance with the specific situation in each country and the needs of its population.
Promotion and protection of human rights is a shared responsibility of the international community.
The states should equally prioritize all categories of human rights and promote them in a systemic manner.
The international human rights cooperation should be carried out as a dialogue between the equals involving all countries.
All States must have equal access to the right to development. Interaction and cooperation on human rights matters should be based on the principle of equality of all countries and mutual respect for the sake of strengthening the international human rights architecture.
II
The sides believe that peace, development and cooperation lie at the core of the modern international system.
Development is a key driver in ensuring the prosperity of the nations.
The ongoing pandemic of the new coronavirus infection poses a serious challenge to the fulfilment of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
It is vital to enhance partnership relations for the sake of global development and make sure that the new stage of global development is defined by balance, harmony and inclusiveness.
The sides are seeking to advance their work to link the development plans for the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative with a view to intensifying practical cooperation between the EAEU and China in various areas and promoting greater interconnectedness between the Asia Pacific and Eurasian regions.
The sides reaffirm their focus on building the Greater Eurasian Partnership in parallel and in coordination with the Belt and Road construction to foster the development of regional associations as well as bilateral and multilateral integration processes for the benefit of the peoples on the Eurasian continent.
The sides agreed to continue consistently intensifying practical cooperation for the sustainable development of the Arctic.
The sides will strengthen cooperation within multilateral mechanisms, including the United Nations, and encourage the international community to prioritize development issues in the global macro-policy coordination.
They call on the developed countries to implement in good faith their formal commitments on
development assistance,
provide more resources to developing countries,
address the uneven development of States,
work to offset such imbalances within States, and advance global and international development cooperation.
The Russian side confirms its readiness to continue working on the China-proposed Global Development Initiative, including participation in the activities of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative under the UN auspices.
In order to accelerate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the sides call on the international community to take practical steps in key areas of
cooperation such as poverty reduction,
food security,
vaccines and epidemics control,
financing for development,
climate change,
sustainable development,
including green development,
industrialization,
digital economy, and
infrastructure connectivity.
The sides call on the international community to
create open, equal, fair and non-discriminatory conditions for scientific and technological development,
to step up practical implementation of scientific and technological advances in order to identify new drivers of economic growth.
The sides call upon all countries to strengthen cooperation in
sustainable transport,
actively build contacts and share knowledge in the construction of transport facilities,
including smart transport and sustainable transport,
development and use of Arctic routes,
as well as to develop other areas to support global post-epidemic recovery.
The sides are taking serious action and making an important contribution to the fight against climate change.
Jointly celebrating the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, they reaffirm their commitment to this Convention as well as to the goals, principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement, including the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
The sides work together to ensure the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement, remain committed to fulfilling the obligations they have undertaken and expect that developed countries will actually ensure the annual provision of $100 billion of climate finance to developing states. The sides oppose setting up new barriers in international trade under the pretext of fighting climate change.
The sides strongly support the development of international cooperation and exchanges in the field of biological diversity, actively participating in the relevant global governance process, and intend to jointly promote the harmonious development of humankind and nature as well as green transformation to ensure sustainable global development.
The Heads of State positively assess the effective interaction between Russia and China in the bilateral and multilateral formats focusing on
the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,
protection of life and health of the population of the two countries and the peoples of the world.
They will further increase cooperation in the development and manufacture of vaccines against the new coronavirus infection,
as well as medical drugs for its treatment,
and enhance collaboration in public health and modern medicine.
The sides plan to strengthen coordination on epidemiological measures to ensure strong protection of health, safety and order in contacts between citizens of the two countries.
The sides have commended the work of the competent authorities and regions of the two countries on implementing quarantine measures in the border areas and ensuring the stable operation of the border crossing points, and intend to consider establishing a joint mechanism for epidemic control and prevention in the border areas to jointly plan anti-epidemic measures to be taken at the border checkpoints, share information, build infrastructure and improve the efficiency of customs clearance of goods.
The sides emphasize that ascertaining the origin of the new coronavirus infection is a matter of science.
Research on this topic must be based on global knowledge, and that requires cooperation among scientists from all over the world.
The sides oppose politicization of this issue. The Russian side welcomes the work carried out jointly by China and WHO to identify the source of the new coronavirus infection and supports the China – WHO joint report on the matter. The sides call on the global community to jointly promote a serious scientific approach to the study of the coronavirus origin.
The Russian side supports a successful hosting by the Chinese side of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing in 2022.
The sides highly appreciate the level of bilateral cooperation in sports and the Olympic movement and express their readiness to contribute to its further progressive development.
III
The sides are gravely concerned about serious international security challenges and believe that the fates of all nations are interconnected.
No State can or should ensure its own security separately from the security of the rest of the world and at the expense of the security of other States. The international community should actively engage in global governance to ensure universal, comprehensive, indivisible and lasting security.
The sides reaffirm their strong mutual support for the protection
of their core interests,
state sovereignty and territorial integrity,
and oppose interference by external forces in their internal affairs.
The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan.
Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to
undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions,
intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext,
oppose colour revolutions, and
will increase cooperation in the aforementioned areas.
The sides condemn terrorism in all its manifestations, promote the idea of creating a single global anti-terrorism front, with the United Nations playing a central role, advocate stronger political coordination and constructive engagement in multilateral counterterrorism efforts.
The sides oppose politicization of the issues of combating terrorism and their use as instruments of policy of double standards, condemn the practice of interference in the internal affairs of other States for geopolitical purposes through the use of terrorist and extremist groups as well as under the guise of combating international terrorism and extremism.
The sides believe that certain States, military and political alliances and coalitions seek to obtain, directly or indirectly, unilateral military advantages to the detriment of the security of others, including
by employing unfair competition practices,
intensify geopolitical rivalry,
fuel antagonism and confrontation, and
seriously undermine the international security order and global strategic stability.
The sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States.
The sides stand against the formation of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region and remain highly vigilant about the negative impact of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy on peace and stability in the region. Russia and China have made consistent efforts to build an equitable, open and inclusive security system in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR) that is not directed against third countries and that promotes peace, stability and prosperity.
The sides welcome the Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapons States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races.
And believe that all nuclear-weapons States should abandon the cold war mentality and zero-sum games, reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their national security policies, withdraw nuclear weapons deployed abroad, eliminate the unrestricted development of global anti-ballistic missile defense (ABM) system, and take effective steps to reduce the risks of nuclear wars and any armed conflicts between countries with military nuclear capabilities.
The sides reaffirm that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is the cornerstone of the international disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation system, an important part of the post-war international security system, and plays an indispensable role in world peace and development. The international community should promote the balanced implementation of the three pillars of the Treaty and work together to protect the credibility, effectiveness and the universal nature of the instrument.
The sides are seriously concerned about the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which provides for deeper cooperation between its members in areas involving strategic stability, in particular their decision to initiate cooperation in the field of nuclear-powered submarines.
Russia and China believe that such actions are
contrary to the objectives of security and sustainable development of the Asia-Pacific region,
increase the danger of an arms race in the region, and
pose serious risks of nuclear proliferation.
The sides strongly condemn such moves and call on AUKUS participants to fulfil their nuclear and missile non-proliferation commitments in good faith and to work together to safeguard peace, stability, and development in the region.
Japan’s plans to release nuclear contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean and the potential environmental impact of such actions are of deep concern to the sides.
The sides emphasize that the disposal of nuclear contaminated water should be handled with responsibility and carried out in a proper manner based on arrangements between the Japanese side and neighbouring States, other interested parties, and relevant international agencies while ensuring transparency, scientific reasoning, and in accordance with international law.
The sides believethat
the U.S. withdrawal from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles,
the acceleration of research and the development of intermediate-range and shorter-range ground-based missiles
and the desire to deploy them in the Asia-Pacific and European regions,
as well as their transfer to the allies,
…entail an increase in tension and distrust, increase risks to international and regional security, lead to the weakening of international non-proliferation and arms control system, undermining global strategic stability.
The sides call on the United States to respond positively to the Russian initiative and abandon its plans to deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range ground-based missiles in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.
The sides will continue to maintain contacts and strengthen coordination on this issue.
The Chinese side is sympathetic to and supports the proposals put forward by the Russian Federation to create long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe.
The sides note that the denunciation by the United States of a number of important international arms control agreements has an extremely negative impact on international and regional security and stability.
The sides express concern over the advancement of U.S. plans to develop global missile defence and deploy its elements in various regions of the world, combined with capacity building of high-precision non-nuclear weapons for disarming strikes and other strategic objectives.
The sides stress the importance of the peaceful uses of outer space, strongly support the central role of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in promoting international cooperation, maintaining and developing international space law and regulation in the field of space activities. Russia and China will continue to increase cooperation on such matters of mutual interest as the long-term sustainability of space activities and the development and use of space resources.
The sides oppose attempts by some States to turn outer space into an arena of armed confrontation and reiterate their intention to make all necessary efforts to prevent the weaponization of space and an arms race in outer space. They will counteract activities aimed at achieving military superiority in space and using it for combat operations.
The sides affirm the need for the early launch of negotiations to conclude a legally binding multilateral instrument based on the Russian-Chinese draft treaty on the prevention of placement of weapons in outer space and the use or threat of force against space objects that would provide fundamental and reliable guarantees against an arms race and the weaponization of outer space.
Russia and China emphasize that appropriate transparency and confidence-building measures, including an international initiative/political commitment not to be the first to place weapons in space, can also contribute to the goal of preventing an arms race in outer space, but such measures should complement and not substitute the effective legally binding regime governing space activities.
The sides reaffirm their belief that the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (BWC) is an essential pillar of international peace and security. Russia and China underscore their determination to preserve the credibility and effectiveness of the Convention.
The sides affirm the need to fully respect and further strengthen the BWC, including by institutionalizing it, strengthening its mechanisms, and adopting a legally binding Protocol to the Convention with an effective verification mechanism, as well as through regular consultation and cooperation in addressing any issues related to the implementation of the Convention.
The sides emphasize that domestic and foreign bioweapons activities by the United States and its allies raise serious concerns and questions for the international community regarding their compliance with the BWC.
The sides share the view that such activities pose a serious threat to the national security of the Russian Federation and China and are detrimental to the security of the respective regions.
The sides call on the U.S. and its allies to act in an open, transparent, and responsible manner by properly reporting on their military biological activities conducted overseas and on their national territory, and by supporting the resumption of negotiations on a legally binding BWC Protocol with an effective verification mechanism.
The sides, reaffirming their commitment to the goal of a world free of chemical weapons, call upon all parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention to work together to uphold its credibility and effectiveness.
Russia and China are deeply concerned about the politicization of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and call on all of its members to strengthen solidarity and cooperation and protect the tradition of consensual decision-making.
Russia and China insist that the United States, as the sole State Party to the Convention that has not yet completed the process of eliminating chemical weapons, accelerate the elimination of its stockpiles of chemical weapons.
The sides emphasize the importance of balancing the non-proliferation obligations of states with the interests of legitimate international cooperation in the use of advanced technology and related materials and equipment for peaceful purposes.
The sides note the resolution entitled ”Promoting international Cooperation on Peaceful Uses in the Context of International Security“ adopted at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly on the initiative of China and co‑sponsored by Russia, and look forward to its consistent implementation in accordance with the goals set forth therein.
The sides attach great importance to the issues of governance in the field of artificial intelligence. The sides are ready to strengthen dialogue and contacts on artificial intelligence.
The sides reiterate their readiness to deepen cooperation in the field of international information security and to contribute to building an open, secure, sustainable and accessible ICT environment.
The sides emphasize that the principles of the non-use of force, respect for national sovereignty and fundamental human rights and freedoms, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other States, as enshrined in the UN Charter, are applicable to the information space.
Russia and China reaffirm the key role of the UN in responding to threats to international information security and express their support for the Organization in developing new norms of conduct of states in this area.
The sides welcome the implementation of the global negotiation process on international information security within a single mechanism and support in this context the work of the UN Open-ended Working Group on security of and in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) 2021–2025 (OEWG) and express their willingness to speak with one voice within it.
The sides consider it necessary to consolidate the efforts of the international community to develop new norms of responsible behaviour of States, including legal ones, as well as a universal international legal instrument regulating the activities of States in the field of ICT.
The sides believe that the Global Initiative on Data Security, proposed by the Chinese side and supported, in principle, by the Russian side, provides a basis for the Working Group to discuss and elaborate responses to data security threats and other threats to international information security.
The sides reiterate their support of United Nations General Assembly resolutions 74/247 and 75/282, support the work of the relevant Ad Hoc Committee of Governmental Experts, facilitate the negotiations within the United Nations for the elaboration of an international convention on countering the use of ICTs for criminal purposes.
The sides encourage constructive participation of all sides in the negotiations in order to agree as soon as possible on a credible, universal, and comprehensive convention and provide it to the United Nations General Assembly at its 78th session in strict compliance with resolution 75/282. For these purposes, Russia and China have presented a joint draft convention as a basis for negotiations.
The sides support the internationalization of Internet governance, advocate equal rights to its governance, believe that any attempts to limit their sovereign right to regulate national segments of the Internet and ensure their security are unacceptable, are interested in greater participation of the International Telecommunication Union in addressing these issues.
The sides intend to deepen bilateral cooperation in international information security on the basis of the relevant 2015 intergovernmental agreement. To this end, the sides have agreed to adopt in the near future a plan for cooperation between Russia and China in this area.
IV
The sides underline that Russia and China, as world powers and permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, intend to
firmly adhere to moral principles and accept their responsibility,
strongly advocate the international system with the central coordinating role of the United Nations in international affairs,
defend the world order based on international law,
including the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
advance multipolarity and
promote the democratization of international relations, together create an even more prospering, stable, and just world, jointly build international relations of a new type.
The Russian side notes the significance of the concept of constructing a ”community of common destiny for mankind“ proposed by the Chinese side to ensure greater solidarity of the international community and consolidation of efforts in responding to common challenges.
The Chinese side notes the significance of the efforts taken by the Russian side to establish a just multipolar system of international relations.
The sides intend to strongly uphold the outcomes of the Second World War and the existing post-war world order, defend the authority of the United Nations and justice in international relations, resist attempts to deny, distort, and falsify the history of the Second World War.
In order to prevent the recurrence of the tragedy of the world war, the sides will strongly condemn actions aimed at denying the responsibility for atrocities of Nazi aggressors, militarist invaders, and their accomplices, besmirch and tarnish the honour of the victorious countries.
The sides call for the establishment of a new kind of relationships between world powers on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.
They reaffirm that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era.
Friendship between the two States has no limits.
There are no ”forbidden“ areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries.
The sides reiterate the need for consolidation, not division of the international community, the need for cooperation, not confrontation.
The sides oppose the return of international relations to the state of confrontation between major powers, when the weak fall prey to the strong.
The sides intend to resist attempts to substitute universally recognized formats and mechanisms that are consistent with international law for rules elaborated in private by certain nations or blocs of nations, and are against addressing international problems indirectly and without consensus, oppose power politics, bullying, unilateral sanctions, and extraterritorial application of jurisdiction, as well as the abuse of export control policies, and support trade facilitation in line with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The sides reaffirmed their intention to strengthen foreign policy coordination, pursue true multilateralism, strengthen cooperation on multilateral platforms, defend common interests, support the international and regional balance of power, and improve global governance.
The sides support and defend the multilateral trade system based on the central role of the World Trade Organization (WTO), take an active part in the WTO reform, opposing unilateral approaches and protectionism. The sides are ready to strengthen dialogue between partners and coordinate positions on trade and economic issues of common concern, contribute to ensuring the sustainable and stable operation of global and regional value chains, promote a more open, inclusive, transparent, non-discriminatory system of international trade and economic rules.
The sides support the G20 format as an important forum for discussing international economic cooperation issues and anti-crisis response measures, jointly promote the invigorated spirit of solidarity and cooperation within the G20, support the leading role of the association in such areas as the international fight against epidemics, world economic recovery, inclusive sustainable development, improving the global economic governance system in a fair and rational manner to collectively address global challenges.
The sides support the deepened strategic partnership within BRICS, promote the expanded cooperation in three main areas: politics and security, economy and finance, and humanitarian exchanges.
In particular, Russia and China intend to encourage interaction in the fields of
public health,
digital economy,
science,
innovation and technology,
including artificial intelligence technologies,
as well as the increased coordination between BRICS countries on international platforms.
The sides strive to further strengthen the BRICS Plus/Outreach format as an effective mechanism of dialogue with regional integration associations and organizations of developing countries and States with emerging markets.
The Russian side will fully support the Chinese side chairing the association in 2022, and assist in the fruitful holding of the XIV BRICS summit.
Russia and China aim to comprehensively strengthen the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and further enhance its role in shaping a polycentric world order based on the universally recognized principles of international law, multilateralism, equal, joint, indivisible, comprehensive and sustainable security.
They consider it important to consistently implement the agreements on improved mechanisms to counter challenges and threats to the security of SCO member states and, in the context of addressing this task, advocate expanded functionality of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.
The sides will contribute to imparting a new quality and dynamics to the economic interaction between the SCO member States in the fields of
trade,
manufacturing,
transport,
energy,
finance,
investment,
agriculture,
customs,
telecommunications,
innovation and
other areas of mutual interest, including through the use of advanced, resource-saving, energy efficient and ”green“ technologies.
The sides note the fruitful interaction within the SCO under the 2009 Agreement between the Governments of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member States on cooperation in the field of international information security, as well as within the specialized Group of Experts. In this context, they welcome the adoption of the SCO Joint Action Plan on Ensuring International Information Security for 2022–2023 by the Council of Heads of State of SCO Member States on September 17, 2021 in Dushanbe.
Russia and China proceed from the ever-increasing importance of cultural and humanitarian cooperation for the progressive development of the SCO. In order to strengthen mutual understanding between the people of the SCO member States, they will continue to effectively foster interaction in such areas as cultural ties, education, science and technology, healthcare, environmental protection, tourism, people-to-people contacts, sports.
Russia and China will continue to work to strengthen the role of APEC as the leading platform for multilateral dialogue on economic issues in the Asia-Pacific region.
The sides intend to step up coordinated action to successfully implement the ”Putrajaya guidelines for the development of APEC until 2040“ with a focus on creating a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent and predictable trade and investment environment in the region. Particular emphasis will be placed on the fight against the novel coronavirus infection pandemic and economic recovery, digitalization of a wide range of different spheres of life, economic growth in remote territories and the establishment of interaction between APEC and other regional multilateral associations with a similar agenda.
The sides intend to develop cooperation within the ”Russia-India-China“ format, as well as to
strengthen interaction on such venues as the East Asia Summit,
ASEAN Regional Forum on Security,
Meeting of Defense Ministers of the ASEAN Member States and Dialogue Partners.
Russia and China support ASEAN’s central role in developing cooperation in East Asia, continue to increase coordination on deepened cooperation with ASEAN, and jointly promote cooperation in the areas of public health, sustainable development, combating terrorism and countering transnational crime.
The sides intend to continue to work in the interest of a strengthened role of ASEAN as a key element of the regional architecture.
…
It’s very straight-forward. This document lays out the actions and behaviors of the two nations (Russia and China), their interaction with the rest of the work, how the two nations interact with each other, and areas where they will jointly work together.
It is, a de facto. constitution for a unified Asia.
Now, let’s see how this document was presented to Americans. My guess is that they are far too stupid to understand what is going on.
My guess is that they will interject the article with boilerplate negatives, distortions of the text, and gloss over the actual content and meaning behind it.
They will also include disparaging comments, and attempt to detrail the content.
Russia and China Unveil a Pact Against America and the West
In a sweeping long-term agreement, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the two most powerful autocrats, challenge the current political and military order.
In their matching mauve ties, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping last week declared a “new era” in the global order and, at least in the short term, endorsed their respective territorial ambitions in Ukraine and Taiwan. The world’s two most powerful autocrats unveiled a sweeping long-term agreement that also challenges the United States as a global power, NATO as a cornerstone of international security, and liberal democracy as a model for the world. “Friendship between the two States has no limits,” they vowed in the communiqué, released after the two leaders met on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics. “There are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Agreements between Moscow and Beijing, including the Treaty of Friendship of 2001, have traditionally been laden with lofty, if vague, rhetoric that faded into forgotten history. But the new and detailed five-thousand-word agreement is more than a collection of the usual tropes, Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, at the Wilson Center, in Washington, told me.
Although it falls short of a formal alliance, like NATO, the agreement reflects a more elaborate show of solidarity than anytime in the past. “This is a pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily,” Daly said. “This statement might be looked back on as the beginning of Cold War Two.” The timing and clarity of the communiqué—amid tensions on Russia’s border with Europe and China’s aggression around Taiwan—will “give historians the kind of specific event that they often focus on.”
Beyond security, the declaration also pledged collaboration on space, climate change, the Internet, and artificial intelligence. Politically, the document claimed that there is “no one-size-fits-all” type of democracy, and heralded both forms of authoritarian rule in Moscow and Beijing as successful democracies. “It’s a pretty striking step closer to an alliance and shows that they’re very much aligned in their vision of the world order in the twenty-first century,” Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, told me.
Putin described the broader strategic partnership with China as “unprecedented.”
Xi said that their joint strategy would have a “far-reaching influence on China, Russia, and the world.”
U.S. experts described the lengthy statement, which was riddled with false and accusatory language, as startling. “I’ve never seen a joint statement from both leaders using this kind of language.
She described the communiqué as “quite Orwellian” and called it an “inflection point” in which Russia and China are challenging the balance of power that has defined the global order since the Cold War ended, three decades ago. “We could be at the beginning of a new era as the Russian relationship with the West deteriorates and China’s does as well.”
The agreement puts Washington and its key allies “in a terrible bind,” she added. “The fact is, whatever we do to counter what Russia is doing only reinforces its reliance on China.”
The joint statement is, at least for the moment, a diplomatic boon for Putin amid his showdown with the United States and Europe over Ukraine. For the first time in any of Russia’s recent aggressions, Putin has won the open support of China’s leader. China did not back Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, or its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, nor has it recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Now Moscow and Beijing, which both have the ability to veto any resolution at the United Nations, have declared their opposition to further enlargement of NATO and to the formation of other regional security alliances. “Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions, intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose colour revolutions, and will increase cooperation,” the often unwieldy statement declared. “This is where they pledge their troth,” Daly said.
Washington had been pressuring Beijing, including in a call last month between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in an attempt to keep China neutral or out of the Ukraine crisis. Now, at least on paper and in public voice, it has budged, Andrew Weiss, a former National Security Council official who is currently at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me. “Russia now has China as an endorser of the egregious and inflammatory position that Putin has staked out on Ukraine.”
Hints of China’s shift have been emerging in the past two weeks, as the Ukraine crisis began spilling over onto already tense U.S.-China relations. President Biden’s foreign policy had hoped to steer relations with Beijing toward stable and manageable competition.
Instead, China, which is normally discreet in its diplomacy, is visibly pushing back.
After his conversation with Blinken last month, the Chinese foreign minister said publicly that Russia’s security concern about NATO expansion is legitimate and must be addressed. The Biden Administration countered last week with an admonition. The State Department warned that the West has “an array of tools” to deploy against foreign companies—including in China—that help Russia evade punitive sanctions.
In the new agreement, Russia, in turn, reaffirmed its support for Beijing’s One China policy that Taiwan is “an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence.” The joint communiqué also supported Beijing’s ruthless crackdown on dissidents in Hong Kong in the past two years. The bold assertions in the joint statement follow deepening military ties between the two nations in the past decade, Weiss noted. Russia and China have conducted dozens of joint exercises and war games that have involved as many as ten thousand troops to hone tactical and operational capabilities.
Russian officials have boasted that the growing defense partnership was designed to warn the United States and NATO not to pressure Moscow. The naval operations have included mock seizures of islands, patrols by long-range bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, and surface-to-air missile targeting.
Last summer, Putin and Xi both witnessed military exercises in China. In October, they held joint naval exercises off Russia’s far-eastern coast. “The frequency, complexity, and geographic scope has steadily increased, reflecting the growth in the overall bilateral defense relationship,” the U.S. Naval Institute reported last year. As two nuclear-armed countries that span Europe and Asia, the more muscular alignment between Russia and China could be a game changer militarily and diplomatically. “They want this to be as threatening as a formal alliance to the West, but don’t want to formally commit to mutual defense,” Daly said. “They don’t have to. The spectre of their mutual aid will serve as a deterrent.”
The joint announcement reflects a shift in the balance of power between Russia and China as well. “The Russians for the longest time were condescending in their view of China as an uninteresting rural society,” Weiss said. “Now China looks at Russia and says, ‘What are you good for?’
China’s ambitions do not run through Moscow.” China has become “canny” in exploiting Russia’s neediness, he said. “It uses Russia as a cat’s paw to disrupt the U.S. pivot to Asia. The fact that we have to keep coming back to Putin, as the neighborhood bully, is beneficial to China.”
Putin was the highest-profile leader to show up for the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The U.S. and other major powers opted not to send high-profile delegations, to protest China’s human-rights abuses, particularly against its Uyghur minority. Russia had received a two-year ban from officially sending teams to the Olympics after conducting a years-long, state-sponsored doping scheme. Russian athletes—who are not supposed to carry their nation’s flag, wear the Russian insignia, or play the national anthem—instead compete as part of the Russian Olympic Committee. After his meeting with Xi, Putin applauded the team during the opening ceremony’s Parade of Nations on Friday. But his visit clearly had another purpose.
The question now is how far Russia and China will take their agreement. “Words are one thing,” Vershbow, the former Ambassador, said. “We still have to see if the statement will translate into greater tangible Chinese support for Russia’s aggressive behavior—or whether they’ll say, ‘We’re with you, good luck,’ and then turn the other way.” The Chinese have different and sometimes more pragmatic interests in their relations with the U.S. and Europe, which are vital to their economy. “They don’t want to burn all bridges for the sake of a relationship with Russia.”
Oh, fine and dandy, but…
Let’s stop playing around.
The United States set up identical conditions for war in both Ukraine and Taiwan simultaneously.
This began in 2014 under President Obama.
This action was planned long before that. Perhaps as early as 2004.
The USA set up pro-United States governments in 2014 by NED sponsored activity.
The USA has since poured billions of dollars in weapons to those areas.
And has established bioweapons labs in both areas.
Both governments possess a hatred of their larger neighbor.
And both will try to provoke their neighbor according to the RAND directions.
The United States WILL create a contexual reason to drag China into a terrible and long-duration conventional war on the border of China identically to what has occurred in Ukraine.
So stop pretending.
Right now Russia is in complete control of the Ukraine situation, no matter what the Western “news” says, and a “false flag” event is scheduled to drag the USA and NATO into the conflict. With NATO being a light-weight serrogate for the USA battle forces.
Then the USA will “pivot to Asia” and take out China.
So the conflict in Taiwan will be similiar.
It is planned to be a long drawn out conventional war, and a “false flag” will be a justification for invasion by Japanese, Australian and United States forces.
…
Now, I’m not too swift a Geo-Political strategist. However, if I can see this, then you can well expect that China and Russia see this as well.
Do you think that they have plans, and are aware of the big and larger plans that are in place and the systems that are set in motion?
.
And with that understood, please keep in mind that…
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
With this understood, now let’s see what is going on today.
The United States demands that China sever economic ties with Russia or else!
Now, consider the reality about the domestic situation inside of America right now…
A White House account of the call on Friday said that the US president “described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians”.A senior administration official said there would be consequences “not just for China’s relationship with the United States, but for the wider world”, but would not give more details on whether Biden had gone into specifics on possible sanctions, other than to point out what had happened to Russia as an example.
There was nothing specific. Just warnings of “serious consequences” if China and Russia maintain their close relationship.
Obviously, the United States is acting like a pentulant child that is hold his ears and shutting his eyes and screaming as he tries to force the world to go away.
It appears that the United States does not recognize the agreement just forged last month between Russia and China.
Just a reminder to the reader that you now understand thngs far better than the American “leadership” does;
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
China is READY
China and Russia are BOTH aware what is going on. They know that the United States plans to destroy both nations and then pick over the carcass like vultures. It’s very clear. It’s very plain. So let’s stop playing games. Let’s stop pretending.
The United States and its allies are getting ready to go full-spectrum war when they are ready to “pivot to Asia”.
It will begin [1] with crossing one of China’s “RED LINES”, just like the USA did with Ukraine. [2] China will react, then [3] a “False Flag” will be tripped, and (of course, to plan, [4] the United States will use it as an excuse to engage in a full war on Chinese soil. Becuase, after all, Taiwan is de facto Chinese soil. No matter what propagandized narrative the West wishes to create.
But… you know…
China is ready.
Video 1– China knows that America wants a war. – Adults
The pretext will be Taiwan. Just like it was with Ukraine. And China considers it an American invasion of it’s land. They will fight to the death, and employ great weapons of mass, mass, destruction.
You all had wish you were not on the recieving side of this onslaught of rage. I can tell you, and so can other expats inside of China, the Chinese are very quiet and studious, but when they get angry… when they get angry… they will unleash a rage that is indescribable. They will unleash… slaughter.
Video 2 -First grade military training – 5 / 6 year olds
Inside of China, very first grade, and many Kindergardens begin their day with roll-call, and reporting. Such as this. video 5 MB
Video 3 – Elementary school training – 9 year olds
Hey! Do you notice that these are not cheap AK-47 clones. They do not exist in China. REAL GUNS exist in China.
These are real deal full-auto Chinese military weapons. These are fourth grade kids. Nope. They probably couldn’t take on American SEALs or Green Berets. But that is not the point. The point is everyone in China is trained to fight. It is the law. And they are merit driven and they work together as one. Everyone in a town or villiage acts as a fully managed army unit. Let that soak in. All 1.4 billion of them.
That’s 1,400,000,000,000,000 people.
How many military forces do you think that the United States can throw together to invade China? 60,000? 90,000? Even including Japan and Australia? Watch the video. This is all over China. video 31MB
Video 4 – EVERYONE in China has combat training – 17 year olds
Oh, you don’t beleive me, eh? What, you think that this is basic training, huh? No. It isn’t. It’s High School drills. High School drills. Let that sink in.
While the United States has “pepe rallies”, diversity training, ebonics, and soft subjects like fund-raising, China teaches basics, drills and trains over and over and over. They train with real weapons with real live ammo. video a must watch. Know the context. Filmed at their High School complex. video 11MB
Video 5 – Middle School exercises. 14 year old kids
Every Summer, the middle school students go on training exercises. Some resemble “Boot Camp”, while others are “actual maneuvres” and “War Games”. Here’s one such event.
Sure, they cannot take an American Green Beret one-on-one or an SAS fighter. But what about 20-to-1, or 200-to-1, or maybe 2000-to-1. How do you think the United States invasion of Taiwan will work out?
Video 6 – Middle school (14 year old) target practice
Using real government issued weapons, and ammo. Tell me about the firearm training that the United States, the UK, or Australia provides in middle school. I would like to hear it.
Video 7 – China hasn’t forgotten, and they haven’t forgiven.
All of China remembers the “great humiliation” inflicted on them by Europe and America, and they well remember the atrocities of Japan, as this video clearly show.
I can tell you truthfully, if Japan engages China, Japan will become radioactive waste.
Video 8 – What the start of world war III might look like
You know, Hollywood has been glorifying war for decades. And China is always considered an enemy and an easy target. Ever watch the latest “Red Dawn” remake?
Here we see a mashup with Hollywood movies, and Chinese movies trying to suggest what the start of world war III looks like when the United States places a Naval Battle Group between the mainland and Taiwan.
What we are witnessing is truly the beginning of the end. In recent months I have focused a lot on the economic implosion that is now taking place, but what we are facing is so much broader than that.
Our society is literally falling to pieces all around us, and now World War 3 has begun. Many regard the war that has erupted on the other side of the globe as just a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but the truth is that it is really a proxy war between the United States and Russia. And since neither side seems much interested in diplomacy at this point, this proxy war could eventually become a shooting war between the two greatest nuclear powers on the entire planet.
Before the war started, events were already starting to accelerate substantially. Inflation was out of control, a new energy crisis had flared up, and global food supplies were getting tighter and tighter. But now we are truly in unprecedented territory. If you doubt this, just look at what is happening to the price of fertilizer.
2022 03 28 09 47
That chart should chill you to the core, because it clearly tells us that food shortages are coming.
In fact, even Joe Biden is now publicly admitting that food shortages are coming. On his show the other night, Tucker Carlson broke this down in a way that only Tucker Carlson can…
Before the war, some fertilizers had doubled in price and some had tripled in price.
In the video that you just watched, we are told that some fertilizer prices are now four to five times higher than they were a year ago.
Here in the western world, most farmers will simply bite the bullet and pay the higher prices. In turn, we will pay higher prices for food at the grocery store.
But in poorer parts of the globe, many farmers will use a whole lot less fertilizer or none at all. As a result, global food production will be way down in the months ahead.
To turn this crisis around, what we really need is for the proxy war in Ukraine to end. Unfortunately, both sides just continue to escalate matters instead.
For example, on Saturday Joe Biden shocked the entire world when he stated that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”…
President Joe Biden on Saturday said Russian leader Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” ratcheting up international pressure and further uniting NATO allies against Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.“A dictator, bent on rebuilding an empire, will never erase the people’s love for liberty,” Biden said at the end of a sweeping speech in Poland. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness.”
That was a call for regime change in Russia.
Russian leaders were already paranoid about western intentions before, and now their paranoia is going to be off the charts.
Biden administration officials are trying to walk back Biden’s comments, but the damage has already been done.
Meanwhile, we just learned that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have not spoken at all since February 15th…
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have not spoken since February 15, over a week before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the State Department told Antiwar.com on Friday.Earlier this week The Washington Post cited US officials who said Blinken hasn’t attempted to speak with Lavrov since the start of the conflict. When asked to confirm the story, a State Department spokesperson said, “We can confirm that the last time Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke was on February 15.”
Even during the darkest days of the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. officials always kept talking to the Russians.
So this is something that should alarm all of us greatly.
On top of everything else, Joe Biden just told U.S. troops in Poland that they will see what conditions in Ukraine are like “when you’re there”…
According to The Associated Press, Biden’s remarks were given in front of U.S. troops who “had been sent near Poland’s border [with Ukraine] to assist with the humanitarian emergency and to bolster the U.S. military presence on the eastern flank of NATO.” The words, “and you’re gonna see when you’re there,” were spoken right after the president mentioned the bravery of Ukrainian citizens. Later, the White House once again told reporters that U.S. troops would not be deployed to fight in the war in Ukraine.
Every time Biden opens his mouth, he makes things even worse.
President Joe Biden is abandoning a campaign vow to alter longstanding US nuclear doctrine, and will instead embrace existing policy that reserves America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario, according to multiple reports.As Russian forces continue their bloody assault on Ukraine, Biden is under pressure from NATO allies not to abandon the right to use nuclear weapons to deter conventional attacks.
Many had thought that the war in Ukraine would help to unite America and would provide a boost to Biden’s extremely poor approval ratings.
And in the initial days of the war, that seemed to happen.
President Joe Biden’s job approval ratings keep falling in his second year in the White House, with just 40% of Americans approving of the job that he is doing, a new NBC News survey finds.That is the lowest rating Biden has seen in his presidency.
We were warned that 2022 would be a very troubled year, and we are still in the very early chapters.
If the Biden administration continues with all of this insanity, things are going to get a whole lot worse. I really like how Gerald Celente summarized matters during his recent interview with Greg Hunter…
“We are headed for an economic calamity the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetime. They are getting our minds off it with the war in Ukraine. . . . You know, I wrote in the magazine in the beginning of the year, we said that the Covid war would wind down by late March and mid-April. It’s winding down. . . . So, now, as we said in the magazine, we went from the Covid war to the Ukraine war, and now to world war. We are headed to World War III. . . . There is not a peep about a cease-fire. Biden is only bragging about more weapons being sent in. Biden says we are going to defeat the Russians. We are not backing down. No one is talking about a cease-fire, and no one is talking about peace. If we don’t unite for peace, we are all going to die in war.”
But right now Biden administration officials apparently don’t even see any point in talking with the Russians.
We are steamrolling down a road that leads to nuclear war, and meanwhile the global economy is starting to implode at frightening speed.
If you are still delusional enough to believe that everything will work out “just fine” somehow, then I really feel sorry for you.
Taiwan
Keep in mind again…
Taiwan is part of China. China thinks so, The UN thinks so, and even Taiwan thinks so.
But that does not matter.
The Untied States NEEDS a war and is going to have one. They are going to “pull a Ukraine” on China, and they are almost ready. And you know what? Just like Russia, China is going to move befor the United States can “make its move”. It’s probably going to be undercover, and hidden, but I’m not sure.
One thing that we are learning right now is that the “government” of the Ukraine is just a robot entity. It is a bought-for, and paid-for actor that the Untied State put in charge of things so that it could move it’s military, and it’s forces, and it’s systems onto the border of Russia. It is NOT an independent, democratically elected, goverment. It is a proxy puppet; bought and owned by the United States.
We have to assume that that exact thing is going on in Taiwan.
There is no “government in Taiwan”. There are instead American robots who do whatever Washington DC tells them to do.
So stop all the nonsense and fact the facts.
And China knows this.
Maybe not exactly as I have described, but yeah, they get the picture. In fact, I would arge that they understand the nuiances far better than MM here.
Of course, you would NEVER hear about this in the Western “news” media. China has a military force that is peer-capable, and lethal. And if you are Japanese or a cocky Australian American-lover they will decapitate you. The Chinese DO NOT PLAY.
The Chinese have two things that are found nowhere else in the world; [1] Social unity. They work in groups together as one organism, and [2] They are merit-dren and always do their best.
If you take those two things, and then organize it towards military action. From an early age, then the formation of military actions; defensive actions all become automatic. That is China.
Video – More Chinese elementary schools students video 8MB
Video – Rifle disipline.
Taught with “training weapons”. Lighter, and firing a low recoil projectile instead of a full cartridge. Second and third grade students. China. video 6MB
Video -They fight for family. They fight for survival.
Unlike the American and British “soy-boys” that went to the Ukraine to plink at Russians, and ran home crying after one simple missile barriage, the youth of China are disiplined, and prepared. They will fight to the death. All for their family; their parents and their friends. video 4MB
Video – Chinese youth training
Resembles American Green Beret and SEAL training. Yeah. They get it starting in first grade.
Because the flat slobs in the West, in their easy-chairs, coffered hair, riding their nice cars, and making royal decrees like some kind of bloted evil and corrupt spoiled brat are planning on causing hardship, hurt, turmoil to THESE PEOPLE. And I am here to tell you that is will not work. Instead, it will make them very, very, VERY angry.
There is a reason why China is considered THE DRAGON. And no, it’s not just public relations. China will slice you up and spit you all out. Do not poke the dragon. video 7MB
Video – But it’s the military that China has that is peer capable and lethal
You do not want to fuck with them. All state of the art. Peer capable, or better than what the United States fields, and they love, just love their AI-guided missiles and rockets. Do NOT FUCK with them. video 3MB
Now keep in mind that if it comes down to the Chinese having to use these systems, they will do so with their enemies cites in radioactive rubble. The Chinese do not play around. They are lethal and they will go after enemies with everything they have.
You don’t want to poke the dragon.
Why does the United States want to anger the dragon?
Why?
Because the American “leadership” are psychopaths. They have no understanding of the world, and ideological monsters that are following a dangerous script that will eventually result in the absolute shredding of the Untied States, and a tumble into poverty for all the the West. video 7MB
Ok. Enough of this. Let’s calm down a tad.
Cute Chinese Girl
I think that she is pretty. Nice girl with an umbrella. Video 2MB
Fake UFO video
It’s fun to check out UFO videos. You find them all over the internet, and many are very interesting, but most have no context and thus provide zero information.
The following video is filmed near the “fisher girl” statue here in Zhuhai next to my house where I live. It takes me about seven minutes to walk to it from my front door.
Nothing beats Old-Fashioned Roast Beef the way mama used to make it!
With this roast beef recipe you can bet there’ll be lots of good eatin’. Just remember to let it rest, slice it thinly across the grain, and finish it off with the pan drippings – that’s what makes it absolutely perfect. Oh, and add some potatoes and gravy.
What You’ll Need
1 (4-pound) beef bottom round roast
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
A beef bottom round roast.
What to Do
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place roasting rack in large roasting pan and coat with cooking spray. Place roast on rack, fat side up.
In small bowl, combine remaining ingredients; mix well. Rub spice mixture over entire roast, covering completely.
Roast 30 minutes. Reduce oven to 300 degrees and continue roasting beef 70 to 75 minutes, or until a meat thermometer registers 135 degrees for medium-rare, or until desired doneness beyond that. Let stand 15 to 20 minutes before slicing.
Notes
To make a tasty sauce for your roast beef, just add 1 cup beef broth to roasting pan and heat over high heat, scraping the bottom to loosen any brown bits.
And sandwiches…
Open Faced Reuben Sandwiches
It’s an awfully delicious sandwich.
Ever find yourself wondering how to make a Reuben sandwich with some style? Some of the biggest and best delis serve their Reubens open-faced, just like in this recipe that we got from a deli in Central New York. We loved these Open Faced Reuben Sandwiches and we had to pass along the recipe for you to enjoy! There’s something about this sandwich that just makes your mouth water.
What You’ll Need
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
8 slices rye bread
1 pound sliced deli corned beef
2 (14-ounce) cans sauerkraut, rinsed and well drained
8 slices (6 ounces) Swiss cheese
What to Do
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, garlic powder, salt, and pepper; mix well.
Arrange the bread on two baking sheets. Spread dressing mixture on each slice. Top each with corned beef, sauerkraut, and a slice of Swiss cheese.
Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, or until heated through, and the cheese is melted. Place 2 pieces on each plate and serve open-faced.
Test Kitchen Tips
You might want to use only half of the Thousand Island dressing on the sandwiches before baking them. Then just top each slice with a dollop of dressing before serving. Our mouths are already watering!
China is a major force
If you are in the West, it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the lies and bullshit about China.
China is advanced, a manufacturing powerhouse, run on merit and disipline. They are successful and they “ain’t stopping for shit”. If you take them on, they WILL FUCKING SLAUGHTER YOU.
The rest of the world appears lazy in comparison. Chinese are hard drivers. video 4MB
China military. Don’t be so sure that they would be an easy nation to conquer. video 4MB
And this fool, in Hong Kong, obviously influenced by the Pro-Democracy NED “color revolution” decided to harass the Chinese guards. The Chinese DON’T PLAY. Down and drawn in 1.5 seconds. video 3MB
China is fighting to exist. Just like Russia. And if you think , and believe that they are not taking the THREATs from the United States seriously, you are deluded. It’s no mistake that they have a mass production of hyper-velocity nuclear missiles all with the United States targets plastered on them.
Oh, you think that I am kidding? Oh, you think that I am being alarmist? Look at this quote out of the Kremlin directly from President Putin…
PUTIN:
"I am now instructing our 4 combat regions that if USA and NATO dare to provoke us (around the Black Sea) and try to hit us with even ONE guided missile then you must hit them back as hard as possible.
Hit them fiercely until they kneel down for mercy.
If they retaliate, I command you to use nuclear weaponsto hit their countries.
No need to think about the consequences.
I will be solely responsible.
Your duty is just to hit them hard until they kneel down begging for mercy.
Once the war has started I expect you to subdue Europe within 5 days.
No need to think... just take over the 8 capitals of Europe.
From now on our Air, Land and Navy armed forces are on full alert.
I want the world to know who is the leader of the world.
What is USA... I am telling them they will be trembling in front of us.
They have been belittling and making fun of many countries but don't they dare to try us.
Go to hell.
My view is that if the Russians have to live under USA's mercy then what good is there left in this world!!"
-Kremlin
[This link is blocked in the usa, france, hungary, serbia, moldova, switzerland, and singapore. Heck, even the russian language website is blocked.]
.
In June 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree stating,
“The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies…
...and also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat.”
Clearly, the United States has pushed Russia to a state where they beleive this is the case.
Clearly, though not reported in the Western media, both Russia and China are at a high state of military readiness.
Russia is at the highest state; DEFCON 1. (Open Warfare)
China is at second highest state DEFCON 2. (Full readiness; no open warfare).
No American pre-emptive nuclear strikes are possible without immediate unleashing of MAD upon the entirety of the West.
Out of necessity, Russia and China have banded together and created a new nation. It’s a United Asia. Other nations are drifiting towards it. For now, you can consider it to be similiar to the USA, or the EU in unity.
Presently, the comprehensive document is only between Russia and China. However, Iran is interested in generating similiar agreements, and India is working towards joining the block as well.
That’s 70% of the world’s population.
85% of the world’s manufacturing.
65-70% of the world’s energy resources.
All of the rest of the nations in Asia are moving towards this group.
It’s a new nation.
And the Untied States (and it’s proxy nations) are pretending that this is not the case. They are pretending that they can treat China separately from Russia, India from Russia, Iran from China, and so on and so forth.
They cannot face the reality; the truth.
So, without plans and “expert” guidance from RAND, the United States (leading the West) are still following the same tired-old “take over the world” script written decades ago, and implementing the plans set forth. (Follow the links for the RAND plans to initiate war. When you read them, you will discover that the US government has been following them to the letter.)
These plans have been telegraphed, and well understood by the Russian and Chinese leadership. And since the United States is following that old script, they are easy to anticipate and handle.
However, the unifed Russia and China block was unexpected, and it doesn not fit in with the plan. So the way that the United States has decided to handle this issue is to IGNORE IT and pretend that this reality does not exist.
They will continue their assaults and probing actions.
Now it’s Russia. Russia has issued strike orders, and telegraphed them to the West, but you know, eventually they will engage China, and when that happens, China WILL ENGAGE THEM RIGHT BACK. Unlike Russia, China will not telegraph any warning.
It will be on American soil, by the way. It will not be so nice.
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.
Putin and Xi Peng has made some HUGE decisions, and the “leadership” in the West are very, very worried. This is the best summary of the current state of Geo-political affairs; United States centered, that describes what is going on and why. It’s amazing in its simplicity and depth of understanding. Andrei has outdone himself here.
I discovered this video via email. Which read…
This is one of the more powerful presentations I have seen. I commented as follows:
Andre, many of us who have watched helplessly as all these crimes have been committed IN OUR NAME, would feel --as Martin Luther King said--the Arc of Justice is long,-- relieved of the karmic burden.
When all these people are finally held accountable, after decades (centuries?) of horror they perpetrated. I am sure that many Germans felt the same way after WWII.
https://youtu.be/JbNVIbAgJ1Q
Putin raises hackles when he talks about genocide in relation to the Donbass crisis.
It’s a very great video, and it covers some points that are omitted by the American “news” media, and overlooked by alternative media, and he ties it all together, thus effectively painting a picture of what the China-Russian alliance end-game actually is.
Watch it on you-tube. Click to open up in a new tab.
Think about what he has to say.
I think that many, many MM readers will easily see how the reported articles in “New Beginnings” are all tied together. After watching this video, this is how I actually feel…
New changes, and new alignments.
But that’s just me.
It’s not that I am not happy about it. In fact, I see this future as long in coming. And, as you all are aware, welcome it. But still, like a serious drunk psychopath driving a bus-load of children on a twisty and turny highway going as fast as they can; the American “leadership” are going to hurt a lot of good, kind, and just Americans.
I lament that.
And thus, the shocking reality, and the slap in the face of what is coming down the pipe for everyone involved will not be pleasant. Such as this…
Lament for America.
It’s a good summary of what is going on and why certain words were used.
But even though, you have strengths.
Never forget that. The crazy drunk psychopaths are driving the car left and right on and off the road, but you don’t need to grab the steering wheel. You can buckle up your seatbelt. You can tell the driver to pull over so that you can vomit, and then once he does, you run for the hills.
There are many things that you can do.
You are not helpless.
Find an ally. Someone like you. Don’t try to deal with the changes all alone.
Find an ally. Someone like you.
There’s this big plan, and it is unfolding. Sit tight. Conduct your basic strategies to ride out this period of turmoil, and most especially if you are in the West….
Have a skill that you can use in your community.
Have a larder and supplies.
Network in your community. Be known.
Be kind, helpful and a Rufus.
Conduct prayer affirmation campaigns.
Make sure that you have a formal Fate Forecast prepared for you and follow it.
Center your mind with Hemi-Sync.
You will be just fine.
Remember; do not be alone. There is strength in numbers.
Do not be alone.
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.
There have been a lot of things happening as of late. The United States, after years of poking and prodding both Russia and China, the two nations collectively “put their foot down”, and said “STOP”!
Well, actually, they STOMPED their collective feet down, and laid out the lines forcefully. Both Putin and Xi Peng told the United States to collectively…
“Get off our porches. Stay out of our front yards, and get out of our backyards”.
The United States response was predictable.
It followed the same well-established profile of nearly a century of deception and mediocre international participation. They responded with a two-fold “kick in the teeth“.
Firstly [1], a promise not to target Russia and China with all the nuclear weapons that are surrounding their countries (as in “yeah, sure”) and secondly [2] immediately launched a color revolution in the belly nexus in Kazakhstan.
ColorRevolution is the term used to describe a series of remarkably effectiveCIA-led regime changeoperationsusingtechniquesdeveloped by the RAND Corporation, “democracy” NGOs and other groups since the 1980’s. They were used in crudeform to bring down the Polish communist regime in the late1980s.
-WilliamEngdahl
The “sincerity” was out in the open for all to see.
For their part, both Russia and China publically promoted the “good will” aspects of this effort. They did so, knowing, full well, that the United States needs some face-saving positives for it’s horrifically inept blundering and evil manipulations.
But in both Beijing and Moscow, the answer was “telegraphed” clear as day. America smiled for the cameras and then turned around and said “FUCK YOU!” to both.
When they launched their well-thought-out and planned color revolution, they anticipated another decade-long color revolution that would generate strife and turmoil.
A color revolution in Kazakhstan
Andrei speaks…
According to Russian sources, the usual US-controlled disinformation resources (including Ukie ones!) are out in full force to support the insurrection.
The levels of violence are very high, even ambulances are attacked, cops are beaten up, disarmed, undressed, and humiliated, weapons stores have been emptied.
The Internet has been disconnected, as has power in many parts of Almaty and Nursultan.
This is a repeat of what the US tried in Belarus and in Kyrgyzstan, and the next couple of days will be crucial.
Many government buildings have been seized and burned, some have been re-taken by the authorities.
Law and order have broken down and groups of thugs are controlling the streets in many locations.
There are reports of organized armed groups engaging in firefights with police, security, and military forces.
One source reports that Kazakh Airborne Forces are also engaged. There are also reports of Takfiri elements using these riots (officially triggered by an increase in the cost of gas).
Official sources report 8 dead and 317 wounded among the police forces. The authorities lost control over several cities (including Alma-Ata) and 3 airports (part of which were torched).Astana and Pavlodar remain under the control of authorities.
Martial law has been decreed for the entire country.
These events are a direct threat to both Russia and China. Turkey seems to be pushing its pan-Turkic agenda. The CIA supported Uighur Takfiris also seemed to be involved. This is all taken straight out of the CIA playbook: Twitter, Telegram channels (including NEXTA), Soros-funded organizations, etc. are all deeply involved (including Ukie PSYOPs units).
The United States upens up the same old “playbook”
They anticipated “discussions” with the “proud freedom lovers”, and the police being stressed, and collapsing. They anticipated cities to fall, and the American hand-picked proxy leadership to start running things.
How do we know this? Well, that was the exactly official American and British responses in their “news” media outlets. “Talk with the protestors”, “Negotiate with them”, and “we support their efforts for freedom™ and democracy™”.
President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman has denied that the US government is behind the violent protests that have rocked Kazakhstan this week, claiming that unnamed “Russians” have falsely accused Washington of triggering the tumult.
The White House is monitoring the protests in Kazakhstan and supports “calls for calm, for protesters to express themselves peacefully and for authorities to exercise restraint,” Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday.
“There are some crazy Russian claims about the US being behind this, so let me just use this opportunity to convey that is absolutely false and clearly a part of the standard Russian disinformation playbook,” she said.
-RT
The American playbook; Play the same old “games”. Even though the facts are there in the Federal Budget for the world to see. It’s a line item to fund “Regime Change” in Kazakhstan. Duh. Billions of dollars. And somehow we are expected to believe that the money was used elsewhere for other purposes, eh?
It did not happen.
Both China and Russia are no longer playing THOSE games. No polite police-officers. No, “give the demonstrators” some leeway and time to “negotiate”. These were not a grassroots domestic revolution. Instead, it was an invasion via proxy concocted by the United States. And everyone knows it.
So… well, you all read the news, right?
It was a BRUTAL response.
The CIA Color Revolution ended within a week
Kazakhstan, Russia and China treated this as a military invasion, and acted promptly and immediately.
Non-stop military transport planes ferried crack battle-trained combat troops to the sectors. Not as a policing unit to “control the peace”, but rather as a lethal military arm sent to kill.
Here’s what the CTSO general had to say…
Sitrep: Summary of Briefing from Colonel General Andrei Serdyukov, commander of the CSTO grouping in Kazakhstan.
Colonel General Andrei Serdyukov, commander of the CSTO grouping in Kazakhstan.
Briefing on Kazakhstan. 07.01.2022
1. Citizens of Alma-Ata are urged to stay indoors and observe the state of emergency until the remaining militants are killed.
Given the ongoing shooting, this is in the interests of the citizens themselves.
Authorities warn that trained guerrilla snipers are operating in the city.
More than 3,000 people have been arrested and dozens killed.
There are still corpses on the streets which have not been removed.
2. Tokayev announced that the operation in Alma-Ata will continue until all militants have been exterminated.
Concerning the question whether the protesters or not, everything is simple here – a group of unidentified people has been carrying on organized firing squad with the police, guards and the army of Kazakhstan, who have been suffering losses in killed and wounded for three days now.
Accordingly, the main task is the physical destruction of the enemy who has occupied part of the center of the city.
Some of the militants, who are lucky, will simply be captured, followed by a conviction.
The rest will be destroyed.
3. Kots writes that in Tokayev’s appeal the question of complicity of some high-ranked law-enforcers linked to Nazarbayev (who is still keeping silence) to what happened will be raised, which actually legitimizes the version that the main mechanism of what happened was not gas prices but the struggle of Tokayev and Nazarbayev’s groups for power.
We are waiting for Tokayev’s official interpretation of what happened.
Nazarbayev remains silent (is he still alive? Is he sick? Is he arrested? Is he isolated?)
4. The CSTO grouping in Kazakhstan is commanded by Lieutenant General Serdyukov.
All Russian units sent to Kazakhstan have practical combat experience.
The Kirghiz have also joined today and will send 150 people under the command of the deputy head of the Defense Ministry of Kirghizia.
More than 70 military transport aircraft were involved in the operation to redeploy the contingent of Russian and Belorussian Armed Forces.
It was a good test for the ATA to move a substantial contingent over long distances.
I am sure it will come in handy in the future. (Wink. Wink.)
5. Regarding the operations of the grouping.
The Russian military is already at the airport of Alma-Ata and controls it in conjunction with the local military.
The Kazakh military also holds the TV tower.
On the roads they finally started systematically putting up roadblocks.
Within 1-2 days they need to deploy a full network.
Gradually, the process of localization of major protest areas and suppression of armed resistance by Kazakh military forces will be implemented.
The sane protesters in the cities, where there were no pogroms, are likely to be simply negotiated with.
The NED / CIA assets are all either dead, or being tortured to death. Their enablers, are all arrested and are facing the same fates. The nation is now in military lockdown, and local Kazakhstan militia are working hand-in-hand with the Russian military to hunt down those participants, and turn them over to the military authorities for “debriefing” and “extraction” exercises.
The days of playing by the same expected rules of polite “discussions” and confusion in a CIA sponsored color revolution are now over. These are wars on a defined battlefield and a United Asia does not play.
Have you noticed the silence in the Western (American and British) “news” media. Nothing. Crickets.
Here's some Geo-political considerations as to why Russia has reacted so strongly to this invasion, and why the CIA / NED has decided to launch it right now.
Kazakhstan and Afghanistan set on fire by a common match The fire in Central Asia is only getting worse for us. The Russian Security Council warned about the impending catastrophe there two months ago
This is simply surprising: in the context of the catastrophic development of the situation in Kazakhstan, Russia and its closest allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) are acting unusually resolutely, harshly and rapidly before the eyes of the whole world.
This was not the case during the mass protests in Belarus in the summer of 2020 and spring of 2021.
We did not see anything like this during the so-called second war of Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh (in the fall of 2020).
The CSTO also held the position of an outside observer in April-May 2021 during armed clashes on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border.
All this has long given rise to reasonable doubts: why do we need this very CSTO, which does not want to interfere in anything? Even when the streets of the allies are full of gunfire and the blood of civilians is pouring out?
Today, everything is exactly the opposite.
Judge for yourself: only late in the evening on January 5, the President of KazakhstanKassym-Jomart Tokayev turned to his CSTO partners for help. According to a RIA Novosti report, he officially stated::
“Relying on the Collective Security Treaty, I have today appealed to the CSTO heads of state to help Kazakhstan overcome this terrorist threat.”
And then:
“In fact, this is no longer a threat, it undermines the integrity of the state and, most importantly, it is an attack on our citizens, who are asking me, as the head of state, to urgently provide them with assistance.”
Just a few hours later, on the night of January 5-6, an emergency meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council was held, the main topic of which, as far as can be judged, was the bloody pogroms in Alma-Ata.
And already at dawn, military transport planes with Russian Airborne troops stormed into the skies of Kazakhstan to protect…
”important state and military facilities, assist the law enforcement forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan in stabilizing the situation and returning it to the legal field.”
Are you able to recall anything like this from the CSTO since the collapse of the Soviet Union? I’m definitely not.
But if this happens, it means that we had everything ready in advance.
In other words, our Aerospace Forces knew in advance what airfields and in what quantities they should concentrate military transport aviation.
The airborne troops had clear instructions from the Defense Ministry.
The General Staff on which specific regiments and divisions to alert.
Even the necessary cargo, ammunition, fuel and food were probably packed and stored not yesterday at all.
Logically, in addition to having political will, such a development of events required one more prerequisite: Moscow should have known in advance about everything that was being prepared in recent weeks and months in Kazakhstan.
And she knew all about it, of course.
Only one detail that is crucial for understanding the emerging situation: it seems that the events there are not viewed by the political and military leadership of Russia today as a fire that is burning only in this separate former Soviet republic.
No.
The shooting and pogroms in Kazakhstan from the Kremlin are probably only seen as a precursor to the storm that is inevitably coming to us all from Central Asia as a whole. Mainly from Afghanistan.
That is, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, it seems, are known from where they are set on fire with a common match. The goal is also common-Russia.
Accordingly, the Kremlin prepares defensive retaliatory measures in advance. And I am ready to fight for Kazakhstan, as I once did for the Dubosekovo crossing near Moscow in 1941.
In this regard, it is very interesting to look through the information messages of a military-political nature that began to arrive from this strategic direction approximately last fall.
Let’s say this:
In mid-November 2021, the Secretary of the Russian Security CouncilNikolai Patrushev warned that if the new authorities in Kabul fail to normalize the situation, a catastrophic scenario is possible in Afghanistan. The development of this catastrophic scenario in Afghanistan includes a new round of civil war, general impoverishment of the population and hunger.
And just yesterday, January 5, 2022, the realism and timeliness of Patrushev’s disastrous forecast received convincing confirmation. Not from anywhere — from the UN headquarters.
On Wednesday, a message came from there saying that the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has worsened due to the onset of the cold season and severe frosts. In the country, millions of people suffer from cold and lack of food. Some parts of the country were cut off from external aid due to heavy snowfall. The humanitarian disaster is getting worse every day, and people are running out of food and fuel to heat their homes.
Someone will say: well, let it be… what does it matter to us what happens in this eternally warring country, with which Russia does not have a single meter of common border?
But, according to Patrushev’s logic, we are about to talk about millions of people fleeing from Afghanistan, in which it will be impossible to distinguish ordinary refugees from specially trained and trained militants. No one will be able to keep them outside the borders of the former USSR.
And if it is specifically about the militants in Afghanistan, let’s listen to at least a well-known Tajik political scientist, a researcher at the Institute for Sociological Research in ParisParviz Mullojanov. According to him, in the north of Afghanistan today accumulated about 7-8 thousand militants who arrived in this country from other countries. First of all, from Iraq and Syria. Thus, the political scientist is sure, the structures of the “caliphate” that were defeated in the Middle East are gradually being transferred here.
Near the borders with the former USSR, the so — called “Haqqani network” (a terrorist organization banned in some countries – “SP”) began to create training camps and madrassas, which, in alliance with the Taliban, * waged a guerrilla struggle against government forces, as well as against the troops of the United States and other NATO countries. Even earlier, in the 80s, the same organization founded by the extremist religious figure MawlawiJalaluddin Haqqani, fought with the Soviet troops.
Three of its own bases for the combat and ideological training of new gangs near Kabul were founded by the notorious Al-Qaeda **, which quickly found a common language with the Taliban, which came to undivided rule in this country.
“If we sum up all these three factors, the main difficulty is that Afghanistan will potentially soon turn into what the “caliphate” in Syria or Iraq was,”
Mullojanov sums up, which is also disappointing for us.
And as for the lack of a common border between Afghanistan and Russia… Yes, between us and the Afghans lie Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, which was set on fire today, but only a few months ago seemed to be a bulwark of political stability.
Here is just what-outwardly the most reliable “airbag” of Russia, 7.5 thousand kilometers of a common land border separating us from Central Asia, from which you do not know what to expect for a long time.
Now this barrier between Russia and Afghanistan is virtually gone.
It melted away in the smoke of fires in Alma-Ata, Aktobe, Atyrau, Pavlodar and other cities and towns of Kazakhstan caught up in mass riots.
Perhaps our common salvation lies in the fact that our military clearly prepared for such a turn of events in advance.
Look here: a record number of live-fire exercises were held in 2021 at our main stronghold in Central Asia, the 201st Russian military base in Tajikistan — more than 300. In other words, for some reason Moscow ordered:
“Spare no bullets!”
For a whole year, the cannonade thundered there almost daily. Moreover, the tactical background of these exercises turned out to be very characteristic-actions to repel attacks by conditional bandit groups on military camps in Dushanbe and Bokhtar, defense at the Lyaur and Sambuli ranges, repelling seizures of ammunition depots and military equipment parks.
Another detail that illustrates the gravity of the threat to Russia and its allies from a strategic direction in which Kazakhstan is only a small milestone.
On December 7, the Russian legal information portal, literally a month before the current events, reported that Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had created a special closed joint communication system between their armies. As it is written in the document — to exchange information and coordinate their interaction.
The agreement provides for permanent combat duty at the command posts of the participating countries. It is, of course, carried around the clock. And this is definitely another clue to the efficiency with which the CSTO troops have just been decisively and without any doubts brought into Kazakhstan.
And in the meantime…
Armed clashes between militants of the Taliban movement that seized power in Afghanistan and Turkmen border guards took place on the border of the two states. This was reported on Monday in its electronic version by the Afghan newspaper Hasht-e subh.
“Three days ago, border guards of Turkmenistan killed one civilian and beat up another. In response to their actions during the investigation of the incident, the Taliban fired shots, ”
…said the head of the provincial information and Culture department.Jauzjan Hilal Balkhi.
A shootout between Turkmen border guards and the Taliban took place on Monday, January 3, in the Hamab district of Jowzjan province. Other details of the incident were not disclosed.
* The Taliban movement was recognized as a terrorist organization by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on February 14, 2003, and its activities are prohibited in Russia.
** Al-Qaeda was recognized as a terrorist organization by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on February 14, 2003, and its activities are prohibited in Russia.
Now, all turn to face the Ukraine
Nope. Things are not going to be like anything that you read about in the Western propiganda media outlets. Any conflict will be fast, absolute and lethal.
If there is one thing that smart and intelligent leaders in NATO will realize is that they are severely out-matched and that they have sided with absolute lunitics that are going to get them all killed unless the bone up and start acting responsible and in the best interests of their own citizentry.
I anticipate some changes in the Geo-political aspects of the EU union and the behavior of NATO in the upcoming year.
Now…
Keep in mind that Russia (and China) are not Syria. They are not Yemen, and they are not Panama. They will fight back and they will have the future all completely mapped out and planned.
Obviously, in connection with the mess in Kazakhstan, this "manual" is being replicated again on social networks; I can't say that everything is reliably stated there:
Manual for those who think that they have encountered the Russian Army.
“Signs of the entry of Russian troops.
The first sign is the failure of all means of communication, the complete discharge of batteries in cars, tanks and other equipment, and at the same time the discharge of batteries in mobile phones, scopes, and radio stations. Then there is a break in the electrical circuits in all equipment — any. This is AMY. All engines stall, there is no way to start them. This is how the Khingan system works, with a radius of 20 km.
The second sign is the complete failure of all systems using liquid crystal monitors, the failure of all target-pointing devices of the air defense system-the radars are dead. The Altair system operates.
The third sign are failures when trying to use any type of guided weapon-from MANPADS to ATGMS. When attempting to use projectiles, they self-destruct immediately… This is the Mercury system — on the basis of the MTLB, such an antenna is high, now the Russians have it in every battalion. It works on a 15-kilometer radius.
The Fourth sign — it is impossible to use drones-drones (UAVs). They either fall, with the failure of the navigation system and engine, or land in the location of the Russians. The Krasukha-4 system disables the onboard equipment of aircraft and any other aircraft. The Avtobaza system intercepts the control of drones. The Russians gave it to the Iranians, and they stole the most secret attack drone of the SASS “Kandahar beast”.
The Fifth Sign. Not everyone will have time to see and understand the fifth sign. This is a phenomenal accuracy of artillery fire, conducted from a distance unattainable for artillery in most countries of the world. Artillery reconnaissance and guidance stations of the Russian army operate via satellites and their own drones. The Russians have upgraded their projectiles, they now have a homing system, they have become longer and carry more explosives (explosives).
Dozens (hundreds, if necessary) of combat helicopters, straddling all roads, begin hunting in the rear for armored vehicles, trains, cars. The railway is paralyzed, arrows are broken, bridges are blown up.
Lights go out in the rear — substations are broken. Civilian and military headquarters in the rear and individual leaders are simultaneously eliminated by pre-implemented groups.
And that’s when… Thousands of fighters descend from the sky – assault battalions of the Airborne Forces and special forces of the GRU…”.
Conclusions
China and Russia offered the United States the last “olive branch” of peace. The Reaction was predictable. The United States outwardly pretended to accept it, while going ahead and continuing in it’s destabilizaiton efforts in Asia.
Take note that Asia is quite serious about all this.
I do not specifically anticipate a global thermalnuclear response, in so much as a no-holds barred polite economic isolation and staged collapse of the domestic aspects of the United States… in coils.
Asia will box America in, and force their hand to deal with the flood of major inflationary bubbles. It will suppress and destroy all efforts by the United States to divert attention outwards and this will cause an acceleration in the internal collapse of the United States.
Any actions that the United States makes against Asia will hurt itself.
Therefore, I remain optomistic that no matter how insane the USA is acting, it will not risk it’s own collapse intentionally. Instead it will try to ride “the dying horse” to the cemetary gates.
And with that, I have hope for many of us in the ‘States and abroad. It will be a long series of “mini bads” and “micro bads” and not the “Big Bad” that many of us fear.
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.
With the December 2021 “Ultimatum” by Russia clear in mind, what will be the consequences if President Biden, and the United States does not take this message seriously? What can we expect to happen? Well this article explores this scenario, as all indications are that they are continuing to play “their games”;
Say one thing, do the complete opposite, and narrate bullshit all over the many, many propaganda outlets that they control.
It might play well in the American heartland, but China and Russia are both DEADLY SERIOUS. This time it’s when “the bullet hits the bone”.
The American Response…
On the surface, we see [1] a signed pledge that the Untied States will not target either Russia or China with it’s nuclear missiles.
Anti-nuclear use agreement.
And, you do know, this is meaningless, though it has got a lot of positive press.
Funny how the “news” fails to acknowledge that the United States has a history of repeatedly breaking contracts, agreements and pledges at will. And also that there’s no verification put into place, or changes in American Geo-political military movements or posturings. Just words. Very well promoted words. But meaningless words with no verification systems, or evidence of any further physical actions.
Then we have [2] a color revolution in Kazakhstan. Which is a big nation wedged and jutting into both Russia and China. On The Saker, Andrei suggests that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions that this is a United States backed color revolution. I disagree.
[2.1] It is the RESPONSIBILITY of the leadership of both Russia and China to assume that it is. Whether this is true or not.
[2.2] Almost ALL of the “color revolutions” in the last 100 years were instigated by the United States. If you can find examples of pure “grass roots” movements, I’d like to how how this is not instigated, but rather a true and real “grass roots” movement.
[2.3] Videos of weapons drop off locations, and the collection of weapons by trained insurgents points to organization at a very high level of involvement.
The 350 pages long report recommended certain steps to be taken by the U.S. to contain Russia. As its summary says:
Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevitable, this report seeks to define areas where the United States can do so to its advantage. We examine a range of nonviolent measures that could exploit Russia’s actual vulnerabilities and anxieties as a way of stressing Russia’s military and economy and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we examine would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, and causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.
RAND lists economical, geopolitical, ideological and informational as well as military measures the U.S. should take to weaken Russia.
Since the report came out the first four of the six ‘geopolitical measures’ listed in chapter 4 of the report have been implemented.
The U.S. delivered lethal weapons to Ukraine, it increased its support for ‘rebels’ in Syria. It attempted a regime change in Belarus and instigated a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The U.S. is now implementing measure 5 which aims to ‘reduce Russia’s influence in Central Asia’.
Kazakhstan, Russia’s southern neighbor, was part of the Soviet Union. It is a mineral rich, landlocked country three times the size of Texas but with less than 20 million inhabitants. A significant part of its people are Russians and the Russian language is in common use. The country is an important link in the strategic Belt and Road Initiative between China and Europe.
Since the demise of the Soviet Union the country has been ruled by oligarchic family clans – foremost the Nazarbayevs. As the CIA Worldfactbook notes:
Executive branch
chief of state: President Kasym-Zhomart TOKAYEV (since 20 March 2019); note - Nursultan NAZARBAYEV, who was president since 24 April 1990 (and in power since 22 June 1989 under the Soviet period), resigned on 20 March 2019; NAZARBAYEV retained the title and powers of "First President"; TOKAYEV completed NAZARBAYEV's term, which was shortened due to the early election of 9 June 2019, and then continued as president following his election victory
Over the last decade there have been several uprisings (2011, 2016 and 2019) in Kazakhstan. These were mostly caused by uneven distribution of income from its minerals including oil and gas. The oligarchs in the capital of Astana / Nur-Sultan live well while the provinces which produce the minerals, like Mangistauskaya in the south-west, have seen few developments.
Recently the price for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), used by many cars in Kazakhstan, went up after the government had liberalized the market. This caused another round of country wide protests:
The string of rallies that has torn through Kazakhstan since January 2 began in the western oil town of Zhanaozen, ostensibly triggered by anger over a sudden spike in the price of car fuel. Similar impromptu gatherings then quickly spread to nearby villages in the Mangystau region and then in multiple other locations in the west, in cities like Aktau, Atyrau and Aktobe. By January 4, people had come out onto the streets in numbers in locations many hundreds of kilometers away, in the southern towns of Taraz, Shymkent and Kyzyl-Orda, in the north, in the cities of Uralsk and Kostanai, as well as in Almaty and Nur-Sultan, the capital, among other places.
Few saw scenes as fiery as those in Almaty, though.
Clashes in Almaty continued throughout the night into January 5. After being dispersed by police from Republic Square, part of the crowd headed around two kilometers downhill, to another historic location in the city, Astana Square, where the seat of government used to be located in Soviet times.
While there is little reliable way to gauge the scale of the demonstrations, a combination of on-the-ground reporting and video footage appears to indicate that these protests may be even larger than those that brought the country to a near-standstill in 2016.
While the grievances that sparked the first rallies in Zhanaozen were to do with fuel prices, the sometimes rowdy demonstrations that have followed appear to be of a more general nature. Chants of “shal ket!” (“old man go!”), usually understood as a reference to former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who continues to wield significant sway from behind the scenes, have been heard at many of the demos.
The protests escalated soon with gangs of armed protesters taking control of government buildings and setting them on fire. There were also attempts to take control of radio and TV stations as well as the airport. Police, which generally did little to intervene, were gunned down.
The actions in Almaty, the country’s largest city and former capital, are certainly not spontaneous reactions by a crowd of poor laborers but controlled actions by well trained groups of armed ‘rebels’.
Peter Leonard @Peter__Leonard - 9:18 UTC · 6 Jan 2022
Kazakhstan: Very important and intriguing detail with strong shades of Kyrgyzstan 2020. Peaceful people initiate rallies, but shady and violent individuals turn up to sow trouble, and it is never remotely clear who they are or where they came from /1 https://t.co/qYSlUUrMVx
From one account I heard, a similar dynamic played out in Almaty on Wednesday morning. A relatively small and mild gathering formed on Republic Square, opposite city hall. All of a sudden hundreds of extremely aggressive men turned up, threatening all and sundry #Kazakhstan /2
They threatened and attacked journalists standing nearby, ordering anybody who took photographs to delete the images. It was clearly this cohort that was responsible for much of the destruction. And it is a mystery (to me) who they were /3
We have seen similar formations during the U.S. instigated uprisings in Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Belarus.
NEXTA, the U.S. financed regime change media network in Poland which last year directed the failed color revolution attempt in Belarus, announced the U.S. demands:
NEXTA @nexta_tv - 13:52 UTC · Jan 5, 2022
Demands of the Protesters in #Kazakhstan
1. Immediate release of all political prisoners
2. Full resignation of president and government
3. Political reforms:
Creation of a Provisional Government of reputable and public citizens. Withdrawal from all alliances with #Russia
A more reliable source confirms these:
Maxim A. Suchkov @m_suchkov - 14:43 UST · Jan 5, 2022
The list of demands of protestors in #Kazakhstan that's been circulating is interesting, to put it mildly.
While most demands focus on bolstering social & economic support & countering corruption points #1, 7, 10, 13, 16 expose the roots of protest & who's driving them
#1 demands that #Kazakhstan should leave Eurasian Economic union.
#7 demands legalization of polygamy "for certain groups of the population" & prohibition on marriage with foreigners
#10 demands independence for Mangystau region &^that revenues of oil companies remain in Mangystau
Caveat: this list been circulating a lot on telegram - could be fake or not representative of what protestors want, thou it appears protestors are a diverse group that includes genuinely disgruntled people, political manipulators, "prof revolutionaries" (that were in UKR & BEL), etc
The government of Kazakhstan has since lowered the LPG prices. On January 5 President Tokayev relived the ‘First President’ Nazarbayev of his position as chairman of the Security Council and promised to act tough on armed protesters.
Kazakhstan is part of the Russian led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as well as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). On the morning of January 5 Tokayev had a phone call with the presidents of Russia and Belarus. He has mobilized airborne units of the armed forces of Kazakhstan. On the evening of January 5 he requested support from the CSTO against the ‘foreign directed terrorists’ which are fighting the security forces.
Russia, Belarus and other CSTO members have dedicated quick reaction forces reserved for such interventions. These will now be mobilized to regain government control in Kazakhstan. Russian CSTO forces are currently on their way to Kazakhstan. Belorussian and Armenian troops will follow soon.
They are in for some tough time:
Cᴀʟɪʙʀᴇ Oʙsᴄᴜʀᴀ ❄ @CalibreObscura - 19:50 UTC · Jan 5, 2022
#Kazakhstan: Captured arms from the National Security Committee (equivalent to Russian FSB) building by protestors in #Almaty: At least 2 PG-7V projectiles, possible boxed Glock pistol & (possibly) more in numerous scattered crates, various kit.
Anti-Armour capability in 48hrs...
During the last decades the U.S. and its allies had been relatively quiet about the dictatorial leadership in Kazakhstan.
Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled - 14:18 UTC · Jan 5, 2022
NATO's cheerleading corner of FSU "experts" already working hard to spin Kazakhstan uprisings as somehow Putin's fault or indictment of Putin—but note how quiet our media-NGO complex has been the past 20 years re: the regime's human rights abuses, corruption & "authoritarianism"
Chevron is the largest oil producer in Kazakhstan and the former British prime minister Tony Blair has previously been giving advice to then President Nursultan Nazarbayev on how to avoid an uproar over dead protesters:
In a letter to Nursultan Nazarbayev, obtained by The Telegraph, Mr Blair told the Kazakh president that the deaths of 14 protesters “tragic though they were, should not obscure the enormous progress” his country had made.
Mr Blair, who is paid millions of pounds a year to give advice to Mr Nazarbayev, goes on to suggest key passages to insert into a speech the president was giving at the University of Cambridge, to defend the action.
Times however are different now as Kazakhstan has continued to strengthen its relations with Russia and China.
The CIA offshoot National Endowment for Democracy is financing some 20 ‘civil society’ regime change programs in Kazakhstan with about $50,000 per annum each. The involved organizations currently seem to be mostly quiet but are a sure sign that the U.S. is playing a role behind the scenes. On December 16 details of upcoming demonstrations were announced by the U.S. embassy in Kazakhstan.
It is likely that this pre-planned Central Asia part of the ‘Extending Russia’ program has been implemented prematurely as a response to Russia’s recent ultimatum with regards to Ukraine and NATO. Its sole purpose is to unbalance the Russian leadership in Moscow by diverting its attention towards the south.
I however believe that Russia has prepared for such eventualities. They will not affect its plans and demands.
What is difficult to discern though is what is really happening behind the scenes in Astana/Nur-Sultan. Has Tokayev, who was previously seen as a mere puppet of Nazarbayev, really replaced him? His control of the security forces is somewhat in doubt:
Liveuamap @Liveuamap - 19:18 UTC · Jan 5, 2022
Tokayev dismissed the head of his security guard Saken Isabekov. Also, the President dismissed the Deputy Head of the State Security Service of the Republic of Kazakhstan from his post
But the outcome of the whole game is quite predictable:
Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled - 14:31 UTC · Jan 5, 2022
The grim likelihood, given all the various "revolutions" in the FSU the past 20 years, is that Kazakhstan's street protests [will be] instrumentalized by a powerful clan to replace the ruling oligarchy with a new oligarchy.
The CSTO troops which are now landing in Almaty will take a few days to end the rebellion. The outcome is not in doubt.
Moscow, not Washington DC, will have a big say in who will come out at the top.
It is quite possible (but not guaranteed) that the results of the whole affair will, like the failed U.S. regime change attempts in Belarus, not weaken but strengthen Russia:
Dmitri Trenin @DmitriTrenin - 7:57 UTC · 6 Jan 2022
#Kazakhstan is another test, after #Belarus, of RUS ability to help stabilize its formal allies w/o alienating their populations. As 1st action by CSTO since founding in 1999, it is major test for bloc. Lots of potential pitfalls around, but can be big boon if Moscow succeeds.
And because of that…
Russian troops formerly on the Ukraine border are now being moved into Kazakhstan.
What great luck for the United States.
What a coincidence!
So there you have it.
There’s a very high probability that the United States continues to play Geo-Poltitical “games”. And it’s a dangerous game that they are playing. On the surface, say the nice things, run the “news” media machine talking about wonderful futures and rainbows, meanwhile the bad stuff continues unabated.
Here’s a couple of articles that discuss this matter…
A Surprise Russian Ultimatum: New Draft Treaties To Roll Back NATO
The release a couple of days ago on the RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs website of its draft treaties to totally revise the European security architecture has been picked up by our leading mainstream media. The New York Times lost no time posting an article by its most experienced journalists covering Russia, Andrew Kramer and Steven Erlanger: “Russia Lays Out Demands for a Sweeping New Security Deal With NATO.” For its part, The Financial Times brought together its key experts Max Seddon in Moscow, Henry Foy in Brussels and Aime Williams in Washington to concoct “Russia publishes “red line” security demands for NATO and US.”
Both flagships of the English language print media correctly identified the main new feature of the Russian initiative, encapsulated by the word “demands.” However, they did not explore the “what if” question, how and why these “demands” are being presented de facto if not by name as an “ultimatum, as I consider them to be.
The newspaper articles themselves are weak tea. They summarize the points set out in the Russian draft treaties. But they are incapable of providing an interpretation of what the Russian initiative means for the immediate future of us all.
Normally they would be hand fed such analysis by the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. However, this time Washington has declined to comment, saying it is now studying the Russian treaties and will have its answer in a week or so. In the meantime, America’s reliable lap dog Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, saw no need for reflection and flatly rejected the Russian demands as unacceptable. The “front line” NATO member states in the Baltics also reflexively vetoed any talks with the Russians on these matters.
However, even the FT and NYT understand what Mr. Stoltenberg’s opinion or Estonia’s opinion is worth and held back on giving their own thumbs up or down. They both analyze the draft treaties primarily in connection with the current massing of Russian troops at the border of Ukraine. They assume that if the Russians receive no satisfaction on their demands they will use this to justify an invasion. We are told that in such an eventuality a new Cold War will set in on the Old Continent, as if that will be the end of all the fuss.
In part, the problem with these media is that their journalist and editorial teams are tone deaf as regards things Russian. They are insensitive to nuance and incapable of seeing what is new here in content and still more in the presentation of the Russian texts. In part, the weakness is attributable to the common problem of journalists: their time horizon goes back to what happened last week. They lack perspective.
In what I present below, I will attempt to address these shortcomings. I will not invoke historical time, which would possibly take us back seventy years to the start of the first Cold War or even thirty years to the end of that Cold War, but will restrict my commentary to the time surrounding the last such Russian call for treaties to regulate the security environment on the European continent, 2008 – 2009 under then President Dmitry Medvedev. That is within the time horizon of political science.
I will pay particular attention to the tone of this Russian démarche and will try to explain why the Russians have drawn their “red lines” in the sand precisely now. All of this will lead to a conclusion that it is not only President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev who should be concerned about the condition of local bomb shelters, but also all of us in Brussels, Warsaw, Bucharest, etc. on this side of the Atlantic, and in Washington, D.C., New York and other major centers on the American continent. We are staring down what might be called Cuban Missile Crisis Redux.
We commentators each have our own starting dates for the narratives we offer to the reading public. In my case, I choose to begin with President Putin’s speech to the Munich Security Conference in February 2007. That speech in itself was very unusual, as Putin explained from his first moments at the lectern:
“This conference’s structure allows me to avoid excessive politeness and the need to speak in roundabout, pleasant but empty diplomatic terms. This conference’s format will allow me to say what I really think about international security problems. And if my comments seem unduly polemical, pointed or inexact to our colleagues, then I would ask you not to get angry with me. After all, this is only a conference. And I hope that after the first two or three minutes of my speech [the Conference host] will not turn on the red light over there.”
This led him to deliver the following bold assertion:
“I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security. And we must proceed by searching for a reasonable balance between the interests of all participants in the international dialogue.”
In a word, the concerns and the proposed process of solution through renewal of the architecture of security that we see today in Russia’s latest draft treaties go straight back to 2007 when Vladimir Putin came out publicly on the subject in what might be described as the lion’s den of the world security establishment.
With Senator John McCain and other champions of American global hegemony staring at him in disbelief from the front rows, in that speech Vladimir Putin set out in detail Russia’s rejection of the US led unipolar world as a source of international tensions, recourse to military solutions, an arms race and nuclear proliferation.
US hegemony was undemocratic and unworkable, he said.
The speech was also notable for Putin’s mention of the shabby treatment his country had received at American hands following the breakup of the USSR in the 1990s straight through into the new millennium. The key issue was expansion of NATO to the East, taking in former Warsaw Pact countries and, finally, former USSR republics, the Baltic States.
I quote:
“It turns out that NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders, and we continue to strictly fulfill the treaty obligations and do not react to these actions at all. I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”
Putin’s 2007 speech was cast in the manner of complaint. It came from a country that was still only partially recovered from the economic devastation it suffered in the 1990s during a badly managed transition from the Soviet command economy to a market economy.
More to the point, his was a country with greatly diminished military capability compared to the Soviet super power from which it emerged independent. To a certain degree, the disbelief amidst the American and allied contingent in Munich arose from the very audacity of still puny Russia to challenge the powers that be.
In the weeks and months following Putin’s Munich speech, the United States recovered from its shock at his public denunciation and swiftly moved into counterattack, launching an Information War on Russia that is with us today.
From the closing days of the Bush Administration, through the entire Obama Administration save when the New START arms control agreement was being negotiated and signed within the brief period called “the reset,” the United States used every means fair and foul to discredit Russia before the global community in the hope of isolating the country and relegating it to pariah status.
Trade sanctions against Russia were first imposed by the United States in 2012 under the Magnitsky Act. The United States greatly expanded its sanctions policy on Russia following the annexation of the Crimea in March 2014. Thanks to the MH17 air catastrophe of that summer, a “false flag” event of the first magnitude, all of Europe was brought on board. The sanctions policy was renewed yet again by the EU just this past Friday.
Looking back at 2008, when Vladimir Putin passed the presidency to his stand-in, Dmitry Medvedev, we see that revising Europe’s security architecture was one of the key policy objectives of the Medvedev presidency. He spoke about it in a speech he delivered in Berlin in June 2008. Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel was among the first to cold-shoulder the proposal, saying that Europe’s security arrangements had already taken concrete form.
In November 2009 he finally published on his website a draft treaty on European security. At the same time, Foreign Minister Lavrov officially submitted the document to the Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) then meeting in Athens.
My book of essays entitled Stepping Out of Line, published in 2013, has a couple of chapters devoted to Medvedev’s initiative, which I concluded was hampered by a poor concept further weakened by poor execution. (“Medvedev’s Draft Treaty on European Security: Dead on Arrival” and “Russia’s Draft Treaty on European Security: Sergei Lavrov to the Rescue”
The draft agreement was first of all a non-aggression pact among and between all interested states in the Atlantic-Eurasian space. It would establish a framework of deliberative meetings in which all Member States would hear cases of threats of use of force or actual use of force against any Member State. However, nonaggression was merely window dressing, describing something which everyone could understand and say “amen” to. The second stated objective was to ensure the collective security of its members under the principle that no state or group of states could promote its security at the expense of other Member States.
What was missing from the draft treaty on European security was precisely the definition of what constituted enhancing one’s security at the expense of another. To Europeans the treaty could only serve the purpose of Russian grandstanding, establishing a major new forum for it to air any grievances it might have over NATO expansion, the missile defense system and other US sponsored measures enhancing Western security at the direct expense of Russian state security.
The emptiness of the draft treaty was a failure of Medvedev and his immediate assistants who drew it up. In February 2010, at the regular Munich Security Conference, Sergei Lavrov made a valiant effort to save the Medvedev initiative by proposing that the existing OSCE be re-engineered as the vehicle for ensuring collective security. Russia was saying that NATO must give up its predominance in Europe and cede place to a reinvigorated OSCE. Very little of Lavrov’s speech was reported in Western media.
The fact that it was quietly buried by all the receiving parties may be attributed to the very weak position of Russia itself at the time. The victorious Russian campaign against Georgia in 2008 was seen by defense professionals in the West very differently from what the general public understood. For professionals, the Russian military showed it had not made much progress from the poorly equipped and led forces that the USSR deployed in Afghanistan or that the Russian Federation deployed in Chechnya in the 1990s. The fact is that Medvedev’s posture was that of a supplicant, dealing from a weak hand. Do note, however, that the Russian concerns were precisely the same as those evoked by the Kremlin today as it promotes its new draft treaties.
Until the past few days, we heard no more of Russian draft treaties to alter the security architecture of Europe. Instead over the intervening years there have been repeated instances of Russian public complaints over US and NATO activities that it considers menacing. One such loud complaint came in January 2016 with release of a documentary film entitled World Order. This was a devastating critique of US global hegemony justified in the name of “democracy promotion” and “human rights” ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.
Following on the points made in Vladimir Putin’s Munich speech of 2007, World Order illustrates through graphic footage and the testimony of independent world authorities the tragic consequences, the spread of chaos and misery, resulting from U.S.-engineered “regime change” and “color revolutions,” of which the violent overthrow of the Yanukovich regime in Ukraine in February 2014 was only the latest example.
The title of the film followed on Putin’s address to the 70th anniversary gathering of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015 which had as its central message that world order rests on international law, which in turn has as its foundation the UN Charter. By flouting the Charter and waging war without the sanction of the UN Security Council, starting with the NATO attack on Serbia in 1999 and continuing with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 up to its illegal bombings in Syria today, the United States and its NATO allies had shaken the foundations of international law.
The foreign interviewees in World Order comprised an impressive and diverse selection of leaders in various domains, including American film director Oliver Stone; Thomas Graham, former National Security Council director for Russia under George W. Bush; former IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn; former Pakistan President Perwez Musharraf; former French Foreign Minister Dominique Villepin; former Israeli President Shimon Peres; WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange; and deputy leader of the Die Linke party in the German Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht.
Strauss-Kahn, Musharraf and others charged that the U.S. plots against and destroys foreign leaders who dare to oppose America’s total control over global flows of money, goods and people. Wagenknecht addressed the question of Germany’s subservience to American Diktats and its de facto circumscribed sovereignty. The statements supported Putin’s long-standing argument, reiterated in the film, that the Western European allies of the US are nothing more than vassals.
The clear message of the film was that US led “democracy promotion” and its spread of “universal values” will not be tolerated and that Russia has set down certain redlines, such as against NATO expansion into Ukraine or Georgia, over which it will fight to the death using all its resources.
However, strong and pointed as this documentary film was in setting out the views of the Kremlin on the global and European security, it was just a complaint, nothing more. I mention it in detail above to demonstrate the continuity of Russian concerns that this week have come to a head with the release of the draft treaties for consideration of NATO and the USA.
What is new today in the Russian démarche over European security? Both content and presentation are new.
In contrast to Dmitry Medvedev’s treaties of 2008-2009, the latest Russian draft texts are all content that is methodically and exhaustively set out. It refers directly to the activities of the United States and NATO over the past several years that Russia considers most threatening to its security and thus most objectionable.
It is clear that the master treaty is with the United States and that the treaty with NATO is a subsidiary treaty. This reflects the insistent view from the Kremlin that the NATO verbiage of its being a consensus driven alliance is rubbish and that the reality is American domination and direction of NATO. This view sweeps aside any objection from any of the NATO Member States, as for example the immediate objections that came from the Baltic States and Poland, that their agreement to the proposed changes is needed, not to mention the need to consult with other interested parties, namely Ukraine. The Kremlin clearly intends to isolate Washington in the negotiating process for these treaties, before pussy footing with the other NATO members.
In the spirit of the Ten Commandments, almost all of the content is in negatives, in prohibitions.
With respect to the proposed treaty with the United States, we find the following:
“[The Parties] shall not implement security measures adopted by each Party individually or in the framework of an international organization, military alliance or coalition that could undermine core security interests of the other Party.
“The Parties shall not use the territories of other Sates with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other Party or other actions affecting core security interests of the other Party.
“The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
“The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them.
“The Parties shall refrain from flying heavy bombers equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments or deploying surface warships of any type, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters respectively, from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other Party.
“The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.
“The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.”
As regards the draft treaty with NATO, I call particular attention to the following provisions:
“The Parties shall exercise restraint in military planning and conducting exercises to reduce risks of eventual dangerous situations in accordance with their obligations under international law, including those set out in intergovernmental agreements on the prevention of incidents at sea outside territorial waters and in the airspace above, as well as in intergovernmental agreements on the prevention of dangerous military activities.
“In order to address issues and settle problems, the Parties shall use the mechanisms of urgent bilateral or multilateral consultations, including the NATO-Russia Council.
“The Parties reaffirm that they do not consider each other as adversaries.
“The Parties shall maintain dialogue and interaction on improving mechanisms to prevent incidents on and over the high seas (primarily in the Baltics and the Black Sea region).
“The Russian Federation and all the Parties that were member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as of 27 May 1997, respectively, shall not deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other States in Europe in addition to the forces stationed on that territory as of 27 May 1997. ….
“The Parties shall not deploy land-based intermediate and short-range missiles in areas allowing them to reach the territory of the other Parties.
“All member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.
“The Parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine as well as other States in Eastern Europe, in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia.”
The draft treaties do not create a new security architecture so much as they dismantle existing architecture added since the mid-1990s by the United States and its allies through NATO expansion to the east, military exercises close to Russian borders and air space, “temporary” stationing of personnel and equipment in forward positions approaching Russian borders.
If accepted in their present form, these treaties would represent a total capitulation by the United States over everything four successive administrations have tried to achieve to contain Russia and put it in a small cage at the periphery of Europe.
The demands are so stunning in scope that we must ask why Russia is taking the seemingly enormous risk of advancing them, and doing so publicly. Moreover, why now?
I have two explanations to advance: the first is the unshakable confidence that Vladimir Putin and his colleagues have in their present tactical advantage over the United States in the European theater of operations and strategic advantage over the United States on American home territory if push comes to shove.
Three years ago Putin used his annual State of the Union address to show off the newest weapons systems that Russia had successfully tested and was now putting into serial production, most particularly the hypersonic missiles that can evade all known ABM systems. He said then that for the first time in its modern history Russia had moved ahead of the United States in developing and deploying strategic weapons systems. While the States might develop the same with time, the Russians would move still further ahead.
Moreover, Putin claimed that whereas in its past the United States had considered the oceans to be its natural defense against military conquest from abroad, the latest Russian missiles, small enough to be carried in containers on merchant ships, on frigates or on submarines turned the adjacent oceans into the country’s weak point. The Russians could station their weapons just outside the 200 mile economic zone and still reach key military targets on US territory within several minutes. That is to say that Russia could now do what Khrushchev was denied the right to do in 1962 by stationing Soviet missiles in Cuba.
During his roll-out speech, Putin hoped that the United States and its Western partners would take notice, would do the arithmetic and alter their threatening behavior. Instead, Western media tended to treat the Russian weaponry as a bluff, or as something beyond the Russians’ ability to produce in sufficient quantities and with speed to pose a threat before the USA possessed the same.
One year ago, the Russian president again called attention to the deployment of the new weapons systems and urged the United States to react appropriately. Of course, once again Washington did nothing. Instead the US administration continued to raise the threat level of China and to dismiss Russia as nothing more than spoilers running a country on its way down.
Finally, we may conclude that Vladimir Vladimirovich and his team have decided to act, and to act now on the strength of the strategic superiority they believe they enjoy. Given the very cautious way that Putin has always conducted government affairs over the past twenty years, anyone who thinks the Kremlin is bluffing or miscalculating had better think again.
Now there is also a second, supportive factor to explain the Russians’ decision to publicize what is essentially an ultimatum to the USA. That factor is China. It is not for nothing that Putin and Xi had a widely publicized video conference call this week during which the Chinese President gave his full backing to Russian demands for resolution of the security crisis in Europe and said explicitly that the Chinese–Russian relationship is higher than an alliance.
Now what could be higher than an alliance? Surely this hints at a mutual defense pact, meaning that each side will come to the aid of the other as needed.
We may assume that there is something in writing between the Russians and the Chinese to give Putin the confidence that he has China at his back as he ventures into diplomatic and possibly military confrontation with the United States and its NATO allies.
And yet, what would the value of such a scrap of paper be? Where would you seek redress if the Chinese failed to delivery and NATO marched to Moscow? No, the value of the video conference with XI lies elsewhere. Like their amassing 100,000 troops at the Ukrainian border, the Russians are using the Chinese backing to scare the hell out of Washington, which might well assume that the Chinese will coordinate their own military actions against Taiwan, against the US naval forces in the South China Sea and beyond to present the United States with an unwinnable two-front war while serving their own, Chinese, interests.
Should the political situation in Washington prevent such lucid thinking, I believe that the Russians will fall back on their own quite independent ability to put a pistol to the head of the American establishment, through the stationing of its missile forces just offshore, which has not yet been done.
How this plays out will depend on the nature of the US response to Russia’s next move, which might, in the circumstances of Washington stonewalling, be that invasion of Ukraine that has been so much talked about in the past few weeks. It would be foolhardy at this point to sketch all possible scenarios. But we are surely at the moment when the “the worm turns.”
In conclusion, I call the reader’s attention to one further detail on presentation: who has been the messenger on the Kremlin’s behalf.
For the past several years, people around Vladimir Putin have joked with respect to foreign powers, “if they cannot deal with Lavrov [RF Minister of Foreign Affairs], then they will have to deal with Shoigu [RF Minister of Defense].” Judging by the last two weeks, I would insert another personality into this equation: Sergei Alekseevich Ryabkov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Ryabkov has been around for a good long time, but till now we did not hear much from him. He graduated from the prestigious MGIMO, the higher school that traditionally educated fast-track candidates of the Soviet-Russian diplomatic corps. He served several years at the Russian embassy in the Washington and is fluent in English. In the new millennium he has had responsibilities relating to non-proliferation and managing relations with Europe. His present title is Deputy Minister.
As relations with the United States and the EU have heated up in recent weeks over the buildup of Russian forces at the border with Ukraine, Ryabkov has been speaking to the press and has done so in an undiplomatic, in-your-face fashion. When one reporter asked him a week ago about how some of Russia’s “partners in the West” would react to something, he snapped back: “We have no partners in the West, only enemies. I stopped using the word “partner” some time ago.”
The Kremlin’s showcasing of the bulldog Ryabkov is part of the change in tone, the new assertiveness of Putin and his team to which I refer above.
We are making it clear that we are ready to talk about changing from a military or a military-technical scenario to a political process that really will strengthen the military security… of all the countries in the OCSE, Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian space. We’ve told them that if that doesn’t work out, we will create counter-threats; then it will be too late to ask us why we made such decisions and positioned such weapons systems.
Мы как раз даем понять, что мы готовы разговаривать о том, чтобы военный сценарий или военно-технический сценарий перевести в некий политический процесс, который реально укрепит военную безопасность <…> всех государств на пространстве ОБСЕ, Евроатлантики, Евразии. А если этого не получится, то мы уже обозначили им (НАТО – прим. ТАСС), тогда мы тоже перейдем в вот этот режим создания контругроз, но тогда будет поздно нас спрашивать, почему мы приняли такие решения, почему мы разместили такие системы.
— Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko quoted by TASS
Moscow has issued an ultimatum to USA/NATO. It is this: seriously negotiate on the issues laid out here and here. Some of them are non-negotiable.
Ultimatums always have an “Or Else” clause. What is the “or else” in this case? I don’t know but I’ve been thinking and reading other peoples’ thoughts and some ideas/guesses/suppositions follow. They are the order that they occurred to me. Whether Moscow has such a list in front of it or not, it certainly has many “counter-threats” it can use.
Why now? Two possible answers, each of which may be true. US/NATO have been using “salami tactics” against Russia for years; Moscow has decided that a second Ukraine crisis in one year is one thin slice too many. Second: Moscow may judge that, in the USA’s precipitous decline, this will be the last chance that there will be sufficient central authority to form a genuine agreement; an agreement that will avoid a catastrophic war. (The so-called Thucydides Trap).
Of course I don’t know what Putin & Co will do and we do have to factor in the existence of a new international player: Putin, Xi and Partners. Xi has just made it clear that Beijing supports Moscow’s “core interests”. It is likely that any “counter-threats” will be coordinated. The Tabaquis have responded as expected but maybe (let’s hope so) Washington is taking it more seriously.
To my CSIS readers: the world is at a grave inflection point and the West had better concentrate its attention. Moscow and Beijing don’t depend on me for advice and I’m not talking to them: regard this as one of the briefing notes that I used to write.
Moscow is serious and it does have real “counter-threats”.
MILITARY MEASURES
Moscow could publish a list of targets in NATO countries that can and will be hit by nuclear or non-nuclear standoff weapons in the event of hostilities. These would likely include headquarters, airbases, port facilities, logistics facilities, ammunition dumps, military bases, munitions factories and so on.
Moscow could station medium and short-range nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad and Belarus. The latter requires agreement from Minsk but Belarus President Lukashenka has hinted that it will be granted. Moscow could then make it clear that they are aimed at NATO targets.
Moscow could station Iskanders and have lots of aircraft in the air with Kinzhals and let it be known that they are aimed at NATO targets.
Moscow could make a sudden strike by stand-off weapons and special forces that destroys the Azov Battalion in Eastern Ukraine. Moscow would see two advantages: 1) it would remove the principal threat to the LDNR and 2) it would change the correlation of forces in Kiev. It would also be a live demonstration of Russia’s tremendous military power.
Moscow could remind the West of the meaning of Soviet Marshal Ogarkov’s observation that precision weapons have, to a degree, made nuclear weapons obsolete. A prescient remark, somewhat ahead of its time 35 years ago, but realised now by Russia’s arsenal of hypersonic precision missiles.
The Russian Navy operates the quietest submarines in the world; Moscow could could make and publish a movie of the movements of some NATO ship as seen through the periscope.
I believe (suspect/guess) that the Russian Armed Forces have the capability to blind Aegis-equipped ships. Moscow could do so in public in a way that cannot be denied. Without Aegis, the US surface navy is just targets. Objection: this is a war-winning secret and should not be lightly used. Unless, of course, the Russian Armed Forces have something even more effective.
Russia has large and very powerful airborne forces – much stronger than the light infantry of other countries, they are capable of seizing and holding territory against all but heavy armoured attacks. And they’re being increased. Moscow could demonstrate their capability in an exercise showing a sudden seizing of key enemy facilities like a port or major airfield, inviting NATO representatives to watch from the target area.
The Russian Armed Forces could do some obvious targetting of the next NATO element to come close to Russia’s borders; they could aggressively ping ships and aircraft that get too close and publicise it.
Moscow could make a public demonstration of what Poseidons can do and show in a convincing way that they are at sea off the US coast. Ditto with Burevestnik. In short Moscow could directly threaten the US mainland with non-nuclear weapons. Something that no one has been able to do since 1814.
Does the Club-K Container Missile System actually exist? (If so, Moscow could give a public demonstration, if not pretend that it does). Either way, Moscow could publicly state that they will be all over the place and sell them to countries threatened by USA/NATO.
DIPLOMATIC/INTERNATIONAL MEASURES
Moscow could publicly transfer some key military technologies to China with licence to build them there.
Moscow could make a formal military treaty with China with an “Article 5” provision.
Moscow could make a formal military treaty with Belarus including significant stationed strike forces.
Moscow could station forces in Central Asian neighbours.
Russia and Chinese warships accompanied by long-range strike aircraft could do a “freedom of navigation” cruise in the Gulf of Mexico.
Moscow could recall ambassadors, reduce foreign missions, restrict movement of diplomats in Russia.
Moscow could ban all foreign NGOs immediately without going through the present process.
Moscow could recognise LDNR and sign defence treaties.
Moscow could work on Turkey, Hungary and other dissident EU/NATO members.
Moscow could give military aid to or station weapons in Western Hemisphere countries.
Beijing could do something in its part of the world to show its agreement and coordination with Moscow raising the threat of a two front conflict.
ECONOMIC MEASURES
Moscow could close airspace to civil airlines of the countries that sanction Russia.
Moscow could declare that Russian exports must now be paid for in Rubles, gold, Renminbi or Euros (Euros? It depends).
Moscow could announce that Nord Stream 2 will be abandoned if certification if delayed past a certain date. (Personally, I am amused by how many people think that shutting it down would cause more harm to Russia than to Germany: for the first it’s only money and Russia has plenty of that; for the second….)
Moscow could stop all sales of anything to USA (rocket motors and oil especially).
Moscow could announce that no more gas contracts to countries that sanction it will be made after the current ones end. This is a first step. See below.
As a second and more severe step, Moscow could break all contracts with countries that sanction Russia on the grounds that a state of hostility exists. That is, all oil and gas deliveries stop immediately.
Moscow could announce that no more gas will be shipped to or through Ukraine on the grounds that a state of hostility exists.
Russia and China could roll out their counter-SWIFT ASAP.
SUBVERSIVE MEASURES
Moscow could stir up trouble in eastern Ukraine (Novorossiya) supporting secession movements.
Moscow could order special forces to attack key nazi organisations throughout Ukraine.
Moscow could order special forces to attack military facilities throughout Ukraine.
*********************************************
But I’m sure that whatever “counter-threats” Moscow comes up with will be powerful and surprise the West. My recommendation is that USA/NATO take the ultimatums seriously.
After all, the Russian proposals really are mutually beneficial – their theme is that nobody should threaten anybody and if anybody should feel threatened, there should be serious talks to resolve the issue.
Security is mutual:
if all feel secure, then all are secure;
if one feels insecure, then none is secure.
As we now see: when Russia feels threatened by what USA/NATO do, it can threaten back. Better to live in a world in which nobody is threatening anybody and everybody feels secure.
I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else.
…
The Growing Russia-China Relationship
Under the pressure of US sanctions, threats, aggression and an imposed Second Cold War, the Russia-China relationship is growing closer and closer.
Personal Relationship
On December 15, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for a virtual summit. XI welcomed his “old friend,” and Putin greeted his “dear friend.”
Their greetings to each other were neither scripted nor posturing for the West. In June 2018, Putin told an interviewer that “President XI Jinping is probably the only world leader I have celebrated one of my birthdays with.” He added that XI”is a very reliable partner.” For his part, XI has called Putin “my best, most intimate friend.”
But the growing relationship is not just a friendship between the leaders of the people of the two countries. It is also a growing friendship between the people of the two countries. Relations between Russia and China were not always good. In 2016, before the intense US pressure started pushing the two countries together, only 34% of Russians viewed China favorably; in 2019, 84% saw China as “more a partner than a rival.”
International Relationship
Russia and China have also partnered as the leaders of an important new set of international organizations, like the BRICS nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Both of these organizations are intended to balance US hegemony and exceptionalism in international politics. Both of these organizations are huge, each representing nearly half the world, and both are led by Russia and China as the principal partners. Both also include India. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization represents a quarter of the world’s economy and four of its nuclear powers.
In their virtual summit, Putin and XI discussed the possibility of a three way summit with India, a member of both BRICS and the SCO: a message the US must surely be listening to as it forces nations to choose sides in the new Cold War.
Bilateral Relationship
But most important is the increasingly tight bilateral relationship between Russia and China.
The modern Russia-China relationship was first contracted with the he Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, in which the two nations commit not to enter into “any alliance or be party to any bloc . . . which compromises the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of the other. . .. ” Dmitri Trenin, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center explains the relationship as one in which, though Russia and China “do not have to follow each other,” they “will never go against each other.”
But Putin said in his June 2018 interview that that treaty “is only the foundation we have built our current relationship on.” He said that, building on that foundation, the structure is “growing taller and stronger.”
It grew much stronger on June 5, 2019, when according to Alexander Lukin of HSE University in Moscow, Russia and China signed a joint statement announcing a “comprehensive and strategic interaction.” Russia is “officially developing,” Lukin says, “a ‘strategic partnership’ with Beijing, making China not only a friend, but practically an ally.”
The wording is important. Russia and China both want a world that transcends blocs, and they are reluctant to enter into formal alliances or blocs. They are more than friends and practically allies. Striving for an ambiguous formulation that doesn’t commit to being a bloc or an alliance while implying something more than a bloc or an alliance, in his June 2018 interview, Putin described Russia’s relationship with China as “a relationship that probably cannot be compared with anything in the world.”
Echoing and strengthening that rhetorical ambiguity, in their virtual summit, Chinese President XI Jinping described a relationship that is growing ever closer when he said “this relationship even exceeds an alliance in its closeness and effectiveness.”
In a personal correspondence, Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who prepared daily intelligence briefs for several presidents and was Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch, told me that the XI’s formulation would have been chosen very carefully. The calculated ambiguity was meant to convey both that it is not an alliance – so that China doesn’t get drawn into Ukraine, and Russia doesn’t get drawn into Taiwan – and that is so close it exceeds an alliance. It is a formulation deliberately broadcast during the summit as a warning to the US if it persists in forcing the world into a second cold war. Unlike the first cold war, this time the US will face two superpowers.
McGovern told me that a key part of what is behind this message is Putin’s earnestness about getting a legally binding assurance that NATO will stop expanding east toward Ukraine and Russia’s borders. But, he said, what is even more important to Putin is NATO’s plan to put anti-ballistic missiles within range of Russia.
On December 2, 2021, Putin clearly demanded “reliable and long-term security guarantees [that] would exclude any further NATO moves eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory.” On December 15, the day of his summit with XI, Putin sent the US a proposal on mutual security guarantees and a request for immediate negotiations. Putin informed XI of the security guarantee proposal during their virtual summit.
It was in response to that information that, during the summit, XI said “We firmly support each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests” and proposed that Russia and China cooperate to “more effectively safeguard the security interests of both parties.”
McGovern says that XI was very clear in stressing that he appreciates and admires Putin’s emphasis over the years on the need to respect China’s core interests and his strongly resisting US attempts to drive a wedge between China and Russia. XI stressed the close relationship and emphasized that since Putin had admirably and loyally stressed the close and mutually beneficial relationship, he was not going to leave Russia alone in its demand to get security guarantees from the US. The message was clear: they supported us; we will support them. And the issue was clearly NATO.
The choice of words and the public message to Biden were very clear. If you are going to persist in forcing a second cold war, it will be a different cold war. This time it won’t be a cold war with Russia or China: it will be a cold war with Russia and China combined.
Meanwhile…
The American psychopaths are not stopping for shit. They are not taking the message seriously and are still continuing their piss-poor games. They are more than idiots. Shit! They deserve what is coming for them.
Sivkov: DPR border guards disrupted a special operation of German special forces in the Donbass
Today
The expert is sure that such attempts at penetration should not be ignored.
According to military expert Konstantin Sivkov, British and German special forces tried to enter the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). However, the Western saboteurs failed, as their operation was prevented by employees of the DPR border service. The analyst noted that the border guards managed to detain foreign special forces without a fight.
"The Americans are going to make a provocation and disappear. One thing is important: now there is actually another wave of hysteria about the fact that Russia is going to attack Ukraine. We are talking about the fact that they are purposefully going to put the Russian Federation in a position where it will be forced to take military measures.",- said the expert on the air of "Solovyov LIVE".
Sivkov is sure that such attempts at penetration should not be ignored. According to the analyst, such provocations are part of a plan to destabilize the situation in the Donbas. Similar actions are also directed against Russia. Washington wants Moscow to start a war, Sivkov believes.
—
С уважением,
Бойко Ирина Львовна
Other Sources
Escobar and Martyanov have also put up pieces on Kazak situation. Reading the three gives a good picture. Martyanov gives the end result of US shenanigans. A report I read elsewhere said a number of armed protesters were eliminated.. Those suckers who work for US "interests" become pawns who are simply eliminated from the game. I like that term. It is also a bit of a contradiction as those pawns a simply ordinary people who have been suckered in to sacrifice their lives to further US "interests".
There is a fungus that takes control of a flies brain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Jw5ib-s_I US reminds me of that fungus.
Escobar https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/01/06/steppe-on-fire-kazakhstan-color-revolution/
Martyanov https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/01/so-kremlin-confirms.html
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 6 2022 10:57 utc | 8
…Now compare it to what I learned from two different, high-ranking intel sources.
The first source was explicit: the whole Kazakh adventure is being sponsored by MI6 to create a new Maidan right before the Russia/US-NATO talks in Geneva and Brussels next week, to prevent any kind of agreement. Significantly, the “rebels” maintained their national coordination even after the internet was disconnected.
The second source is more nuanced: the usual suspects are trying to force Russia to back down against the collective West by creating a major distraction in their Eastern front, as part of a rolling strategy of chaos all along Russia’s borders. That may be a clever diversionary tactic, but Russian military intel is watching. Closely.
And for the sake of the “usual suspects”, this better may not be interpreted – ominously – was a war provocation.
Summary
So the response from the US to the Russian non-ultimatum ultimatum is to speed up their plans already in place to destabilize Russia? It’s clear that they’re not taking Russia’s red lines seriously and as Putin the other day stated there is nowhere left for Russia to retreat to.
Russia’s back is against the wall and their only option is to either cave in or go to war because the US is not taking no for an answer.
Posted by: Down South | Jan 6 2022 10:17 utc | 4
The Untied States is still playing “it’s games”. The warnings from both Russia and China are not being taken seriously.
When Russia told the United States to “get off my front porch, get out of my front yard, and stay away from my back yard”, the United States simply said “Ok”, and then went on top of the roof and is trying to go down the chimney.
This WILL NOT end up well.
“The trajectory is not optimistic,” Chomsky says. “The worst case is the increasing provocative actions towards China. That’s very dangerous.”
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.
The internet is a funny place. One button takes you to interesting places, and another takes your down a black hole of lies and manipulation.
For instance, I saw this little guy. Must have had one Hell of a hard life. Rescued, and is now with a family that loves him and who will take care of him and appreciate him. Poor guy. He has seen some shit. I’ll tell you what.
Yeah. This little guy has seen some shit.
On the other hand, I just read a great knee-slapper of a fantasy from the American neocon publication “Foreign Affairs“. It is titled “Washington is preparing for the wrong war with China.” While they correctly warn that it would be a mistake to get involved in defending Taiwan from China, they are wholly incorrect on their reasoning.
Caitlan Johnson, an astute social and political columnist, writes:
” …going to war with Russia or China over who governs Taiwan or Ukraine would only be supported by crazy morons. People often object to this position saying...
‘So you’re saying we should just let China/Russia invade Taiwan/Ukraine??’
And the answer is ...
"Yes. Of course we should. What are you a fucking idiot?'”
There are many such articles. Overall the promoted mainstream media trend seems to be…
The USA getting involved in a war over Taiwan serves no benefit to the USA.
That the war would be a long, drawn out affair.
The war would be similar to the war in Afghanistan where billions of dollars will be spent fighting a war on Chinese soil.
But overall, in the long term the USA would benefit because it is “exceptional”.
Ugh.
True moronic pieces, but judging from the likes and forwards, it must really ring a bell and resonate with Americans.
It would take Beijing decades to overcome the losses incurred from a war to take Taiwan, even if Beijing triumphs.
The United States and our western allies, on the other hand, would remain at full military power, dominate the international business markets, and have the moral high ground to keep China hemmed in like nothing that presently exists.
Xi would be seen as an unquestioned aggressor, even by other Asian regimes, and the fallout against China could knock them back decades.
Our security would be vastly improved from what it is today – and incalculably higher than if we foolishly tried to fight a war with China.
-The Guardian
Like I said. These people are living in a fantasy world.
Here, for shits and giggles, I am going to tear into one of their “articles” and pull out and highlight some terrible inaccuracies.
Buckle up.
Let’s go through this article paragraph by paragraph.
Washington Is Preparing for the Wrong War With China
The United States is getting serious about the threat of war with China. The U.S. Department of Defense has labeled China its primary adversary, civilian leaders have directed the military to develop credible plans to defend Taiwan, and President Joe Biden has strongly implied that the United States would not allow that island democracy to be conquered.
All absolutely true. The United States has taken a strong war stance and is beating the war drums very loudly.
Yet Washington may be preparing for the wrong kind of war. Defense planners appear to believe that they can win a short conflict in the Taiwan Strait merely by blunting a Chinese invasion. Chinese leaders, for their part, seem to envision rapid, paralyzing strikes that break Taiwanese resistance and present the United States with a fait accompli. Both sides would prefer a splendid little war in the western Pacific, but that is not the sort of war they would get.
Both sides anticipate a short war.
The Chinese are planning a military exercise that would be over within hours.
The American and Taiwanese anticipate a short war also, but one that would be drawn out on the order of weeks to pull in American and Allied forces from Japan, Korea and Australia to fight the Chinese on Taiwan soil. they also believe that China would not consider this action as an invasion. And thus it would be a regional battle on Taiwan and on the South China Sea. A Pretty ENORMOUS assumption.
A war over Taiwan is likely to be long rather than short, regional rather than local, and much easier to start than to end. It would expand and escalate, as both countries look for paths to victory in a conflict neither side can afford to lose. It would also present severe dilemmas for peacemaking and high risks of going nuclear. If Washington doesn’t start preparing to wage, and then end, a protracted conflict now, it could face catastrophe once the shooting starts.
Nope. No. No. No.
What would the United States do to China if China started bombing Hawaii, put manpower, missiles, and tanks on Hawaii and took over the cities there?
America would launch missiles at Beijing. That's what America would do.
It would NOT send forces for a "long war" on Hawaii.
And so I am a telling youse guys that any American attacks, landings, or military actions of any kinds, type or manner will result in equal and measured attacks against American CITIES inside of America.
Let’s continue…
IMPENDING SLUGFEST
A U.S.-Chinese war over Taiwan would begin with a bang. China’s military doctrine emphasizes coordinated operations to “paralyze the enemy in one stroke.” In the most worrying scenario, Beijing would launch a surprise missile attack, hammering not only Taiwan’s defenses but also the naval and air forces that the United States has concentrated at a few large bases in the western Pacific. Simultaneous Chinese cyberattacks and antisatellite operations would sow chaos and hinder any effective U.S. or Taiwanese response. And the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would race through the window of opportunity, staging amphibious and airborne assaults that would overwhelm Taiwanese resistance. By the time the United States was ready to fight, the war would effectively be over.
All true.
However, the scale of the takeover would be beyond all this kind of fighting. The Chinese and the Taiwanese are brothers. They speak the same language, and both consider themselves Chinese.
It will be a silent coup.
One day you have Taiwan, the next day, you have China. And everyone will be trying to figure out what happened.
The Pentagon’s planning increasingly revolves around preventing this scenario, by hardening and dispersing the U.S. military presence in Asia, encouraging Taiwan to field asymmetric capabilities that can inflict a severe toll on Chinese attackers, and developing the ability to blunt the PLA’s offensive capabilities and sink an invasion fleet. This planning is predicated on the critical assumption that the early weeks, if not days, of fighting would determine whether a free Taiwan survives.
I agree that this seems to be the American military strategy.
Yet whatever happens at the outset, a conflict almost certainly wouldn’t end quickly. Most great-power wars since the Industrial Revolution have lasted longer than expected, because modern states have the resources to fight on even when they suffer heavy losses. Moreover, in hegemonic wars—clashes for dominance between the world’s strongest states—the stakes are high, and the price of defeat may seem prohibitive. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wars between leading powers—the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the world wars—were protracted slugfests. A U.S.-Chinese war would likely follow this pattern.
Yes. The American cities of Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, New York, and San Francisco would be glowing for months afterwards.
If Washington doesn’t prepare for conflict now, it could face catastrophe once the shooting starts.
If the United States managed to beat back a Chinese assault against Taiwan, Beijing wouldn’t simply give up. Starting a war over Taiwan would be an existential gamble: admitting defeat would jeopardize the regime’s legitimacy and President Xi Jinping’s hold on power. It would also leave China more vulnerable to its enemies and destroy its dreams of regional primacy. Continuing a hard fight against the United States would be a nasty prospect, but quitting while China was behind would seem even worse.
This is all dreaming nonsense by a writer who has absolutely no clue as to how the Chinese think.
Taiwan is Chinese. Period. They speak the Chinese language, they hold Chinese residency, they own Chinese passports, and they have relatives throughout the mainland China.
Any action regarding it, win, lose or draw will be favorable in the eyes of the Chinese people.
Washington would also be inclined to fight on if the war were not going well. Like Beijing, it would view a war over Taiwan as a fight for regional dominance. The fact that such a war would probably begin with a Pearl Harbor–style missile attack on U.S. bases would make it even harder for an outraged American populace and its leaders to accept defeat. Even if the United States failed to prevent Chinese forces from seizing Taiwan, it couldn’t easily bow out of the war. Quitting without first severely damaging Chinese air and naval power in Asia would badly weaken Washington’s reputation, as well as its ability to defend remaining allies in the region.
Again nonsense.
Once the shooting starts there will be ZERO American presence in the Pacific. It will all be over. All the bases will be radioactive craters.
Both sides would have the capacity to keep fighting, moreover. The United States could summon ships, planes, and submarines from other theaters and use its command of the Pacific beyond the first island chain—which runs from Japan in the north through Taiwan and the Philippines to the south—to conduct sustained attacks on Chinese forces. For its part, China could dispatch its surviving air, naval, and missile forces for a second and third assault on Taiwan and press its maritime militia of coast guard and fishing vessels into service. Both the United States and China would emerge from these initial clashes bloodied but not exhausted, increasing the likelihood of a long, ugly war.
Again, such idiocy!
China and Russia are as one. Both share military equipment, data and operations. Any war against China would be one against Russia as well.
China would take over the Pacific.
Russia would take over the Atlantic.
Iran would take over the Mediterranean.
NATO would be in ruins.
America would be smouldering.
Australia would have enormous craters.
Japan would meekly tremble an back down with it's gaping craters.
Korea would be busy dealing with it's own problems.
Iraq it will NOT be.
BIGGER, LONGER, MESSIER
When great-power wars drag on, they get bigger, messier, and more intractable. Any conflict between the United States and China is likely to force both countries to mobilize their economies for war. After the initial salvos, both sides would hurry to replace munitions, ships, submarines, and aircraft lost in the early days of fighting. This race would strain both countries’ industrial bases, require the reorientation of their economies, and invite nationalist appeals—or government compulsion—to mobilize the populace to support a long fight.
China can do this. It has already mobilized.
America cannot. You can see this with the joke of a COVID response. America is terribly balkanized and has zero ability to do anything. heck! They can't even build a wall on the Mexican border, a walk-bridge in Florida, or repair highway bridges.
America has a make-believe economy based on an artificially inflated dollar. Were a war to break out, the value of the USD would become zero.
Long wars also escalate as the combatants look for new sources of leverage. Belligerents open new fronts and rope additional allies into the fight. They expand their range of targets and worry less about civilian casualties. Sometimes they explicitly target civilians, whether by bombing cities or torpedoing civilian ships. And they use naval blockades, sanctions, and embargoes to starve the enemy into submission. As China and the United States unloaded on each other with nearly every tool at their disposal, a local war could turn into a whole-of-society brawl that spans multiple regions.
Yes. The moment that the United States starts bombing China, all Hell would break lose. No American cities would survive.
Bigger wars demand more grandiose aims. The greater the sacrifices required to win, the better the ultimate peace deal must be to justify those sacrifices. What began as a U.S. campaign to defend Taiwan could easily turn into an effort to render China incapable of new aggression by completely destroying its offensive military power. Conversely, as the United States inflicted more damage on China, Beijing’s war aims could grow from conquering Taiwan to pushing Washington out of the western Pacific altogether.
The intro sentence is correct, the rest is fantasy.
There will be no American air power, no American naval power, and no American leadership. Instead, there will domestic turmoil, destruction, and while the "war" for Taiwan was envisioned as another long-duration war, it would instead be the death-blow to the United States as a nation.
All of this would make forging peace more difficult. The expansion of war aims narrows the diplomatic space for a settlement and produces severe bloodshed that fuels intense hatred and mistrust. Even if U.S. and Chinese leaders grew weary of fighting, they might still struggle to find a mutually acceptable peace.
More nonsense.
China, and Russia, can survive war. America cannot.
America is a mess, or haven’t you all been paying attention? video 2.2MB
GOING NUCLEAR
A war between China and the United States would differ from previous hegemonic wars in one fundamental respect: both sides have nuclear weapons. This would create disincentives to all-out escalation, but it could also, paradoxically, compound the dangers inherent in a long war.
There would be no escalation. It would be nuclear from the onset.
This is Chinese military doctrine.
For starters, both sides might feel free to shoot off their conventional arsenals under the assumption that their nuclear arsenals would shield them from crippling retaliation. Scholars call this the “stability-instability paradox,” whereby blind faith in nuclear deterrence risks unleashing a massive conventional war.
Chinese military writings often suggest that the PLA could wipe out U.S. bases and aircraft carriers in East Asia while China’s nuclear arsenal deterred U.S. attacks on the Chinese mainland.
On the flip side, some American strategists have called for pounding Chinese mainland bases at the outset of a conflict in the belief that U.S. nuclear superiority would deter China from responding in kind. Far from preventing a major war, nuclear weapons could catalyze one.
Unrealistic.
Chinese military doctrine is to release nuclear fury the moment their land is attacked.
They DON'T GIVE A FUCK.
Once that war is underway, it could plausibly go nuclear in three distinct ways. Whichever side is losing might use tactical nuclear weapons—low-yield warheads that could destroy specific military targets without obliterating the other side’s homeland—to turn the tide.
That was how the Pentagon planned to halt a Soviet invasion of central Europe during the Cold War, and it is what North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia have suggested they would do if they were losing a war today.
If China crippled U.S. conventional forces in East Asia, the United States would have to decide whether to save Taiwan by using tactical nuclear weapons against Chinese ports, airfields, or invasion fleets. This is no fantasy: the U.S. military is already developing nuclear-tipped, submarine-launched cruise missiles that could be used for such purposes.
Yes it would go nuclear, but not on the terms determined by the United States.
A local war could turn into a whole-of-society brawl that spans multiple regions.
China might also use nuclear weapons to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The PLA has embarked on an unprecedented expansion of its nuclear arsenal, and PLA officers have written that China could use nuclear weapons if a conventional war threatened the survival of its government or nuclear arsenal—which would almost surely be the case if Beijing was losing a war over Taiwan. Perhaps these unofficial claims are bluffs. Yet it is not difficult to imagine that if China faced the prospect of humiliating defeat, it might fire off a nuclear weapon (perhaps at or near the huge U.S. military base on Guam) to regain a tactical advantage or shock Washington into a cease-fire.
Such ignorance!
I wonder if they actually believe this garbage, or are just fabricating a fantasy for cash dollars.
As the conflict drags on, either side could also use the ultimate weapon to end a grinding war of attrition. During the Korean War, American leaders repeatedly contemplated dropping nuclear bombs on China to force it to accept a cease-fire. Today, both countries would have the option of using limited nuclear strikes to compel a stubborn opponent to concede. The incentives to do so could be strong, given that whichever side pulls the nuclear trigger first might gain a major advantage.
There will be no escalation.
It will be nuclear from the get-go, and Russia and China will control the entire event sequence. America would be trying desperately to catch up.
A final route to nuclear war is inadvertent escalation. Each side, knowing that escalation is a risk, may try to limit the other’s nuclear options. The United States could, for instance, try to sink China’s ballistic missile submarines before they hide in the deep waters beyond the first island chain.
Yet such an attack could put China in a “use it or lose it” situation with regard to its nuclear forces, especially if the United States also struck China’s land-based missiles and communication systems, which intermingle conventional and nuclear forces. In this scenario, China’s leaders might use their nuclear weapons rather than risk losing that option altogether.
There will be no escalation.
It will be nuclear from the get-go, and Russia and China will control the entire event sequence. America would be trying desperately to catch up.
AVOIDING ARMAGEDDON
There is no easy way to prepare for a long war whose course and dynamics are inherently unpredictable. Yet the United States and its allies can do four things to get ready for whatever comes—and, hopefully, prevent the worst from happening.
First, Washington can win the race to reload.
China will be much less likely to go to war if it knows it will be outgunned as the conflict drags on. Washington and Taipei should therefore aggressively stockpile ammunition and supplies.
For the United States, the critical assets are missiles capable of sinking China’s most valuable ships and aircraft from afar. For Taiwan, the key weapons are short-range missiles, mortars, mines, and rocket launchers that can decimate invasion fleets.
Both nations also need to be ready to churn out new weapons in wartime. Taiwanese factories will be obvious targets for Chinese missiles, so the United States should enlist the industrial might of other allies. Japan’s shipbuilding capacity, for example, could be retooled to produce simple missile barges rapidly and on a massive scale.
Crazy fantasy.
So the United States plans on out-manufacturing the manufacturing powerhouse. Uh huh. What a fantasy.
Second, the United States and Taiwan can demonstrate their ability to hang tough. In a long war, China could try to strangle Taiwan with a blockade, bombard it into submission, or take down U.S. and Taiwanese electrical grids and telecommunications networks with cyberattacks. It could use conventionally armed, hypersonic missiles to attack targets in the U.S. homeland and flood the United States with disinformation.
Countering such measures will require defensive preparations, such as securing critical networks; expanding Taiwan’s system of civilian shelters; and enlarging the island’s stockpiles of fuel, food, and medical supplies.
Complete ignorance of reality.
The ignorance of the actual on-the-street realities of Taiwan, and the proud American trans-gender forces is stunning.
China might use nuclear weapons to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Breaking a Chinese campaign of coercion also requires threatening Beijing with painful retaliation.
A third objective, therefore, is to own the escalation ladder. By preparing to blockade Chinese commerce and cut Beijing off from markets and technology in wartime, the United States and its allies can threaten to turn an extended conflict into an economic catastrophe for China.
By preparing to sink Chinese naval vessels anywhere in the western Pacific and destroy Chinese military infrastructure in other regions, Washington can threaten a generation’s worth of Chinese military modernization. And by developing the means to hit Chinese ports, airfields, and armadas with tactical nuclear weapons, the United States can deter China from initiating limited nuclear attacks.
Washington should confront Beijing with a basic proposition: the longer a war lasts, the more devastation China will suffer.
Bye Bye USA.
They FUCKING KNOW THAT.
And the way to prevent that from happening is to destroy the top 40 American cities.
It will be pretty fucking hard without cities, people, and an angry world ready to tear Americans limp to limb.
Because controlling escalation will be essential, the United States also needs options that allow it to dial up the punishment without necessarily dialing up the violence. By subtly demonstrating that it has the cyber-capabilities to cripple China’s critical infrastructure and domestic security system, for example, the United States can threaten to bring the war home to Beijing. Similarly, by improving its ability to suppress Chinese air defenses near Taiwan with cyberattacks, electronic warfare, and directed-energy weapons, the United States can increase its freedom of action while limiting the amount of physical destruction it wreaks on the mainland.
China is not Iraq. Look at a map why don't you.
Any escalatory moves risk ratcheting up the intensity of a conflict. So the final preparation Washington must make is to define victory down. A war between nuclear-armed great powers would not end with regime change or one side occupying the other’s capital. It would end with a negotiated compromise. The simplest settlement would be a return to the status quo: China stops attacking Taiwan in exchange for a pledge that the island will not seek formal independence and that the United States will not endorse it. To sweeten the deal, Washington could offer to keep its forces off Taiwan and out of the Taiwan Strait. Xi would be able to tell the Chinese people that he taught his enemies a lesson. The United States would have saved a strategically positioned democracy. That may not be a satisfying end to a hard-fought conflict. But in a long war between great powers, protecting vital U.S. interests while avoiding Armageddon is good enough.
As I said, this is a fantasy piece.
Any one actually taking this article seriously is a FUCKING IDIOT. And if they are in powerful policy making decisions then they DESERVE the "heat" that will come straight towards them.
Conclusions
I pulled out a laughable “article” that is apparently being taken seriously inside the Washington Beltway. I point out the pretty amazing errors in it, and lay down the law of ready vs. perception.
So here is a quick review of reality.
Chinese citizenry is 1600 million people. Every single one of them learned how to fire guns, operate weapons and perform military operations in first grade and throughout their youth. If you think that they would agree to any kind of assault you are out of your God Damn mind.
The entire population of the USA is only 330 million, of that only 1.3 million are in the Armed Forces. Which are spread out all over the globe.
Here’s a Chinese third grade mortar crew
When did you all learn how to fire mortars, arm and hit targets on military operations? The Chinese learn in third grade. video 6MB
You know, I get many comments that I do not publish. One of the comments that I have since deleted, but I will paraphrase here. It went like this…
"Playing pretend soldiers are nice and cute, but America is a warrior culture, with a long and glorious history. You simply cannot equate the Chinese play soldiers against a real modern and well-trained fighting force like the United States has."
Fifth grade students learning how to disable tanks
When did you learn how to do this? Do you really think that America’s great military can actually take on China? Video 16MB
China’s military are well armed, well trained, and very LETHAL
America couldn’t fight uneducated goat herders with cheap AK-47 clones. What makes everyone think that it can take on a peer-superior China with a peer-superior Russia? Video 6MB
You have to see things as the really are, not what you want to believe.
Here’s America today. How do you think it will be able to handle a war with a unified Russia and China? I do not. And you, if you were really honest with yourself wouldn’t either. Video 2.2MB
Everyone is questioning if America is still functioning.
It’s obvious. And no, a war is not going to make things better. it will make things far, far worse. video 2MB
Meanwhile…
The American psychopaths are not stopping for shit. Here’s on the Russian Front.
Sivkov: DPR border guards disrupted a special operation of German special forces in the Donbass
Today
The expert is sure that such attempts at penetration should not be ignored.
According to military expert Konstantin Sivkov, British and German special forces tried to enter the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). However, the Western saboteurs failed, as their operation was prevented by employees of the DPR border service. The analyst noted that the border guards managed to detain foreign special forces without a fight.
"The Americans are going to make a provocation and disappear. One thing is important: now there is actually another wave of hysteria about the fact that Russia is going to attack Ukraine. We are talking about the fact that they are purposefully going to put the Russian Federation in a position where it will be forced to take military measures.",- said the expert on the air of "Solovyov LIVE".
Sivkov is sure that such attempts at penetration should not be ignored. According to the analyst, such provocations are part of a plan to destabilize the situation in the Donbas. Similar actions are also directed against Russia. Washington wants Moscow to start a war, Sivkov believes.
Final Key Points…
In US war games, any war with Russia escalates to nuclear then to total destruction. Russia seems to be saying accept these demands or we’ll have a crisis the equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I feel concerned that both sides, esp the US do not understand how rapidly a conflict could go nuclear or how unwinnable and destructive that war would be. Even though Biden and Putin recently acknowledged such a war would be unwinnable, the US actions do not show show they really believe that.
[1] It is important to promote that a USA war with involving Taiwan / China will be a long one. This is because it will guarantee a long-duration revenue stream for the American military-industrial complex.
[2] It is important to promote the idea that the war will be conventional only and not go nuclear kinetic. That way, the war will permit Western allies participation.
But neither is true, and I am telling you all something quite different…
[3] If the USA fires one single weapon at Taiwan or the United States, the war will go HOT and Kinetic against America itself. Not just it’s surrogates.
This is BECAUSE Taiwan is part of China. So anyone attacking Taiwan will be attacking China. And China has a long-standing policy to produce measured responses.
Destroy one VTOL carrier, and watch yours get destroyed.
Launch one Bio-weapon attack against the Chinese people, and watch yours suffer from a substantive Bio-weapon attack.
Attack a Chinese city, watch yours get destroyed.
[4] China WILL use nuclear weapons.
This is because it is it's long-standing Chinese military doctrine.
That is the sole purpose of the hyper-velocity ICBM flights. It is to tell the Jack-asses in the United States that China WILL destroy American cities, and that there are no defenses that America can use. That has never changed.
[5] Russia and China WILL fight together.
This is because it's the SEO doctrine and all members will act together as one. This too has been telegraphed to the Western "leadership". Just because it is not in the mainstream media does not mean that the "leadership" is not aware of it.
Taken together, points [3], plus [4], plus [5] means…
[6] American cities will be blasted into the stone age if the USA starts invading China. To ignore that fact is dangerous. the only question is how many will be destroyed.
[7] It is in the benefit of the United Statesto have a USA-China conflict that is of long-duration and isolated to China and the South China Sea.
[8] It is to the benefit of China and Russiato stop the mad craziness of the United States once and for all. Whether the Ukraine, or Taiwan. All the provocations are to end because the presence of the provocations destabilizes world harmony.
[9] Thus, because of points, [6], [7] and [8] it is HIGHLY LIKELY that United states involvement fighting against China will result in the complete and utter fast and quick destruction of the United States.
This is a dangerous, dangerous “game” those fools in Washington DC are playing.
The Chinese are determined to fight to KILL.
It all starts in first grade.
So you think you can take on 1600 million soldiers? America’s military is 1.4 million troops. Or 1/100 of the size. You dunderheads! Are you fucking out of your God Damn mind? video 5MB
And a final RETORT
From a comment (that I did not publish) but is worthy to include here…
“MM is wrong because…
America is exceptional. It is blessed by God.
America is far stronger economically than China.
China has fallen into the “debt trap” with over 3 trillion dollars worth of debt.
America has a far stronger society than China. China is weak and it’s people are ready to overturn it once the central government crumbles.
The BRI is a sham to overthrow the world.
America has more and better factories than China.
The World loves America and hates China.
China only copies. It does not innovate.
China enslaves the minorities and has enormous prison concentration camps.
America has never lost a war.
America is a military culture.
Therefore, China doesn’t have a chance.”
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.
I have been musing about eating a fine delicious ice cream cone. I know, I know, youse guys eat it all the time. but I really don’t. Ever since I put in my verbal affirmation that “I eat healthy, delicious, and nutritious food“, somehow the sugar laden icy deliciousness of the Ice cream cone has since eluded me. Sigh.
Now that it is getting old, I have been fantasizing about hot fudge sundaes, upside down banana splits, and Carmel sundaes. Maybe substituting blueberries on a strawberry shortcake, or having an extra heaping scoop on a five scoop ice cream surprise.
Ice Cream Sundae.
It’s not my normal fare. Don’t you know. Sigh.
Everything is a trade off.
Though, it (a hot fudge sundae) would probably go great with a nice whiskey.
Today
So I am going though my normal routine. Checking out the laughingly pathetic “news” out of America, and the “real” news out of Russia and tiny. tiny real alternative outlets. When I came across an article that is not being covered at all in the American “news”.
Apparently two satellites had a trajectory that sent them flying toward the Chinese space station on a collision course.
Two.
T.W.O.
– 2 times –
Not a coincidence.
Accidents do not happen twice in a row, just like it is extraordinarily rare for lightening to strike twice.
One of the missions of the (newly established) American Military Space Command is to approve all space flight trajectories originating out of the United States. For some odd reason, they approved a collision course of a SpaceX satellite on not one, but two occasions to collide with the Chinese space station. Since this is an impossible flight vector… as space is far too huge. It is a deliberate attempt to ram and destroy the Chinese space station.
“…So Elon Musk attempted two acts of terrorism against the Chinese space station (while it was occupied by human-beings). These acts, which expose the true purpose of SpaceX, have gone entirely unreported in media, mainstream or otherwise. I don’t remember it getting a mention at MoA or anywhere else.
Below is the complaint China wrote to the UN which details how the space station had to carry out emergency evasive maneuvers on two separate occasions….
Information furnished in conformity with the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies
Note verbale dated 3 December 2021 from the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations (Vienna) addressed to the Secretary-General
The Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations (Vienna) presents its compliments to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and has the honour to refer to article V of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies 1 (the Outer Space Treaty), which provides that “States Parties to the Treaty shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the Treaty or the Secretary-General of the United Nations of any phenomena they discover in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, which could constitute a danger to the life or health of astronauts”. In accordance with the above-mentioned article, China hereby informs the Secretary-General of the following phenomena which constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station.
The China Manned Space Programme completed five launch missions in 2021, with the successful launching into orbit of the Tianhe core module of the China Space Station, the Tianzhou-II and Tianzhou-III cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-XII and Shenzhou-XIII crewed spacecraft. The China Space Station has travelled stably in a near-circular orbit at an altitude of around 390 km on an orbital inclination of about 41.5 degrees.
During this period, Starlink satellites launched by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) of the United States of America have had two close encounters with the China Space Station. For safety reasons, the China Space Station implemented preventive collision avoidance control on 1 July and 21 October 2021, respectively.
1. The first collision avoidance
As from 19 April 2020, the Starlink-1095 satellite had been traveling stably in orbit at an average altitude of around 555 km.
Between 16 May and 24 June 2021, the Starlink-1095 satellite maneuvered continuously to a precise orbit of around 382 km, and then stayed in that orbit. Even though the orbit trajectory took it on a collision course with the Chinese space station.
A close encounter occurred between the Starlink-1095 satellite and the China Space Station on 1 July 2021. For safety reasons, the China Space Station took the initiative to conduct an evasive maneuver in the evening of that day to avoid a potential collision between the two spacecraft.
2. The second collision avoidance
On 21 October 2021, the Starlink-2305 satellite had a subsequent close encounter with the China Space Station.
As the satellite was continuously maneuvering, the maneuver strategy was unknown and orbital errors were hard to be assessed, there was thus a collision risk between the Starlink-2305 satellite and the China Space Station.
To ensure the safety and lives of in-orbit astronauts, the China Space Station performed an evasive maneuver again on the same day to avoid a potential collision between the two spacecraft.
In view of the foregoing, China wishes to request the Secretary-General of the United Nations to circulate the above-mentioned information to all States parties to the Outer Space Treaty and bring to their attention that, in accordance with article VI of the Treaty...
“States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty.”
China’s in-progress space station has performed preventive collision avoidance control to avoid being struck by SpaceX Starlink satellites. China has informed the United Nations Secretary-General of the issue.
In a document posted by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space dated December 6, 2021, there is notification by China under Article V of the Outer Space Treaty concerning preventive collision avoidance between the China Space Station (international designation 2021-035A) and United States’ Starlink-1095 (international designation 2020-001BK) and Starlink-2305 (international designation 2021-024N) satellites.
Dangers to astronauts
“The China Manned Space Program completed five launch missions in 2021, with the successful launching into orbit of the Tianhe core module of the China Space Station, the Tianzhou-II and Tianzhou-III cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-XII and Shenzhou-XIII crewed spacecraft. The China Space Station has travelled stably in a near-circular orbit at an altitude of around 390 km on an orbital inclination of about 41.5 degrees,” the document points out.
“During this period, Starlink satellites launched by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) of the United States of America have had two close encounters with the China Space Station. For safety reasons, the China Space Station implemented preventive collision avoidance control on 1 July and 21 October 2021, respectively.”
“China hereby informs the Secretary-General of the following phenomena which constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station,” the document states.
The incident was first flagged by the U.K.’s Express as well as Reuters news agency.
Meanwhile, China astronauts have just wrapped up about six hours of EVAs.
China’s taikonauts, Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu, safely returned to the Tianhe space station core module. Female astronaut Wang Yaping stayed inside the module, supporting the spacewalking duo, including operation of the station’s robotic arm.
This was the fourth time for Chinese astronauts to conduct EVAs during the construction of the country’s space station and the second by the Shenzhou-13 crew.
Zhai and Ye completed such tasks as adjusting a panoramic camera, tested goods transport, installed hardware for future use and evaluated the EVA spacesuits.
Accumulated experience
Yang Yanbo, deputy commander of space mission team, Beijing Aerospace Control Center told China Central Television (CCTV):
“We have made proper arrangements for the extravehicular activities such as readjusting settings of mechanical arm’s movement and the platform, which allowed astronauts to operate equipment and mechanical arm simultaneously, thus improving the efficiency of extravehicular activities.”
Zhu Guangchen, deputy chief designer of the space station system at the China Academy of Space Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said:
“The extravehicular activities have further tested designs of the core module airlock module, the mechanical arm and the extravehicular suit, and assessed the coordination between space and Earth, which will accumulate experience for the future assembly and construction tasks.”
Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s manned space program, told CCTV:
“All the tasks have been performed smoothly so far, with key construction technologies tested. All indicators show that the functions and performance of our space station meet the requirements, and some of them are even far better than what we had expected, this laying a solid foundation for the future space station construction and operation.”
Step-by-step
China’s space program has successfully completed five launches, five rendezvous and docking missions, and four EVAs since the Tianhe space station core module was sent into Earth orbit on April 29, 2021.
The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) noted that extravehicular operations are becoming the normal work of the space station flight missions. Chinese astronauts will carry out more and complicated EVAs to provide support for the completion of the construction and the stable operation of the space station.
The orbiting outpost is to be completed by the end of 2022.
Six-month mission
China launched the trio of Shenzhou-13 taikonauts on October 16. The crew is on a six-month mission to construct China’s space station.
The Shenzhou-13 crew will continue their in-orbit work to greet the coming new year. This is also the first time that Chinese astronauts to greet a new year in space, the CMSA added.
The CMSA noted that extravehicular operations are becoming the normal work of the space station flight missions. Chinese astronauts will carry out more and complicated EVAs to provide strong support for the successful completion of the construction and the stable operation of the space station.
The Tianhe core module is the first and main component of the in-construction China space station, informally known as Tiangong (Heavenly Palace).
Next year, China is to loft new segments of the station.
To view newly-issued videos regarding the completed 2nd EVAs go to:
China said its space station deployed prevention collision avoidance control measures in July and October and called on the US to ‘bear responsibility’
Elon Musk sparks China fury as space station takes emergency measures to avoid collision
Chinese citizens lashed out against the tech billionaire’s space ambitions on Monday after satellites from Starlink Internet Services, a division of Musk’s SpaceX aerospace company, had two “close encounters” with the Chinese space station. According to a document submitted by China to the UN space agency, the incidents occurred on July 1 and October 21.
In the papers, Beijing complained about how the near-miss incident “constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station”.
It said: “During this period, Starlink satellites launched by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) of the United States of America have had two close encounters with the China Space Station.
“For safety reasons, the China Space Station implemented preventive collision avoidance control on 1 July and 21 October 2021, respectively.
“For safety reasons, the China Space Station took the initiative to conduct an evasive manoeuvre in the evening of that day to avoid a potential collision between the two spacecraft.”
China also cited article VI of the Outer Space Treaty, which was signed by all the space-faring nations of the world and forms the basis of international space law.
Article VI stated: “States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty.”
Social media users erupted on Weibo, which is a Chinese alternative to Twitter.
One user described Starlink’s satellites as “just a pile of space junk,” while another accused them of being “American space warfare weapons”.
In an anti-satellite (ASAT) rocket test last month, the Kremlin fired a missile into space to deliberately blow up a redundant satellite.
However, the debris from the explosion began to hurtle through space towards the ISS, which caused astronauts to take emergency measures.
Because of this debris, NASA also halted its planned activities as astronauts waited for the storm of debris to pass.
Playing with FIRE.
What is the matter with these lunatics?
I do not believe Elon Musk planned this flight path alone. I believe that it is an intentionally directed trajectory.
Why do I know? Well, maybe it’s my role in MAJestic. Or, maybe it’s because I studied Astrophysics. In any event the odds of this being an accident is very, very tiny.
Plus, it is a FACT that ALL American orbital trajectories are monitored and approved by the United States Military USSPACECOM. Space Command. So either the US Military Space Command made a vital and unusual highly-unlikely mistake, or it is intentional.
So what is going on?
Is that it?
China is just going to lodge and register another complaint in the UN that will not be reported anywhere else? Like the Coronavirus being a bio-weapon, eh?
Hum.
Don’t be so sure…
Subject: The countdown has started. China has disabled tracking systems for its ships and aircraft
The countdown has started. China has disabled tracking systems for its ships and aircraft
Yesterday
134 K reads
The Chinese navy – both merchant and military – suddenly disappeared. This happened while all the world’s attention is focused on Russia. And her proposals to the United States to withdraw NATO troops away from its borders. Meanwhile, China is taking concrete steps to camouflage thousands of its ships.
It’s all about the automatic identification system (AIS). This system allows ships to send information for the general use – position, speed, course and name. It is very convenient for tracing global trade chains by market players, increasing the efficiency of their business planning.
So, according to information from the global provider of shipping data VesselsValue, the number of Chinese vessels sending signals has recently decreased by almost 90% (about a thousand remained in sight).
It’s all about the new laws of the PRC on the protection of information. Their appearance is very important, as it is an example of the priority of politics over the economy.
After all, it is obvious that this law interferes with the image of Chinese suppliers. With the winter holidays approaching, the loss of information from China, where six of the top 10 container ports in the world are located, creates additional problems for the economy.CNN Business ).
But this is not so important for the Chinese leadership now. The fact is that it is the massive gathering of Chinese merchant ships that can peacefully block the island of Taiwan. Isolate the rebellious province from the world. And Western military aid. Now the conditions have been created for such a gathering to be unexpected for everyone.
But that’s not all. China plans to carry out a similar operation with aircraft. China has banned the download of the Flightradar24 app, claiming its operation poses a threat to military aircraft. The special services seized the relevant equipment. Flightradar24 is a public web service (and application) that allows real-time monitoring of aircraft position, trajectory, altitude and speed.
I don’t know about Russia, but China is clearly preparing something.
Yes they are getting ready for something. They are also, among other commodities hoarding grain in unprecedented quantities. Alas, the drums of war…
Blinken called the US conflict with China a disaster. What could he have meant and what could be the consequences for the US and China?
December 15th
5 thousand reads
The US is gradually leading itself into a dead end. This was recently confirmed by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken himself, calling a possible conflict with China a disaster. But at the same time, it is almost impossible to avoid such a conflict – there are too many contradictions and very strong competition. What kind of catastrophe will this conflict turn out to be for the United States and China?
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The main reason for the conflict between the United States and China is Taiwan. An island that China considers its own. And the United States supports its independence. Just like with Ukraine, very similar. Also, the United States and China are direct competitors for hegemony and markets for their goods – the States really do not like that China, instead of collecting iPhones for a bowl of rice, makes its own smartphones – Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, etc. And many other things besides them.
There is no need to talk about friendship and cooperation in such conditions. On the contrary, recently the United States and other Western countries announced a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. And if it really comes to a conflict, then for the United States it will really turn out to be a disaster, despite the military superiority. First of all, a catastrophe in the economy and hegemony.
The fact is that the US already has big problems with the economy. There is not enough money, as before, even for the maintenance of military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, so the United States withdrew its troops from there. The withdrawal of troops from Iraq ends on December 31. A conflict with China will only make the situation worse.
China is a leader in the extraction and reserves of rare earth metals, which are used in almost all high-tech products-from iPhones to drones. In the event of a conflict, of course, China will take advantage of this advantage and cut off supplies.
This will lead to the fact that in the United States there will be factories for the production of high-tech products, without the necessary elements for production. And U.S.-owned factories in China and Taiwan can be nationalized as compensation for the costs of the conflict with the United States. Then the United States will be left without factories at all.
And the US GDP already consists of only 20% of manufacturing, and 80% of services. And without rare earth metals, even the remaining ones will stand up.
There will be no factories and no profits – we will have to withdraw troops and close military bases in other countries. After all, US military spending exceeds $ 700 billion a year. And the lion’s share of these expenses is the maintenance of military bases. If they are closed, then the United States ceases to be the hegemon of the planet, and becomes an ordinary regional power on its continent.
Now about the struggle for the island of Taiwan. China is very close to it:
And the US is on the other side of the world. Can you imagine how much fuel you will have to buy from Russia in order to fit warships there and ensure regular supplies in the event of a conflict? And it is not known whether Russia will even help the United States with fuel in the event of a conflict with China.
The path is not close and expensive
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Also, the Americans will immediately be left with empty shelves, just like it was in the USSR. Because it is China that is the main trading partner of the United States, which supplies almost everything to America-from underwear to smartphones.
According to the results of 2020, the trade turnover between the United States and China amounted to 582 billion dollars. The Chinese themselves will somehow survive a break in trade ties with the United States. There are 1.4 billion of them. That’s 4.2 times the population of the United States.
So you can reorient your production to the huge domestic market. But what will the Americans do if they are left with empty shelves? Not otherwise, they will storm the Capitol again.
“Will get” and the US allies. For example, in Europe. It also trades with China ($586 billion). euro) and with the United States ($631 billion). euro). If China takes American production on its territory as compensation, then the United States will simply have nothing to trade with Europe.
And it will be very difficult for Europe to trade with China because of the military actions. European businesses and production facilities also largely depend on the supply of components from China. It is not in the European interest to break supply chains and suffer losses.
This, in turn, will lead to the fact that the US allies will start to “run away” from where to where – some will turn to face Russia, others to China. Because who wants to lose profit because of the desire of the weakening US to prove something to China? We were friends with the United States only as long as they were strong.
Finally, the most valuable asset that the US still has – the dollar-will lose its status. Who would want the currency of a country whose economy would collapse like a house of cards in the event of a real conflict with China?
So it turns out that in the event of such a conflict, the United States loses everything – the dollar, production, allies, hegemony, goods on the shelves of its stores, and ultimately its country. We survived the 90’s, and the Americans are left without iPhones, grandeur and toilet paper, it is unlikely to endure.
China, of course, will also suffer some losses. Especially in technology, because many Chinese products are just copies of Western ones. But in recent years, the Chinese have also learned to develop their own technologies, so they will somehow adapt. And if something goes wrong, they have nuclear weapons, the use of which will cause unacceptable damage to the United States. That’s why Blinken called it a disaster.
And a comment from <redacted>
I loved reading this. -MM
That’s gigantic news !
The KFC-AZAEL (Kakistocratic Feudal Conglomerate of the Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment) knows that their window of opportunity is narrowing or even closing. Now that their clumsy & laughable maneuvers to destroy the Sino-Russian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for a New Era obviously failed, they’ll have to do something big and probably utterly stupid. Two years ago, I still thought the window of opportunity for them is about a decade… Of course, I might have been brainwashed by the ravings of Stratfor (“Strategic forecast” & al) “predicting” or rather “predictively programming” people to believe that World War III will most probably happen in the 2030s…
But now, it’s not far-fetched to say it’s in the order of 2-3 years, 5 years max. After that, the process of Integration of the World Island will simply be too relentless to do anything humanly conceivable to stop it. Even now, I dare say it’s too late for the KFC-AZAEL. Xinjiang is perfectly under control, their little terrorists have been neutered.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has a permanent RATS (Regional Anti-Terrorists Structure) Executive Committee based in Tashkent. The Air Base just north of Kabul abandoned by the US since August 15 this year. Power of Siberia 2 going through Mongolia as the Chinese wanted to keep the Mongols interested by what the SCO can offer them, is there to stay. Russia & India will from now on settle their commerce in rubles and rupees. Russia & China in rubles and yuan (renminbi, RMB). The Russian SPFS (System for Transfert of Financial Messages) & the Chinese CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) will replace the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) if needed. Under the aegis of President Hu Jintao & President Xi Jinping, the Chinese decapitated the CIA network in Mainland China between 2010 and 2015 essentially. Peace is restored in Hong-Kong since the Law on National Security (July 2020), the color Revolution (Yellow Umbrella) an utter failure.
THAT CHINA COULD ATTEMPT SOMETHING IN THE NEXT WEEKS/MONTHS IS NOT FAR-FETCHED GIVEN THE INTERNATIONAL LANDSCAPE AND BOTH THE RUSSIAN AND THE CHINESE LEADERSHIPS CONCLUDED THAT THEY CAN NO LONGER SEE THE PEOPLE IN D.C. AS HONORABLE RATIONAL AGENTS AND IT’S TIME TO ACT.
And I strongly suggest that this time, the Russian & Chinese moves are coordinated even if there are no glaring signs. Putin & Xi talked on December 15 as everyone in this group knows… They will talk again in person, face to face, in about 5 weeks and nothing prevents them to talk by phone meantime. I wish the KFC-AZAEL is mad enough to start a suicidal double move on Ukraine & Taiwan…It would be a dazzling “SUEZ MOMENT” for all to watch…
Ushakov & Ryabkov from the Russian MOFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) were quite assertive in their speeches to NATO on RUSSIAN RED LINES. They are fed up, they are autonomous for food, they have the Asian market for oil and gas, they have hypersonic weapons & the unwavering and enlightened Chinese backing.
China, usually so “sotto voce” in the international landscape, declared firmly & clearly that Russia has her support for Ukraine & the gas imbroglio with the EU or as I call them with affection, the Euro-Noodles…
Yes, Blinken is right to say that the conflict with China is a disaster and the article elaborating on it is crystal clear with the facts it offered. The US recent!y went back on the diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games and asked for 40 visas instead of 18 for US officials (diplomatic farce or plans of sabotage once in China?)
I believe our distinguished colleague Metallic Man was in the right when he wrote so precisely on the attempts to destroy China by multiple pathogens attacks during the last 4 to 5 years. BUT WHY CAN’T THEY OFFER SOMETHING A LITTLE BIT RATIONAL IN ORDER TO IMPROVE THINGS ??? WELL, OLD HABITS DIE HARD… Too simplistic an explanation ? Maybe not so simplistic but at the heart of plutocratic/oligarchical/closed mindset…
People having bullied without any consequences the weak, the poor and the downtrodden for centuries cannot TRULY IMAGINE they might lose this time. It’s not wired in their brains. PSYCHOPATHS HAVE DIFFERENTS BRAINS (ANATOMICALLY AT THE MICROSCOPIC LEVEL AND PHYSIOLOGICALLY) in term of emotivo-rational integration for decision-making and action compared to the normal people, so they’re much more prone to stay in their usual ruts than the average man and will NOT take note of the danger signals. I imagine Putin & Xi scratching their heads and asking to themselves, what to do and with the least “collateral damages” possible on the global stage ?
Just read History, dying empires always fell into the trap of hubris & over-reach and the rest is…History…
Sometimes, taking into account the decisions coming from the US government, in my feverish imagination & wishful thinking, I fantasize some Chinese agents must be present at the White House…
The easiest and most probable explanation for me can be given in one word : HUBRIS.
SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK ” THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT” IS STILL A REALITY.
And let’s not forget this lesson coming from the Ancient Greeks :
WHOM THE GODS WANT TO DESTROY, THEY FIRST MADE MAD…
The KFC-AZAEL wants a New World Order ? A Reset ? They will get one but maybe not the one they wished for…
But, as they say in French : l’homme propose & Dieu dispose…
Qui vivra verra…
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.
As a student of history, I am amazed at how story after story repeats itself over and over and over. One of the themes that seems to be prevalent is the idea that one can be safe and secure behind high wall, moats, oceans, or huge enormous military forces. It isn’t true. History has shown time and time again, that what you think is your greatest invincibility, is actually your greatest weakness. Who am I referring to? Why the United States. Of course!
It’s an especially dumb day for anti-China propaganda. The Biden administration has imposed trade restrictions on 34 Chinese institutions on the unsubstantiated allegation that they are developing “brain control weaponry“, a claim the mass media have been all too happy to uncritically pass on to the public. Between that and the ridiculous reporting on Russian Havana Syndrome ray guns it’s like they’re literally trying to get everyone to wear tinfoil hats.
Then there’s the Tucker Carlson guest who just told Carlson’s massive audience that the US military needs to be full of “Type A men who want to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls.” It’s highly disturbing how much the mass media have been talking about war with China like it’s a foregone conclusion lately, almost as though they’re working to normalize that horrifying idea.
There’s also this new article for The Hill, hilariously titled “‘Allies’ China and Russia are ganging up on America”, about how the poor widdle US empire is being bullied by mean old Xi and Putin’s increasingly tight-knit collaboration. It is authored by Gordon Chang, who has been wrongly predicting the imminent collapse of China for decades, and is plainly absurd because the Moscow-Beijing alignment is in reality nothing other than the natural consequence of two nations realizing the need to work together against the globe-spanning power structure that is trying to bully them into submission.
The US military budget has once again increased despite the US ending a war this year, and despite its facing no real threats from any nation to its easily-defended shores. The increase has been largely justified by the need to “counter China” and includes billions in funding for the ongoing construction of long-range missile systems on the first island chain near the Chinese mainland, explicitly for the purpose of threatening China. One need only imagine what would happen if China began constructing a chain of long-range missile systems off a US coastline to understand who the actual aggressor is between these two powers.
-Caitlin Johnstone
The United States
For the last two centuries, America has been considered invincible. It was surround by the enormous “moats” of the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, a formidable military, and a manufacturing capability that was (by far) better than any other nation in the world. It’s people were robust and willing to fight for their nations, and the nations to the North and South were mere client surrogates. They were willing to do whatever the United States said.
Many inside America still believe this. They still believe that this is still the case.
They are WRONG.
Times have changed.
They believe this myth; That the United States can bomb the Dejesus out of any nation it likes, and will suffer zero consequences of it. Whether it is Syria, Iraq, Liberia, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, or even now the Ukraine or Taiwan. And no one will fight back at the American homeland. No one will attack back. At worst, maybe an improvised munition on the road or a burst or two from a cheaply made AK-47.
Nothing to worry about!
And I am here to tell you that the NEXT war will be on American soil. It is engineered that way. And it’s going to hurt. Really, really, bad.
Let me tell you a history story.
Did you know that there was once a great nation the size of America that existed after the fall of Rome. And no, I’m not talking about the British Empire. I am talking about the Abbasid Caliphate.
The Mongol conquest of the Abbasid Caliphate culminated in the horrific sack of Baghdad that effectively ended the Islamic Golden Age.
The Abbasid Caliphate is roughly the same size as the United States today.
The Islamic Golden Age—from the 8th to the mid-13th century—was one of the greatest periods of human flourishment in knowledge and progress, with Baghdad as its focal point.
Just like America.
A truly global repository of human knowledge, this Arab-Muslim imperial capital also welcomed—indeed encouraged—scholars from across the known world.
Just like America.
As its wealth and fame grew, more and more scholars and engineers were drawn to the city from all over civilization.
Just like America.
But in January 1258, a vast Mongol army reached the city’s perimeter and demanded that the caliph—al-Musta’sim, the nominal spiritual authority of the Islamic world—surrender.
History of Baghdad: The Greatest City in the World
If you can imagine the shock waves, were Washington DC razed to the ground tomorrow, you’d be getting close to the horror that was about to accompany the Sack of Baghdad in 1258.
Founded 500 years earlier, Baghdad’s population had reached one million within a century, making it the world’s largest, most prosperous, and celebrated city.
If one thinks of London in 1897—the year when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee—the English city on the Thames was by then the largest and most important city on earth. In 1897, London was peerless in the world, with nowhere else coming close to matching its power and influence. It was the capital, and the fulcrum, of the British Empire.
If you can imagine the shock waves, were London razed to the ground tomorrow, you would be close to the horror that was about to accompany the Sack of Baghdad in 1258.
This is a transcript from the video series Turning Points in Middle Eastern History. Watch it now, Wondrium.
A Devastating Moment in History for Muslims in the Middle East
For many historians, the arrival of the Mongols into the heart of the Muslim faith and empire is the single most devastating moment in the history of the Muslim Middle East.
It’s easy to see why—and hard to argue otherwise—because the Sack of Baghdad would mark the end of the Islamic Golden Age.
Rather than submit, the Abbasid caliph challenged the Mongols to attempt to storm his city, if they dared.
The nomadic army from Asia—led by Hulagu Khan, one of Genghis Khan’s grandsons—did indeed dare.
Doing what they are most famous for, the Mongols thrashed Baghdad.
In 10 days of unremitting violence and destruction, Baghdad and its inhabitants were completely and utterly vanquished.
Almost without exception, the population was either put to the sword or sold into slavery.
The River Tigris ran red—to cite one of the most over-quoted, and overwrought phrases in history—with the blood of slaughtered men, women, and children.
After this, every building of note in Baghdad—including mosques, palaces, and markets—was utterly destroyed, among them the world-famous House of Wisdom.
Hundreds of thousands of priceless manuscripts and books were tossed into the river, clogging the arterial waterway with so many texts, according to eyewitnesses, that soldiers could ride on horseback from one side to the other.
Of course, the river turned from red to black with ink.
Who Were the Mongols?
The Sack of Baghdad fits, like a hinge, almost exactly in the middle of two defining dates in the history of Islam, from the founding of the faith in the year 622 to the end of the last caliphate in 1924.
Even by the standards of the day, the destruction was shocking, and the results long-lasting, if not permanent.
The Mongols’ name during this period in history was a byword for destruction.
Who were they and where did they come from?
Is there any reason to think that they were any more destructive than other peoples at the time?
The Mongols, an ethnic group, originating in north and central Asia, were typically pastoral peoples, whose nomadic lifestyle inevitably brought them into conflict with more settled populations.
Probably the best example of how settled peoples tried to restrict their otherwise free movement is the Great Wall of China. The wall was essentially built to hold back incursions of their Mongolian neighbors to the north.
This preference for nomadism over a settled existence is central to the view of the Mongols as especially destructive.
As one writer put it, while Muslims built cities—Baghdad and Cairo, for example—Mongols destroyed them. Does this mean that the Mongols were inherently more ruthless or violent than Muslims or crusading Christians? Not necessarily. Rather, it shows that their priority, in terms of conquest, was for land, for grazing—for space even—rather than for cities and confinement.
As one writer put it, while Muslims built cities—Baghdad and Cairo, for example—Mongols destroyed them.
One thing that came out of the Mongols’ lack of interest in seizing cities was their enhanced mobility.
Often living on a diet of mare’s milk—or blood, if the mares were not lactating—Mongol custom meant that they never washed their clothes. This, along with a heavy fat diet—both milk and meat—no doubt accounted for the Mongols’ reputation as a very smelly, as well as scary, foe.
The Fierce Mongol Warriors
Contemporary chroniclers tell us that Mongol warriors were most comfortable in the saddle, literally, it seems.
If they had to move more than a hundred yards, or so, they’d jump on a horse and ride. Also, all warriors owned numerous mounts, allowing them to cover larger distances than more traditional cavalry found in the Near East and Europe. While they rode light into battle, the Mongols used harnessed oxen to pull their heavier and more cumbersome possessions from place to place.
An important facet of the Mongol way of war and conquest was their use of terror as a tactic. The banging of metal pots and the rattling of bells was the usual way of announcing the start of a battle. This created such a din that defenders of a city under siege would find it almost impossible to hear their officers’ commands.
Whenever they entered new territory, the Mongols would offer the local rulers an opportunity to surrender. But in the language of many a salesman, this was a one-time offer.
For those foolish enough not to surrender immediately, conquest and destruction without quarter would be their lot, and the people of Baghdad knew this.
Setting the Scene for Catastrophe Before the Sack of Baghdad
In 1206, just 52 years before the Sack of Baghdad, the Mongol Empire was formed and led by the legendary Genghis Khan.
Khan is originally a Mongolian word that means military leader, or sovereign, a king, in English. Being accepted as the Great Khan effectively elevated Genghis to the status of an emperor. His grandsons now ruled the Mongolian Empire.
In addition to Hulagu Khan, who led the attack against Baghdad, there was Kublai Khan, conqueror of China, and Mongke Khan, who became the Great Khan and sent his brother Hulagu to Baghdad.
Hulagu marched at the head of perhaps the largest Mongolian army ever assembled, consisting of as many as 150,000 troops, with Baghdad one of several goals for this mission. First, Hulagu was told to subdue southern Iran, which he did.
Next, he was to destroy the infamous Assassins.
A breakaway Nizari-Ismaili-Shia sect, founded in the 11th century, the Assassins had achieved infamy for the political assassinations—hence, the term we use today—carried out by certain of their number.
Although it was known that the Assassins were based at the castle of Alamut in northwestern Iran, many of their adversaries thought they were somehow invincible because of the stealth they typically employed.
Hulagu Khan proved this was not the case.
After destroying the Assassins and their castle fortress at Alamut, Baghdad was the next stop on his list.
The majority of Hulagu Khan’s men were Mongolian warriors, but the force also contained Christians, including soldiers led by the king of Armenia, Frankish Crusaders from the Principality of Antioch, and Georgians.
The majority of Hulagu Khan’s men were Mongolian warriors, but the force also contained Christians, including soldiers led by the king of Armenia, Frankish Crusaders from the Principality of Antioch, and Georgians. There were also Muslim soldiers from various Turkic and Persian tribes, and 1,000 Chinese engineers—artillery specialists, who were always in demand when the need arose to reduce walls to rubble.
The Abbasid Caliphate
The Abbasids—the third Islamic caliphate to rule the Muslim Middle East since the death of Muhammad—had risen to power in 750, after overthrowing their rivals, the Damascus-based Umayyads.
Taking their name from one of Muhammad’s uncles, Abbas, the Abbasids quickly took control of almost all Umayyad lands, and so found themselves ruling over an enormous empire that covered the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, Syria, Iraq, Persia and beyond to modern Afghanistan.
A new Abbasid caliphate deserved a new capital, which they established in Baghdad, in 762, and immediately built it into an imperial city worthy of their greatness.
A new Abbasid caliphate deserved a new capital, which they established in Baghdad, in 762, and immediately built it into an imperial city worthy of their greatness.
Within a couple of generations, Baghdad had attracted some of the world’s greatest scholars.
Alongside Persian scholarship and cultural traditions—and Arab authority—one saw people from other parts of Asia, Europe, and Africa. Numerous Jews and Christians also pursued studies there.
Baghdad: A City of Learning
Among innumerable libraries and other centers of learning in ancient Baghdad, the greatest of them all was founded by the early Abbasid caliphs.
Called the Bayt al-Hikma—or House of Wisdom—this was the place that the best scholars and professors aspired to reach—not just Muslims from the Islamic world.
Imagine if you will, all of America’s Ivy League Colleges rolled into one; add to those the science and technological power of Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Stanford, and Berkley, then add Oxford and Cambridge to the mix, and the world’s great non-English-speaking universities. It comes close to what the House of Wisdom was like—except it was even more influential.
Imagine if you will all of America’s Ivy League Colleges rolled into one; add to those the science and technological power of Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Stanford, and Berkley, then add Oxford and Cambridge to the mix, and the world’s great non-English-speaking universities. It comes close to what the House of Wisdom was like—except it was even more influential.
There were two distinct sides to scholarship in Baghdad. One was translation work, with texts from India, Persia, and Greece gathered in huge numbers.
Texts originally composed in Persian, Sanskrit, Greek, Syriac, and Chinese were all eagerly rendered into Arabic.
Combined with this extensive translation work, however, was a wealth of original scholarship, funded and encouraged by the caliphs.
The arts and sciences alike were covered, so that advances were made in almost every imaginable subject, including mathematics, medicine, astronomy, physics, cartography, zoology, and poetry.
A Weak-Willed Caliph in Thirteenth-Century Baghdad
In the year 1242, al-Musta’sim became the 37th caliph in the Abbasid line. Baghdad’s glory days were behind it.
By this stage, the Abbasid caliphs were largely figureheads, propped up by outside forces.
The Abbasid caliphs were largely figureheads, propped up by outside forces.
If they were important at all, it was as the inheritors of Islamic orthodoxy and as beacons of cultural greatness, but not as a political power to be obeyed nor a military force to be feared.
Indeed, the Abbasids already were in the habit of paying an annual tribute to the Mongols. Despite this, the city was still large and prosperous.
A weak-willed, even dissolute character, al-Musta’sim was happier hanging out with musicians and drinking wine than he was ruling…
Alas for Baghdad, the court of history doesn’t rate the caliph as the greatest of his line.
A weak-willed, even dissolute character, al-Musta’sim was happier hanging out with musicians and drinking wine than he was ruling an already weakened empire.
At this stage the leadership had taken to parties and image creation, not any actual ruling roles.
In 1251, the Abbasids sent a delegation to pay homage on the coronation of Hulagu’s brother, Mongke, when he became the Great Khan, but this was no longer considered enough.
Mongols Demand Submission by Abbasid Caliph al-Mustasim
Mongke insisted that the Abbasid Caliph al-Musta’sim come in person to Karakorum, the 13th century capital of the Mongol Empire, in the north of modern Mongolia, to fully submit to Mongol rule.
The Caliph al-Musta’sim refused to do so.
The final showdown between the Mongols and the Abbasids was set.
The final showdown between the Mongols and the Abbasids was set.
With the Mongol horde marching on Baghdad, a clash was inevitable, although this wouldn’t be the first encounter between the Abbasids and the Mongols.
In the recent past, the Abbasids had managed a couple of small-scale military victories against Mongol forces.
China’s first big-deck amphibious assault ship, a huge vessel that was built in a miraculously short amount of time, caught fire on Saturday, April 11th, 2020. Photos and video showing the ship billowing large clouds of black smoke hit Chinese social media earlier in the day. The warship, which is the first of the new Type 075 class, was resting alongside the pier at its birthplace, Hudong–Zhonghua Shipbuilding in Shanghai, when the blaze broke out.
However, these were soon overturned and weren’t part of any trend of a militarily resurgent Abbasid Empire.
July 24, 2020. Navy officials said the fire aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship undergoing maintenance and upgrades at a port in San Diego, was put out last Thursday. Reaching temperatures up to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit (about 650 degrees Celsius), it melted aluminum and incinerated wiring, plastics and combustibles like drywall, bedding and office supplies, while filling the 850-foot (260-meter) vessel with thick smoke. The ship was gutted, and hauled off to the scrap yard.
Their days of martial glory were long gone.
Adding fuel to the fire, al-Musta’sim is said to have slighted Shia Muslims by various acts and decrees.
He should have known better, as his grand vizier, or senior advisor, was himself a Shia Muslim.
This vizier is said to have sided with the Mongols, encouraging their takeover of the city, perhaps imagining that he’d be given control of Baghdad by a grateful Hulagu.
If this is what he thought, he didn’t know anything about Hulagu.
A Difficult Decision for the Caliph to Surrender to the Mongols
The caliph was faced with a choice between surrendering to the Mongol leader and presumably saving his city, or building up his army, and riding out to meet the invading warriors in combat.
It likely never crossed the caliph’s mind that he should probably surrender rather than send threats to Hulagu.
Al-Musta’sim discovered a third option: Doing nothing.
Baghdad was surrounded, and al-Musta’sim realized too late that the Mongol army was far larger and stronger than he’d been told.
The rest of the Muslim world wasn’t about to rush to his rescue either.
President Joe Biden on Thursday opened the first White House Summit for Democracy by sounding an alarm about a global slide for democratic institutions and called for world leaders to “lock arms” and demonstrate democracies can deliver. Biden called it a critical moment for fellow leaders to redouble their efforts to bolster democracies. In making the case for action, he noted his own battle to win passage of voting rights legislation at home and alluded to challenges to America’s democratic institutions and traditions. “This is an urgent matter,” Biden said in remarks to open the two-day virtual summit. “The data we’re seeing is largely pointing in the wrong direction.”
The siege of Baghdad began on January 29, 1258.
The Mongols quickly built a palisade and ditch and brought siege engines, such as covered battering rams that protected their men from the defenders’ arrows and other missiles, and catapults to attack the city’s walls.
At this stage, al-Musta’sim made a last-ditch attempt to negotiate with Hulagu and was rebuffed.
Al-Musta’sim surrendered Baghdad to Hulagu five days later, on February 10.
Adding to the distress of those inside the city, Hulagu and his horde didn’t make any attempt to enter the city for three days.
The stress must have been awful.
A Glimmer of Compassion for Baghdad Christians
Late in life, Hulagu became a Buddhist.
At this moment, however, the only sign of compassion he showed was towards Baghdad’s Nestorian Christian community.
Nestorianism was a form of Christianity that church authorities had declared heretical in the 5th century.
It stressed that the divine and human aspects of Jesus’s nature were separate.
Many Nestorians had moved to Persia, where they’d lived ever since.
Hulagu, upon entering Baghdad, told the Nestorians to lock themselves in their church and ordered his men not to touch them.
What was the reason for this act of kindness before the bloodbath that was to follow?
Simply that Hulagu’s mother and his favorite wife were both Nestorian Christians.
Mongols Execute Baghdad Notables
About 3,000 of Baghdad’s notables—including officials, members of the Abbasid family, and the caliph himself—pleaded for clemency. But all 3,000 were put to death without compunction…
With the Nestorians secure, Hulagu allowed his army an unfettered week of rape, pillage, and murder to celebrate their victory.
About 3,000 of Baghdad’s notables—including officials, members of the Abbasid family, and the caliph himself—pleaded for clemency.
But all 3,000 were put to death without compunction; all, that is, except for the caliph. He was held prisoner for a little while longer, perhaps in part so that he could see the full extent of what befell his capital.
Estimates of the death toll range from 90,000 at the lowest end to one million at the other. Apart from being a conveniently round number, the population of Baghdad was around a million, and the historical record tells us not everyone was killed.
Whatever the actual number, it included the army that had dared resist Hulagu’s advance, and the civilians, who had no choice either way.
Men, women, and children down to babes in arms were put to the sword or clubbed to death. Little mercy was shown unless it was of a quick rather than a lingering death.
Death of a Caliph
The Caliph al-Musta’sim was forced to watch these murders and the plundering of his treasury and palaces. Hulagu taunted him that, with so much gold and so many jewels, he’d have been better off spending some of these riches on building up a bigger army.
As for how the caliph met his end, one account says he was locked in his treasury, surrounded by his wealth, and left alone to starve to death. As colorful as this account is, it doesn’t sound likely, given the widespread looting that took place, nor is it corroborated by any sources.
A more plausible account, as reported by several chroniclers, goes like this: Hulagu had been warned by his astronomers that royal blood shouldn’t be spilled onto the earth. If it were, the earth would reject it, and earthquakes and natural destruction would follow.
If we consider his record, one might not think Hulagu an especially cautious man. However, in this case, he plotted the safer course.
The caliph was rolled in carpets, which would catch any blood spilled, and then he was trampled to death by his own cavalry. Obviously upset at the foolishness and idiocy of their own leadership.
For the first time since the death of Muhammad, 636 years earlier, Islam had no Caliph whose name could be quoted in Friday prayers.
Destruction of the City of Baghdad
If you’re looking for an example of a city razed to the ground, Baghdad in 1258 would be a good choice.
Apart from the human casualties, there was the destruction of the 500-year old city itself. Fires were set so that the fragrant scent of sandalwood and other aromatics was smelled up to 30 miles away. If you’re looking for an example of a city razed to the ground, Baghdad in 1258 would be a good choice. After a week, Hulagu ordered his camp out of the city, and moved upwind, away from the stench of rotting corpses.
Hulagu left Baghdad a broken and depopulated city.
Even if those left alive had wanted to rebuild, they lacked the numbers, the resources, and the skills to do so. The death and destruction were such that it would be more than a decade before anyone from Baghdad performed the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
In attacking Baghdad, Hulagu also destroyed the network of canals that irrigated the arable land thereabouts. Famine and plague followed the Mongol horde to Baghdad as elsewhere. Their scorched-earth tactics make it easy to see why they’re often tagged with a reputation as the most destructive of all the great empires.
The United States will be sacked and burned to the ground because the American leadership refuses to coexist on equal terms with the rest of the world.
The United States will be broken up into smaller "nations" and each one will possess a new form of governance. No thread of the failed American "democracy" will endure.
Conclusion
Today, the United States is no longer geographically isolated and protected. The huge distances between their “targeted enemies” no longer makes an difference. No longer can leadership in Washington DC order attacks against Asia and believe in absolute confidence that their offices, their homes, and their daily routines will continue as always.
No longer an the United States have staff sitting inside military bases in safety while they direct remote drone strikes by robot. In the future, they will be pulverized into oblivion.
Chinese hyper-velocity missile.
What we are witnessing today is the same exact ignorance and ego of the leadership of the United States what we saw with the Abbasid Caliphate, and I argue that it’s destruction will be just as harsh, and just as long lasting.
While I urge pleas to everyone to stop this madness, and to step out of the “echo chambers” that they inhabit. No one is doing so. Such as this old dinosaur in Washington DC that wants to destroy China because it is using “mind control weapons” to control the American people!
China must be destroyed at all costs to preserve American supremacy!
Pretty fucking piss-poor “mind control” weapons if you ask me. Most of America can’t wait to bomb China into dust.
And you all know, the fear-mongering that is raising the fears of Americans isn’t doing much else. China and Russia are plowing ahead. Just like the Mongols did. They know that they are in a position of superiority. And whether it happens today, or in five years, thefuture of America depends on it’s leadership.
How do you think they are going to handle this historical moment?
The DF-17 has amazed American military analysis. From being completely unknown, to full massive production and operational deployment of DF-17 hyper-velocity nuclear missiles.
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.
Have you guys ever seen the pomp and ceremony that constitutes the army and military of Pakistan? Well you should. It’s a sight to behold. Here, we take a moment to watch some videos of the Pakistani military doing various things. I have found it very interesting. I hope that you do as well.
It’s not what you would think, and it looks like they are making things much more involved and difficult than they need to. But, perhaps that’s their culture. Don’t you know.
Watching the military conduct their procedures and maneuvers is far better than fighting them in a war. Don’t you think? What ever you might think of this bit and their actions, know that when it comes to fighting and using their weapons, they are nothing to take for granted. They are quite capable and serious. And I for one, applaud them.
I hope that you enjoyed this little glimpse at the nation wedged between India and Afghanistan.
Oh, and one more thing…
Be the Rufus
Here’s a compilation of videos where everyday people, show their appreciation to others. Mostly teachers, janitors, cooks, beggars, drivers, lorry-men, and so forth. Video 60MB
Do you want more?
I have more posts like this in my Happiness Index here…
Every now and then, you come across an article that resonates. Not from some unknown blogger who writes about his opinions after reading the “news”, but a thoughtful article by an experienced professional discussing a subject that he knows well. And so when I came across this work, I just had to reproduce it here on MM..Granted, his title sucks. But the content is gold. All credit to him and the source found HERE..
By Byron King
“It Failed Miserably” – What If the US Lost a War and Nobody Noticed?
I have a friend who teaches at the university level — at a U.S. service academy, no less.
The other day he was running a class and posed a short (but profound) question to a group of students. Namely, what was the most recent strategic disaster suffered by the U.S. military?
“Blank expressions,” noted my friend.
After a period of time, one student offered an answer… “Afghanistan?” (And yes, the student’s answer was in the form of a question.)
Dutifully, my professor-friend led the students in a discussion of what happened in a war that began before they were born and whose outcomes will affect them for the rest of their lives.
There’s a Whiskey tale to tell just based on this anecdote alone.
But wait, there’s more!
Because America’s loss in Afghanistan has already been overshadowed.
Indeed, the U.S. military has suffered an even greater strategic disaster than Afghanistan: an epic military defeat that already occurred, and you likely don’t know a thing about it.
I’ll skip to the takeaway here.
The U.S. should refrain from fighting the next war because we’ve already lost, long before even one shot has been fired.
The source for this ultra-defeatist news is not just a teacher at a sailor’s college, sited on a salty bay. No, the source is no less than a serving, 4-star general whose job title is Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Let’s dig in…
Here’s the long and short. The U.S. military conducted a major wargame last fall and “it failed miserably,” said U.S. Air Force Gen. John Hyten earlier this week.
Hyten spoke at a conference sponsored by the Emerging Technologies Institute. It’s a think tank run by the National Defense Industrial Association, an industry group focused on military modernization. (You can watch it on YouTube here, about an hour and 18 minutes.)
“An aggressive red team that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years just ran rings around us,” he said. “They knew exactly what we’re going to do before we did it.”
According to a Pentagon spokesperson, one key scenario of this wargame involved U.S. forces battling with China over Taiwan. From Hyten’s summary, U.S. forces became sitting ducks and were destroyed piecemeal and systematically.
The overarching problem was, basically, everything.
It’s all fucked
That is, the problem for the U.S. was far beyond the shortcomings of any particular piece of equipment, or ship or airplane, let alone the willingness of U.S. and allied troops to fight. No, the issue was the very essence of how the U.S. military forms strategic concepts and conducts operations.
In other words, the problem was the entire belief system, architecture and construction of the Pentagon way of doing things — and certainly of waging war. By extension, it’s a political problem too, as we’ll address below.
“We always aggregate to fight, and aggregate to survive,” said Hyten.
That is, the U.S. military is built around massing people, equipment and munitions. Build up a huge complex of firepower. Then add massive levels of intelligence information, command and control, and targeting data to, as the saying goes, “take it downrange.”
This has been the U.S. approach to warfighting since World War II, with many of the roots extending back to the Civil War.
The war game fiasco
Per Hyten, in last fall’s war game, “We basically attempted an information-dominance structure, where information was ubiquitous to our forces. Just like it was in the first Gulf War, just like it has been for the last 20 years, just like everybody in the world, including China and Russia, have watched us do for the last 30 years.”
But the so-called “blue team” (meaning U.S. and allied forces) lost access to communications and data networks almost immediately. Satellites went away. Seafloor cables were cut. Bandwidth died. In general, it was impossible to utilize the electromagnetic environment, and within moments nobody could talk with anybody.
And “what happens if right from the beginning that information is not available?” asked Hyten, rhetorically. “That’s the big problem that we faced.”
According to Hyten, “in today’s world, with hypersonic missiles, with significant long-range fires coming at us from all domains, if you’re aggregated and everybody knows where you are, you’re vulnerable.”
And with an entire concept of operations poked in the proverbial eyes, red team easily defeated the blue side.
Not just a yearly exercise. It’s the planning run-on for something BIG…
Based on Hyten’s description, this wargame was not just another table-top exercise. No, this was a test of the all-up game plan for the “next” conflict, largely based on concepts of operations that have guided the American military process for three decades or more. And the outcome was a total disaster.
U.S. doctrine focuses on creating what is called a “kill box” for the opponent. But in this particular expedition, from the outset U.S. and allied forces walked into their own zones of destruction. They laid down in their own coffins, so to speak.
Opposing forces wrecked the entire complex of U.S. logistics. Rear bases came under fire, while aircraft and ships at sea were targeted by long-range missiles. There’s just no hiding anymore from people with sufficient technology to find you.
Even worse, most U.S. weapons were outranged by new systems recently deployed by China, much of it based on advanced Russian designs. It’s a long-term U.S. failure in research, development and procurement.
When the balloon went up, most U.S. forces near-immediately lost the ability to coordinate attacks and/or return fire. Much of the targeting data was worthless in any event, while systems used for aiming and guiding munitions also failed.
To the extent that communications worked at all, much of the data were corrupted or hacked.
It’s not overstating to say that, in this one wargame, far from home the U.S. lost vast numbers of people and equipment. In real world terms, think of casualty numbers in the tens of thousands. Of entire bases obliterated. Of hundreds of airplanes lost. Of dozens of ships sunk. And that’s just in the first few days.
The wargame ended with American forces defeated and devastated. U.S. allies were similarly shredded. And U.S. interests in the Western Pacific and Asia were annihilated.
Analysis
To mix a couple of metaphors, the U.S. suffered defeats in a nature that mirror a modern version of Pearl Harbor, the fall of Singapore and a saltwater Stalingrad.
And it gets worse. Because the devil is in the details, many of which have little or nothing to do with purely military matters. The downfall of American power begins at home, not far overseas.
Return to Gen. Hyten’s comment that potential adversaries have spent 30 years watching and learning from U.S. operations. Well, yes. Obviously.
Any reasonably intelligent counterparty — anyone, any country, anywhere on the face of this planet — would pay attention to what the U.S. has been doing and then figure out what to expect and how to deal with it.
Over three decades, people everywhere watched, learned, and totally went to school on the U.S. military. And it’s all because the America made a foolish political and economic choice, namely, to engage in so-called “long wars.”
And that has never been a good idea, going back to the days of Sun Tzu and before.
“Wars cost much silver,” wrote Sun Tzu in his classic book, “On War.” And of course, he meant money. But the subtleties of Sun Tzu’s writing also delve into how war affects both people and culture. Wars drive a certain negative ethic within a political system, and the longer any war lasts, the more negative is the tendency.
Meanwhile, it’s not as if America’s 30 years of war were battles of necessity. Certainly, it’s not as if the country was being invaded and overrun.
No, the three decades of war (Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden) were an era of forward presence coupled with routine military belligerence, oft to the ring of political trumpets at home.
The named wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) speak for themselves. Then there are other levels of warfare, like with Serbia, Libya and Syria, where the gunslinging showed up in a different manner, but still as destructive to entire societies.
In this sense — that sense of reaching out to bomb people far from U.S. shores — America’s long wars are not just a military issue, easily dismissed by civilians as some sort of niche problem for the Pentagon.
No, because closer to home, the long wars reveal seismic flaws in the very nature and character of U.S. governance. The long wars reveal a deep weakness in the American form of government itself.
Indeed, we’re a long way from the sage advice of President John Quincy Adams, that “Americans should not go abroad to slay dragons they do not understand in the name of spreading democracy.”
And look at it this way. It’s not as if the U.S. ever had a series of national referenda on 30 years of continuous warfare. In fact, the past three decades of war overseas were based on the geopolitical ideas of a relatively small, self-perpetuating cabal of elite elected players and policy wonks, in Washington and various brain-tanks. Many familiar names, to be sure.
Abysmal strategic ignorance and lack of conscience.
Through it all, as well, Congress (and the courts too) showed abysmal strategic ignorance and lack of conscience. Because evidently, the country’s voters place many truly wrong people into important positions.
Consider one key episode, the 9/11 attacks and attendant national outrage.
No doubt, for America 9/11 was the source of a widespread, limbic-level sense of wanting to go somewhere and totally smash things up. That’s entirely understandable. And in that sense, America’s attacks on Afghanistan in late 2001 should have been, at most, a punitive expedition concerning Osama bin Laden.
Instead, Afghanistan alone morphed and mission-crept into a foolish effort of so-called “nation building.” And not even the Chinese method of Belt-and-Road nation-building, with highways and power lines, etc.
No, America in Afghanistan was more of a Vietnam-redux. The idea was somehow to pacify people who didn’t want us to be there, and if that didn’t work then destroy the place in order to rebuild it. Meanwhile, one can almost hear the echoes of at least one old bromide from the 1960s, that, “If we don’t fight ‘em over there, we’ll have to fight ‘em here.”
Through it all, and again in a Vietnam-like manner, Afghanistan was not so much a 20-year war for America, as a one-year war fought 20 times by a corps of officers, senior non-commissioned officers and civilian government personnel and contractors who made careers out of it.
At the end of the day, is anyone really surprised that smart, well-resourced adversaries paid attention and came up with an entire spectrum of methods to confront U.S. warfighting?
The Next War…
Come the next real war, U.S. forces won’t own space or the skies. Won’t run the electromagnetic spectrum. Won’t have unfettered communications. Won’t control logistics. Won’t have good targeting data. Won’t have air supremacy, let alone sea supremacy or undersea dominance. And many of the expensive weapon systems simply won’t work in the degraded environment.
Apparently though, it took an internal wargame in the Department of Defense to drive home the point.
Or at least, to illustrate the problem such that no less than one of the most senior generals in the military came out of the closet to admit that America’s super-expensive military complex can’t win the next big war.
On the bright side, perhaps it’s a true wakeup call that translates to progress.
On that note, I rest my case.
That’s all for now… Thank you for subscribing and reading.
This article is saying what I have been saying for years now. America is not going to just lose a battle here, or a battle there. The entire military excursion will be a Waterloo event.
It will be the Stalingrad of all Pacific military forces.
And then, it will move to America.
China will not act alone. Russia will assist.
Then with total dominance of the air by the victorious Asian combined forces will turn all of America into a modern-day Syria. While I do not expect that China will give any mercy, they however, will realistically set up conditions where starving, armed Americans, will kill each other for moldy turnip rinds.
DF-41
And that’s only with conventional weapons.
Right now we are watching as the Pentagon experts and generals are telling the evil neocons in Washington DC to shut up.
Now, I don’t know if they will be successful…
…after all those evil psychopaths in Washington are crafty, deluded, and living in some kind of insanity (possibly drug induced) that gives this illusion of unaccountability.
Xu Guangyu, a retired major general and now a strategy researcher, said that DF-16 has a strike range of more than 1,000 kilometers, filling the gap that previously existed with the absence of a medium-range ballistic missile in the PLA’s arsenal. He said the missile also is able to reach Okinawa, a Japanese island about 400 km from China’s Diaoyu Islands. Shi Hong, executive editor of Shipborne Weapons, said the DF-16 was developed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp based on the DF-11 short-range ballistic missile and can carry a warhead of at least 500 kg. The missile has a strike accuracy as good as that of a cruise missile, Shi said. It is also able to maneuver in its final stage to penetrate enemy defensive firepower, he said.
Regardless to what those evil psychopathic war-monsters want, I can well imagine that a repeat of what happened last year in 2020.
This was when Trump ordered the Naval Armada to the South China Sea. Eight assault carrier steamed to China. They were intended to seize some outlying Chinese held islands in the inner island defensive chain.
But you know, nothing happened.
The commanders refused. They steamed home, and President Trump fired the leadership.
Again, we can expect, that reasonable leadership will refuse to engage either China or Russia or both.
They will refuse.
Just like late Summer 2020. And the sitting American President will fire his military staff for refusing to die.
The Chinese are subtle.
They speak softly and kindly and carefully.
During the “heat” of the anti Uighur Muslim “issue”, China responded with a video. It is below. Pay attention to the array of messages that are subtly embedded within it.
The video below is an Army unit located in Xingjiang to defend against insurgency movements by the United States to block the BRI.
If you note, those are not SCUD missiles. Aside from a host of Medium Range ballistic missiles (DF-21 and DF-26), and if you look carefully, the DF-5C, additionally there are also DF-31A and DF-41 weapons presented as part of the defensive force.
What is China trying to say?
Along with the destruction of nearby military bases, will be the simultaneous destruction of major American cities. These missiles are long range city-flatteners.
Look at the MESSAGE that China is telegraphing.
Those are nuclear (and neutron bomb) MIRV, hyper-velocity, (with artificial intelligence), long-range, ICBMs. the DF-31A is capable of hitting every major American city on the West Coast. These are latest generation, decades ahead of America, nuclear missiles that America has no defense against.
If you start moving military against China, China will devastate the American heartland. Any surviving leadership will have to hide in the impoverished American ghettos to avoid the nuclear carpet bombing that will result.
The Chinese do not play.
A final comment
Chinese media has announced (last month), ever since the US pulled that aircraft landing stunt in Taiwan, that not only are military units fully armed with real munitions, and everything (EVERYTHING!) is out of storage, but they fly and run “HOT”.
There’s a high probably the next US / UK provocation will result in “accidental” deaths.
Nothing quite ruins your day like global thermonuclear war. Especially when you are on the losing side.
In America, it’s no longer an issue of “one day the common many will rise up against the evil leadership”.
Ai! It has become something else.
It has become “we need to hang these Washington DC bastards before they get everyone killed.”
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.
If you read any of the Western press (most UK or American) you will get a really distorted view about Hong Kong, and China. You will read things, so many things, that you will just “take in” as truth, and without a secondary source of information, you will start to believe it. And that’s how the “West” works. You keep people stupid and ignorant, and manipulate them in such a way that they “dance” to whatever tune you play.
I have been (by chance) reading some articles out of Hong Kong ( I mean, after all, I live next door to it.) and they (the articles) are very interesting in how illustrative they are to the amazing levels of disinformation pumped out of America and Britain over the last few decades.
All lies. All disinformation. All manipulation.
All the time.
We start with Billionaire Tycoon Jimmy Lai. And if you read the American (and British press) you might picture him as a freedom lover for democracy, and a fighter for justice and the “American way of life”.
Not even remotely true. He’s actually sort of like a Chinese version of Larry Flint, with the behavior of Harvey Weinstein , and the scruples of Hillary Clinton.
Here is a great article. Found HERE. It discusses Jimmy Lai’s “operation” in Hong Kong…
Fun fact:
For a newspaper with only 86,000 subscribers. He was mysteriously making HK$95 million every month (12.23 million US Dollars).
Every time the HK government tried to audit him, a massive onslaught of anti-HK government protests, media, and assaults from both the USA and the UK stopped the effort. On numerous occasions, the UK and US government "stepped in" and put pressure on HK to free him and stop the investigations.
But when HK passed the insurrection law in 2020, his "operations" were investigated and it turns out that he was laundering enormous sums of cash directly out of the United States government for undisclosed purposes.
FIRST, LET’S LOOK AT the numbers which are being omitted in reports about the closure of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper.
NOT BREAKFAST READING
1) Apple Daily printed 86,000 copies a day, which meant that 98.5 PER CENT of Hong Kong’s 6,500,000 adults did NOT buy it with their breakfast noodles.
SIMPLE DECEPTION
2) The Western media is reporting that it was “Hong Kong’s biggest newspaper”. No. Not remotely true. Hong Kong’s most popular newspaper is free tabloid Headline Daily (1,012,000 a day, or more than ten times Apple’s circulation), and in the paid broadsheet category, leaders include Oriental Daily News (530,000 a day), and Sing Tao Daily (253,000 a day).
Hong Kong has always had a hunger for newspapers, and the mainstream voice has always been far, far more popular than Jimmy Lai’s one. That was true in the British era, and is true today, with the same newspaper groups at the top of the pile.
THE BIG STORY IN MEDIA
3) Maybe Jimmy Lai’s paper was top of the web charts? No. Alexa rankings for Hong Kong show HK01.com, Bastillepost and other online media far ahead of Apple Daily (and the fact that Hong Kongers visit mainland China shopping site Taobao significantly more than any local media site should tell us something).
HK01, in particular, has come from nowhere to dominate the local media scene. Lively, up-to-the-minute and often critical of the government, its existence and popularity gives the lie to the “press freedom is dead” trope of the Western media, and is the big story in media that foreign correspondents have all missed.
WHO CLOSED APPLE?
4) Apple Daily was not closed down by the Hong Kong government, but by its own board, comprising local people hostile to China, plus Americans.
The HK$18 million that the government froze was a small sum for a paper for a company with HK$95 million in revenues every month, financial analysts say. The paper itself boasted of having cash accounts of HK$531 million, enough to last 18 months.
In fact, the entire financial picture of the media group is an under-reported, under-studied mystery.
THE INFAMOUS NARRATIVE
5) So why did they close their own paper? As a PR coup, because they were absolutely confident that the international media, which means the Western media, would not tell the real story, but one which fits their anti-China narrative.
Oh, and also, it saves them money.
Apple Daily’s stunning lack of popularity among the good, honest, people of Hong Kong, was only eclipsed by its stunning lack of popularity among advertisers. The group has been losing more than HK$1 million a day, yes, A DAY, (which is more than US$1 million a week), amounting to several billion Hong Kong dollars over the past few years.
The paper clearly did not function commercially as a media company, so any healthily skeptical person would ask themselves: what was it for?
PRO-DEMOCRACY?
Oh, and another thing. Apple Daily wasn’t “pro-democracy” either.
But more about that later. Let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start, as the great poet Oscar Hammerstein II said.
This headline from a UK newspaper called ‘i’ (for “Independent”) shows the typically false reporting characteristic of coverage of this story
CHAPTER 1) BRUNCH AND PORNOGRAPHY
I FIRST MET Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, founder of Apple Daily, at a politician-packed brunch party in 1995. It was at the luxurious Hong Kong apartment of L. Gordon Crovitz, a senior executive for the Wall Street Journal group. His wife Minky was the perfect hostess.
Garment tycoon Lai wasn’t how I expected him to be, but I liked him. Behind his sad puppy eyes was toughness. He was in the process of launching an oppositional, China-baiting newspaper.
We all congratulated him for taking a step that was clearly brave and very likely foolhardy: he would inevitably get into trouble.
It was only after I had left that brunch party that something occurred to me: the hosts were all right wing United States people, and the invited politicians were all from the Hong Kong opposition. It was like a convention of people who didn’t like China.
MISOGYNY RULES
Over the next few years, Apple Daily carved its place in the city’s media scene over the next few years, and this reporter, like most Hong Kong people, were shocked and horrified.
Lai’s publications made a niche for themselves by taking the lowest of the low paths. There was sex and sensationalism, outrage and scandal, allegations and celebrity gossip of the tawdriest kind, and worse, pornographic stories and reviews/ critiques of sex workers and massage parlours.
This headline from a UK newspaper called ‘i’ (for “Independent”) shows the typically false reporting characteristic of coverage of this story
The Hong Kong community is a rather gentle, low-crime, conservative, majority female society, and the present portrayal of Apple Daily as the natural voice of the community was and is deeply misleading.
The paper, crude, brutal and sexist, was for men. Jimmy Lai, in a 1995 interview with the South China Morning Post, said: “Our porn page is not very well done, but we have to have it because man has basic needs.”
LOWERED STANDARDS
Other publications lowered their standards to compete, and the Hong Kong newsstands became embarrassing to walk past. Remember the “downblouse” photo of schoolgirl Alice Patten on the front page with the headline: “The peaches are ripening”?
The misogyny and cruelty to women and children were shocking, with people being hurt constantly – and discovering that the newspaper simply didn’t care.
After a few years, it felt like most people knew individuals who had been hurt by Apple Daily. The Hong Kong public preferred its traditional newspaper voice, and Jimmy Lai’s newspaper could never rise above being a minority interest, thank God.
Another Western media group gets it wrong: the information above was distributed by AFP, one of the biggest news agencies in the world.
One 1998 story, sadly typical of the paper, stuck in my mind: Apple Daily published a feature about an unbelievably crass man who apparently sought out prostitutes soon after his wife had thrown their children out of a window to their deaths before jumping after them.
The paper later admitted paying the man to pose in bed with the sex workers for the photographs, knowing that it would be the most talked-about story of the week.
The paper was in trouble with the law, usually because of contravening the rules against obscene publications, every two or three months.
FLOUTED ETHICS
It also flouted basic journalistic ethics. Chequebook journalism was the norm. In 2000, an Apple reporter received a 10-month jail sentence for bribing police officers to reveal information. In 2019, the paper was widely reported to have given HK$1.5 million to a taxi driver for video footage of a married celebrity canoodling with a woman who wasn’t his wife.
Next Digital’s Taiwan operation has been a financial disaster: picture by Solomon203/ Wikicommons
Yes, it also did some positive work, like attacking civil servants for doing their jobs badly, but those few tales became over-politicized to an extent that they were not journalism, but political campaigning for its endless pro-America, anti-China message.
Then one day, I got a call. Apple Daily senior executive Mark Simon wanted to meet me and would like to me to give them some help.
CHAPTER TWO) THE MONEY PIT
MARK SIMON, now there’s an interesting character. People were already wondering if Jimmy Lai’s right-hand man was a CIA agent, given the newspaper’s anti-China stance.
I found the notion unlikely, and not just because we were friends. He was enormous and unhealthy looking, and would be unlikely to pass the most basic fitness tests. Also, he liked the limelight too much to be an agent, although there is a sub-group of agents who do their work in the spotlight.
In a discussion on that topic, someone asked me a related question: If not an agent, was Mark Simon a CIA asset, witting or unwitting?
I gave her a reply that my father’s experiences taught me: “Sweetheart, almost every journalist in the world is a CIA asset, witting or unwitting. That’s how the Western press works.”
Another Western media group gets it wrong: the information above was distributed by AFP, one of the biggest news agencies in the world.
ANIMATED NEWS
I met Mark at a coffee shop in Kowloon’s Ho Man Tin district where he introduced me to Marina Shifrin, an American woman who had been hired to write scripts for a new “3D animated news” venture for Next Digital, the parent company of the newspaper. The operation was based in Taiwan, where the group was doing very badly.
The animations were unfunny, getting few hits and were not being widely shared. Mark wanted me to give her the key storytelling points to creating viral media. It was hard to boil down decades of experience into a short lecture, but to sum up, I told her to be authentic, funny, detached and offbeat. We swapped contact details.
I left the meeting pondering how long a principled American woman could stay at such an unprincipled company.
BIGOTRY
For Hong Kong’s majority population a significant problem was Apple Daily’s undisguised bigotry. Apple popularized the term “locusts” for people from mainland China coming to Hong Kong.
This was a horrific mistake in the eyes of this community, where many people had mainland cousins, and recognized that the city’s businesses were reliant on mainland Chinese customers.
But here was the puzzle. Despite the repulsive content, there was a rock-solid partnership between the Apple Daily crowd and American media people—and on particular, the most hawkish and right wing of people in that country.
Gordon Crovitz remained closely in the loop. Crovitz’s wife, Minky Worden, was “media advisor” to the Hong Kong opposition for several years. Mark Simon had a US Naval Intelligence background and became president of Republicans Abroad in Hong Kong.
Other media highlighted the fact that Apple-style muckraking made ordinary people feel unsafe
Other media highlighted the fact that Apple-style muckraking made ordinary people feel unsafe
HK PEOPLE GENEROUS
To combat its bad reputation for bigotry, Apple sometimes accused others of the same thing. In 2013, it ran a front-page anti-government “scoop” reporting that Executive Council member Franklin Lam, said: “I utterly discriminate against new immigrants.”
Unfortunately for the reporters, the meeting had been recorded and the tape showed that what he actually said was: “I utterly do not discriminate against new immigrants. On arrival in Hong Kong, they are legally Hong Kong citizens. They are also first-class citizens.”
The truth is that Hong Kong people are generous, and the city has an extensive program to help mainland immigrants settle in.
Jimmy Lai meets Mike Pence: picture from Mike Pence’s office
Jimmy Lai meets Mike Pence: picture from Mike Pence’s office
CHAPTER 3) UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE
The world is being told that Apple Daily is a pro-democracy paper. Let’s talk about that. In 2013 and 2014, Hong Kong civil servants announced the results of a years-long process to introduce a one-person-one-vote system to this city.
A Chinese University survey of the public showed that some 55 percent of people were in favor of proceeding with the government’s universal suffrage plan, providing that satisfaction could be achieved on the composition of the “broadly representative nominating committee”.
But Apple Daily and the more strident members of the opposition called for the whole universal suffrage package to be jettisoned, as not being sufficiently close to Western liberal democracy. (In fact, the Hong Kong system allowed direct voting for the leader, unlike UK and US systems, where you vote for parties, and the party or the electoral college appoint a leader.)
FAUX OUTRAGE
The Western media, including this reporter, who was writing op-eds for the New York Times at the time, got caught up in the faux outrage, and the path to democratic self-government that Hong Kong civil servants had taken literally years to build was demolished in a single day.
Many academics and journalists (including the present writer), later realized that we’d made a huge error, denying Hong Kong people an important chance to take the first steps towards a more democratic system.
GETTING IT RIGHT AT LAST
In Taiwan, Marina Shifrin worked until 3 o’clock in the morning and then made a video of herself holding an “I quit” sign and dancing at multiple locations in the Next Media offices.
It went viral on the internet, winning her 19 million views, plus a job offer of working in televison in the United States. She left Taiwan as fast as she could.
REVOLUTION CONSULTANTS
In late 2014, Western “revolution consultants” revealed that they had been working with Hong Kong anti-China campaigners for almost two years before the “Occupy Central” campaign shut down much of the business center.
Leaked documents revealed that Jimmy Lai was secretly handling the finances for those protests: more than HK$40 million (US$5.2 million) came from unknown sources and went to hostile groups in Hong Kong.
In one of the emails, Lai spoke scathingly about the protest leaders, saying they “could accomplish nothing if there was no help”.
MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
Hong Kong was swept by rumors, later confirmed, that the US State Department had a budget of millions to destabilize China by poisoning minds against the country in its outlying areas – Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and Mongolia.
Piece by piece, stories of unexplained payments popped up. It became clear that the cash coming through the National Endowment for Democracy was peanuts compared to money from other American sources. But it was hard to find the links between the odd bits of news that popped up.
For example, in May 2016 the Independent Commission Against Corruption highlighted an undeclared payment of HK$250,000 from Mark Simon to an opposition politician. It was not clear where the cash originated.
But by that time, observers of the Hong Kong scene noted that we very often saw the same factors coming together: Americans, mystery money, Jimmy Lai, and anti-China politicians.
AIMLESS VIOLENCE
In 2019, civil unrest again broke out and Apple Daily strongly backed the pro-independence protesters calling for Hong Kong to be “freed” from China, despite the fact that between 80 and 93 percent of Hong Kong people strongly oppose independence.
The protesters wanted Donald Trump to take Hong Kong from China, possibly the worst idea in history.
Bizarrely, Apple Daily gave the biggest encouragement to the aimlessly violent people who had no plan other than to destroy Hong Kong’s economy, close the airport, and generally cause mayhem. There was no conceivable way that the endless destruction of public facilities would lead to more democracy, as Hong Kong people pointed out repeatedly in talk shows and on social media.
Indeed, it was obvious that the process Apple Daily was encouraging could have no possible outcome except to cause Beijing to intervene – which was, of course, the whole point. Accusations that this city was just a pawn in a bigger game in which Jimmy Lai was serving the United States became impossible to dismiss.
THE US RIGHT WING
Also clear was that Jimmy Lai strongly favored the right wing of the United States, since they were more actively anti-China. In May, 2020, Jimmy Lai launched a #TrumpSavesHK campaign on its front page. “Trump is a statesman,” Lai wrote in the newspaper in October.
Throughout this period, the paper called for international sanctions on Hong Kong, even though the city was being hammered for reasons mired in disinformation. I don’t think anyone taking a genuinely detached look at the paper’s actions over the past few years could possibly call it pro-democracy, or even pro-Hong Kong. It worked instead to actively harm this community.
Behind the scenes, Apple Daily dug into its coffers to commission a fake report “revealing” that Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden had secret dealings with China. Managed by Mark Simon, the project was a direct bid to interfere in the US elections, and ensure a Trump win.
Again, we saw creative, out-of-the-box thinking, but also an appetite for deliberate deception of the public – the journalist credited with writing the dossier didn’t exist, but was a fake name with a computer-generated face.
Throughout this period, the paper called for international sanctions on Hong Kong, even though the city was being hammered for reasons mired in disinformation. I don’t think anyone taking a genuinely detached look at the paper’s actions over the past few years could possibly call it pro-democracy, or even pro-Hong Kong. It worked instead to actively harm this community.
Oh, and the misogynistic harm to women and children has continued. Earlier this month, Hong Kong saw the end of a court case involving Apple Daily staff pretending to be related to a female celebrity in order to get a birth certificate for her child, which they then published.
ON BOARD
This month, the board of Apple Daily, not the Hong Kong government, closed the newspaper.
Who is on the board? There’s American journalist Mark Clifford. There’s L. Gordon Crovitz, the charming but staunchly right wing former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, who invited me to that brunch party at his home 26 years ago.
His wife Minky Worden has become a key voice in the US campaign against the 2022 Winter Olympics in China.
Ms Worden is a senior staff member at Human Rights Watch, a group which has been criticized by more than 100 cultural figures, including Nobel Peace Laureates, for its “close ties to the government of the United States”.
Since Olympic activities in mainland China always involve Hong Kong city too, the success of her campaign would further harm the long-suffering people of this city.
LEFT SUDDENLY
Meanwhile, Mark Simon, who told journalists he was in Hong Kong to stay, left the city suddenly to move to Taiwan shortly before the promulgation of a US-style security law, which among other things, targets people who take overseas money to interfere in local politics.
But of course none of this will be covered in the international media. It doesn’t fit the narrative.
The Western media will repeatedly report that Beijing is to blame for Apple Daily’s problems in Hong Kong, hoping and praying that no one will point out the key fact that demolishes the argument: The newspaper group has been even more of a disaster in Taiwan, where it has stopped all its print publications, despite the island allegedly having glorious USA-Style True Democracy. USA! USA!
TALK TO HONG KONG PEOPLE
If you want the real story of this newspaper, perhaps speak to the 98.5 per cent of Hong Kong adults who did not buy a copy of Apple Daily with their breakfast every day.
And perhaps spend a moment reflecting on Jimmy Lai’s connections with the right wing of the United States, and what the jailed publisher thinks of Hong Kong’s anti-China movement – that they “could accomplish nothing if there was no help”.
[2] And now to Cuba
Here’s what the Hong Kong folk feel about Cuba. After all, America now has it’s sights on invading it, or starting a war there… oh, you know… for the usual reasons.
Destabilization process is now farcically predictable
THE WORLD’S WEALTHIEST, most militaristic country (The United States) wants to deliver “freedom” to Cuba, a tiny community which has committed the unforgivable sin of doing things in a more socialist way. But whatever your politics, the extraordinary re-purposing of the word “freedom” as a tool to amplify unrest and distort discussions should concern us all.
Hong Kong people, in particular, have seen this entire process before. In fact, we could pretty much write the script for what’s happening in Cuba ourselves. Ten things to consider:
1.) Turn on the anti-Cuba social media
Yes, there are social and economic problems in Cuba. That’s how it works. The destabilization process ALWAYS piggybacks itself on genuine grievances. These are amplified with a disinformation campaign.
At least 1,500 of the social media accounts that participated in the #SOSCuba operation were created in a 48-hour period: July 10 and 11, said Julian Macias Tovar, social media analyst.
2.) Turn on the fake tweets.
Cuban internet investigators found the majority of the fake tweets came from the United States.
The tweets focused on the narrative key word “freedom” and pointedly instructed readers to dismiss any suggestion that the US embargo had any relevance to what was happening.
One of the main pro-US social media voices talking to Cubans was a notorious anti-government source called Yusnaby.
Yusnaby, Cubans wryly noted, is pronounced like “U.S. Navy” said with an accent.
3.) Engage the ‘Bots.
Many of the messages came from random “pretty” faces and were bot-signed up so quickly that they didn’t have time to delete the automatically generated numbers after their fake names.
So “Rachel” (see below), who looks like a supermodel, apparently likes to be known as Rachel76039947.
4.) Fire-hose of messages floods the internet.
The entire, huge torrent of messages took a pro-US and anti-government stance, and many said the exact same thing in the exact same words. They were clearly fake but Twitter did not delete them.
Many of the pro-US, anti-government voices on social media joined recently, have no friends or followers, and somewhat unusual names!
5.) Heavy coverage of tiny protests.
The early Cuban protests were small (a few hundred people) but received far more coverage than much, much larger events elsewhere. Independent media outlet BT News noted that more than 100,000 people marched for Palestine, such as in the demonstration pictured below, at the same time, but got far less coverage.
6.) Freedom™ and democracy™
When Hong Kongers see something like this happening, we wait. We wait for the mainstream media to give the protesters/ pro-US side full ownership of words like “freedom” and “democracy”. At the same time, they will unfairly label the home team/ government as the enemies of freedom and democracy.
Here’s the New York Times doing precisely that in a hilariously blatant manner: “Shouting ‘freedom’ and other anti-government slogans. . . ”!
7.) Lie using fake photos
The small size of many of the Cuba demonstrations was a problem for the pro-NATO narrative.
CNN misleading people into thinking the picture it is using comes from Cuba when it’s actually from Miami, as the street sign shows. TYT repeatedly did the same thing.
8.) American President reads THE script.
By Sunday night, some Hong Kongers watching the process were already waiting for US President Joseph Biden to perform his part in the script, saying something that associates one side with “freedom” and the other with the words “authoritarian regime.”
On Monday, he did just that.
9.) Switch and confuse the videos and images
Below is a widely reprinted NYT report which misled countless millions of readers into thinking this AP picture of a reasonably well-attended gathering was of a pro-US, anti-govt protest, when it was actually a pro-government rally.
Fox News and the Financial Times did the same thing with the same picture. This picture actually showed a pro-government rally. (Spotter: Alan MacLeod)
10.) Amnesty International performs their role
By Tuesday, newswatchers in Hong Kong were waiting for the next standard element in the destabilization script — which would be for the comically biased Amnesty International to do its normal trick.
Amnesty works hard to produce reports making the home team look like faceless killing machines, and the pro-US, anti-govt side look like young, cool human beings with glorious US flags calling for, yes, “freedom” (libertad).
On Wednesday Amnesty International did precisely that, as you can see from the lead elements on the front page of the UK organization’s Cuba report, below.
Amnesty International is “comically biased”
NEXT IN THE SCRIPT
In fact, the Cuba protests have been so predictable that Hong Kong people can even tell you the next steps coming up.
There will be demands for US troops to come and “solve” the problem.
There will be complaints of police brutality.
The UK and the US will say they “stand with” one side, as if they know for a fact that group of protesters represents everyone.
And we’ll all see the same words repeated over and over again — “freedom” on the pro-US side and “authoritarian regime” on the other.
IGNORING THE WORLD
By claiming “freedom” as a sacred principle it owns, the United States has given itself license to ignore the global community.
Just last month, the United Nations overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution to demand the end of the US economic blockade on Cuba, for the 29th year in a row.
The United States ignored it, as did the media.
NO SELF-AWARENESS
This week, a US politician used the word “freedom” four times in a single tweet about Cuba. “America stands for freedom,” said the unintentionally hilarious declamation by Val Demings of Florida.
I’m assuming that staff at the New York Times have enough self-awareness to know that the word “freedom” used in the American way is seen by people outside the US as a joke – but I may be wrong.
Perhaps some US citizens have a more sophisticated understanding of the situation than journalists: the humorous meme at the top of this post is widely shared in various forms and appears to originate in the United States. Here’s another version:
But some journalists don’t get the joke. One of the New York Times write-ups about the Cuba protests included a starry-eye quote from a protester: “What I saw today was people seeing freedom for the first time.”
HOWEVER VIOLENT
For more than 40 years, the world has watched the CIA travelling the globe to rebrand pro-US groups, however violent they are, as the voices of “freedom”, and home teams as the enemies of freedom, however well they feed and serve their populace.
Few people know this better than the Hong Kong people. During the US-backed riots of 2019, a Hong Kong friend posted terrifying images of black-clad thugs, radicalized by endless Apple Daily reports, storming into a spotless train station and using iron rods to terrorize staff and smash everything in sight.
His caption: “Freedom is coming.”
And the reason why I started to read some of the HK news…
yeah. I wanted to do a follow up on who these jackasses were who was attacking my videos of bus rides, sizzling Hunan beer, and cheap wine. I wanted to know!
[3] Rich outlet tries to savage citizen journalists
IN A HILARIOUS BOTCH-UP, the BBC yesterday inserted numerous links to anti-China features into an article defending itself from claims that it was anti-China.Here’s what happened.BBC journalists wrote an article attacking China-based “citizen journalists”. The bloggers defended themselves by saying the BBC and other Western media had a clearly biased, negative attitude to the Asian developing nation.The BBC’s editors yesterday printed the article (above) — but sprinkled it with links (see picture below) which powerfully proved the critics’ point that the BBC is biased against China.In effect, the BBC said “we’re not anti-China — by the way, here’s a link to an article showing how China is a dystopian hellscape! And another one. And another one. And another one. And . . “.It’s hard not to laugh.
It gets better. In fact, yesterday’s BBC article should go down in history as a textbook example of self-defeating journalism for at least four reasons.
First, you cannot argue against the allegation that you present a strongly one-sided view by including a list of article links that prove conclusively that you present a one-sided view.
Lee and Oli Barrett, residents of China, have become popular bloggers
SENSE OF IRONY
Second, the article attacks ordinary individual bloggers in China (like those in the picture above) by implying, with no hard evidence, that they receive government cash to do what they do, which is to show China in a positive light.
Yet we all know for a fact that the BBC journalists making the accusation receive government cash month after month to do what they do, which is to present China in a negative light.
(The BBC’s annual budget is GBP3.5 billion.)
Staff in the BBC newsroom appear to have had their senses of irony surgically removed.
Outrageous! A government sponsored media outlet in China offers money to stringers, the BBC said
THEY PAY STRINGERS
Third, the BBC report reveals, shock horror, that CGTN, a government-financed news outlet, now offers CASH PAYMENTS to STRINGERS!
OMG!
The BBC writers mysteriously forgot to mention that the BBC, also a government-financed news outlet, also offers cash payments to stringers (much larger sums). They’ve been doing this for decades.
I know this for a fact because I was a stringer for the BBC for years.
At this point, I became seriously worried about the toddler-level lack of self-awareness in the BBC newsroom.
Jason Lightfoot is another independent blogger attacked for giving another side of the story
MOTIVATION MYSTERY
Fourth, the BBC writers say: “It’s unclear what drives the foreign vloggers – whether they believe in China’s messaging or are motivated by the lure of local fame and fortune instead.”
It’s only unclear what motivates them if you haven’t watched a single one of their videos. If you do, you can see they are ordinary people doing their best to provide desperately needed balance to the reports put out by dedicated Sinophobes like, well, BBC Newsroom staff, to pick a random example out of the air.
LET’S TALK ABOUT MONEY
Actually, let’s talk about money, something BBC journalists HATE to discuss.
The BBC’s hatchet job presents no evidence whatsoever that the Barretts, Barrie Jones, or Jason Lightfoot are paid a single yuan for having the opinions they have, or for choosing to show the positive side of life in China.
In contrast, BBC journalists have very good salaries for showing the negative side of life in China. I hope the bloggers attacked by BBC journalists Kerrie Allen and Sophie Williams realize they have the moral right to ask them how much the BBC pays them.
OVERPAID JOURNALISTS
I’ve worked at the BBC on and off for decades and I can tell you that some BBC journalists get paid A LOT. When BBC newsroom head James Harding left in 2018, his salary was GBP340,000 a year. Election specialist Jeremy Vine gets more than GBP600,000 a year.
Of course most people in the newsrooms get less than that, but at least 40 BBC journalists are paid more than the British Prime Minister’s GBP150,000 salary, a Press Gazette study showed in 2017. Political editor Laura Kuenssberg gets GBP200,000 to GBP250,000 a year, for example.
Barrie Jones upsets Western journalists by refusing the parrot the US State Department narrative.
FACTUAL INACCURACIES
The ultimate irony is that the unpaid amateurs in China regularly do a better job of covering China than the salaried professionals.
The same BBC article gives a good example of how history changes when that all-important nuance goes missing.
The BBC reporters say “Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was jailed for four years after making a number of vlogs during Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak.”
That’s not what really happened. Zhang Zhan was an anti-lockdown campaigner jailed for repeatedly trying to disrupt anti-covid measures. She herself said that she was not a journalist. Her own videos show clearly that she was the Chinese equivalent of the US anti-vaxxer brigade, refusing to follow health guidelines and creating deliberate public confrontations with people trying to follow the rules.
But that’s a nuanced version of her case, which you can only get if you live in this country and talk to people here — rather than attack from the other side of the planet.
THE 50-CENT ARMY
The BBC reporters also dredge up the old chestnut about the “50-cent army”, apparently unaware that most Chinese government clickers have been retired, simply because they are no longer needed. They’ve been replaced by real voices who speak out without pay.
An SCMP report about the rise of young people in China defending their community by commenting on social media, making the civil service pro-China “wumao” unnecessary
The so-called “wumao” are no longer necessary now that young people who are sick and tired of their community being misrepresented (groups like the Diba and the fangirls) are providing a robust defense of the country, far more creatively and without the need for payment.
They even create quite stylish memes (see below).
Above is a Diba meme from Weibo
The BBC report also omits the fact that it’s actually US intelligence groups such as the SR (military intelligence) and the CIA which flood social media columns with politically charged fake comments, often easy to spot.
There’s something creepy in the article too.
The “expert” quoted at length in the BBC report is Robert Potter, described as a “cybersecurity researcher”. The BBC omits a key fact that commentator Daniel Dumbrill yesterday highlighted. The top two names on Potter’s organization’s funding list are the State Department of the United States and the United States Department of Defence.
Yes. Exactly.
Think Mike Pompeo, CIA, Anthony Blinken.
The US State Department
So, to sum it up, honest, ordinary people who spend their own time and money offering useful additional views of life in China, from within China, are accused of receiving government cash by distant people who actually ARE receiving government salaries working for a government news outlet and showcasing the views of people paid by the US government.
NEED FOR INTEGRITY
This is why we need UNBIASED journalists covering China and it doesn’t matter if you have qualifications or not — what matters is that you have enough moral integrity to tell the truth: which is that the community we call China is really not that different from the other major communities around the world.
One last thing: From a professional journalistic point of view, there’s another issue with the BBC article.
Very similar articles have already appeared in other British news outlets. Here is an example below from the Times of London.
Same victims, same news angle, similar headlines, similar allegations, similar quotes.
Copying? Or co-ordination? Journalists don’t normally regurgitate their rivals’ old stories in this way.
There’s something very wrong going on here.
This reporter’s father was one of the first investigative journalists in Asia. He had a saying: “Everything is about something else.”
[4]Switching China for the US is a huge mistake
Australia has put itself at a stark disadvantage by casting its lot with the US instead of the trading partner that has underwritten its growth over decadesUS WRITER AND FORMER military analyst Daniel Ellsberg recently revealed that the Pentagon Papers, most of which were released in 1971, also confirmed that the United States contemplated using nuclear weapons against the Chinese mainland in 1958, to “defend” Jinmen, also known as Kinmen, an island about 10 kilometers from the mainland city of Xiamen, on behalf of the Kuomintang in Taiwan.We need to recall that China had no nuclear weapons at that time－only the US and the Soviet Union did.Ellsberg also said the administration of former US president Lyndon B. Johnson had covertly engaged in a range of extremely destructive attacks against the North Vietnamese forces and their supporters during the Vietnam War.‘NUKING’ A DEVELOPING COUNTRYSo the US, at least from a planning point of view, saw nothing fundamentally immoral about launching a nuclear attack on a huge developing country that possessed no such arms.This was a little over 10 years after seeing the horrific nuclear devastation in Japan. Fortunately, the plan was not implemented.
Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia: picture by Simon Rae/ Unsplash
AUSTRALIA AS COURIER
Even more startling, from an Australian point of view, is the recent disclosure that Australia, was, in 1964, given an extraordinary US-courier task.
Gregory Clark, a former Australian diplomat, has just revealed that in that year, Australian foreign minister Paul Hasluck demanded that the Australian Embassy in Moscow (where Clark worked) arrange a meeting with the new Soviet leadership.
In a meeting with premier Alexei Kosygin at which Clark was present, Hasluck carried a message from Washington, requesting that the USSR join the US in Vietnam to stop the “bad communists” in Beijing and North Vietnam to expand southwards.
Kosygin’s response was blunt. Moscow would do all it could to support the Vietnamese people in their struggle against US imperialism – and he wished the Chinese would do more to help.
After the commencement of China’s reform and opening-up policy in 1978, however, the US generally welcomed the rise of China.
‘a popular, genial understanding of China as a vast, poor, peasant-based country’
The US relationship with China has gone through a striking transformation over the past century.
Once, compassion was dominant. The Nobel Prize-winning novelist Pearl S. Buck wrote The Good Earth over 90 years ago while living in Nanjing. The book helped shape a popular, genial understanding of China as a vast, poor, peasant-based country with a remarkable history.
TRADE BOOMED
During the period when the US welcomed the rise of China, immense business opportunities were recognized and trade boomed, generating academic, intellectual and general interest in China.
Now that China’s economy is around 70 percent of the size of the US economy in raw US dollar GDP terms, the US has made clear its huge vested interest in seeing the rise of China strikingly reduced and contained.
Thus the US mood has gone from being sorry for China, then helpful to China, to being stridently hostile to China.
‘China does not purposefully threaten Australia in any serious way’
Examined rationally, the strategic position for Australia is clear. It has a huge vested interest in seeing the rise of China maintained and enhanced.
China is now Australia’s largest trading partner. Before the recent intense downturn in the Australia-China relationship, trade figures show that Australia’s annual trade surplus with China had topped A$50 billion (US$36.9 billion).
From 1991 until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Australia maintained the longest period of sustained economic growth ever seen within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. China, above all, has underwritten this outcome.
China does not (viewed outside of hawklike think tanks) purposefully threaten Australia in any serious way.
GUSTO AND NAIVETE
The US, on the other hand, does threaten Australia at a more menacing level: first, by encouraging intensified antipathy toward the trading partner who has done more to remake Australia in the last several decades than any other; and second, due to the serious hazard of being drawn into yet more US military adventures－possibly involving certain levels of forceful confrontation with China.
Australia’s relationship with China is very different from that of the US. The acute difficulty for Australia, however, is that Washington has been highly insistent that Australia join in the US-led Sino-containment project. Australia has taken up this damaging new brief with uncommon gusto and naivete.
Collaboration has been beneficial to both sides: Picture by Mimi Thian/ Unsplash
DEEP, LONG-TERM COST
Research by the Perth US-Asia Centre recently listed major income drops in trade with China, to Australia’s stark disadvantage, in areas including travel, education, coal, beef, wine, cotton and barley. In a number of cases, US exports to China have replaced those from Australia.
In 1964, Australia carried messages, like a tributary State, for the US. Then the dark clouds lifted from Sino-US relations for several decades and Australia prospered, independently, like never before.
The dark clouds had lifted from Sino-US relations for several decades, and Australia prospered, independently, like never before. Now those angry clouds are back, and Australia is once again being told, by its best geopolitical friend, what it must do. It must stand up for US interests, which are called shared values, and never mind the deep, long-term cost to Australia’s national interest.
It is an extraordinary state of affairs that calls for deep reflection and review.
MY DAUGHTER ONCE asked me if we were “pro-China”.“Sweetheart,” I replied. “We’re pro-everyone. We’re pro-China, pro-Hong Kong, pro-West, pro-East, pro-South and pro-space aliens, especially the latter.”Why would you be not pro any community or nationality? This is the age of diversity.My immediate family includes Americans, Chinese, Brits, and South Asians, and I have several friends whose bizarre behaviour strongly suggests off-planet origins—and the same surely goes for you too, dear reader.This is the age of diversity; picture by Naassom Azevedo/ UnsplashAt this point, someone will always lean into this type of conversation and say: “Ah, but are you pro-Beijing?”To realize how ridiculous this is, look a Swede in the eye and ask: “Are you pro-Stockholm?” Ask a Honduran: “What do you think of Tegucigalpa?” Or grab a passing Bolivian and ask: “Are youin favor of La Paz?”People around the world don’t generally ask that question.
What the pro-Beijing question really means is: “Do you support the Western media’s demonization of China?”
Now THAT I can instantly answer. Actually, no, I don’t. Criticising others can be okay, if done sensitively and with positive intentions. Demonizing people is not.
Many Hong Kong people are stunned at how so much of the world’s media has ended up like US Republican lawyer Gordon C. Chang, following a Western-penned hyper-critical narrative of China, and blithely dismissing any criticism of his constant de-humanizing of Chinese people. “Demons just hate being demonized,” he explains.
(Chang authored the 2001 book “The Coming Collapse of China”, possibly the worst-timed publication in literary history, coming on the eve of China’s steepest rise into accelerated development and increased community pride.)
But Chang’s hostile angle permeates too much of the international coverage of Hong Kong and mainland China today.
I’ve lost count of the number of Hong Kong people who have looked at the ultra-hostile BBC coverage of Hong Kong and said to me: “What happened to the BBC?” (I usually reply: “Maybe Gordon C. Chang is now chief news editor” and they sadly nod, finding it totally believable.)
Journalists shape their stories to reinforce a narrative: picture by Jorge Maya/ UnsplashMaybe it’s not the journalists’ fault. Andrew Cline, a professor who studies this subject, once said: “Once a master narrative has been set, it is very difficult to get journalists to see that their narrative is simply one way, and not necessarily the correct or best way, of viewing people and events.”
Cline is right. We need to break free from that the narrow groupthink and let a little diversity into discussions.
People are thinking for themselves; picture by Jimmy Chan/ Pexels
What if. . . China wasn’t a giant gulag at all, but a low-crime society which is thriving at astonishing rates?
What if. . . Hong Kong’s security laws were demonstrably less draconian than those of the countries criticizing them?
What if. . . the hundreds of millions of dollars that America spends to try to impose its system of governance on Asia is actually money that would be better spent on other things?
What if. . . China was communist in name, but actually demonstrated a really interesting mixture of good bits of capitalism and socialism in practice?
I have discovered, to my delight, that the vast majority of ordinary people are completely open to such notions. But Western journalists less so. How can a tiny group of Hong Kong people battle global media behemoths?
Clearly we can’t. But I’m not sure we have to fight them. Journalists are not bad people. There are many good ones among us. I expect. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully. Surely!
And those of us who live in China can gently, perhaps, encourage them to see the other side of the story, by sharing stories of Chinese culture, Chinese business and just personal stories of Chinese people being human.
…
In directly related news, the Friday project has been running for a couple of weeks and response has been fantastic. More than a million people tuned into our conference, and the vast majority of people who responded to our articles have been positive. Only a small portion made a response which can be summed up in four words: “Run! Get the Labels!”
To people who throw the label “pro-China” at us as if it was an accusation, I’ll simply give the same answer I gave my daughter.
Yes, we are pro-China. We are pro-humans, sweetheart. And the people of China are humans too, whatever Gordon C. Chang says.
* * *
Conclusion
Just five stories out of Hong Kong. While you might not be getting any daily news reports about this regions except for the “evil communists of China”, the tone of the articles and the over all attitude of their views of America, the UK and Australia should tell you volumes. Please keep this in mind was the next six months advance and “play out”.
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.
Traffic on Interstate 95 is diverted in the area of an hours long standoff with a group of armed men that partially shut down the highway, Saturday, July 3, 2021, in Wakefield, Mass. Massachusetts state police say nine suspects have been taken into custody. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
It’s one day after the fourth of July, 2021.
I woke up this morning and scanned my news feeds. I often just look at the titles. Taking the time to read the content is useless, as most have zero content of worth.
And when I read the content, it was clear that they were avoiding the fact that these were all urban African-american militants who are traipsing in the Massachusetts countryside far from their homes. In fact, they were “practicing maneuvers” around white-dominated communities and villages.
I wonder why?
Why would they do that?
When interviewed and interrogated by the police, they claimed that they were “Moors”.
At least some of the suspects were clad in military-style gear with long guns and pistols, Mass State Police Col. Christopher Mason said. He added that they were headed to Maine from Rhode Island for “training.”
“You can imagine 11 armed individuals standing with long guns slung on an interstate highway at 2 in the morning certainly raises concerns and is not consistent with the firearms laws that we have in Massachusetts,” Mason said.
In a video posted to social media Saturday morning, a man who did not give his name, but said he was from a group called Rise of the Moors, broadcast from Interstate 95 in Wakefield near exit 57.
“We are not anti-government. We are not anti-police, we are not sovereign citizens, we’re not Black identity extremists,” said the man who appeared to be wearing military-style equipment. “As specified multiple times to the police that we are abiding by the peaceful journey laws of the United States.”
The website for the group says they are “Moorish Americans dedicated to educating new Moors and influencing our Elders.”
Police work on in the area of an hours long standoff with a group of armed men that partially shut down interstate 95, Saturday, July 3, 2021, in Wakefield, Mass. Massachusetts state police say nine suspects have been taken into custody. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
The interesting aspects about this entire event are what is not well reported…
These ethnic individuals are not from the region that they were found.
The region where they targeted was disarmed by very strict anti-gun and anti-weapon legislation, thus leaving most residents unable to defend themselves.
The “long arms” were (what would otherwise be reported as) “assault weapons”.
Everyone wore either camouflage clothing, military attire, or black colored garb.
Curious.
I wonder what this means…
…hum?
What were these people doing outside of the quiet rural community of Wakefield, Massachusetts?
Well,
We know that this is not a “new” event.
Coming to rural America.
Meanwhile, let’s see what some of the more learned people on the planet has to say about the current state of American politics and the changes going on in America. And this is a pretty good write up…
Silicon Valley has a monopoly of social capital now. Every call, every text message, and every email is theirs to use as they see fit. This allows them to derive information about the public and use it for financial and political advantage. Tucker Carlson worries about the NSA when he volunteers to carry around a tracking device that records his every movement for the benefit of the Silicon Valley oligarchs.
The great class struggle among white people has also stopped making sense. The old left-right conflict of the prior era manifested itself as a battle between the working and upper classes. The white middle class in America, for example, operated as a ballast and referee. Both sides of the political class courted them in elections, while making promises to their base in the other classes.
The great divide in this age is demographics. America is increasingly nonwhite and headed for majority-minority status. The politics reflected the old demographics, which was 80% white. Fretting over minority rights, for example, makes no sense in a world where everyone is a minority. It makes even less sense when a unique minority is the ruling elite and has total control of the institutions.
The ruling elite has evolved a colonial mentality in response to the crisis, but white people are increasingly embracing demographic reality. The uproar over critical race theory is an omen of what is to come. This intermediate conflict is between a ruling class that thinks it can keep feeding the alligator, hoping to be eaten last, and a public that has no desire to be erased from the book of life. Demographic reality is the new class struggle.
This July 4th, America finds itself in the middle of a great interregnum, a transition period between the old order and the new order. The reason the buildings that symbolize the political institutions of America remain behind layers of razor-wire fencing and armed guards is not a fear of insurrectionist soccer moms. Those barriers exist as a bulwark against the inevitable, protecting an ossified and obsolete political elite along with the political system that maintains them.
Predicting the future is always a mug’s game. Just as our frozen lefty would be stunned to see how history unfolded, we will be shocked to see what comes after this great interregnum. Therein lies the reason to celebrate. The current crisis environment is a transitory state. It cannot last and everything that cannot last eventually comes to an end, usually sooner than anyone expects.
Well everyone is trying to understand
The USA is in a mess, and everyone is trying to grasp aspects of it in handfuls that they can understand. All the time they failure to see the big picture. Things do not happen in isolation. An event here, or an event there, are aspects of a much larger plan. Whether intended or not.
Intellectuals try to intellectualize it. Patriots try to look at it from a revolutionary angle, and socialists try to analysis the functional vectors of group behaviors.
Hey!
Wake up folks. The dinner is almost ready. The bridge is wobbling and the cables are about to snap. The cattle are restless and the fence is about to go down.
An easily ignored aspect of the Tucker Carlson spying story is just how ham-fisted this caper was executed, regardless of the reason. Carlson is a relentless critic of the regime, but his audience is relative tiny. His average total audience is roughly 3 million people per night. Even if every night is a new crowd, that is an audience of 15 million in a country of 330 million people. He may be the biggest name in cable news, but the reality is, cable news is a low impact medium.
This was always the lesson of the Trump phenomenon. The entirety of the mass media, including the so-called conservatives, aligned against Trump but he was able to win the nomination and the general election. These are people who were sure they were the king makers in national politics. This TV carny comes along and walks right through their lines as if they were not there. Then he turned them into objects of ridicule and mockery by calling them childish names.
If the intelligence agencies were what they imagine themselves to be, they would see that Tucker is never going to be much of a problem. They could just ignore him, like most everyone does, or they could use him. Carlson is one of the few serious people on television, but he is still on TV. He wants ratings, so a shrewd intel operative could feed him some juicy tidbits that serve the interests of the regime. Instead, they are in a petty spat and making him the sympathetic victim.
These sorts of thumbless capers raise an important issue. Our managerial elite is rapidly getting dumber. This is plainly obvious in the military side. Sure, rural peasants armed with Russian surplus were able to defeat the US army in the 1960’s, but that theater negated the primary American advantage at the time. Armor and advanced transport are useless in a jungle. Air dominance is not terribly effective against guerilla tactics in urban and jungle conditions.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the US military could exploit every technological advantage against a poorly equipped and trained opponent. In Afghanistan, the US faced off against a Bronze Age opponent. After two decades the white flag has gone up and the Taliban will take over this autumn. In Iraq, a ragtag force of insurgents led by a cleric came close to defeating the US army. The final peace looked more like a concession by the US, as Iraq is now an Iranian client.
The gross incompetency of the military is not unique. The entire managerial class is suffering from a rapid decline in intelligence. The truth is the system evolved for an adult population of the last century. It reflected the demographics of the population as a whole, but also the demographics of the ruling class. Over the last couple of generations, the people taking up positions in the system are significantly dumber, reflecting the changing demographics of the country.
This IQ decline will only become more acute in the next decade. The great Baby Boomer retirement will hit the civil service harder than the dreaded private sector, because the civil service is much older. The average age of the private workforce is roughly 35, depending upon who is doing the measuring. Similarly, the average age of the government workforce is 50. The leadership class is even older. In other words, the people running the system are geezers, not long for the world.
This is most stark in politics. Joe Biden is so old he has been in office longer than most people have been alive. The leadership of both parties is close behind. Pelosi, Schumer, McCarthy, Hoyer and McConnel reflect the sensibilities and the mating decisions of the disappearing past. Their replacements, Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Tim Scott, and so on, reflect the rapidly approaching future. Repeat this throughout the civil service and you can see the problem. The kakistocracy is real.
This decline in IQ is evident in the current upheaval. The great Progressive awakening of the 1950’s and 1960’s was driven by idealism. They really thought they were going to create a better world. It was also driven by the big change in the ruling class. Jews had taken up positions in the post-war ruling elite. They were making their mark by leading many of the cultural revolutions, like civil rights. Self-interest played a role, but social justice has always been a part of the Jewish cultural outlook.
Today, the revolts we see look like a cargo cult. They are reenactors playing parts they heard about in school. They think if they can replay the events of the past, the past will come alive and the great do-over begins. They are led by a carnival of simpletons and lunatics who mostly like smashing things and making noise. Antifa and BLM are the short bus passengers in the story of street activism. None of what we are seeing makes any sense or has any point. It is just mayhem for the sake of it.
The institutions of a society are the tools of the people running the society, designed for their use over the course of time. The institutions of America were made for people a full standard deviation smarter than today’s rulers. Those tools were also created with certain cultural assumptions missing from the current class. The next generation of rulers are the opening scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey compared to the men who created the tools used to run the empire.
It will not end well.
Conclusion
Obviously some “Moors” are emboldened to reconnoiter the defenselessness communities of wealthy Massachusetts, while the intellectual class are busy trying to intellectualize the turmoil inside of the United States fiasco.
Why?
What gave them the idea that they could do this?
What the FUCK is going on?
I can tell you all ONE THING. This kind of activity would NEVER be tolerated in China, and it would be taken cared of immediately and absolutely. The fact that the United States is unable to do anything… shows exactly what a huge, colossal, and absolute failure the nation it; the leadership is; and the system is. There is only one solution remaining…
Allow it to collapse.
Let the rot fester, then purge it completely.
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.
The Russians are an interesting people. They are hardy, tough, rough-around-the-edges, and a hoot! to be around.
The Chinese consider them to be similar to Chinese, only a bit rough-and-tumble. You know, like your drunk crazy uncle, when he was caught having sex with the milk-maid inside the outhouse.
Russians are a tough hardy folk.
Here’s an interesting article that I pulled from a Russian resource.
On the internet is a lot of bullshit. many of State sponsored, and much of it just biases and opinions that you read and either agree to, or are repelled by.
What I want to do is throw this article out to the MM readership. And knowing that the likelihood of the article being false, or misleading is high, let’s consider instead the audience reactions to the article. Because this article is very, very anti-American.
Yet, this is a very popular article in both Russia and (apparently now) in China. Remember and keep in mind that Russia is a land of hardy and tough people. They do not tolerate weakness.
Russian women are a force to be reckoned with.
Perhaps we can learn something from the audience reactions to it.
Key points
Congress would never permit American government agencies outside of the State Department to collaborate with China in any way. This is codified into law. Not just one law, but a host of laws, and executive orders. So this article is just wishful thinking from our Russian friends.
Bilateralcooperation between NASA and Chinese organizations is currently restrictedbytheso-called Wolf Amendment, a provision first added to a NASAspendingbillin 2011 by then-U. S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) that requires NASA to seek congressional approval for any bilateral collaboration with Chineseentities.NASA’s China exclusion could mean missed opportunity for Mars InSight
Well, that being said, there is a chance.
So maybe, just maybe, there is some truth to this article.
Interested American scientists and State Department officials might want to be able to get up front and close to the Chinese to observe what they are doing first hand. What better way to do this then to participate jointly in scientific activities.
While collaboration with China is not entirely prohibited, NASA would need to notify Congress in advance and provide certification that there are no risks for a specific engagement. NASA and China were able to discuss the potential for the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to monitor the landing of China’s Chang’e-4on the lunar far side in early 2019. The two sides also occasionally meet for the U.S.-China Civil Space Dialogue. A third and most recent such meeting washeld in Beijing in 2017 while a fourth was delayed partly by the COVID-19 outbreak. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is involved in Tianwen-1 science payloads and spacecraft integration, had not responded by press time to a request for comment on the possibility of coordination or release of information.
The effective ban of bilateral activities applies only to NASA, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Space Council. Scientists at other U.S. institutions can, for example, request access to China’s newly acquired lunar samples by following procedures announced in January by the China National Space Administration, a month after Chang’e-5 delivered the goods to Earth. There is no platform yet for sharing Tianwen-1 mission data, but conversations between Chinese and non-NASA scientists could take place, though passing along sensitive information relating to missions may not be straightforward.
NASA’s China exclusion could mean missed opportunity for Mars InSight
Do these Russians look like they are open to new trans-gender policies?
Found here, and all credit to the author, and the same usual disclaimers. Translated from Russian. If you can read Cyrillicscriptyou might be best served to read the article in it’s original form.
If it is true…
.
The Chinese didn’t let the Yankees into their space station? Not a fact. But-the truth
The Chinese have declared Americans undesirable elements on board their orbiting space station. But this news is too … juicy to give her complete confidence. What’s the real deal?
Now, if only you could also read it, so to speak, in the original source…
Unfortunately, my mother did not say to me as a child: “Learn Chinese, my son.” And that’s why I can’t check out the great news that ran all over the Internet today.
But the news is worth posting without checking it.
A hieroglyphic print on a yankee’s ass
Here’s the news. An American application to participate in scientific work on board the new Chinese Tiangong space station was rejected by the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA).
The core module.
A special flavor of this information is given by the addition that
"invitations to scientific cooperation on the Chinese orbital station were received by 17 countries, including Russia," and "an official request from the United States was refused due to non-compliance with standards in terms of scientific value and technology."
If there is not enough color, then the kind authors of the message added more:
"[Russia] has been granted the right to occupy a separate compartment or attach its own module to the Chinese station."
Cool, classic work!
If everything is not so in life, then it is still the same in the current information war as launching an Iskander missile at an enemy military airfield. You can still see the classic caricature of a Yankee, wiry as a crane, falling screaming out of the open hatch of the Tiangong station. And on the most elongated part of his uniform trousers of olive color – a print of the sole with the inscription开开开.
Why do you doubt that the news is consistent with the facts? First of all, it’s too pretty to be true. The truth is usually angular and unfriendly, like a subway passenger at 6 am. So you always have to fight for it. And here it appears in this form, even if you cancel the war – you will not force anyone to go to a military trick.
The Chinese Space Station.
Secondly, the Chinese resource Baijiahao published this information. And this is not some traditional media with traditional ideas about the limits of what is allowed in the handling of information, but just a free Internet platform. Something like the Chinese Yandex.Zen. Because we know that our Yandex.Zen is charming for its variety of topics and their freedom, but at the same time for the freedom of their interpretation by the authors, and in the Chinese version it would be worth going deeper into the links.
But my mother sent me to a German school…
No confirmations…
Life is usually more cruel than our mothers, so at her behest, the minted perfection of German had to be supplemented with the sour porridge of English. And the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) just have a website in English.
But even here, an ambush was waiting: the last message mentioning the American aerospace agency NASA was dated there on November 14, 2014. And it said only that Director Wang Zhaoyao had a conversation with NASA Chief Charles Bolden.
A search for the word USA gave generally mocking results: the second space power of the planet was last mentioned in 2011, and the latest news, where these three letters would stand, fell on January 2020. And then there it was said about the thousand-year dream of the Chinese people about flying into space – thousand-year, etc.
The US agency NASA also did not post anything fresh about its Chinese colleagues on its website. Well, they’re shy, maybe…
I went through the websites of news agencies around the world. The most reliable – TASS-about the described demarche of the Chinese was silent. RIA Novosti published the news that China plans to launch a probe in 2030 to collect samples from Mars. That’s all.
Omniscient English Reuters as top news issues a howl that
Russian forces reportedly fire warning shots at British destroyer in Black Sea.
Well, of course: a peaceful British destroyer (aka fighter, aka, politely, destroyer) entered Russian waters in the Black Sea, and then it was preemptively fired at by evil Russians from a warship, and the plane dropped four high-explosive fragmentation bombs as a warning on the path of the British Royal Navy destroyer. And what right did they have? – after all, the West still insists that the Crimean Peninsula is Ukrainian territory.
The Americans are also silent about their fiasco with the Chinese, as if it’s not written on their trousers in fiery letters: 离开开.
The Chinese really don’t need Americans
So what? Let’s assume that nothing happened? Someone posted unverified information, or even joked at all, threw a fake on the Network-and the province went to write! Our province. Because it’s nice?
It’s not that simple.
The Chinese really don’t expect Americans as partners in space exploration. First, because the Yankees are too much for them, and the Han Chinese can’t give them anything more than what Russia has already given them. Secondly, because the Americans still do not know how to build space stations, and the entire ISS, including the American segment, is still a cast of Russian modules. The ISS, we recall, began with the Russian module, which was bought by the Americans and called its own.
The competencies of manned cosmonautics are much more complex than the technologies of automatic cosmonautics. And if in the latter the Americans still have no equal (although the same Chinese are catching up with them at a gallop), then in the first only three countries were able to achieve something on their own equipment-Russia (in the incarnation of the USSR and in the current one), the United States (orbital ships) and China. Which builds its space technology on the platform of Russian space technology. Sometimes on a platform so close that tears of emotion drop by themselves.
The Chinese Space Station.
And third, the Chinese don’t need the Americans in space because China (thank Confucius) has enough money for its own space programs.
And they don’t need to” give ” the Yankees their modules and their technologies, their medical developments and even bathrooms to finance their projects and their research.
They don’t even need to take Americans to the ISS to use this two-kopeck cab to pay for a place on the station for their cosmonaut.
So the Chinese can afford to leave the тав开开 brand on the American ass. But the Russian letters WENT OVER there do not have to wait…
A typical Russian party.
Some thoughts
The worst kind of propaganda, or the worst kind of echo chamber, are those that reference what we want to believe. Certainly America is hated all over the world, and if you thought that the nation was despised after eight years under the Bush Military Campaigns, you haven’t seen anything yet. Obama started to change that perception, and then Trump drove the perception right into the ground.
Pretty much, the rest of the world considers the United States to be a “laughing stock”.
So, I don’t want anyone reading this to believe it. I don’t. I think that it is a “wet dream” by some folk in Russia.
The Russians have ZERO respect for Americans, and most certainly what American culture is. Maybe I’ll go as far to say that they consider it to be evil. And you can see this disrespect in their responses to news articles. Much like this one.
Yet, both China and Russia have similar cultures.
Both China and Russia have a “bride price” if you want to marry a girl. Bride price, also known as bride wealth, bride token, is an amount of money or property or wealth paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of their daughter to the groom. This tradition is followed by many cultures.
This is a very interesting subject.
Though I must admit that “Bride Price” varies from region to region in China. In Wenzhou, where I met my wife, the bride price was to buy a house for her parents. Most others throw in a high-end luxury automobile, and a full set of furniture as well. But since I am a foreigner, they pretty much accepted the fact that I was an outsider that did not understand the rules. (Phew!)
There are regions, such as Guangzhou that has no bride price at all. Lucky them. But there are also other tradeoffs that you have to contend with.
Russian “Bride Prices” are much more reasonable. As this lady here suggests…
Gilyana Bugurova, 23 years old. Presently a student of the Academy of Law, Ketchenery village, Kalmykia. She comes from a rural village, and a modest family.Bride wealth: six boxes of vodka, one box of cognac, two pieces of chintz, a set of headscarves, a box of sweets, a box of cookies, a box of sweet pastry, a boiled sheep, a living sheep with a ribbon.
Comparisons
Both Russia and China are very similar to each other. America and the West seem to be the outliers.
Just by looking at the most basic and crude comparison above, you can see the Resentment and disgust that the Russians must have for the new progressive America. China, on the other hand, is like the little boy (or girl) who discovers that the Easter Bunny was a made up fantasy.
Russia is a tough land. A cold land. A rugged land, and the people show it.
Russians having fun.
China is a land full of hard working folk that study hard. They, work hard, play hard and strive, and strive to become better and better.
The Chinese work insanely hard, but when it is all done and finished, they party like it’s 1999!
America is a land, that has grown fat and dumb. The leaders have become so isolated from the “rabble” that they no longer resemble humans, but have become something else entirely.
America is an affluent nation. Most Americans do not need to work. So they can pursue what ever lifestyle they desire.
And so the Russians tend to make fun of Americans.
But back to the Space Station…
Even if the American government gave the “A-Ok” to work with the Chinese Space Exploration Agencies, it’s unlikely that China would consider it. They consider America to be a very bad, spoiled child, very unreliable, dangerous, and simply not within the core desires, or needs for the Chinese people.
Keep in mind what I stated earlier…
Congress would never permit American government agencies outside of the State Department to collaborate with China in any way. This is codified into law. Not just one law, but a host of laws, and executive orders. So this article is just wishful thinking from our Russian friends.
I love space, and space exploration, and all sorts of things related to extraterrestrials and so on and so forth. But the entire United States today is just a massive, colossal fuck-up that’s it’s really not worth bothering commenting on.
Consider this…
NASA shifts goal from space exploration to space diversity
NASA has been a driving force of scientific innovation and advancement ever since its creation in the 1950s.
After more than six decades of space exploration, you’d think NASA would be an organization free of petty politics and idiotic logic.
As an agency dedicated to the future, for example, one might imagine that NASA’s top priority would be hiring the brightest, most talented people they can find, irrespective of irrelevant characteristics like skin color, gender, or sexual orientation.
Sadly this is not the case.
Science is once again taking a back seat with the agency’s “Artemis Project,” whose goal is “to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon.”
Again, it seems like NASA wouldn’t notice or care what’s swinging (or not swinging) between someone’s legs.
If the entire crew of the next voyage happens to consist exclusively of people who identify as seedless watermelons, because those are the most qualified individuals for the mission, then it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t even make the news.
But instead they’re going to spend $86 billion of taxpayer money to show the world how woke they are.
Click here to read the full story.
And somehow, I am supposed to believe that America is serious about space, technology and space exploration?
Now, couple that with the on-going “any day now the American government is going to release the truth about UFO’s”. Oh, brother!
Well…
The narrative began, and then got hijacked by the neocon military-industrial mafia and got twisted to “the Chinese have advanced military technology! We need billions of dollars to catch up!”.
Well, let’s just kind of sit back and turn off the “news”. Both from the USA, and from Russia.
America is Bat-Shit Crazy!
I am absolutely convinced that the United States today is bat-shit crazy and I really don’t need any further confirmation of it. They are, and while there are many, many, MANY good and decent folk in the United States, the entire system si so broken and such a mess that it’s just a useless pursuit trying to sort it all out. It’s like trying to clean an apartment occupied by a slob.
Notice the lack of ashtrays, the amazing dependence on soda pop, and the poor computer monitor discipline.
Messy Apartment 3
Yuuuuck! This bathroom is horrid.
But at least they have a cat.
But the poor thing doesn’t have a place to go when it needs to take a litter-box break. Ugh!
Living room.
A tenant in a north Houston apartment complex has an overdue payment for more than a month.
No one can get in touch with her.
Eventually the bookkeeper goes inside to leave a note. And finds . . .
Mistreatment of the computer.
The photographer wrote:
We cannot get ahold of her, there is still 20% of the residents out from the hurricane. My manager is FREAKING out.
The pictures don’t show the amount of FLEAS inside I’m STILL scratching
Terrible keyboard discipline.
The tenant’s two cats have been found, safe with a neighbor.
Living room sofa. Why no ashtrays?
Is it just a horrible mess?
Or something . . . more?
Lou Minatti decides:
I am so proud that a Houstonian has created such a masterpiece! The way the cigarette butts are arranged… it’s almost like performance art.
Hey! Well at least the gal used one of my products. Yup! MM designed that clothes iron. Right there on the ironing board. Designed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and manufactured in the tiny Town of Coushatta – Louisiana.
Anyways…
You get the idea.
In my mind, I think that this person who lives in this apartment, or who did. I would imagine that they were evicted, were representative of the kinds of people (citizens) that the United States government nurtures.
And thus…
…they are the true and real face of the United States today.
And boy, oh, boy. In my mind this snapshot of a Houston, Texas apartment is what the United States government has honestly become. I just wish that Americans can see what I see, and what the rest of the world sees. I almost wish that there was a set of eyeglasses that you could put on and where you could see the American oligarchy for what it actually is.
They Live.
And while they might appear on the surface to resemble polished, handsome and attractive people, with sensible demeanor, polite mannerisms, and a calm wisdom, they are truthfully, anything but that.
They are not what they appear to be.
The real leadership behind the smiles and masks; they are humans who have evolved into something else. And their actual appearance is recognizable to anyone WHO IS NOT READING THE AMERICAN MEDIA.
I need a drink.
Do you want proof?
This just came on my desk.
Congressman: Can we alter the moon’s orbit for climate change?
In a recent webcam Congressional hearing, Texas Rep Louie Gohmert asked an associate deputy chief of the Forest Service if her agency could alter the moon’s orbit to address climate change.
Gohmert said:
"I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they've found that the moon's orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth's orbit around the sun... [I]s there anything that the National Forest Service or [Bureau of Land Management] can do to change the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun?"
She smiled and politely said, “I would have to follow up with you on that one Mr. Gohmert.”
She was holding back laughter, but Gohmert was dead serious. He responded, “Well, if you figure out a way that you in the Forest Service could make that change, I'd like to know.”
Click here to see the video.
Like I said.
“Bat-shit crazy”.
Here he is.
Texas Rep Louie Gohmert.
Conclusion
The future of the world will not be determined by America, the West, or the G7 nations. They are “has beens”, and are incapable of reason. It will be determined by Asia.
The only way that American can alter this vector is to engage in a full-scale nuclear war against Asia, and perhaps that’s exactly what they are trying to do. But it will not succeed.
So do not worry about it.
The future is becoming more and more clear with each passing day. Continue to protect your personal life. Make sure that you run your affirmation prayers, and make sure that they protect you and your loved ones from any strange behaviors on the part of the out of control American empire.
There’s a future ahead. By being aware of what’s going on the the rest of the world we can determine what our part in that world will be.
Keep focused.
Be the Rufus.
Our relationships with others will make our affirmations manifest. Nurture them. Protect them. become a meaningful person in your small group of friends and family.
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.
One of the things that I have been musing about lately is blueberry muffins. You see, muffins just aren’t all that common in China, and when you find them, they are really over priced and part of a dessert menu that is part of a Starbucks franchise, or similar venue. I miss them. I miss the hot piping interior, the explosion of blueberry flavor when you bit into them, and that nice pad of salted butter that melts on the top of them.
They used to be quite common in diners. Almost as common as pies.
Blueberry muffins in automats
But my best memories about muffins come from those automats that my family used to frequent when I was a boy. (Of course in those world-lines automats were much more common than what you find here. Apparently, on this world-line path, automats died out in the 1940’s.) Anyways, my father would give me a quarter and I would get up from the table and go to the little window with a muffin in it. I’d plop the quarter in the slot, and the door would spring open, and out I would take the muffin on the heavy white ceramic plate.
My memories of this are all very clear. And I well remember us eating as a family at the tables. Of course my father would be having a coffee and reading a newspaper. My mother was always fussing over us kids, and generally attending to my younger brother and sisters. I, being the oldest, was supposed to be more mature and more responsible.
Meh.
Blueberry muffins in Salem, Massachusetts
And while those memories are true treasures for me, they are a little dated in that my best muffin experience that I ever had did not occur in an automat. It occurred in a wharf coffee house in Salem, Massachusetts. It was a dark and stormy night and I was riding my motorcycle with a girl, and we pulled into the complex. It was the late 1970’s, and I was still in university.
The world outside was but sheets of rain, dull blues and greys, a howling wind and drops of rain that stung when they hit you.
But through the windows of the coffee house was inviting warmth, a pleasant and cozy atmosphere, and a calming shelter against the storm. When the waitress brought out the blueberry muffin, it was fresh, hot and toasty, and had two pads of butter on the plate that I dutifully added on top. You could see the whiffs of steam rising up off the muffin, and they formed strings next to the the hot steamy fragrant coffee that sat besides it.
A blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee.
Personally, I don’t think that many people appreciate blueberry muffins. It’s sort of the “bad boy” of the muffin family, and is great overshadowed by it’s more popular cousins; the chocolate and the cranberry muffins.
But the point behind this is the little coffee house was a unique moment, a unique place, in a unique time, while a raging storm crashed and banged outside. And while we, my girlfriend and myself, were grateful for the shelter from the storm, the workers were oblivious to it. They had spent all day inside. Sure they knew that there was a storm outside, but they were detached from it. It was remote from their direct and personal experience. They knew about it, but they didn’t appreciate the environment like we outsiders did.
It was almost like they were in their own little protective bubble; a safe world, where they could live, work and exist free of the tumult outside.
Like a hot house.
Hot Houses
A hot house is a conservatory where flowers and plants are grown under controlled conditions. The plants live their entire lives inside that environment. They are comfortable there and there is no reason to be concerned about what happens outside of the walls of the conservatory.
I once visited the oldest conservatory in Connecticut, and it was awesome. It was over 200 years old and had many common plants that we consider to be weeds and plants of no consequence in it. But those “weeds” once they turn 200 years old become these amazing tangled plants with thick and interesting trunks, cool branches, and amazing clusters of leaves.
It was awesome. Absolutely awesome.
There’s a conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that is enormous and beautiful as well. But it isn’t nearly as old. And so while it is a pleasure to go from room to room and experience the different kinds of plants and flowers, it’s really the very ancient hot houses that are amazing. It’s really something else to see what happens when plants live within these stable and sheltered environments for really long periods of time.
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens …
What I remember the most about my trip to the conservatory in Connecticut, was not simply the cool plants, and the nooks and crannies filled with the most curious of antiquated Bric-a-brac. But it was the very cool diner that we visited on the trip back home.
A very cool diner
Long time MM readers will appreciate my love of diners and local regional stories.
I will never forget that diner. Though I have forgotten it’s name, and location. They had a “blue plate special”. And you know, I am always one for a good “blue plate special”. You know, is it just me, or I’ve never had a “blue plate special” on a blue plate. It’s one of those head scratchers.
Anyways, I had a “blue plate special”. It was a hot pastrami sandwich with cheese, fully “dressed” with a side of coleslaw and a side of “longhorn” fires covered (smothered) in beef gravy. Now, I don’t know why they called the fries “longhorn fries. Basically, they were huge thick french fries. Perhaps three times the width of a regular french fry. Oh, with a iced tea or Coke.
And I, of course enjoyed every morsel of it.
It looked a little bit like this…
A thickly piled sandwich of meat (whether beef or pastrami) with fries all slathered in gravy.
I do believe that one of the lest appreciated characteristics of America is it’s diners. A diner is the lunch counter for the American work force. And in the days when American worked in factories, often they would get a “home cooked” (style) of meal at a diner. This was always preferable to the latest in fast food fare.
Diners are great.
A typical diner interior.
And while I was a munching on my meal, I contemplated the conservatory; the “hot house” that I had just visited. For the plants were unlike anything outside. These plants were not only gorgeous, but huge.
Without the need to deal with weather changes, the encroachment of man, pesticides, and strip mining, they were able to thrive and grow in ways that was impossible in the real, actual environment.
Echo Chambers
We often talk about people being in an “echo chamber”. That is that they surround themselves with like-minded people who echo each other’s points of view. And then, over time, without getting any new ideas, their points of view become stale and more outlandish over time. To a person outside that “echo chamber” they seem crazy, odd, distorted, and mentally deranged.
Indiscussions of news media, an echo chamber refers to situations in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal.
By participating in an echo chamber, people are able to seek out information that reinforces their existing views without encountering opposing views, potentially resulting in an unintended exercise in confirmation bias.
Echo chambers may increase social and political polarization and extremism.
The term is a metaphor based on an acoustic echo chamber, in which sounds reverberate in a hollow enclosure.
Another emerging term for this echoing and homogenizing effect within social media communities on the Internet is cultural tribalism.
Many scholars note the effects that echo chambers can have on citizens' stances and viewpoints, and specifically implications has for politics.
-Echo Chamber Wikipedia
I would imagine that were the plants to chat with each other inside the “Hot House”, that they would be unaware that they were within an “echo chamber”. And as long as the walls of the conservatory were solid and maintained, they were safe, secure, and could live their lives and prosper. They would grow to become huge, beautiful and magnificent.
The following is a reasonably decent article.
Of course all credit to the author, note that it was reprinted as found, but with slight editing to fit this venue.
While you are reading it, maybe you might want to fix yourself a “Dagwood sandwich” and munch while absorbing the content.
The sales pitch for the American political system is that it is a robust debate between two distinct political parties. The Republicans and Democrats are coalitions of interests opposed to one another. The groups that make up each party are held together by a shared ideological outlook. The Republicans are the conservative party, and the Democrats are the liberal party. The political process adjudicates the disputes between the parties over public policy and the result is a compromise.
In reality, America is a one party system.
It has been since Gettysburg.
The differences between the two parties are miniscule. This is why public policy never changes when the party in charge changes.
The mild reforms of the Reagan years were followed by a consensus that remains in place to this day. There is some tinkering around the edges to keep up appearances, but otherwise the results of each election have no impact on public policy or the priorities of government.
As for those two ideologies, they are just two faces of a single ruling class ideology that is something like a religion now.
There is left-liberalism and there is right-liberalism held together by a common moral framework.
Like the old Bolsheviks, the left side of the American ideology is maximalist and radical. It wants to usher in the promises of the revolution right now.
The right side is more cautious, preferring an evolutionary approach to ushering in the promised utopia.
Unlike the old communists, the American ideology has always existed in a popular political system, so it is built to sell itself to the public.
The main role of the right-liberals is to protect the left-liberals from themselves. They function as barrier between the tenets of the one true faith and any questioning of the faith. The left side is the heart of the beast, driving the agenda and pushing society along from one fad to the next, always chasing the avatar of egalitarian paradise.
This arrangement has worked amazingly well.
Perhaps too well.
It has been over a century since there has been a threat to the system. Anarchists and communists at the start of the last century started to get some traction, but they were never really a threat to the basic arrangements. Otherwise, it has been smooth sailing for the uniparty system for generations.
The left-liberals are free to dream up new social innovations without being disturbed and the right stands quietly at guard.
The trouble is the party is looking like a freak show inside a hot house.
For example, the Air Force now has drag shows to boost morale. To normal people, this is completely nuts (pun intended), but to the people in charge it is perfectly normal. In fact, they think it is bizarre that anyone would question it. They are not entirely wrong, as the people who arranged it will never be pressed on it. The politicians all agree that drag queens are who we are now, and the press echoes the sentiment.
Where the ruling orthodoxy finds itself is in a place where there is never a need to explain themselves and defend their positions.
The right-liberals never challenge the left-liberals on orthodoxy.
Both sides just put on shows where they pretend to disagree, but then kick back together after the show to laugh about it. The right-liberals have insulated themselves from defending their position. They tell themselves that they are simply too good to discuss these things with their critics.
The folks at the Daily Wire are supposed to be the smart kids of conservatism, but they spend their days making sure the hothouse is airtight.
Ben Shapiro’s one venture outside the tightly controlled environment of his life ended in disaster. Ever since that public relations debacle his people have made sure that no one can utter a discouraging word in his presence. In fact, that whole scene has become a closed shop, never interacting with anyone outside their hive.
It is not just the pundits who have become hot house flowers.
Look at what happens to the military leaders when they go before Congress. This guy went before Congress and told one whopper after another. To outsiders, he looks like a complete fool, but inside that room he is just par for the course. Anyone reading this could have wrecked him with a few simple questions, but no one in the room has the intelligence or the temperament to question anything.
This is the motivation behind the mass censorship and de-platforming.
The people inside the political system are incapable of defending or even discussing their positions and they live in fear of having to do it. It is not so much that the critics have great arguments or have superior debating skills. That is a silly conceit. It is simply that the people outside the system, the dissidents, are comfortable defending their positions and discussing them in public. They can take a punch.
This underlying sense of weakness is probably what lies behind the persecution of the January protestors. January 6th, from the perspective of the ruling class, was an emperor has no clothes moment. The torture and torment of the protestors is as much about reassuring themselves that they are tough and in charge as it is about sending a message to the Dirt People. The ruling class revealed themselves to be cowards and now they are lashing out in a fit of petty spite.
All ruling elites have an abundance of sissies and ridiculous people.
They are the entertainment and decoration for the serious men who run things. Those serious men are made serious by regular contact with reality. Remove that contact and those serious men become as silly and ridiculous as their retainers.
That is where the empire finds itself now, ruled by fops and popinjays living in a hothouse. They live in fear of someone opening the door and letting in reality.
Conclusion
And it was well stated.
The American Empire is being ruled by people who have been in the “hot house” for way too long. They have grown large, powerful, and (even) beautiful in a way. We look at them in amazement. We watch their brazen actions, and their odd statements like we would a monkey in a zoo. Curious. Mischievous. Maybe even a little dangerous.
But not one of us.
They, like their ilk in Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, in the Soviet Union, in the Palace of Versailles, the leadership behind their tall walls are slowly losing their collective minds. They are no longer part of society. And some may even question if they are part of the human race.
Such as MM here.
All empires fall, but the rot crumbles from within the top tiers of the leadership.
We are watching this today, in real time. And it’s slow. Really slow. Like a sloooow motion train wreck.
We need not worry too much about their madness, that is unless they start making crazed laws, rules, pronouncements or engage in wars that can affect you. Because that is the great concern.
Truthfully, most Americans realize that everything in America today is a farce. Elections are a farce. Political parties are a farce. American “greatness” is a farce, and “freedom, liberty, and justice for all” is a sad, sad farce.
That instead, America is a out-of-control military empire, and the the much touted “democracy” model is a complete and abject failure.
But you know, that shouldn’t, and needn’t be your concern.
What should be your concern is how you, and your community will be able to weather out their madness.
And yes. It is frustrating, angering, and frightening.
But it is beyond your control. You can either leave the United States of Insanity, or you an stay. Both choices have their good and bad points. I left. But my situation was intolerable and I manufactured a ratty-old tattered “parachute”. No “golden parachute” for MM.
You make the best with what you have.
You make the best with what you have available.
So, guys and gals, enjoy the ride.
It will eventually settle out and over. One way or the other.
In the meantime, make sure that [1] your larder is well stocked, and that [2] you are surrounded by a community that appreciates and likes you. [3] Perform your prayer affirmations. This is the MOST important thing that you can do. By FAR.
Make sure that you are [4] healthy; mentally, emotionally, socially, physically, and in every other way possible. These times are taking it’s toll. Focus on your well being.
Lay out a “spread”. Invite some friends. If you have no friends, then invite some strangers. Just start.
With the basics taken cared for, then enjoy some time in quiet relaxation. That means companionship (whether it is the opposite sex, friends, family or pets) and enjoy some food.
Everyone loves food.
Well, almost everyone. I once met a fellow in a mental institution that hated food. But then again, he hated everything.
This is June moving towards July.
That could very well mean watermelon, corn on the cob, hotdogs, hamburgers, and all manner of fruits and vegetables.
All that calls for a major smunch!
A delicious Cuban sandwich.
Have a beer.
Call a friend.
Share a beer with a friend.
Make up a spread of cold cuts, vegetables, some potato salad, chips, and plan on some chatting. Even if you have nothing to talk about. Come up with an excuse. Have fun.
You make the best with what you have available.
You are never too old for fun.
Make up a sandwich, Or two. Or heck, a whole bunch of them. Put some beer in a chest full of ice. Or, make up some sangria. Or heck! Just have a bar and everyone can make their own cocktails.
Don’t let life pass your by simply because your government is run by idiots.
Make a sandwich. You make the best with what you have available.
Make it fun.
Maybe use some sweet grandmother pickles. Or, use turkey, ham, pickle loaf, and all sorts of deli cheeses on your “spread”. Allow everyone to experiment.
Like this…
Sorry about the “activate windows 10” overlay in the lower right corner. Windows crowbar opened up and updated without permission and now demands that I activate it by providing my personal information on their servers. Not going to happen. So I will need to endure this overlaid message until HarmonyOS is available.
Ah.
Life is too short not to eat good food. Drink good beverages. Spend good time with friends. Whether they are family, animals, associates, or members of the opposite sex.
Just have a good time.
Maybe take a trip to explore a museum, a state park, a pool, a historical society, a small town restaurant, an animal shelter, a fishing hole, or a walk on a trail. Dust off your old bicycle sitting in the garage and give it a spin.
Do something fun.
Ignore the madness in the hothouse.
You make the best with what you have available.
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.
Lately, there has been all this talk and speculation about how the USA is going to “counter” China. All made with the best of intentions by nationalists with little experience, poor or fraudulent Intel, and a lack of awareness at how incompetent the United States actually is today. Yet they own the MSM; the media mouthpiece and everyone desires to go ahead and pick a fight for “freedom™” and “democracy™”.
I have argued over and over and over again that America is very, very fragile. It is more than balkanized, it is tottering on the edge of chaos. And all it would take to send it over the side is China or Russia doing what the US Military is vocally planning to do.
One strike on a city.
It doesn’t even need to be a nuclear strike.
This strike completely collapse “the house of cards”, and all the people in the city will be forced to deal with a very bad situation. Will they come together? Will they work together? Will they [1] obey the advisement’s on the Emergency Broadcast System? Or will they [2] all go their own way, do their own thing, and take advantage of the situation for their own personal benefit?
The answer should be obvious to all Americans.
But somehow, and it’s unfathomable to me, that Americans separate a “war with China over Taiwan”, from “America urban enclaves erupting in an orgy of hate, rapes and killings”.
Because both will happen simultaneously.
China and Russia will make sure that it occurs.
Fifteen years ago we were able to watch what happens when a local disaster hits a city. And it isn’t pretty. I argue that this will become commonplace throughout the United States once the tipping point has been reached.
Are you ready?
The following is titled “Africa in our midst“. It reports on what happened in an American city New Orleans when a natural disaster struck. It is absolutely horrifying. All credit to the MM influencer that turned me on to it. Reprinted as found, all credit to the author, edited to fit this venue.
Africa in our Midst
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which blasted the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005 the entire world saw images that left no doubt that what is repeatedly called the sole remaining superpower can be reduced to squalor and chaos nearly as gruesome as anything found in the Third World. The weather — a Category 4 hurricane — certainly had something to do with it, but the most serious damage was done not by nature but by man.
Much has been and will be written about why the levees that are supposed to keep the water out of below-sea-level New Orleans failed. There will be bitter recrimination about whether the federal rescue effort could have been launched sooner. Commissions will ask questions and lessons will be learned. But there was another human failing that was far more ominous. No commission will study it, and official America will refuse to learn from it. In the orgy of finger-pointing it will be all but forgotten. That human failing — vastly more significant than the ones the commissions will investigate — is the barbaric behavior of the people of New Orleans.
New Orleans is 67 percent black, and about half the blacks are poor. Of the city’s 480,000 people, all but an estimated 80 to 100 thousand left before the hurricane struck. This meant that aside from patients in hospitals and eccentrics in the French Quarter, most of the people who stayed behind were not just blacks, but lower-class blacks without the means or foresight to leave.
Katrina hit on the morning of Monday, Aug. 29. The levees broke on Tuesday and the city began to flood. Before long, 80 percent of New Orleans was under as much as 20 feet of water.
The city’s 70,000-seat football stadium, known as the Superdome, had been officially designated as a public shelter before the hurricane, and several thousand people were already there the night before the storm. It had some food and medical supplies, but when the waters began to rise, people poured in from all directions, swelling its numbers to an estimated 25,000.
People came because their houses were under water, but also because New Orleans very quickly collapsed into banditry. Looting began even while the storm was still blowing. At first there was sympathetic clucking about the need for food and medicine, but news clips of blacks wading happily through waist-deep water with television sets over their heads dispelled that view.
The day after the hurricane, a reporter caught the atmosphere of high-spirited chaos at a Wal-Mart in the Lower Garden District. People were grabbing things as quickly as they could, smashing open jewelry cabinets and scooping up double-handfuls. One man packed his van so full of electronic equipment he could not close the rear doors. A teenage girl passed out, face down, and people stepped on her. A man stopped to roll her onto her back, and she vomited pink liquid. “This is f***ed up,” he said, and rolled her back on her stomach. An NBC correspondent filmed black, uniformed police officers strolling through the aisles, filling shopping carts.
At one store, a policeman broke the glass on the DVD case so civilians would not cut themselves trying to break it, but one man was ungrateful. “The police got all the best stuff,” he said. “They’re crookeder than us.” One woman stocking up on makeup was glad to see the officers. “It must be legal,” she said. “The police are here taking stuff, too.”
Violence of all kinds quickly spread through the paralyzed city, where robbery, rape, and even murder became routine. There were still thousands of people trapped on rooftops and in attics, but on Sept. 1, Mayor Ray Nagin called the entire police force off of rescue work and ordered it to secure the city. The response from the force? An estimated 200 officers just walked off the job. “They indicated that they had lost everything and didn’t feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives,” explained Henry Whitehorn, chief of the Louisiana State Police. Many disappeared without a word. Sheriff Harry Lee of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans also said his men were deserting. “They want to be with their families,” he said. “Well, I want to be with my family too, but you don’t quit in the middle of a crisis.”
Two police officers, including the department’s official spokesman Paul Accardo, committed suicide by shooting themselves in the head. The London Times estimated that one in five officers refused to work, and some of those who stayed on the job were useless. When Debbie Durso, a tourist from Washington, Michigan, asked a policeman for help he told her, “Go to hell — it’s every man for himself.”
Ged Scott, 36, of Liverpool, told BBC News what happened when a group of stranded British women shouted to police for help from the rooftop of a flooded hotel: “They [the officers] said to them, ‘Well, show us what you’ve got’ — doing signs for them to lift their T-shirts up. The girls said no, and they said ‘well fine,’ and motored off down the road in their motorboat. That’s the sort of help we had from the authorities.”
“No one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans,” explained Lieutenant General Steven Blum of the National Guard. He said the city was operating on only one third of its pre-storm strength of 1,500 officers, and that the guard suddenly had to switch from rescue to law enforcement: “And that’s when we started flowing military police into the theater.”
New Orleans has had only black mayors since 1978, and has spent decades making the police force as black as possible. It established a city-residency requirement for officers to keep suburban whites from applying for jobs, and lowered recruitment standards so blacks could pass them. Katrina blew away any pretence that the force was competent.
(On September 5, exactly a week after the hurricane, Mayor Ray Nagin offered to pay for the entire police force, firefighters, and city emergency workers to go on five-day vacations — with their families — to Las Vegas or some other destination. He said there were enough National Guard in the city to maintain order, and that his men “have been through a lot.” He brushed off suggestions that this was dereliction of duty. He even asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to pay for the vacations, but FEMA refused. “We haven’t turned over control of the city,” a city spokesman explained. “We’re going to leave a skeleton force — about 20 percent of the department — for leadership and liaison with the troops while we get some rest.”)
New Orleans has a high crime rate at the best of times — it is usually in top contention for the American city with the highest murder rate — and looted firearms spilled into the street. Some blacks fired on any symbol of authority, blazing away at rescue helicopters and Coast Guard vessels. Several days after the hurricane, with desperate people still huddled on rooftops, FEMA said it was too dangerous to attempt rescues.
On Wednesday, along one stretch of Highway 10, hundreds of volunteer firefighters, auxiliary coastguardmsmen and citizens with small boats were eager to reach people, but could not set out because of sniper fire. “We are trying to do our job here but we can’t if they are shooting at us,” explained Major Joey Broussard of the Louisiana State Fisheries and Wildlife Division. “We don’t know who and we don’t know why, but we don’t want to get in a situation of having to return fire out there,” he said.
Perhaps the most chilling accounts were from hospitals, where staff desperately tried to move patients up stairs as the water rose, while blacks looted the floors below. Most hospitals had emergency generators, but these began to give out. Two days after the hurricane, the city had no running water, and as food ran out, doctors and nurses gave themselves intravenous feedings to keep going.
Just outside New Orleans, gunmen held up a supply truck carrying food, water, and medical supplies that were on their way to a 203-bed hospital. Patients all across the city eventually had to be taken out, but rescuers met resistance. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan told reporters at an emergency headquarters: “Hospitals are trying to evacuate. At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them, saying, ‘You better come get my family.’” An effort to evacuate patients and staff from Charity Hospital in downtown New Orleans was stopped by sniper fire. Other hospitals reported gangs of looters attacking and overturning ambulances.
Chris Lawrence, a reporter with CNN, filed a report from the roof of a police station: “Right now it’s the only safe place to be in the city. We were on the street earlier but the police said under no circumstances would you be safe on the street. They said anybody walking in the streets of New Orleans is basically taking their life in their hands. . . . They directed some of the young women to get off the street immediately.”
What may have been the most shocking headline of the entire crisis was in the September 2 issue of Army Times: “Troops Begin Combat Operations in New Orleans.” The article was about the Louisiana National Guard massing near the Superdome in preparation for a citywide security mission. “This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones explained. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.” The amphibious assault ship Bataan was in the area, but kept its helicopters on board after pilots reported sniper fire.
Many soldiers came under gunfire from civilians. “I never thought that as a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans,” said Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. “And I never thought I’d have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace.” Cliff Ferguson of the same battalion added: “You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.”
Michael Brown, head of FEMA, said: “We are working under conditions of urban warfare.” General Blum of the National Guard said half of the 7,000 guardsmen under his command had just returned from overseas assignments and were “highly proficient in the use of lethal force.” He promised to deal with thugs “in a quick and efficient manner.”
Shoot-to-kill orders were supposed to have gone out, and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco boasted that battle-hardened veterans would put down the violence in no time. However, there were few accounts of soldiers firing their weapons. The London Times reported that a New Orleans policeman explained through tears that he had seen bodies riddled with bullets, and one man with the top of his head shot off. He said looters were armed with stolen AK-47 rifles, and that the police were outgunned just like in Somalia. “It’s a war-zone, and they’re [the federal government] not treating it like one,” he said.
We will never know the full extent of the mayhem blacks loosed on their own city. Many victims will not be found for weeks or even months, rotted beyond recognition, their killers never found. Drowned or murdered, the bloated, stinking bodies that turn up by the hundreds will look much the same. In their haste to get cadavers off the streets, the authorities may not worry much about cause of death.
From Hurricane to Jungle
In the two main refugee centers, however — the Superdome and the Convention Center — too many people witnessed the degeneracy for it to be ignored. The first refugees had arrived at the Superdome the day before the hurricane, on Sunday, August 28. The last finally left the stadium on Saturday, Sept, 3, so some people may have spent nearly a week in what, after the toilets began to overflow, became known as the “Sewerdome.”
Preparation for refugees was pitifully inadequate. By day, as many as 25,000 people sweltered in temperatures that rose into the 100s. Whatever order had been established soon melted away, and the stadium reverted to the jungle. Young men robbed and raped with impunity. Occasional gunshots panicked the crowd. At least one man committed suicide by throwing himself off a high deck and splattering onto the playing field. Bodies of the murdered, and of infants and the elderly who died of heat exhaustion began to accumulate. Six babies were born in the stadium. Charles Womack, a 30-year-old roofer, said he saw one man beaten to death, and was, himself beaten with a pipe. Crack addicts — who had brought their most valuable possession with them — smoked openly and fought over drugs.
A group of about 30 British students were among the very small number of whites in the stadium, where they spent four harrowing days. Jamie Trout, 22, an economics major, wrote that the scene “was like something out of Lord of the Flies,” with “people shouting racial abuse about us being white.” One night, word came that the power was failing, and that there was only ten minutes’ worth of gas for the generators. Zoe Smith, 21, from Hull, said they all feared for their lives: “All us girls sat in the middle while the boys sat on the outside, with chairs as protection,” she said. “We were absolutely terrified, the situation had descended into chaos, people were very hostile and the living conditions were horrendous.” She said that even during the day, “when we offered to help with the cleaning, the locals gave us abuse.”
Mr. Trout said the National Guard finally recognized how dangerous the threat was from blacks, and moved the British under guard to the basketball area, which was safer. “The army warned us to keep our bags close to us and to grip them tight,” he said, as they were escorted out. Twenty-year-old Jane Wheeldon credited one man in particular, Sgt. Garland Ogden, with getting the Britons safely out. “He went against a lot of rules to get us moved,” she said.
Australian tourists stuck in the Superdome had the same experience. Bud Hopes, a 32-year-old man from Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, took control and may have saved many lives. As the stadium reverted to anarchy, he realized whites were in danger, and gathered tourists together for safety. “There were 65 of us altogether so we were able to look after each other, especially the girls who were being grabbed and threatened,” said Mr. Hopes. They organized escorts for women who had to go to the toilet or for food, and set up a roster of men to stand guard while others slept. “We sat through the night just watching each other, not knowing if we would be alive in the morning,” Mr. Hopes said. “Ninety-eight percent of the people around the world are good,” he said; “in that place 98 per cent of the people were bad.”
John McNeil of Coorparoo in Brisbane tells what happened when their group, too, heard the lights were about to go out: “I looked at Bud [Hopes] and said, ‘That will be the end of us.’ The gangs had already eyed us off. If the lights had gone out we would have been in deep trouble. We were sitting there praying for a miracle and the lights stayed on.” Mr. Hopes said the Australians owed their lives to a National Guardsman who broke the rules and got whites out to a medical center past seething crowds of blacks.
Peter McNeil of Brisbane told the Australian AP that his son John was one of the 65 who managed to get out. The blacks were reportedly so hostile “they would stab you as soon as look at you.” “He’s never been so scared in his life,” explained Mr. McNeil. “He just said they had to get out of the dark. Otherwise, another night, he said, they would have been gone.” No American newspaper wrote about what these white tourists went through.
When guardsmen began to show up in force on Sept. 1 and take control, some blacks met them with cheers, but others shouted obscenities. Capt. John Pollard of the Texas Air National Guard said 20,000 people were in the dome when the evacuation began, but thousands more appeared from surrounding areas when word got out that there were buses leaving town. Soldiers held their M-16s and grenade-launchers at the ready, and kept a sharp eye out for snipers.
That same day, when it was time to board buses for Houston, soldiers had trouble controlling the crowd. People at the back of the mob crushed the people in front against barricades soldiers put up to control the flow. Many people continued to yell obscenities whenever a patrol went by. Some were afraid of losing their place in line and defecated where they stood. The Army Times reported that Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon of the Oklahoma National Guard, who had recently come home from Afghanistan, said he was struck by the fact Afghanis wanted to help themselves, but that the people of New Orleans only wanted others to help them.
By the evening of Sept. 3, the Superdome was finally evacuated, but the state-of-the-art stadium was a reeking cavern of filth, human waste, and an unknown number of corpses. It, too, had been looted of everything not bolted down. Janice Singleton was working at the stadium when the storm hit. She said she was robbed of everything, even her shoes. As for the building: “They tore that dome apart,” she said sadly. “They tore it down. They taking everything out of there they can take.”
Only afterwards did the public learn there were 50 police officers assigned to the Superdome, but they appear to have been completely ineffectual. Toni Blanco, a 24-year veteran, said police could not arrest anyone because there was no place to hold suspects, and they were afraid to use their guns for fear of the crowd. “You felt helpless in the sense there was absolutely nothing we could do for the city,” she said. What did she do at night, when conditions were worst? She and another officer, Alecia Wright, would slip out to a patrol car and have a good cry. “Many times we laid in the car and tears just rolled,” said Miss Blanco. Some officers simply abandoned their posts and fled the Superdome.
Conditions were even worse at the Convention Center. Although on high ground not far from the stadium, it had not been designated as a shelter. It was, however, beyond reach of the high water, and soon some 20,000 people were huddled in its cavernous halls. There were no supplies or staff, and for several days neither FEMA nor the National Guard seems to have known anyone was there.
Armed gangs took control, and occasional gunshots caused panic. There was no power, and at night the center was plunged into complete darkness. Degeneracy struck almost immediately, with rapes, robbery, and murder. Terrible shrieking tore through the night, but no one could see, or dared to move. When Police Chief Eddie Compass heard what was happening, he sent a squad of 88 officers to investigate. They were overwhelmed by superior forces and retreated, leaving thousands to the mercy of criminals.
It was not until Sept. 2 — four days after the hurricane — that a force of 1,000 National Guardsmen finally took over from the armed gangs. “Had we gone in with a lesser force we may have been challenged, [and] innocents may have been caught in a fight,” explained Gen. Blum.
Sitting with her daughter and other relatives, Trolkyn Joseph, 37, told a reporter that men had wandered the center at night raping and murdering children. She said she found a dead 14-year old girl at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, four hours after the girl went missing. “She was raped for four hours until she was dead,” Miss Joseph said through tears. “Another child, a seven-year old boy, was found raped and murdered in the kitchen freezer last night.”
Africa Brumfield, 32, explained that women were in particular fear: “There is rapes going on here. Women cannot go to the bathroom without men. They are raping them and slitting their throats.” Donald Anderson, 43, was at the convention center with his wife, who was six months pregnant: “We circled the chairs like wagons because at night there are stampedes,” he said. “We had to survive.”
The very few whites in the crowd were terrified. Eighty-year-old Selma Valenti, who was with her husband, said blacks threatened to kill them on Thursday, Sept. 1. “They hated us. Four young black men told us the buses were going to come last night and pick up the elderly so they were going to kill us,” she said, sobbing. Presumably, the blacks wanted to take their places on the buses.
The center was not entirely without a form of rough justice. A National Guardsman reported that a man who had raped and killed a young girl in the bathroom was caught by the crowd — which beat him to death.
At one time there were as many as seven or eight corpses in front of the center, some of them with blood streaming from bullet wounds. Inside, there was an emergency morgue, but a National Guardsman refused to let a Reuters photographer take pictures. “We’re not letting anyone in there anymore,” he said. “If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq.” By Saturday, Sept. 3, the center was mostly cleared of the living. Refugees pulled shirts over their noses trying to block out the smell as they walked past rotting bodies.
Later it would be learned there were 30 to 40 bodies piled into the convention center’s freezer, almost all of them murder victims. Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks showed a reporter the charnel house: “I ain’t got the stomach for it, even after what I saw in Iraq. In Iraq, it’s one-on-one. It’s war. It’s fair. Here, it’s just crazy. It’s anarchy. . . . And this is America. This is just 300 miles south of where I live.”
For the city as a whole, not even 50,000 soldiers and federal rescue workers could bring calm. On Sunday, Sept. 4, contractors working for the US Army Corps of Engineers came under fire. Their police escort returned fire and killed four attackers.
On Monday, Sept, 5, a week after the hurricane and after virtually everyone who wanted to get out was gone, there was still widespread banditry. “We’re having some pretty intense gun battles breaking out around the city,” said Capt. Jeff Winn of the New Orleans SWAT team. “Armed gangs of from eight to 15 young men are riding around in pickup trucks, looting and raping.”
Brian McKay was one of 300 Arkansas guardsmen just back from Iraq. He was in full battle gear, including body armor, putting down insurgents. “It’s like Baghdad on a bad day,” he said. Another Arkansan veteran under fire agreed: “It’s just so much like Iraq, it’s not funny, except for all the water, and they speak English.”
Since the old jail was flooded, police set up a holding pen at the Greyhound bus terminal. State Attorney General Charles Foti said there were plans for a temporary court system, but no one knew how they were going to assemble juries or call witnesses. The grim business began of combing the drowning city for corpses and the remaining survivors.
Reactions
The world reacted with astonishment to sights it never expected to see in America. “Anarchy in the USA,” read the headline in Britain’s best-selling newspaper, The Sun. “Apocalypse Now,” said Handelsblatt in Germany. Mario de Carvalho, a veteran Portuguese cameraman, who covers the world’s trouble spots, said he saw the bodies of babies and old people along the highways leading out of New Orleans. “It’s a chaotic situation. It’s terrible. It’s a situation we generally see in other countries, in the Third World,” he said.
Some Third-Worlders would have been insulted. “I am absolutely disgusted,” said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, of the looters. The Sri Lanka native added: “After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering. Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world’s population is.”
In the United States, the stark contrast between endless scenes of appalling behavior by blacks and rescue personnel who were almost all white was greeted with the standard foolishness. Some people accused the “biased” media of suppressing footage of rampaging whites and heroic black helicopter pilots.
Many blacks made excuses for looters. “Desperate people do desperate things,” said US Rep. Diane Watson of California. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. from Illinois, said we must not judge harshly: “Who are we to say what law and order should be in this unspeakable environment?” Rep. Melvin Watt, North Carolina Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, was perhaps the greatest ass of all: “Whatever is being taken could not be used by anyone else anyway,” he said.
Many blacks took it for granted that federal relief was slow because the victims were black. Rep. Elijah Cummings said “poverty, age and skin color” determined who lived and who died. Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, blasted “disparate treatment” of Katrina victims. “Many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response,” explained Jesse Jackson, Sr. He said the rubbish outside the Convention Center made the place look “like the hull of a slave ship.” Black activist and reparations-booster Randall Robinson said the relief effort was the “defining watershed moment in America’s racial history.” He said he had “finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud.”
Democratic Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick of Michigan said she was “ashamed of America and . . . of our government.” The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin — the man who gave city workers a vacation when the feds arrived — shouted and wept on local radio, demanding of federal officials: “Get off your asses, and let’s do something.” There was an undercurrent of fury at a meeting of black leaders in Detroit. One audience member wanted to know whether the slow federal response was “black genocide.” Another shouted, “African Americans built this nation. Descendants of slaves are being allowed to die.”
One black man, observing the chaos from abroad, took a different view. Leighton Levy wrote in the Sept. 2 Jamaica Star: “I am beginning to believe that black people, no matter where in the world they are, are cursed with a genetic predisposition to steal, murder, and create mayhem.” He wanted to know why there was no footage of white looters: “Is it that the media are not showing pictures of them looting and robbing? Or is it that they are too busy trying to stay alive, waiting to be rescued, and hiding from the blacks?”
Most blacks and many whites fell into the usual assumptions about omnipotent white government and helpless Negroes. If black people were suffering it was because whites had not done enough for them. It did not occur to them that it was the responsibility of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana — not the federal government — to prepare for hurricanes. Before the storm, Mayor Nagin issued a mandatory evacuation only under pressure from the Bush administration. The mayor then did nothing to enforce the order, leaving hundreds of city buses and school buses to drown, rather than use them to offer transportation to people without cars.
Something of the mood of black New Orleans was caught by Fox News film crews as late as Sunday, Sept. 4. White volunteers were trying to persuade a black woman and her small children to leave her flooded house. “You’ve got to get out,” they explained. “The water isn’t going away.” A black man at the top of a multi-story building told a helicopter crew he didn’t need to leave. All he needed was some supplies.
These people could not understand something that was obvious to the whole world: New Orleans had no electricity, no plumbing, no transport, and no food. Blacks refused to leave their flooded homes, even though to stay meant near-certain death.
Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff noted how crazy it was to stay in the wreckage. “That is not a reasonable alternative,” he said. “We are not going to be able to have people sitting in houses in the city of New Orleans for weeks and months while we de-water and clean this city.”
FEMA reported that it had pulled three Carnival Cruise Lines ships from commercial duty to shelter the blacks of New Orleans. Maybe the chance of berth on the Ecstasy, the Sensation or the Holiday would be enough to drag them out of the muck.
Lessons
Ninety-nine percent of the white people left New Orleans when the evacuation order went out. Some 80,000 blacks could not or would not leave. Whites did not “leave them behind,” as the editorial writers keep telling us. No one could have gotten some of them to leave — a number of men cheerfully admitted they stayed in town to loot — but if it was anyone’s job to give them the option, it was that of the black-run city government. Of the blacks who stayed, probably only a minority committed crimes, but they were enough to turn the city into a hell hole. Some did unspeakable things: loot hospitals, fire on rescue teams, destroy ambulances. No amount of excuse-making and finger-pointing can paper over degeneracy like that. Black people — and only black people — did these things.
The Superdome and the Convention Center were certainly unpleasant places to spend three or four days, but 50,000 whites would have behaved completely differently. They would have established rules, organized supplies, cared for the sick and dying. They would have organized games for children. The papers would be full of stories of selflessness and community spirit.
Natural disasters usually bring out the best in people, who help neighbors and strangers alike. For blacks — at least the lower-class blacks of New Orleans — disaster was an excuse to loot, rob, rape and kill.
Our rulers and media executives will try to turn the story of Hurricane Katrina into yet another morality tale of downtrodden blacks and heartless whites, but pandering of this kind fools fewer and fewer people.
Many whites will realize — some for the first time — that we have Africa in our midst, that utterly alien Africa of road-side corpses, cruelty, and anarchy that they thought could never wash up on these shores.
To be sure, the story of Hurricane Katrina does have a moral for anyone not deliberately blind. The races are different. Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.
And in a crisis, Western Civilization disappears overnight.
Conclusion
America is fragile.
What happens when an EMP wipes out all communication, vehicular traffic, internet, and batteries? Who will come out of the balkanized enclaves? And what will they do?
The writing has been on the wall for some time, and now hate has been institutionalized, and the social structure is gone. It is in tatters. America is a wreck, and the ruling oligarchy really isn’t aware at the actual fragility of America.
If they were (aware) they would be conducting emergency domestic rebuilding, and hiring.
They would NOT be constructing trillion-dollar spending campaigns on the military “to counter” anyone.
And they most certainly wouldn’t be giving away trillion-dollars to any other nations for a counter program for the BRI.
Instead, they would be spending money and time dealing with the festering problems that exists right now. That means all sorts of restructuring of local and state and federal governments, wholesale readjustments of federal agencies, and many, many rebuilding programs at the LOCAL LEVEL. Not throwing away money at the FEDERAL LEVEL.
But they are not.
Instead we see the nation gearing up for a major war with either China or Russia. And trust me, it will be against both simultaneously.
What will happen after the missiles fly is anyone’s guess. But I am leaning strongly on a short-war, with both Russia and China being victorious. And America absolutely, completely and utterly, devastated; broken and destroyed in every single conceivable way.
Are you all ready for a devastated America?
Do you have any idea what that means? Do you have any idea what it will be like for the people inside of America? A balkanized racist America?
Guess.
Coming to your neighborhood soon.
Now, a word about whether this might come about…
I wrote this back over a year ago. And the events of the last few months put everything in a stunning new light…
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.
A lot of interesting articles out lately concerning Geo-Politics. Most of which are unavailable on Google or in the states. As they are “shadow banned”. I want to chat about some of the stuff that’s “out there”. And in this post I am going to throw a lot of the banned stuff out for you all to absorb.
But first, let me take a sip of tea.
You know, I have come to enjoy Earl Grey Tea. It’s got this lovely aroma, a nice soothing feel, and is wholly enjoyable to drink. But I do not drink it every day. Sometimes I drink roasted Oolong tea. And I have become a fan of green tea. It’s healthier for you, don’t you know.
Earl Grey Tea.
With the Earl Grey Tea, I like to drink it UK / Australian style. Nicely seeped in a pot, poured into a a nice cup sitting on a saucer, and I add some sugar and milk. Though it’s not all that proper. I do enjoy it that way.
This is how a “real” (an authentic) British person (man, or woman, or “thing”) makes a cup of tea.
How to Make a “Proper” Cup of Tea (British Tea, that is)
Tea is an institution in the UK. Its fibers are woven into the British culture in such a way that it is difficult to describe to a “non-Brit.” I came across this video a while ago and was so awed by the impact a beverage can have on a country.
FYI to Americans, Eastenders is a popular soap-opera type show in the UK. When the show finishes, most viewers turn the kettle on for a cup of tea resulting in a huge surge for electricity! Who’d figure?
The British love their tea. I wonder if people in Singapore drink tea properly like the British do?
I put “proper” in quotation marks because this is my version of how to make a proper cup of tea. It’s not the “proper-proper” tea made with loose leaf tea, of course. That’s more for a leisurely afternoon tea, but this is an everyday process with tea bags which is less time consuming.
In the UK they say to put one teabag per person and “one for the pot.” However, in my opinion that’s too strong for most people in the US and Canada who are used to a weaker tea.
If you are using a British brand of tea, which is already much stronger and has a lot more flavor than most US tea brands, you might just want to use a teabag per person.
Three teabags for a 32 ounce pot, not completely filled to the rim (about 4 cups of tea) is perfect for a fine British family, but you can just adjust accordingly.
First of all, a proper-proper cup of tea is made with loose leaf tea, but most of us don’t have time for that on a daily basis, two or three times a day.
So this is mostly aimed at US households who are used to a Lipton teabag in hot water in a mug. This will be a big change in flavor for those of you.
1.Boil the water.
First, bring water to a boil, but do not let it keep boiling. Remove it as soon as it comes to a boil. This is critical. This is important.
As soon as the tea comes to a boil, remove it from the stove.
Hot water will not do.
We want the tea leaves to infuse the flavor of the tea into the water, and tepid or hot water will not do this nearly as well as boiling water. I use an electric kettle because we use it all the time.
You will also need a good teapot, preferably one made in the UK (they know their tea there).
2.Warm the teapot for the perfect cup of tea.
So, when the kettle is almost boiling, put some water in the pot, just to warm up the teapot. Return the kettle to its base (or stovetop) to make it come to a full boil. Swirl the hot water around the teapot and then drain it out. Make sure to have your teabags ready.
A proper teapot.
3.Add the teabags and water to the pot.
When the water just comes to a boil, put the teabags in the teapot and immediately pour the water into the pot.
You do not place them in the cup.
You place the teabags in the kettle. That is it’s purpose.
4.Use a tea cosy (if you have one).
Next, if you have a tea cosy, cover the pot. If not, use a heavy tea towel or something to keep the pot warm. You’ll discover that this also makes a big difference in the outcome of the flavor of the tea.
A tea cosy.
5.Steep the tea.
Let the tea steep for about 3 to 5 minutes; the longer you leave it, the stronger it will be. (Three minutes in a tea pot is pretty weak.)
6.Pour the tea and add the milk (and sugar, if desired).
Now it’s time to pour the perfectly steeped tea.
If you’re going to add sugar, add it before the milk so that it has a chance to start melting before adding the cold milk. Regarding the whole “milk, or tea first” debate, it used to be that milk went in first to protect the china from cracking, so that’s no longer a reason.
I think it’s a personal preference. I like to add the milk after so I can better control the ratio of milk to tea, and you may think I’m crazy, but I say it tastes better, too. I also prefer whole milk. 2% milk is passable, but don’t offer me 1% or even talk to me about skim milk. Although you should NEVER add cream to a cup of tea, the natural cream that’s in whole milk adds a lot to the flavor of a proper cup of tea.
Now enjoy with a crumpet or a biscuit.
British (or Hong Kong) style crumpet. Toasted with well-salted butter.
Now…
With a cup of tea in one hand, and a fine hot buttered crumpet nearby. Let’s adjust our monocle to look at the editorial sections of the paper. Shall we?
Ah. A fine Rugby match. It’s all Crickets, don’t you know.
Oh, here’s something from the colonies…
It seems that President Biden is trying to incentivize Russia to stop dealing with China. It’s what he has been doing with the G7 folk in Europe. But, you know, Russia is “not biting”.
MOSCOW (Xinhua): Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced actions aimed at driving a wedge between Moscow and Beijing, stressing that China is a strategic partner, not a threat.
"We can see attempts to destroy the relationship between Russia and China. We can see that those attempts are being made in practical policies,"
Putin said in an interview with US television network NBC published on Monday (June 14).
"We are pleased with the unprecedentedly high level of our relationship as it has evolved over the last few decades. We cherish it just like our Chinese friends do, which we can see,"
He said.
Putin praised…
"a high level of trust and cooperation in all areas"
…between the two countries, from politics and economy to technology and military.
"We do not believe that China is a threat to us. China is a friendly nation. It has not declared us an enemy as the United States has done,"
He said.
A huge and powerful country, China has been developing with its great economy and a tremendous volume of foreign trade,
He added.
"We have been working and will continue to work with China, which applies to all kinds of programs, including exploring deep space,"
The Russian leader concluded.
Meanwhile, exactly what’s up with the Western G7 nations?
Popular WhatsApp forwarded message:
I never saw this until now. But that’s probably because I don’t have WhatsApp. I don’t want it, and there’s a bunch of chicks that want to hook up with me because they see my LinkedIN account and mistakenly believe that I have lots of money that they can somehow extract via their sultry means…
LOL.
Anyways I got this jammed in my proton mail account from a reliable source, and it makes for a great read. I enjoyed it. Maybe you will too.
*A Lesson In History…*
1. Which countries invaded and occupied Indonesia?
*Netherlands for 350 years and Japan for 3.5 years*.
2. Which country was once the colony master of Malaya & India?
*Britain*.
3. Which countries invaded and occupied Vietnam?
*France 1857-1940 & 1946-1954, Japan 1940-1945 and USA (in Southern Vietnam) 1955-1975*.
4. Which countries were responsible for colonization of the African continent?
*Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy*.
5. Which 8 countries were responsible for the occupation of China in early 20th century?
*Britain, US, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy & Austria-Hungary*.
6. Which countries are responsible for colonizing and almost annihilating the Red Indians in northern America?
*France & Britain*.
7. Which country colonized and almost annihilated Aborigines in Australia and New Zealand?
*Britain* .
8. Which are the member countries of G7?
*United Kingdom/Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan & USA*.
And now the million dollar question…
9. Why are the G7 members see China as a threat even though China is the only major nation on earth that has never invaded or occupied another country?
*Ego or fear of retribution* ?
America today is so many ways from being Right, that it’s easy to pick it’s imperfections. Here’s another article by a Pentagon worker who is alarmed at what is going on inside of the Washington DC beltway for war (with either or Russia and / or China)…
Horrified by the actual discussions going on inside of the Pentagon today.
Merriam Webster dictionary defines the word "othering" as an act wherein a race or culture is made to appear as "a large, uniform mass, rather than a diverse group of individuals… treating people from another group as less human than one's own group."
Historically, "othering" has served as a conditioning mechanism to dehumanize US adversaries, preparing normally empathetic men and women to act with less discrimination and greater brutality in war.
During WWII, US othering of the Japanese involved weaponizing disinformation and propagating racist stereotypes. It was considered as effective at setting the necessary psychological conditions for the controversial internment of Japanese Americans, firebombing of Tokyo, and dropping of atomic bombs on Japanese cities merely to deter the Soviet Union. Conceivably, left unmodified, a soldier's empathy for non-combatant human beings otherwise could have placed those ruthless American operations and their objectives at risk.
Othering of the Chinese people is evident in recent US news media in the form of a mix of unverified rumors, disinformation, and selective exclusion of contradictory facts. It has been reported that China-averse special interests have even paid US journalists to publish stories biased against China's policies, to include encouraging a US-China confrontation. Meanwhile, the island of Taiwan's secession champions in the US Congress have nurtured the absurd public perception that the US-emulating people aboard the island of Taiwan are "non-Chinese" in ethnic identity.
The apparent sophistication and coordination of Chinese othering are indications that some in the US are working to desensitize Americans to the certain horrors of a war with China over Taiwan. Its effects are already being witnessed in American society. Despite a presidential-level denouncement, racially motivated assaults on Chinese and Asians generally are sharply increasing. The dehumanization of our future foe is in full swing to the delight of China-averse special interests.
Some argue that a US war with China over Taiwan would be a just war, claiming the "non-Chinese" island citizenry deserves our protection, not just ideological support. Others will go further and assert that the US nuclear umbrella needs to be extended to encompass the island. They try to make the desperate case that the island of Taiwan is the last bastion of American values in Southeast Asia, and the final barricade that contains China.
The nuclear weapons theme deserves a closer look. Senior US military leaders at different times in the 20th century glibly suggested the employment of nuclear weapons to regain initiative in conventional conflicts with non-nuclear Asian nations. In addition to the island of Taiwan, these included conflicts in and with Vietnam, Korea, and China. Similarly, the employment of firebombing and nuclear weapons against a densely populated Japan was rationalized without significant opposition.
This was not so in the European theater. The firebombings of Dresden, Hamburg and elsewhere were emotionally contested even at the time of their planning, although the fanaticism and atrocious behavior of Imperial Japan was on a par with that of Nazi Germany. In fact, Winston Churchill went so far as to write: the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. Tokyo, Nagasaki and Hiroshima did not benefit from such a distinguished Western advocate, and evidently neither does China.
Today hawkish members of Congress, most of whom have not served their country in uniform, casually resurrect such options as it pertains to supporting the island of Taiwan's split from China. It is easy for them to talk tough on the matter as most don't know the sacrifices of Service, and perhaps because of lacking ethnic identification with Chinese and other Asian races and cultures. This thoughtless devaluation of Asian casualties to mere nuclear attrition statistics results from the same sort of American othering seen in the 20th century.
In a war, the small island of Taiwan would erupt into a battleground with an intensity unknown since the world wars. All parties have known that the island's citizenry would be devastated far beyond the value of attempting to secede from China. Since this is known by the US Congress in advance, it illuminates the reality that the Chinese aboard the island of Taiwan are expendable. The issue of the island province is not and never was about protecting its people. Instead, it is all about the US striving to maintain its hegemonic reach during a period of decline in global influence.
This difference in the US perspectives on Asian and European lives is nothing new to any overseas or indigenous Asian citizen. To contort the present American devaluation and othering into a dubious justification for violating China's internal affairs and sovereignty is futile and transparent. It also portends that a fight over the island of Taiwan will rapidly devolve into a primitive, brutal, unrestricted war that has every appearance of, and is at its core an imperial US expedition.
As an American, my priority is US national interest. Attempting to support the renegade island of Taiwan's secession is directly contrary to the US national interest as we know in advance we will lose. Even in defeat many politicians, conservative ideologues, financially incentivized journalists, and special interests such as the US defense industry would benefit, just as a similar cabal did after Vietnam. But Taiwan secession is a transparently shallow cause with no path to victory. In fact, historical precedent shows that the US will lose primarily because the American public will see through the fraudulent deadly farce, but only after the unspeakable tragedy unfolds.
In the end, China' Province of Taiwan will always mean more to the physically proximate, ethnically identical, and nationalistically fueled China of over 1.4 billion, than it will to the distant, over-extended, and above all falsely incentivized US of 350 million. The heaviest burden of the tragedy of war will fall on the young, patriotic men and women who volunteered to serve in the US military in the faith that an assigned cause is legitimate and worthy of their sacrifice. Unfortunately, a war between the US and China over the island of Taiwan would be a complete betrayal of their good faith.
The author is a retired Marine Corps infantry officer who now serves as a US civil servant in the Pentagon. Opinions are of the author and do not represent the US government obviously.
So when a Pentagon insider is seeing things starting to turn in one direction and is willing to risk his life and his career over it, maybe we all should shit up and take notice.
This all makes me hungry because it reminds me of Po-Boy sandwiches
Well it does.
You see, this near religious fervor towards war reminds me of the “Bible thumping” ministers of the deep, deep American South. Like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. As much as I love Louisiana, and I do love it in so many, many ways, the “Bible Thumpers” are just plain obnoxious.
They really are.
Louisiana and Mississippi are just beautiful, and I consider my days in Hattiesburgh and Pervis to be very special ones.
This picture reminds me of my home in Hattiesburgh Mississippi. This is sort of what the front yard looked like. I can tell you that my cats just loved the place. Behind my house was a wooded bog / swamp and they would spend all the time exploring it and doing cat things.
Anyways…
This reminds me of Louisiana because of the assholes pushing for war. They are of the same type; a belief that they have been issued by GOD to be the “cleansers of the world” to remove all impurities that does not embrace the righteous nature of “democracy’!
Now getting to my point.
They remind me of food.
Why?
I do not know.
Girls remind me of food too. But I know why. I always picture myself eating with them and chatting with them, and telling stories, and drinking wine over delicious food. So it’s really understandable that I would associate women with food.
But sicko egomaniacs?
Let me continue….
…and try to explain. First, let’s discuss what a “Po’boy” is…
A Po-Boy is a traditional sandwich from Louisiana. It almost always consists of meat, which is usually roast beef or fried seafood, often shrimp, crawfish, fish, oysters or crab. The meat is served on New Orleans French bread, known for its crisp crust and fluffy center.
Fried catfish po’boy sandwich.
When I read about how America is going to “save the Taiwanese” for “democracy” and “freedom” I am reminded of the Southern Baptist minister in the deep South of Louisiana. The local folk were all pretty darn decent, and I served some time with them in prison, but the local government was so very corrupt, and the Baptist Ministers were the worst kind of “fire and brimstone” evangelicals.
You know like Tom Cotton is. Yeah, I know he’s from Arkansas. But it’s not that far away from Louisiana. Maybe one or two inches.
One inch.
Tom Cotton.
What a fella.
He’s (you know) one of the jack-asses pushing for World War III.
I associate him with his environment. As we should all associate people so that we can best understand them, their motivations, and why they do the crazy things that they do.
So it makes me think of what it was like, and how can I omit the wonderful Po’boy sandwiches and fine CajunCooking?
Cajun Cooking. Um um good em’ yah. You betya.
Well…
There are no easy answers.
Corrupt people in America push to become leaders and live in the enclave of the psychopaths; Washington DC. And he is one of them.
Personally, I cannot imagine him eating delicious food.
Instead, I picture him (somehow) eating food like this…
Here’s a pretty decent article by another ex-military working inside the Pentagon who is, justifiably horrified at all the talk about war, war, war! He wrote this and subsequently had his secret clearances revoked. He was then fired.
It would seem to some that a US war with China over the island of Taiwan appears imminent.
Considering the congestion of hostile forces in, above, and below the Taiwan Straits and South China Sea, conflict could explode by accident or design. Once blood is drawn, the US will have few options. If the US elects to fight China over the island of Taiwan, then it will lose.
Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) independence hubris is fueled by US cabinet-level China hawks and Congress' bipartisan, bicameral Taiwan Caucus. The DPP has rejected political reunification in one China and dismissed the "one country, two systems" model under which both Taiwan and Hong Kong have gotten rich. Encouraged by US trivialization of the three joint communiqués, the DPP parades a sense of entitlement, taking for granted an umbrella of protection with full knowledge of the dire consequences for the US
The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) may not have been intended to give birth to Taiwan's renegade secessionists, but it has done exactly that.
The DPP's champions in the US Congress dismiss omens of fanatical China grit on the topic of Taiwan. China-bashing and Taiwan-coveting rhetoric forms an echo chamber reminiscent of the groupthink-led American Friends of Vietnam (AFV) lobby that pressured the US to commit to the Vietnam War killing 60,000 American patriots before the US disgracefully abandoned its ally.
But the Chinese are different.
China's history of the whole-of-society commitment to core national security priorities is legendary. The rebellions and unrests in the 19th century cost millions of Chinese lives. Twentieth century Chinese civil war losses ranged between 5 and 8 million, and 360,000 Chinese died in Korea, while routing and humiliating US and UN forces. In each case, the dynasties emerged stronger.
The US Congress' interests in Taiwan are deeply conflicted, better said corrupt.
The reciprocal relationship between defense lobbyists, industry contributions, and a Caucus Member's reelectability is well documented. The bipartisan support for increasing arms sales to Taiwan and even larger defense expenditures on the US Indo-Pacific Command are logical and transparent as all parties profit from the tension and war.
Many Americans assume China's citizenry longs for a liberal democracy like that on the island of Taiwan, and that war will trigger popular revolt.
But the Taiwan question is not an ideological dispute.
Rather it is a raw and painful open wound in China's civilizational identity. Today, US othering of Chinese only fuels a fierce nationalism in its 1.4 billion citizens. China has a traditional self-narrative wherein the preservation of face and enforcement of sovereignty are inseparable.
All the while the balance of power has shifted fundamentally. The US would be wise to regard China as a peer superpower, if only due to her casualty-tolerance - China's decisive advantage in any fight with the US. China also shares a binding mutual defense treaty with North Korea, and the depths of its friendship and security bonds with Russia should never be underestimated.
The US can think whatever it wants about China's ideology, culture, Xinjiang and Hong Kong policies, and sovereign claims to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and surrounding seas. But, whether the US likes it or not, those are ultimately China's internal affairs.
As for DPP claims of the Province of Taiwan's non-Chinese identity, they are historical fiction.
Fate made them Chinese just as fate made us Americans. We also know that the free will choice to carve out a territory and people from an existing nation incurs a steep price, one the Confederacy paid not long ago.
The US has never paid an existential price for violating another nation's sovereignty, leading to our smug sense of military invincibility.
However, with Taiwan being a core Chinese priority, that would be a fatal miscalculation.
Still, the US counts on regional allies to share the pain. Yet some will have blood debts to pay if they engage in China's civil war. For example, India was bloodied badly in the 1960s for testing China's territorial resolve. Japan's humiliating 50-year occupation of Taiwan and the Rape of Nanjing also remain fresh, unforgettable wounds for China. The US allies will definitely think twice before militarily intervening in China's unresolved civil war and internal affairs.
The US could advise Taiwan's secessionists to peaceably accept "one country, two systems" and cease its "independence" ambitions. If they don't stop their rhetoric, the US president could rescind the TRA, as baiting China to force reunification is of the DPP's own choosing. If Congress obstructs TRA recension, the US president could order all national security agencies to stand down in cross-Straits conflicts, keeping our powder dry for actual existential threats in the future.
In the end, the prosperous Taiwan people will make every effort to wag the American dog. But Taiwan's fate poses no existential threat to the US, and the US should not fall into the trap of paying for their hubris with American blood. However, in view of the violent political polarization of the US at home, an ill-advised foreign war with no path to victory would only serve to accelerate America's decline.
But he’s right. Don’t you know.
But the United States is absolutely out-of-control right now and no one wants to hear that “the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes”.
About as important as any band playing Jazz Fest is a bowl of Crawfish Monica, best enjoyed while festin’. Creamy, rich pasta (usually corkscrew rotini) is blended with lump crawfish meat and plenty of butter, heavy cream and spices. It’s kind of like mac and cheese took a wrong turn and ended up in Cajun country. The creators of Crawfish Monica, the folks at Kajun Kettle Foods, have crazy lines each year at Jazz Fest, and unfortunately they aren’t restaurateurs, so they don’t have a location you can visit. Could there be a better excuse to book your Jazz Fest tickets today?
The story “the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes”
Is everyone, or anyone, aware of this children’s story written by Hans Christian Anderson. You know the one. It was first published in April of 1873?
Well, then, here is a short summary.
The story is about a vain emperor whose favorite thing was buying and wearing the latest style of clothes. The story points out how the emperor cared nothing about reviewing his troops, going to the theater or going for carriage rides (Unless the rides were to show off his newest clothes). “He had a different coat for every hour of the day,” the story continues. When the emperor was late for a meeting or other event the excuse was usually, “The emperor is in his dressing room.”
The kingdom is described as a festive place with many visitors.
The story continues that on one day two “swindlers” came to the emperor’s town. The swindlers claimed to be weavers and bragged to anyone who would listen how they, “Could weave the most magnificent of clothes.” The swindler’s story continued that, “Not only were the colors uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.”
Word of the “weavers” reached the emperor and he thought this was great, he felt it would be the ideal product for him so he could determine who was not worthy of their position!
“He paid a large sum of money to the swindlers to start at once.” “They set up two looms and pretended to weave, though there was nothing on the looms. All the finest silk and purest old thread which they demanded went into their travel bags, while they worked the empty looms well into the night.”
The emperor was anxious to check on the progress and, while he was a very confident person, he was concerned that he might not see the material and asked a trusted old minister to check on the progress.
The swindlers, pretending to be weaving the material, greeted the minister when he arrived and said, “Don’t hesitate a moment to tell us what you think.” The minister was embarrassed and did not want anyone to suspect he was not worthy of his post, or stupid. “It’s beautiful.” was his reply.
The swindlers thanked him and then recited a list of all the colors and explained the intricacies of the weave. The minister listened intently as he feared everyone else would see the clothes. The swindlers then asked the emperor for more money, silk and thread.
The Emperor asked another trusted advisor to check on the progress. That advisor looked at the empty looms and said to himself, “Well I know that I am not stupid, so I must be unfit for my position. I can’t let anyone know.” He reported that the material was coming along splendidly.
When the emperor then viewed his new clothes, with all of his noblemen present, the swindlers pretended to hold up the finished product. The emperor did not see anything, but pretended he did because all of the noblemen said they saw it, and he did not want them to think that he was not fit for his position. The noblemen suggested the emperor wear his new clothes to the procession later that day. All in attendance agreed, afraid to be the only one to admit they could not see the clothes.
The swindlers then “dressed” the emperor in his new outfit and the entourage went off to the procession.
At the procession the townspeople, all aware of the special quality of the material, pretended the emperor was dressed magnificently until a child said, “He has no clothes!” The crowd started to repeat what had been said and finally cried out as one, “He has no clothes on.”
The story ends saying, “The emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, ‘This procession has to go on.’ So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn’t there at all.”
Another French word picked up by the Cajuns, étouffée means “smothered,” and it’s the smothering technique that gives this stewlike dish its thick, near-gravy texture. For locals, etouffee is one of those dishes where there’s no definitive recipe. Some folks make it with a dark roux, and others with a lighter roux; some use tomato, and others don’t. Sometimes crawfish is used, and sometimes shrimp is: It all depends on what’s in season. Bon Ton Cafe in New Orleans serves a solid plate of both crawfish and shrimp etouffee, to suit both tastes.
That’s America today
And isn’t it though?
It’s pretty bat-shit crazy. Like the UK is.
When I was growing up as a boy, we had this magazine called “MAD Magazine” that we all used to read. We would read it cover to cover. It was filled with just off-the-wall interpretations of life, and we all loved it.
Today, it seems, America is just one big old MAD Magazine.
I'm sure everyone remembers their first issue of Mad Magazine. It was odd, uproariously funny, and immature enough for everyone. My first issue was when I was about twelves, when my mom bought me an issue to read at the orthopedic surgeon's office (I had broken my arm about a week prior). However, I'm no kid anymore (or so the judge tells me). I'm a college student, looking to become a professional teacher, and I'm a respected reviewer for this website. How can I like something as immature as Mad?
Simply put, Mad is the most dead-on entertainment magazine available. Through a combination of peurile humor, self-deprication, excellent art, and witty writing, Mad has seperated itself from the pack of low-end satire mags (like Cracked) and made itself a true piece of American culture. Stop groaning out there.
First, Mad brings itself to attention primarily for its spoofs of popular movies and television shows. I think this results in the "Weird Al" syndrome - you pay more attention to the obvious mockeries than the subtle ones. As time has gone on, Mad's style has cleaned up considerably - which means that now, you can catch marginal jokes even better than before, and the magazine fits more in. While occasionally lewd, Mad also recognizes that sometimes, humor is best left suggested, and many jokes are subtle innuendos, much beyond what people would initially give the mag credit for.
Mad's jokes work so well because they first did what Mystery Science Theater 3000 became famous for - finding what everyone makes fun of about in a given piece of entertainment and finding the perfect gag to make about it. For a classic example, in their parody of "Big Daddy," "Big Bladder," they have someone go up to the kid and complain about his wooden delivery. Who would be such an expert on bad childhood acting? The block of wood that played Anakin in "Phantom Menace."
I couldn't have come up with a better gag myself, and generally, Mad gives this kind of performance consistently. While it does occasionally foul up - I found some of their Pokemon parodies lacking the punch of other shots - Mad creates gags much better than, say, your average night of NBC's "Must See TV."
However, Mad also has a rabid following because of their regular gags that appear often. Of course, despite the passing of its creator, "Spy vs. Spy" is going on as strong as ever, with a new airbrushed style that doesn't detract from "the famous duo of double-cross and deceit." Dave Berg still puts in regular duty with his clever "The Lighter Side Of..." which has modern lampoonings of everyday situations. Newer additions to this mix are sure to become classics - "Jenkins and Melvin," an answer to Highlight's "Goofus and Gallant," brings me to tears laughing every time. While Jenkins is even more of a proper gentleman than Gallant, Melvin is sure to provide a situation even more ridiculous than Goofus ever could. Almost frighteningly educational.
However, nothing showcases Mad's continued tradition of excellence like one new feature and one classic. Al Jaffee is still around, and he still makes a new, highly entertaining "Mad Fold-In" for the back cover of every issue. There is sure to be an off-beat answer to the fold-in, and the art is rather cleverly done - I still wish I knew how Jaffee does it. On the opposite page from the fold-in is a new regular feature which has quickly become a favorite of mine - the Celebrity Odds of Death listing. When I first saw it, it listed the various odds of the Spice Girls dying in various ways - "Terminal Giggling" had a 1:1 chance, while "Choking on a chicken bone during a dinner celebrating their 5th year in the music business" had over a billion to one shot. I enjoy this feature so much, I start with it first whenever I pick up a new issue.
One thing about Mad, though, is that the humor is aimed for all levels - I wonder if the writers had a steady diet of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" when they were younger.
While there are plenty of obvious jokes for all ages, there is plenty of subtle humor, especially political humor, in each issue. Looking back on older issues I have, I'm surprised at how many jokes I didn't get because I didn't know much about politics then. If Mad felt like trying a bit harder, they could probably make a sister magazine that concentrated on politics. Of course, that would just scare people afraid of the magazine multiplying.
Mad isn't totally perfect. There are still occasional rough spots in the art, and sometimes, a whole section will just lack laughs, such as the first parody of Pokemon that Mad put together. Also, a new feature, "Monroe," usually lacks the punch and humor of the other segments - you can generally skip it. Also, Mad sometimes skimps over parts you wish were mocked, due to the limited amount of space the magazine has. I sometimes wish the magazine would expand and maybe carry a few ads (from Archie McPhee and other such companies) to pack in more sufficiently wickedly barbed jokes.
But in all honesty, this doesn't detract from the magazine as a whole. It consistently gives you more laughs than anything since Monty Python. Moreover, unlike most topical humor, it ages like wine, getting better with the passing years. And with the new humorous monthly features, the magazine is insuring that it will have a healthy continued existence. From 61 Man Squamish to Superduperman, from Spy vs. Spy to the Fold-In, Mad has helped define itself as a prominent piece of our culture. Find out why - while America may be going somewhere in a handbasket, Mad is here to save our sanity.
-MAGSConnect
I like that. “…while America may be going somewhere in a handbasket, Mad is here to save our sanity.”
But is America really going bat-shit crazy? Does it really resemble the movie “Idiocracity”?
A well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny,” noted Thomas Jefferson. It follows from this that if you want to visit tyranny upon a people, you can start by dumbing them down.
Ergo, 21st-century America.
So laments commentator Andrea Widburg. Writing Monday in a piece titled “There is no bottom to the ignorance of supposedly educated Americans,” she reminds us that the American system, “going all the way back to the Founding Fathers,” was predicated on having an educated population. “People weren’t expected to be scholars,” she pointed out, but the Founders did emphasize that their government couldn’t work without “a literate and moral population.”
“And that is what they got: most Americans were literate before public schooling,” Widburg continued. “Colonial Americans could also read at a very sophisticated level. The colonists would not have known what to make of the abysmally educated people this scary, funny video shows.”
They wouldn’t have known what to make of much that’s going on today. But the video in question, posted Sunday on YouTube, and showing supposedly average Americans trying to answer simple questions, and failing, is striking.
The question: “Who was the first person to land on the sun?” was taken seriously by the interviewees shown. Another highlight (lowlight) was when the questioner asked, “What country is Venice, Italy, located in?” The young woman queried responded, “Gosh, I’m gonna’ be a teacher, so I should know this.”
You can just see what is going on in the USA by the opinions of Americans on the outside looking in. Here's an article written by a Washington DC insider back on 2019 right before Coronavirus hit, and Donald Trump was getting ready for reelection...
One commenter under the video remarked “This can’t be legit” or “we are doomed.” But not only does it seem authentic, it simply reflects a multitude of “man on the street” interviews conducted over the years by comedian Jay Leno, shock jock Howard Stern, and others.
Knowing this, it’s not surprising to me that the referenced young woman would be a prospective teacher. It’s not just that studies have shown how little many educators know; it’s also that the people educating the educators — the pseudo-elites — are in their own way no better.
Shocked by her experiences at “prestigious” Columbia University, North Korean defector Yeonmi Park recently remarked about the state of America that even “North Korea is not this nuts.” Park was referring to the anti-Western sentiment and intense political correctness prevalent today, and she wasn’t joking.
Yet while our “wokeness” is called many things, nuts and dangerous among them, it’s also something else: profoundly stupid.
It can be said without exaggeration that America has become “Idiocracy.” This term is the title of a 2006 film portraying a dystopian, future United States in which IQs have dropped precipitously. People are obsessed with sex (sound familiar?), the president is a former professional wrestler and porn star who still dresses as befitting his former vocation (the one requiring clothes), vulgarity is everywhere, and entertainment has become über-simplistic and crude.
Of course, IQs are still high enough in the United States today, though some studies do show that they’ve been dropping for decades now. But the real issue is a moral corruption which infects everything else.
While real threats (e.g., China, the aforementioned moral crisis) are largely ignored, our pseudo-elites concern themselves with stupid things. Wholly contrary to science/evidence, they claim a boy can be a girl by willing it, we should be concerned about new “pronouns,” “diversity” is a strength, children should be vaccinated against a disease that doesn’t imperil them, a nation that has allowed 85 to 90 percent of its post-1967 immigrants to be from the Third World is “white supremacist,” and more.
It’s no wonder, either, that pseudo-elites want to “cancel” people who dispute the above. Their assertions are literally too stupid to be debated successfully; all they can do is make sure the debates never happen.
Then consider whom we now elevate to prominence. Curricula nationwide have been influenced by the 1619 Project, a deceit-filled, propagandistic portrayal of American history created by one Nikole Hannah-Jones. With red-dyed hair, Jones wouldn’t be out of place in Idiocracy, and she’s not out of place in ours: She was given a professorship by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Also fitting in is New York City-based psychoanalyst Dr. Donald Moss, who penned a recent paper in which he called “whiteness” a “malignant, parasitic like condition” that lacks a “permanent cure.”
His work was published in a medical journal.
And Jones and Moss are just two of a multitude of idiocrats.
The skids for their nonsensical thinking have long been well greased with philoso-babble. Years ago, the idiocrats labeled logic “white, male, and linear,” as if it’s a cultural oddity. Then there’s Critical Race Theory, whose proponents have claimed that “rugged individualism,” “a can-do attitude,” “hard work,” and “striving towards success” reflect “white male culture” and that planning for the future and punctuality are “white norms.”
The idiocrats have also bemoaned the teaching of “facts” — even though facts, as little snippets of Truth, are how we piece together life’s jigsaw puzzle. But it’s no surprise pseudo-elites deemphasize facts: They want to replace them with fiction.
They’ve succeeded, too, which is why “the most recent generations of school graduates will bore you to tears talking about gender, racism, class victimization, America’s wrongdoing over the centuries, etc.,” writes Widburg. As Ronald Reagan put it, they “know so much that isn’t so.”
The solution to this, of course and as I’m wont to emphasize, is a return to virtue (objectively good moral habits). Virtue neutralizes moral corruption. In this regard, one entity doing good work, and helping to mold children’s minds properly, is the Freedom Project Academy, a fully accredited, online school offering classical education to students in kindergarten through high school.
But lacking this, it’s unsurprising that a senile man was elevated to the presidency. Joe Biden is the perfect leader and metaphor for a nation that’s forgotten its history, its virtue, its faith, and its reason for being.
OK. So America is senile.
But when did this all happen? Last year? What was going on and what turned America to the shit-storm that it is today?
“At first we thought they were just another snake cult, but now their towers are everywhere.” —Conan the Barbarian 1982
At the dawn of my congressional career, after some of us staffers endured a particularly egregious dose of idiocy, one of my colleagues was moved to compare our office to Saint Elizabeth’s, then still functioning as a mental hospital in DC (and now, fittingly, as headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security). “Not quite,” I responded. “Here the lunatics are in charge.”
That exchange, alas, has become a prophecy for the nation at large. It begins, as we are made aware by each daily tweet-storm, at the very top, but this insanity could not persist without broad and intense public support. It has become commonplace to characterize such supporters as haters, but while it would be dangerous to underestimate the role of sheer malice, Trumpism could only sustain itself with tens of millions of people who might not fit the profile of a hater, but are assuredly either borderline imbeciles or not-quite-certifiably insane. Examples there are in profusion; but rather than ringing the changes on every single winner of the Darwin Awards, let us examine three cases that have wider policy implications.
Item. Measles, an infectious disease that each year once killed several hundred people and caused about a thousand cases of encephalitis in America, was declared eradicated in the United States in 2000. But thanks to a kind of misbegotten Hitler-Stalin alliance between right-wing religious nuts and New Age-Hollywood Hills types, the disease has come roaring back.
What other topic could unite such a disparate gaggle of characters as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., trading on his father’s martyr credibility to whisk us back to pre-Enlightenment times, and Texas Republican State Rep. Jonathan Stickland, (apparently such an extreme Neanderthal that even Texas’ own hardline Freedom Caucus was too liberal for him) who has called vaccinations “sorcery?”
Mimicking the measles that their evangelism spreads, American anti-vaxxers are also some of the most industrious Internet pests known to science, even if their trolling is supplemented by bots from a certain foreign country.
Item. One of the “noble lies” undergirding modern society is the myth of the rational actor. So-called enlightened self-interest suffuses economics (although corporations know better, which explains their lavish expenditures on advertising); as well as game theory, which supposedly prevents nuclear war from breaking out; and politics.
Political scientists (and some psychologists) are fond of proving that people “vote their interests” by the simple, circular expedient of defining a subject’s true interests as whatever they opt for. It is time for a sweeping reevaluation of this canard.
In 2016, American farmers voted by a margin of between 3 and 4 to 1 in favor of Donald Trump over the Democrat. This happened in spite of the fact that he told them in clear and unmistakable terms that he would, if elected, ignite a trade war with their most lucrative export market. Further, he would cut off their supply of the low cost, often undocumented labor needed for fruit and vegetable picking as well as beef, pork, and poultry processing.
As a result, farm income is down, even though the income calculation includes the Market Facilitation Program, money extorted from the rest of us to reward Trump’s political base. Farm bankruptcies have soared. There is alleged evidence (not quantified by polling) that “farmers are losing their patience” amid mealy-mouthed equivocating from farm belt, GOP-elected officials over Trump’s latest tariff threats.
For now, though, it appears that farmers are sticking with Trump. If his electoral margin among them should even fall to 2½ to 1 in 2020, Democrats will think of it as a miraculous breakthrough. The bulk of farmers would likely prefer to go down in whatever fate decides will be America’s functional equivalent of the rubble of Berlin.
Item. For decades, American religious fundamentalists have ceaselessly worked to poison whole departments of knowledge – from geology to history to herpetology – with ignorance and disinformation. All of this in the service of a project to turn the country into a living tableau of The Handmaid’s Tale.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Apocalypse. They seem to have dropped Jesus altogether as the ostensible object of their adoration and instead became a cult of the Antichrist. Every single sin they claimed to revile—adultery, fornication, false witness, the Mephistophelean sin of overweening pride—is now embodied in their new god incarnate, Donald Trump.
Like Lucifer, he led them to the mountaintop and offered them the world if they would but bow down to him. And they obediently dropped like ninepins.
Ecclesiastical dervishes like Jerry Falwell, Jr., Franklin Graham, and Robert Jeffress seem to be working out the theology to replace Jesus in the holy trinity with Donald Trump. And the faithful lap it all up like bulimics at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
* * *
How in the world did we get here? Journalist Kurt Andersen, writing in his abundantly detailed Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, believes craziness was baked into the American cake from the moment the Mayflower hove to at Plymouth Rock. Whether the holy man was Cotton Mather, P.T. Barnum, or Deepak Chopra, Americans have been primed to believe with the faith of a five-year-old in Santa Claus. That said, he posits that there were cycles of remission, when rationality was apparently on top, and then outbreaks of fever, when the passion burned with naked flame. The latter applies to an age like this.
My own pet theory is that American craziness, while always abundant, was relatively contained until 9/11, which opened a Pandora’s Box of hysterical fear, one of the basic ingredients of irrationality. It was quickly followed by the invasion of Iraq, which unloosed an avalanche of vaunting that we were endowed with special powers to remake the world. Note an essential component of stupidity: we retaliated for 9/11 by invading a country which had nothing to do with it.
On the heels of the mournful realization that remaking the Middle East wasn’t all it was cracked up to be came the financial crash of 2008, a folly of such greed and wishful thinking that it pushed a sizable portion of the public, already emotionally labile from the previous two shocks, right over the edge. Everything that followed, like the birther mania, was a signal flare that the Republican Party and its assorted hangers-on had devolved from merely being a pack of cynical crooks to full-dress nihilistic cultists.
All of this was supercharged by the Internet, right-wing talk radio, and Fox News – media nonexistent during previous bouts of mania. They acted as an electronic petri dish to purify and amplify the craziness.
We are now seeing the infection of lunacy on full display, like the alien monster in John Carpenter’s The Thing bursting out of its human hosts. Where exactly it will all end is anyone’s guess, but the odds are not good that it will end well.
Geopolitics
America is not a lone region full of “special” people like the American Nationalists want to believe. It is part of the mechanism that is humanity. And when the cog in the machine breaks, the machine stops working.
Geopolitics revolves around national economic might and during the historical era of Modernity economic might was always procured by capital and the products and services that it offers. These products and services generate the national income which allow a nation to spend on bettering its peoples’ lives and/or on military means to submit other nations or to defend from such submission.
One thing is clear. The West, over the last 200 years, has been selling the most advanced products and this gained it the largest national incomes.
But, you do know, that the West decided not to share the wealth with its citizens.
Instead, it decided to invest in military means to submit other nations.
Yah. And it worked.
The West was hegemonic for all this time.
America was the leader and the rest of the world bowed on bended knee to America. Most did not like it. Most did not care for it. Most actually despised it. But they were powerless to do anything about it.
But things have suddenly turned lately.
China is now at the core of the factory of the world. It is at the core of the East-Asian supply-chain. And no East-Asian country would dare detach itself from this chain because its national economy would immediately collapse.
I mean, at the exception of ideological bull-dogs like Australia’s Morrison, everyone recognizes the hard reality that dominates the Geopolitical scene of this 1st half of the 21th century.
Morrison and Trump; ideological brothers.
After it had lost the Yeltsin opportunity…
…of a near infinite supply of energy and resources…
…the West abruptly awoke to the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world from its shores to East-Asia.
The Geo-Political world got enraged as Trump so well demonstrated for the whole world to see.
But the fact is that the American empire has lost its clothes :
American GDP
By all accounts America's GDP is largely inflated and the reality is that it could easily be half the size of what is announced officially (see hedonic adjustments)
Finance vs. Manufacturing
American production is no longer its core activity. Financial shenanigans are now what accounts for the bulk of its GDP.
Technology
Technologically the US has fallen from its pedestal and has now to reckon with the emergence of China as a technological leader. This explains why the US is now panicking and literally copying Chinese political economics while drafting new legislation ordering the state to invest 150 billion in the technological development of its national champions…
GDP Growth is an illusion
American GDP growth over the last 40 years was generated exclusively by the injection of new money in the form of new debts. During the last year US total debt increased by one third the size of GDP ! . This is not just unsustainable it is pushing the can down the road until a reckoning is imposed by the facts…
Destruction of the American workforce
The incomes of the 99% have been stagnating and even sinking for at least 50% of them and this explains the sheer social misery that litters the land of the free.
Balkanization
In the meantime the cohesion of the USA has been tanking and today US society is completely atomized as was so well demonstrated during its handling of Covid-19. Societal atomization means that the country is now unable to act as one unity. Each time it wants to undertake something the country shreds itself into multiple pieces going their own directions all at once. This is the best recipe to lose a war… the military knows that darn well and it wants to avoid that price !
So what we observe today is much noise and theater but very little really consequent actions.
But observers of the Geopolitical scene make a whole lot of this theater…
It will, without any doubt, take some time for the dust to settle but the outcome is now unavoidable for the following reasons :
1. Economic Shifts are in process. They cannot be stopped. By all accounts the shift of the economy world is irreversible and will further amplify going forward
2. The current global supply chain is fixed. The West does no longer have what it takes financially, nor societally, to set up an independent supply-chain. In other words it is forced to compose with East-Asia and more particularly with China.
3. China is gargantuan. By all accounts China’s economy is soon going to pass the size of the US economy in dollar terms and it will pass the combined West soon thereafter.
4. The world will continue without America. The internationalist wing, among Western big capital holders, wants to share in the profits generated by the Juggernaut China and by East-Asia. It is thus no longer going to sit passively when a Western political servant has a mental breakdown. Diplomacy will thus be forced to make a come-back soon.
In the meantime a last ditch propaganda effort is being made by the nationalist wing among big capital holders to try to cover China under a thick layer of dirt. But facts are necessarily going to emerge that will soon turn the tables on them.
5. China will grow to megalithic size and power. If it were not for “the Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” in the near future China’s economy should reach multiple times the size of the combined Western economies.
6. Convergences. The Great Convergence of Late-Modernity is the convergence of the following series of complex factors :
The multiple side-effects of Modernity are converging toward each other and starting to unleash all kinds of feed-back loops that are accelerating the die-off of life on earth. Many biologists, and complex-systems analysts, are warning that humanity’s activities are approaching a threshold after which the world natural systems will shift one after another outside of the bandwidth of life. Climate change is but one among this multitude of side-effects…
The present shift of the economy-world outside, of the realm of the Western civilization, is unleashing a mental breakdown on the West. And it will be extremely difficult for it to regain its composure and face the facts that are responsible for what is transforming into a real predicament for humanity.
The predicament of humanity is that to survive it has to abandon its present societal paradigm (the reason that is at work within capital) and adopt a new one (the reason that is at work within life).
. Grillades, pronounced “gree-ahds,” are little medallions of pounded-thin steak smothered in a tomato gravy. Typically served over a bed of grits, grillades are a popular brunch dish, but there are no rules saying you can’t eat them for dinner, too. Though Louisiana natives tend to make them at home, there’s a great version on the brunch menu at Café Adelaide in New Orleans.
Selections from Godfree Roberts’ extensive weekly newsletter: Here Comes China.
The expectation expressed by Russia and China is…
…that the US is no longer stable…
…and is becoming dysfunctional…
…and a bigger problem than what is worth to prop up.
A retreat, a crash, or a type of retrenchment from the world is imminent.
Russia and China. Top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev co-chaired the 16th round of strategic security consultations. This is a high-level meeting focusing on strategic cooperation in confronting both regional and global security and geopolitical threats. Or, in other words, “what to do about America and it’s war-loving-neocons”.
Quote:
China and Russia held a new round of strategic security consultations on Tuesday in Moscow, and during the frequent interactions between the two major powers in recent months.
The world has showed a dangerous trend of disorder or tensions in some regions, including the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Western Pacific.
All, and everyone, due to global strategic shifts made by the US,
Quote:
So Beijing and Moscow must keep close coordination to handle the upcoming situation.
Including how to establish a new order.
This new order will replace the US-dominated one.
This will occur once the latter gets totally dysfunctional.
Quote:
Chinese analysts said that the recent change has been generally caused by the decline of US hegemony.
Not only will the US pressure and hostility push China and Russia to stand closer...
... but the decline in Washington’s strength and influence (in some regions)...
... will also make Beijing and Moscow consider how (to figure out new regional order) to stabilize the situation and protect their interests after the US pullout.
The similar remarks made by China and Russia toward the US is a clear signal to the world that the US hegemony will no longer be tolerated.
The world order dominated by the US and its allies is unable to keep stability in many regions.
This failure of American order is causing more tensions and conflicts.
Weapons and nukes
We understand at the Saker Blog, that Russia has the weapons complexes and the ability to defend itself even in this climate of withdrawal from the many weapons treaties.
We also know that the US tried to force China to attend Nuclear Proliferation or Reduction talks with the US, up to the point of staging a meeting to pretend that China did not turn up.
The world has accepted that China had not done a major weapons build-out up to now, and if they did, it was muted. For decades, China only maintained the smallest nuclear weapons array.
This may be changing in front of our eyes.
After both Trump and Biden running all sorts of openly hostile efforts full-spectrum against China, a wise China, would ramp up production of MAD (Mutually Assured destruction) armories to counter any American aggressive action.
My post published on Chinese social media: As the US is crazily implementing containment strategy toward China, China must intensify building its nuclear deterrence. Here is the translation. pic.twitter.com/shJHXUJ5FX
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) May 28, 2021
Those that follow China and its news closely understand that if Hu Xijin says something like this, or writes a column such as this, the build-out of a Chinese nuclear deterrence is in full swing.
In the midst of these happenings, Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon papers leaked another top secret document. One that he had worked on, and kept secret for 50 years. Parts of it were obtainable but not the full document.
He drops a powerful warning of the present threat of nuclear war with Russia and China.
Here’s his thoughts…
Daniel Ellsberg: This Month We Must Discuss If We Should Go to Nuclear War Over Taiwan, Ukraine or Syria
The 1958 nuke China over Taiwan project was really quite amazing. The Pentagon wasn’t even ‘defending’ Taiwan, they wanted to do it over small islands held by the Chiang Kai-shek regime just 5 miles from mainland China. A classic bully move, ‘I have the right to punch you because you let your shadow touch me!’
——————————————————————————————————————
“Celebrated whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, … now age 90…
… used the occasion of the April 30-May 1 commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his release of the Pentagon Papers…
…in an event organized by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst…
… to reveal that John Foster Dulles had proposed in 1958 that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend to the President of the USA…
…that a nuclear exchange with China be launched in the Taiwan Straits.
Even though that would mean that Taiwan and its people would be wiped out completely.
The reason being for the sole geopolitical purpose of maintaining the United States “position” in the world.
I’m getting hungry
Right now I am drinking my favorite Shiraz wine from Australia and eating nuts, but still my stomach is a grumbling. I know that I can get some noodles, some rice, some dumplings, but really I am “hankering” (desiring) some delicious chicken. Whether it is BBQ or fully cooked.
You know, people in different areas cook chicken differently.
I grew up on Polish Hill in Pittsburgh that cooked the chicken in the oven with bacon on the top until the chicken was well done. A comparative cooking method in China is to cook it in mud, and the the chicken some out all moist and tender but well cooked. But here in the Southern section of China in the Guangzhou corridor, they like he chicken nearly raw with lots of exposed fat and grizzle. Not really to my liking.
I once had a Polish engineer visiting one of my factories and once he tasted the mud baked chicken, he devoured the entire bird. He sore that it reminded him of how his grandmother cooked chicken.
BBQ chicken.
Why have another world war?
“The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis, A Documented History,” Ellsberg quoted Dulles’s message to the meeting:
“Nothing seems worth a world war … until you looked at the effect of not standing up to its challenge.”
The RAND study explained that
“the issue then was, would we, as the joint chiefs, recommend the use of nuclear weapons to defend Quemoy, and Matsu, and Taiwan.
And possibly use seven- to ten-kiloton weapons with the expectation that … the Soviets would respond and would hit Taiwan.”
Why have a war?
Finally:
“Let them try to jail me for disclosing this still-top secret fact today,”
Ellsberg declared, adding that he was revealing the secret because,
“I have no doubt whatever, that that discussion is going on in the Pentagon right now…. This is the month we have to be discussing the issue, in public, of whether we should go to nuclear war over Taiwan, or Ukraine, or Syria.”
“Although the circumstances surrounding the U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan have changed dramatically since that stage of the Cold War, the 1958 Taiwan crisis provides a sobering lesson as the US military gears up for a new military confrontation with China.”
Of course the western and specifically the US provocative and unintelligent statements via their media containment complex continue. It is what Andrei Martyanov calls “a very acute case of a bipolar disorder .
When driving through Acadiana (aka Cajun country), you likely won’t be able to miss highway billboards advertising boudin at the next butcher shop or gas station — and you’d be foolish not to pull over. Handed to you still steamy, boudin is made from all those good, unctuous spare pork parts, which get mixed with rice and spices and stuffed into a casing. A local obsession, it’s best tried at Best Stop market in Scott, La. The casing can be thick and chewy, so you’re better off squeezing out the filling. While you’re at Best Stop, be sure to order a boudin ball — its fried-orb cousin — too.
Pentagon Special Forces nominee says US should ‘strongly consider’ training Taiwanese guerillas against ‘Chinese invasion’
Whether it is Taiwan, or Xinjiang or Hong Kong or any other area where propaganda can be manufactured, the US mighty Wurlitzer continues.
This is then the summary of the situation today:
Ellsberg warns that the same talks that happened 50 years ago to possibly strike China with nuclear weapons is no doubt happening in the Pentagon today.
Yang Jiechi and Nikolai Patrushev states that Russia and China must coordinate in order to establish a new order to replace the US-domination, once the latter gets totally dysfunctional.
China is mass producing hyper-velocity MIRV ICBM’s armed with massive warheads in a frantic pace.
Pentagon Insiders are horrified by the discussions and all warn that not only would America lose a war, but that could be destroyed and subjugated to an unfathomable degree.
Given the stature of Yang Jiechi and Nikolai Patrushev, I would consider the above some of the most significant moves in the world today. There are those who reason that as the US-dominated world order gets more dysfunctional, the urge for them to use nuclear weapons will become stronger. I will leave this here for you to make up your own mind and comment on what you see.
Moves around SARS–CoV-2 and its progeny Covid-19 and more leaks
There is also the major US accusation that Covid-19 was a lab leak and China is responsible. Yet China has no history of creating these kinds of bioweapons (if indeed it was created as such) but the US has a rich history of creating and using such weapons.
The acceleration of blaming China with respect to the virus is proportional to the financial and economic collapse of the west.
What west fails to understand is demonising China won't prevent its own collapse.
— The Sirius Report (@thesiriusreport) May 29, 2021
So why do we always say that Americans are effectively the most brainwashed people in the world?
Take a look at what happened to information similar to the Daniel Elsberg Pentagon Papers Leak…
…and his current leak of nuclear planning against China even to the point of demolishing and sacrificing Taiwan.
Godfree Roberts took a specific document and updated and annotated it for clarity. This is called The ISC (Needham) Report.
Published at the height of the Korean War, it validated claims by North Korea and China that the US had launched bacteriological warfare (biological warfare, BW) attacks against both troops and civilian targets in those two countries over a period of several months in 1952.
The cleaned up, updated and annotated version is available for Kindle on Amazon for a small amount here. , And a free copy (not very readable) is available here
If you wonder why the Americans have not seen this, or have not known about it, this will give you all the information…
The traditional Monday night meal of red (kidney) beans dates back to the 19th century, when the ladies of the house did laundry every Monday while the beans slow-cooked in a pot all day. It’s still a popular Monday night tradition, even if we stopped doing our laundry quite so regularly. The beans are served on a bed of rice and with the almost mandatory bottle of hot sauce. The best place to eat some is right at home, but the Creole Lunch House in Lafayette — open only for lunch — is also worth the trip.
Jeffrey Kaye says:
If you ask anyone in Cajun country, cochon de lait is French for “a pig still sucking on his mama.” (Outsiders know this creature as a suckling pig.) When cooked over a raging wood-fueled fire for hours, this pig becomes juicy, tender pulled pork. Many people have their first cochon de lait experience at Jazz Fest from Walker’s Southern Style BBQ, where the lines never die down. Thankfully, you can go to their smokehouse at any time of year for their Cochon de Lait Po’ Boy (and you should).
Secular vs. Traditional Values
An more than interesting visual for thoughts and reflection : the 2020 Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world by political scientists Ronald Inglehart (April, 2021) and Christian Welzel.
Some current geopolitical tensions can be seen through the distances on this map. One can imagine that this survey visual is significantly subject to change these days, through among others economic developments, political and media-psychological movements. Some triggered to find more distance towards corners while others moving towards centers and clusters.
My thought would be a map how much do different countries learn from each other in terms of values, followed by communication, society and governance. Might it not be that self-expression, traditional values have a harder time accepting other ways, even if it would be to the advantage of the actual practice and policy ??
It is noteworthy that today’s tensions are caused by differences in values, not by models such as capitalism or communism, not by economies.
Cross cultural awareness and mutual learnings with psycho-political projections/reflections is what counts for 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘 towards a better and fairer future.
Everything is going crazy in America today
Consider the collapse of the remaining American companies. A this article clearly demonstrates.
The world is in flux. If that sounds like another virus, it certainly feels like it on some days. Most of us have been pivoting so fast to adjust we are simply falling over from dizziness. Are we still resilient if we refuse to get back on a twirling carousel? Sometimes it feels like we are moving too fast to even see the brass ring, let alone grab it. Rubbing a Buddha belly is a calmer alternative. No pivoting needed. A friendly little rub, smile and breathe…
Peace is not a commodity for politicians. Despite past and current events, it’s not an item up for sale. Media rushes us from one regurgitated opinion to the next, parading it as news. Things to “like” or “follow” directed by Google algorithms and data mining. Our worlds narrowed through complex AI that doesn’t yet understand the randomness of human thought. The internet that previously opened the world, has become a political and marketing tool making our personal worlds smaller and smaller. The informational windows to other worlds, ideas, and ways of living get lost in advert hit scores.
Believing “our” world is the whole world is a slippery slide into the mud of bigotry and intolerance. And, rudeness! I for one, am missing Miss Manners. Poor thing crashed off stage faster than she could run out with her walker. Slander and Libel grabbed their wigs running for the exit without waiting for Justice to keep up. Nobody was holding the door open for anyone.
Maybe being our “true and transparent” selves needs a few hard check stops. A different kind of “wokeness” that embraces the idea of getting along for the benefit of everyone in society. Why do manners matter in our changing world? Nobody cares if the fork is different for salad or meat, when you’re hungry, it’s just a damn fork getting food in your mouth.
Manners and civility need a comeback. For all our sakes. If someone holds the door open, it doesn’t matter whether the door-holder is a man or, woman. I don’t feel my ability to open a door is in question. It’s just a nice gesture. Manners are a code of actions for consideration, respect and, grace. An acknowledgment of another, human. It is the foundation for a functioning society, of being -humane.
Why is the American leadership so against people living their lives and being happy ? It seems like they have a mental disorder and re surrounded by sycophants who also share the same disorder.
No need to spout false positive “thank-you’s” or to pretend you like something you don’t. We can still be transparent and true to ourselves while respecting the space and ideas of others.
Corporate America, is having a hard time in the pandemic as workers are quitting their jobs in droves. Walking resolutely away from environments that are now recognized as “toxic”. Previously “normal” work environments that lacked basic respect for employees. This attitude caused historical business losses of over $250 billion dollars per year. Which begs the question, how much can companies afford to lose, before it hurts enough to change? Giants like Amazon and TJX have been churning people for years without regard for basic human dignity or, respect. Dudes have no manners.
25 states have officially cut the extra $300 of Federal unemployment aid. In a sad display of very bad manners and name-calling, they claim a mere $300 is stopping people from working. With a Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, people can’t afford to work. Not only is this 100% below what is needed today for a living wage, but in addition, employees are treated like disposable trash as companies rake in billions of dollars in clear profit.
Yes, corporate America, backed by an embedded political system, is screaming. They are furious that the pandemic has shown them with their pants down. The “you can’t live without us” myth has been broken. The truth is, corporate America can’t work without employees. And, workers are now “woke” and demanding what they deserve. Respect, a living wage, and more importantly, as 3 in 5 refuse to return to the “office”, an environment that is not toxic. Where humanity is not just displayed as a pretty mission statement but transparently practiced with good manners.
My Mexican mocha coffee at Kaflex Roasters came with heart layered in. This small business survived the 2020 pandemic devastation. Why? Customers and employees agreed; it’s a pleasure to be here. It feels “real”. Kindness and respect mix with the smell of ground coffee beans, people smile at each other. “Good morning” and “thank-you” are genuine, not HR-directed practices. Good manners spread, a virus of consideration and kindness toward the stranger next to you in line. Everything seems to work better and the day is a little brighter.
It’s time for corporate and political America to wake up and “smell the coffee”. We, The People want a Better America.
One based in good manners. Humane, inclusive and transparent practices for the good of everyone in our society. We want a clear agenda of change that includes workers’ rights and protections. A legal system that has equality and justice-directed enforcements. Affordable education. Respect.
America is barely 246 years old. Our version of democracy is an evolving experiment. It’s time for the system to pivot again. Time for both politicians and corporations to say “thank you” and hold the door open for their workers. It’s time. Make America Better.
But when and while the USA collapses, the rest of the world continues and are all ready to fill the vacuum that the USA leaves behind.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducted an exercise near the island of Taiwan on Monday with the largest number of warplanes ever recorded, which could be a rehearsal of a reunification-by-force operation, again sending a clear warning to Taiwan secessionists and the US that have been making provocative moves to escalate tensions in the region, Chinese mainland experts said on Tuesday.
A US aircraft carrier exited the South China Sea via waters south of the island of Taiwan also on Monday, a region close to the PLA warplane exercise. And analysts said the PLA displayed the capability of driving away foreign forces interfering in the Taiwan question.
Twenty-five PLA aircraft, namely two Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, one KJ-500 early warning aircraft, four J-10 and 14 J-16 fighter jets, and four H-6K bombers, entered Taiwan's self-proclaimed southwest air defense identification zone on Monday, the island's defense authorities said late that day.
The number of PLA warplanes featured in the exercise was a record since Taiwan's defense authorities began to release information about PLA aircraft activities in the region on September 17, 2020, surpassing the previous record of 20 on March 26. The number of J-16s, a powerful fighter jet, was also the biggest of all exercises, media on the island said on Monday.
The exercise conducted by the PLA served as a warning to Taiwan secessionists and the US after the two had made a series of provocative moves, mainland analysts said.
On Saturday, the US Department of State announced new guidelines to encourage US government engagement with the island that reflects their "deepening unofficial relationship." Officials on the island recently also claimed that the island is drawing a line 30 nautical miles away from the island, attempting to deny PLA aircraft approaches.
Monday's exercise was characterized by the large number of aircraft, and as the PLA deepens its regular, combat-scenario drills near the island of Taiwan, the scale could continue to expand in the future. As this is normal, related parties should get used to it if they insist on provoking, Fu Qianshao, a Chinese mainland military aviation expert, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Taiwan's secessionist forces and the US must stop making provocations unless they hope to see further escalations in the region, mainland experts warned, noting that the PLA is taking pragmatic steps to make sure it can effectively reunify the island of Taiwan if it comes to that.
The exercise could be a rehearsal of its combat plan over the Taiwan island, and it could feature air superiority seizure, and attack on land and maritime targets, including warships of interfering foreign countries, Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
PLA's Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft target foreign submarines, the KJ-500 commands the battlefield, the H-6Ks attack maritime and land targets, the J-10s seize air superiority, while the J-16s plays a multirole of both aerial combat and attack, Song said.
Coinciding with the PLA's warplane exercise, the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which held a series of drills in the South China Sea in the past week, left the South China Sea via south of the Taiwan island on the same day, according to the monitoring of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI), a Beijing-based think tank, on Monday.
Overlying the flight paths of PLA warplanes released by Taiwan's defense authorities and the movement of the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier released by SCSPI, observers said they were not far away from each other.
Citing analysts on the island of Taiwan, Taipei-based Central News Agency reported on Monday that the PLA warplanes likely simulated attacks on the US aircraft carrier.
Fu said that the PLA has been conducting daily exercises in the region, and it is the US warships' presence that is irregular. "If they pose potential threats to China's national security, we will surely take countermeasures, including monitoring," he said.
The PLA is rightfully responsible to safeguard peace and stability in the region when foreign warships and warplanes stir up tensions and make provocations, Fu said.
Similar exercises demonstrated that the PLA is capable of cutting off foreign interventions in the Taiwan region if the situation arises, as it has a powerful aerial combat system to drive away foreign maritime forces, including aircraft carrier strike groups, a Beijing-based military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Tuesday.
China’s Artificial Sun Just Smashed a Fusion World Record
China’s “artificial sun” tokamak has sustained a plasma reaction for a whopping 101 seconds at 120 million degrees Celsius, setting new records in the field of nuclear fusion. The breakthrough could pave the way for a carbon-neutral energy future.
EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak), or HT-7U, is a custom-built fusion reactor that has operated in different phases since 2006. Like many of the world’s tokamak experiments, EAST has reached fusion before. As a refresher, inside the donut-shaped (or, sometimes, more spherical) containment of a tokamak, sun-hot plasma swirls in a circle that’s held in place by supercooled electromagnets.
This magnetic field is the only thing floating between 360-million-degree plasma and a bunch of human-made materials that obviously can’t sustain that temperature. The plasma results from smashing different nuclei together, fusing them rather than splitting them.
This requires a huge energy investment, which critics say means fusion will never really get off the ground. And so far, all tokamaks work for just a scant few seconds at lower temperatures before something goes wrong.
This is why EAST—which just properly “turned on” last December—running for 101 seconds at 120 million Celsius is such a huge deal. It’s a double whammy: a very long runtime at an extraordinarily high temperature. In 2018, the tokamak reached 180 million degrees Fahrenheit, or about 82 million degrees Celsius. But back then, EAST could only sustain the plasma for around 10 seconds.
That’s not hot enough or long enough, but 120 million degrees Celsius and 101 seconds, which EAST achieved in late May, certainly are. So, this is a record for both the required power-generating temperature and the duration for keeping the temperature at a stable level.
As for other high-profile reactors around the world, the U.K.’s MAST reactor recently made headlines with a new exhaust system that reduces heat 10 times better than its predecessor. In the meantime, the global International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is on track to build the hugest tokamak ever, with first plasma projected in 2030. Each experimental reactor has goals to help push technology forward to help all the others.
The future of EAST could involve lessons learned by ITER, Korea’s KSTAR reactor (which held the previous fusion record), MAST, and even private tokamak researchers that are chipping away at the major obstacles to fusion energy. All have the same goal: to sustain an extremely hot reaction and keep their equipment safely running for as long as possible.
Gosh! All of this stuff about society, and culture really makes me hunger for some fine Louisianian cooking!
Do you all have any idea what I am in the mood for? I am yearning for something like this…
Some fine Southern American food.
I’ll bet you that you don’t. I’ll bet that you are thinking something like steak, a find hamburger, or some pizza or lasagna. Nope. That’s not what I am yearning for.
I know that many Americans in the audience don’t “get it”. But that’s because everyone can get mashed potatoes, corn, and cheesy elbows. But not here. they are special treats. Not to mention deep fried catfish and chicken.
If you have the ability to eat this fine, but basic food, then do so. I think that it’s wonderful. It’s delicious and wonderful and the smells and the taste are wonderful.
Do you wonder why China is asking serious questions?
Beijing called on the US to explain a respiratory disease outbreak in northern Virginia in July, 2019 and a large-scale outbreak of e-cigarette disease in Wisconsin.
“When will the US release detailed data and information on relevant cases to the international community? The United States owes an explanation to the international community.”
Can you imagine what will happen if China is kinetically attacked?
A big part of the US industrial base is now in China.
The US would be attacking its own sources of food, commodities, and its own supply chain.
Looking at Elsberg’s ‘warning’ is this not a spectacular example of insane short-term thinking?
To end this section, taking the previous summary and adding one point, it looks like this:
Ellsberg warns that the same talks that happened 50 years ago to possibly strike China with nuclear weapons is no doubt happening in the Pentagon today. Is the Ellsberg warning more serious than what we think?
Yang Jiechi and Nikolai Patrushev states that Russia and China must coordinate in order to establish a new order to replace the US-dominated one, once the latter gets totally dysfunctional.
China is mass producing hyper-velocity MIRV ICBM’s armed with massive warheads in a frantic pace.
Pentagon Insiders are horrified by the discussions and all warn that not only would America lose a war, but that could be destroyed and subjugated to an unfathomable degree.
The US has clearly and unequivocally used bioweapons (even excluding Vietnam), in the past, and hidden this.
Conclusion: Unfortunately the mindset has not changed and the actions have not changed since the time described in both the Ellsberg report, or the reveals of the Needham report. This is currently the danger and is what we mean by doubling-down.
But I’m not done about Louisiana food…
Throughout the deep American South people eat this kind of food called BBQ. But you know, it must be the most misunderstood BBQ in America. In Boston, for instance a BBQ sandwich was nothing more than cold sliced ham and BBQ sauce. Ugh!
When in actuality, it’s really slow cooked brisket served on a hot toasty bun just dripping and oozing with delicious and tasty sauce.
I could use one right now.
Mississippi style BBQ.
Maybe with an icy beer.
Or two.
Another Cajun roadside specialty, cracklins, are Louisiana’s version of pork rinds. Fatty pork bits that puff up into something special, these savory morsels provide some crunchy bites, some chewy bites and some melty edges. It’s an altogether beautiful experience, especially when it happens at Don’s Specialty Meats in Scott, La. These are the ultimate road-trip snack.
I remember going on work related travel to different factories throughout the Southern American states. AN we would make a point to stop at the various BBQ place sand sample their food. The BBQ varied regionally from place to place. All were just great! Just simply great!
Following on from the last China Sitrep, we have banking news, a cute helicopter and drone soccer.
E-Hang’s electric VT-30 travels 300km in 100 minutes. With eight propellers, two fixed wings, and a propeller at the rear, it achieves a balance of hybrid lift and push, so needs no runway. Its tri-redundant, fly-by-wire controls can be flexibly altered for multiple modes, implying a much higher safety level for the aircraft. Read full article →
Chinese scientists set a new world record of achieving a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds in the latest experiment on Friday, a key step toward the test running of a fusion reactor. Read full article →
China dominates consumer and commercial drones globally, and 369 exhibitors showcased 2,000 drone products in Shenzen this week. Mini drones the size of a wristwatch hovered next to cargo drones like four-seater planes. Kids played 3v3 drone soccer before a crowd of adoring parents. Read full article →
(They also say they need a million drone pilots!)
The Maglev trains are just running faster: A groundbreaking ceremony launched a 620 mph maglev test line. The train uses superconducting magnetic levitation to disengage from the ground to eliminate frictional drag and a near-vacuum internal duct lines to dramatically reduce air resistance to achieve its speed. Read full article →
European BRI Rail Freight rose 100% in 2020. Austria’s Rail Cargo Group (RCG) transported 70,000 TEUs across BRI routes and, compared to 2019, doubled its Eurasian volumes and reached an all-time high of 700 trains running on these routes, This year, the company aims to run 1,000 freight trains. Read full article →
Oh, gumbo. Served from a big ol’ pot, it’s the kind of food that warms your heart, your soul and your belly, all at the same time. It starts with a roux, the flavorful base of fat and flour, which gets added to the holy trinity (onions, bell peppers and celery). From there, gumbo can go in many directions, most popularly chicken and sausage or a seafood medley. Around Easter, there’s a special bowl of Gumbo Z’Herbes served at Dooky Chase’s in New Orleans, made with bright, verdant greens. The rest of the year, you can’t go wrong with the seafood rendition from Li’l Dizzy’s (also in New Orleans), which makes a regular appearance on the lunch buffet (along with killer fried chicken and mac and cheese).
But the USA has signed agreements with the G7 nations to construct an American BRI to go “head to head” with the Chinese BRI.
Show me the money, the G7’s B3W will have a hard time replacing China’s BRI.
Biden and the G7s Build Back Better for the World (B3W) program is going to have a hard time without money and so far no one will say where it will come from.
Finding the massive $40+ tn needed for infrastructure needed in the developing world won’t be easy. The US can’t agree on its own domestic infrastructure spending and how much money can it print for B3?
Comments that the private sector will pay are utter nonsense.
Say what you will China have already funded $4tn in projects. Most importantly, China saw the need in the developing world long before the West.
The real question is where was the G7 for the past decade?
Another major issue is that B3W funds will come with strings attached on democratic values, human rights, climate change, corruption, and the rule of law. Good luck.
In the end it comes down to “Show me the money.”
Cats and Louisiana BBQ.
I used to have cats when I lived in Mississippi and Louisiana, and Texas. But you know, they were always happy to nibble on a piece of sliced brisket or chicken. But over all, my cats were just as happy to eat fish or whatever I had on hand. For them, eating a slice of brisket or a McDonald’s creamer when I brought home a couple of cups of coffee were a real treat. I would drink my coffee, and they would have their creamers. Special times.
Cat eating a hamburger. I used to share my subway sandwiches with my cats. They loved the chicken and the meatball subs.
And this warning is being ignored in the Pentagon. Which is why there are people speaking out warning that the neocons inside of Washington are fucking bat-shit crazy nuts, and America will not survive their arrogance and idiocy.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said China will never allow the island of Taiwan to go independent as Beijing hit back at a US-Japan joint statement which for the first time in half a century mentioned China's Taiwan.
"National reunification of the island of Taiwan and China is a historical process. It will not be stopped by anyone or any force. We will never let Taiwan go independent," Le made the remarks on Friday in an interview with the Associated Press.
Asked if there was any timeline for the reunification and if the current situation could continue to exist for many years, Le stressed that "it's a process of history."
Le said China is firmly committed to safeguarding national sovereignty, security and promoting national reunification. "We are prepared to do everything we can for a peaceful reunification. That said, we don't pledge to give up other options. No option is excluded."
Le's remarks comes amidst the recent provocation from the US and Japan's joint statement.
The direct mentioning of Taiwan was regarded as a severe interference in China's domestic affairs and sends a signal that Japan and the US are attempting to challenge China's possible moves to reunification.
Chinese analysts said the US and Japan's move will only send the wrong signal to the Taiwan separatists and allow the DPP to go further down the wrong path.
Le stressed the one-China principle is China's red line and no one should try to cross it, whether low-level or high-level, official engagement is what China firmly opposes.
"The Taiwan question bears on China's core interests. There is simply no room for compromise," the Chinese vice foreign minister noted.
CIPS is proceeding without delay
Maybe SWIFT will collapse upon itself.
China ramped up its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and set up clearing banks at all major offshore yuan trading hubs, like Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and Frankfurt. The CIPS clearing system operates during work hours of financial markets in every time zone.
Russia does not expect impossible outcomes from the upcoming summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden in Geneva, and the two sides are unlikely to resolve important issues at the meeting, Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.
The ambassador noted that if the two leaders talk about issues related to China during their meeting, Russia will discuss them with the Chinese side. He stressed that Russia-China relations will not change no matter what attitude the US takes toward Russia.
Putin and Biden are set to meet in Geneva on June 16, the first meeting between the two leaders since Biden took office.
Some analysts believed that during their first bilateral meeting, Biden and Putin will discuss topics including strategic stability, disarmament, ecology, COVID-19 and conflicts in hot spots.
Denisov told the Global Times that Russia welcomes any measures that reduce tensions and competition, but they are also very cautious about what they can expect from Russian-American relations, especially in the context of the very tense relationship between the two countries.
He said Russia is a "realist" and does not expect impossible outcomes, and the summit is not likely to resolve important issues between the two countries. A better outcome is one that sets conditions for resolving problems in the future, said the diplomat.
Media reports showed that while the upcoming summit is seen by some analysts as an "ice-breaking" opportunity to reshape US-Russia relations, the two sides have been talking tough to each other and sending signals to lower external expectations ahead of the summit. Biden vowed to be tough with Russia and press it on human rights, while Putin has said he does not expect any breakthroughs from his meeting with US counterpart.
Some analysts pointed out that while it would be hard to break the ice in US-Russia relations, the US should stabilize relations and ease tensions with Russia so as to concentrate on dealing with China. As a result, the Geneva meeting may become an opportunity to lobby Russia.
In response to this view, Denisov told the Global Times that the idea that Russia would alienate China over the possibility of the US temporarily easing tensions with Russia is "very short-sighted."
"Russia is smarter than Americans think," he said.
The diplomat said that during the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to China and the visit of Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, to Russia, both sides discussed US topics. If the US and Russia talk about issues related to China during the upcoming summit, the Russian side will also communicate and discuss it with China.
Idiocracy: Flawed comedy or terrifyingly prescient science fiction?
It should be no surprise to anyone that our culture is rapidly drowning in lowbrow media. The perception that as a race we are being worryingly dumbed-down is not something new. Is this gradual intellectual decline something we can stop? Or is it the inevitable trajectory of our current society? One film that has managed to stay relevant seven years after release is Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s satirical take on our dumbed-down future. But for a comedy that was a little low on laughs for my liking, why has it caused such controversy and managed to stay in the public consciousness so long? And should we be worried that this film is accurately predicting our future?
The funny side of idiocy
Idiocracy manages to have a sense of humour about the potential bleakness of our shared stupidity-induced future. Mike Judge’s 2006 comedy Idiocracy did just that, though was sadly overlooked at the time of its release. The film isn’t Judge’s best, with the comedy often falling a little flat. Idiocracy couldn’t possibly hold a torch to Judge’s Office Space (1999). The core idea behind Idiocracy is what makes it worthy of remembering: a satirical view of Earth’s future where everyone is incredibly stupid. Sounds simple enough, and not too hard to imagine (wait, there’s another reality TV show starting?!). All these years later, this small film is still causing a stir.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this now cult film, the premise is fairly simple. Joe (Luke Wilson) is an average guy, put into stasis as part of a scientific experiment. When the experiment is cancelled, he is forgotten and left in stasis, waking up accidentally 500 years in the future. The future is a bleak one, where the average IQ of the world is worryingly low.
A misunderstood sentiment
According to Matt Novak on Gizmodo’s Paleofuture, the film is an affront for suggesting eugenics is the answer to this potentially dire future, and anyone who enjoys the film should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
Does anyone else think he’s missing the point a little bit? Sorry to disagree with you Matt, but I actually always thought Judge was being satirical. I don’t believe that he ever wanted to argue for eugenics. The rich vs poor set-up is again a deliberate choice, highlighting the prejudiced views of both ends of the economical spectrum. Not, as Novak argues, a simple boiling down of the situation to ‘the intelligent people are wealthy, while the uneducated people are poor.’ I would say that cheating husbands with a dozen kids is just as stereotypical as a frigid, unpleasant, career-driven, rich couple.
Novak claims that the film makes an unhealthy link between wealth and intelligence, but like many satirical films, it uses stereotypes to highlight the issues with that kind of thinking. In other words, Judge is using those precise stereotypes to make a point. Novak’s disgust at the stereotypes being used is entirely missing the point.
Nature vs nurture
The real premise of the film, in my opinion, is an argument for respecting nurture over and above nature. As such, it is in direct opposition to an argument of eugenics. The ‘stupidity’ that has taken hold of the country results in a great wealth of knowledge being lost. It is not the genius scientists, but the more menial labourers and their work that is missed most. Judge’s futuristic world needs mechanics to fix their robotic helpers, bin men and janitors to clean the country, gardeners, builders, etc. Is Judge really bemoaning the loss of the highly intelligent or asking us to look back at the basic pillars that keep our society going?
If you look at the main character’s story arc, the argument for nurture over nature is overtly apparent: you see an average man who was looked down on and not treated with much respect in his own time. When he is re-awakened in the future and found to be more intelligent, the nurturing atmosphere helps him to rise up and do more than he ever could have in the negative environment he was in before. The film is asking us to remember that everyone has potential, and that we need to be supportive of that no matter what their economic circumstances, who their families were, where they came form, etc.
While Idiocracy had a tiny limited release at the cinema back in 2006. Since then, it has found its place as a cultural yardstick for the dumbing down of society. When people bemoan the intellectual lows to which our society has sunk, referencing Idiocracy, I don’t believe that anyone is implying we should employ the use of the discredited science of eugenics. If anything, the film encourages us to always nurture potential, both intellectual and artistic.
A Historical piece from the 2nd World War
The secret deportations: how Britain betrayed the Chinese men who served the country in the war
During the second world war, Chinese merchant seamen helped keep Britain fed, fuelled and safe – and many gave their lives doing so. But from late 1945, hundreds of them who had settled in Liverpool suddenly disappeared. Now their children are piecing together the truth
I like to believe that every problem in the world can be resolved with generous quantities of alcohol, fine delicious food, smiling and happy people, and dogs and cats scurrying about.
Taste of New Orleans : Creole Food.
The world decoupling from the horrible U.S. economy
Well, just how does the world break its dollar habit?
The most clear explanation I ever heard as to why the dollar maintains its global status is really quite straightforward, the U.S. trade deficit. USD’s are constantly filling everyone’s foreign exchange reserve, so almost everyone has these extra dollars to use for trading between themselves.
Sow how does one get rid of this gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe?
Buying treasuries – no, that is investing directly in the USD.
Buying assets in the U.S. – no, same problem as 1, you have assets valued in USD and something the U.S. govt can seize from you.
Buying assets in other countries – dang, you just gave them a boatload of dollars, that stuff is like dark matter.
Buy hard assets in the U.S. and ship it back to China – this is your best bet, buy gold, silver, platinum, or any hard asset and ship it to your vaults, now does the U.S. let you do that?
An article published by Foreign Policy on Tuesday, entitled "China and Russia Turn Deeper Ties into a Military Challenge for Biden," quoted an former US politician as saying the US faces "a two-front war where we don't have a two-front military." This seems to be an emerging possible scenario that is puzzling some American analysts.
On April 14, Reuters published a similar commentary headlined "US faces test on Taiwan, Ukraine," which articulated the concern.
Yet the test is caused by the US itself, thanks to its recklessness in handling major global issues. It is Washington itself which has been stirring up troubles worldwide, rather than resolving crises. Now the tactic is backfiring - Western media are becoming concerned that "rising tension over both Ukraine and Taiwan is putting the Biden administration in a bind," or worse, lead to "a two-front war."
The Taiwan question is China's domestic affair, where the US is not supposed to interfere at all. The Ukraine crisis involves the issue that should be decided by the Ukrainian people. But the US won't cease creating tensions over it.
US political elites have shown little interest in self reflection. More importantly, they attach too much significance to major power geopolitical games. In their eyes, if the US makes concessions over the Ukraine issue, it could result in Russia returning to Europe. In that case, everything Washington has been struggling for over the past 30 years since the end of the Cold War will crumble to dust.
When it comes to Taiwan, the US regards the island, from the military perspective, as a crucial link in its first island chain to contain China. Diplomatically, the US is utilizing the island as leverage to boost secessionist forces in China, in an attempt to split the latter, or launch a "peaceful revolution."
Suppressing Russia and China has been a long tradition in US politics. Apart from former US president Donald Trump, who once attempted to cozy up to Russia, yet failed due to opposition from the Democratic Party, most US presidents tend to pile pressure on both countries. Yet the problem is that the US has found it increasingly difficult to do so.
The US' biggest challenge is at home, not so-called threats from China or Russia. If the US hastily engages in, or creates more external geopolitical tests, while not having resolved its own domestic problems, it will only have its nose rubbed in the dust both at home and abroad, not to mention winning the "battle" on either side.
The US has its own calculations. It is hoping to push the EU to the forefront of the Ukraine crisis, letting the EU invest in more resources while the US could just play a commanding role. In addition, although the US reiterated its support for Ukraine, the latter's top diplomat has been stressing that Ukraine "is looking for more than words," Politico reported on April 13. It means the US' capability is very limited. It is just like the way Washington is dealing with Beijing - trying to establish an anti-China camp with as many allies as possible. If the US believes it can handle the Taiwan question and Ukraine crisis as it wishes, or in other words, China and Russia, at the same time, it has overestimated its strength and wisdom.
The truth is, the US is not confronting two tests, but three. The biggest crisis is from its home affairs. The biggest battlefield for US policymakers is on US soil. The best solution for elites in Washington is to put more energy in focusing on their country's domestic puzzles and stop creating troubles abroad.
Why is the American leadership so out of touch? Are the suck?
And Taiwan…
American neocons are pushing, pushing, pushing for a war regarding Taiwan.
... China remained the top issue on her mind, and on the minds of her fellow Republicans in the room. Haley hammered home that China remained an existential threat to the U.S. and democracies around the world and that government officials there should never be trusted.
Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, building bridges, tunnels and other infrastructure projects in dozens of nations, is nothing more than a ploy to gain influence and power around the world, Haley said.
"What they're doing is they're running out the deck for such a time as this and then waiting for times like COVID. And they say, 'You can't pay it? Now give me your power grid. Now give me your military installation. We want your port.' Now you look at that map - it will send a chill up your spine at what they're trying to do."
Haley also painted a haunting portrait of the war China is waging in cyberspace. Beijing, she said, just adopted a data-security measure that states that all private data is now a national asset.
"Think about the health data they have. Think about the financial data they have. Think about the surveillance actions they have on all of us," Haley said. "Now think that that's in the hands of the Chinese military. The way President Xi sees it is, whoever owns the data rules the world."
Haley was asked by one GOP lawmaker how the U.S. could respond to China when it sells pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and so many cheap goods to America.
"Don't lead with fear. Don't be scared of China. Go after them strong. Go after them aggressively," the former ambassador said.
-Nikki Haley warns Republicans on China: 'If they take Taiwan, it's all over'
American generals say otherwise…
While acknowledging that uniting with Taiwan is a "core interest" for China, Milley signaled that he thought Beijing will pursue such ambitions through peaceful means.
"The internal politics of China are up to China, as long as whatever is done is done peacefully and doesn't destabilize the region nor the world," Milley said.
Milley appeared in front of the committee to discuss the Pentagon's Fiscal 2022 budget request, alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Rachel Esplin Odell, a research fellow in the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute, said Milley's comments "basically reaffirmed the longstanding U.S. One China Policy, which includes the understanding that the United States supports any peaceful, uncoerced resolution of cross-Strait differences."
"However, a somewhat more accurate statement of longstanding policy would have been that cross-Strait differences are up to both China and Taiwan to resolve peacefully through mutual agreement,"
"Nonetheless, Gen. Milley's comments are, on the whole, a welcome corrective to dangerous rhetoric from some analysts and politicians in Washington that portrays Taiwan as a strategic asset for the United States that must be kept separate from China. It is encouraging that Gen. Milley recognizes that danger," she said.
-Nikkei
What is the USA doing?
All of this isn’t secret information. It’s obvious and only the most deluded sheeple can’t see the build up towards war that the United States is marching towards. Knowing what is spread out before you all, as above. And noting that China and Russia are not fools.
What do you think they are going to do? Wait until the USA does something stupid? Or are they going to take proactive steps to castrate the “mad dog” before it infects the entire world with it’s madness?
I tire of this insanity.
It makes me want to gather up all the lunatics, lock them up in cages and bury them deep deep down in a place that they cannot harm themselves, or anyone around them.
But on the bright side there is China.
And China is doing well, they know what is going on. They are strong and formidable. And no matter what crazy-assed plans the Idiocracity world of America might think up, China is there to deal with them promptly.
American leadership in Washington DC as depicted in the movie Idiocracity.
I hope you enjoyed this visit in news that is unavailable to Americans. I’m tired and hungry. You probably didn’t notice. So I am going to go and eat some food. Have a great day you all!
I’ll leave you with this…
Why do people want to believe in lies about China when they know those lies come from their machinery of lies (politicians and MSM) which people already know do nothing but lie? Answer: They’re racist hypocrites. Turns out it’s not just a hunch.
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.
Well, aside from being thrown into a Thai jail for a couple of weeks, that is.
Anyways, here is a piece that I found on the UNZ site. It’s worth a read, not so much for the content (which is good) but for the comments that it attracted. You end up seeing a nice group of American society in the disparagement column, and some thoughtful analysis in the Brit and Aussie columns.
I like to read what other expats have to say about their experiences. As, well you should all know, everyone has a story and often those of expats tend to be the most colorful. This particular story revolves around a fellow in Thailand who made the mistake of fighting back when he was being scammed by locals. That’s a big no-no.
We have a saying in America. It goes like this… “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”.
The phrase ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’ means that ‘when you are living in, or visiting, a community of people, you should follow the laws and customs of that community’. Literally, the proverb means that when you are in Rome, you should act like the Romans.
-'When in Rome, do as the Romans do'
Well, he didn’t follow this very simple advice, and ended up paying for that mistake. This is his story. And the comments are really interesting.
As with all reprints, the usual disclaimer apply.
For young guys, yes… rise up and abandon the creeping meatball. I don’t care if it’s the UK meatball, the US meatball…. just get out while you can. There is serious talk of raising exit fees!
-Franz
As an expat myself, I am both charmed and repelled by the experiences of other Americans as the peek outside of the gulag that the inhabit.
Some comments are gold. Some remind me of bad experience I have had with Jerk-offs, and others remind me of just why I left. I really enjoy the more thoughtful and productive comments, and dialogs. they point to some interesting trends.
The ‘least developed’ European countries have the most interesting long-term prospects, at least as places I like to live."
Yeah, and they know it.
I worked steel, plus allied fabrications. These countries are buying up razor wire faster than anyone can make it! Trust me, in a few years, countries that are not yet holes will be off limits to wanderers.
-Franz
While you are reading it, please keep in mind that one person’s happiness is meaningless to another. We all live within our very own realities.
One person’s happiness is meaningless to another. We all live within our very own realities.
Here is the article with comments embedded within.
gotmituns says:
The only ones “escaping” from our wonderful and proud American nation are the cowards and shirkers who wouldn’t do either side any good when the shit hits the fan in this country. Nobody needs such people in their midst.
With my Escape from America series, I’ve interviewed American ex-pats who have settled in Mexico, the Philippines, Hungary, Costa Rica, Brazil or England, etc., but you’re constantly escaping from one country to the next, with the goal of experiencing all 180 of them! What made you choose such an unusual lifestyle, and how did you prepare yourself for it?
No preparation whatsoever and, in fact, no plan.
I’d had what’s called a ‘liquidity event’ back in NYC. Two, actually: a startup sale and then an IPO. Which just means I don’t have to work again if I don’t want to.
I was burnt out. 15 years of 10 hour days, grinding towards some pointless goal of accumulation. When I cashed-out I wasn’t sure what to do next.
I looked around and decided it was time to leave NYC and the US in general.
The path the country was heading down was pretty obvious to anyone willing to look.
So I threw a bunch of stuff in storage. Locked up the apartment. And left.
That was 2017 and I’ve only returned now and then: for weddings or near-deaths.
I hope to never have to return permanently.
Radicalcenter says:
... mere permanent residency in another country never requires giving up US citizenship, so why renounce US citizenship if mere permanent residency in the other country suits one’s purposes?
(Permanent residents often have the right to use the public healthcare system the same as citizens. Some countries, like Russia, give them the right to vote in local elections.)
US citizens who reside abroad full-time do indeed have to file a US income tax return even on income earned abroad.
But in 2021, a married couple can exclude the first $217,400 per year from US federal taxation:
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/figuring-the-foreign-earned-income-exclusion
In 2022 the exclusion rises with inflation, probably to $224-225,000.
The system is unfair, grasping, and should be abolished.
But American worldwide taxation shouldn’t be a deterrent for most Americans who would seriously consider residing abroad. Seriously, what percentage of older American couples moving abroad will have more than $225,000 in income per year while they are retired?
Not many.
In Tirana, I ran into a folk singer who performed in Turkish, but was actually an American! In his early 40’s, “Dandelion Lakewood” left the States nearly 6 years ago, and has been in Europe ever since, mostly in the Balkans. Busking, he needs just $12 a day to survive.
In Tirana, Dandy was paying $8 daily to share a room with another American. Dandy has slept outside, it’s not a problem.
Different people have different requirements. You’re obviously in a different category, but most Americans with cash would not have made your choice. You told me you once drove from Atlanta to Juarez to sample an interesting Chinese buffet. Do you think you’ll ever get tired of traveling? If so, where might you settle down, and why?
Right.
And I don’t make the money point to brag or anything. I just got lucky. Right place, right time.
The bigger point I wanted to make is that guys like me are leaving the US in droves. Even before the pandemic.
We are not better or smarter than those that didn’t get lucky.
But I think some of us realized that the “juice wasn’t worth the squeeze”. So we bailed.
I feel a kinship with anyone that has left America, regardless of their situation.
PJ London says:
You sound like 99.9% of Americans, totally anal and caring only about their bank balance.
The rest of the world (and yes I have lived in 8 countries) have a far better life, as they do not rank existence on the thickness of their wallet.
Given a free choice and some income I would live in a Muslim country or eastern European. I would move to Abkhazia tomorrow if I could. Unfortunately, in my 70s, my travel and choices have become limited.
In terms of traveling and settling down.
I don’t know.
I have a reckless streak. I always have. Going to Juarez to eat Chinese food, or moving a bunch of gold over the Burmese border, or spending weeks in a Thai jail, or designing the interior of some Chechen billionaire’s yacht. I just can’t stop collecting experiences.
That, to me, is real wealth.
I’ve been to around 90 countries at this point.
There are a handful of places I could see myself staying long-term. For me, they have the right combination of cost of living/quality of life. Decent infrastructure. Nice people. Low-ish inequality coefficient.
They’re usually Muslim/Asian countries.
I think that was the biggest surprise.
I want to avoid the forced degeneracy of the West.
This is weird as, in my youth, I was the biggest champion of orgies and drugs and personal freedom and all that faux-liberal youth-culture decadent bullshit.
Alfred says:The issuance of a second valid passport should therefore be considered an exception to the one passport policy and will be issued at the discretion of the Consular Officer. If issued it will be valid for a maximum of two years.
U.S. Embassy and Consulate in the Netherlands – Second Passports
I like being around happy, multi-generational families.
People eating together as a family or flying kites in a park or a group of old-timers nursing a 3-hour conversation over a cup of coffee.
They still do that!
I am not ready to stop.
Perhaps that is the recklessness I was referring to earlier.
In German, real estate is ‘Immobilen’. It’s ‘immobiliere’ in French. Even without knowing Kraut or French, I bet you can deduce the meaning… purchasing a home renders one immobile.
A lease is a landlock.
You’re stuck in one place, one culture, one point of view.
To stay in the same place still seems like death to me.
Or perhaps a series of small compromises, small deaths, that add up to a more prolonged expiation.
Disclaimer says:
The introduction of Nassim Talebs book “Black Swan” has a interesting paragraph about growing up in Lebanon in the 1960s. It is worth revisiting...
"Increasingly, Celebrities and the upper 10% of US society have been getting second passports for themselves and their families for quite some time. After the financial crisis of 2007-08 it seems this trend accelerated. Its also illuminating how many of the upper 10% also have real estate overseas. These people are not doing these measures for fun. And they sure as heck keep their Plan B quiet."
The goal of travel is to court and embrace discomfort.
Otherwise, you’re just a fat Boomer on a cruise!
What did you do to spend weeks in a Thai jail?! And how were you treated by the other inmates?
To many white nationalists, Muslims are just low IQ losers, and Orientals are just conformists with disgusting culinary habits, yet both groups have managed to maintain their heritage, and hence dignity, better than the degenerate West. Is there any hope for white people, or are they condemned to rage impotently online as their societies unravel? Is Europe better off than America? And which European countries do you think have the best prospects?
The Thailand story is sad–and typical.
I’ll tell it here as a warning to anyone reading.
This stuff happens and, in retrospect, you should not handle the situation in the way I did. Linh, you can chop this if you don’t think it’s relevant.
I was in one of those seedy beach resort towns filled with decaying, SPAM-tinted Anglo men and their 21-year-old Isaan wives.
I was talking to as many of the men as I could, as they figure fairly prominently in a book I am working on.
A few of the blokes had warned me of a scam going on in that particular town.
The locals would wait until you rented a scooter and had a few beers at some local bar. Then, when you scooted off home, they’d put three teenagers on a shittier scooter than yours and drive full speed into you. The cops would conveniently be nearby to handle the proceedings.
I ignored this warning as typical ‘falang’ fearmongering.
But sure enough, a week into my stay this happened to me.
I’d had a big Chang beer and puttered off home.
Three kids on a crappy Vespa (motor scooter) hit me out of nowhere. Cops come out. from behind a nearby building: ‘You drunk Mister! You come to station and make right!’ They sounded like some Hollywood-stereotype from the 80s. But they were real and extremely angry.
I was terrified.
I had had a beer and driven my scooter (like everyone else in that town) but I had no idea what my ‘rights’ were.
Ha!
We went to the station and the officer demanded 40,000 baht to make it go away, plus some money for each of the three teenagers that were on the scooter.
In the meantime, they had already gone to the hospital after the accident and returned, bandaged up, with hospital bills ready to go.
They’d done this under an hour.
All three presented the hospital bills to me meekly.
I think they were another 60,000 baht.
Conveniently, 100,000 baht is the maximum you can withdraw from a Thai bank branch in one day.
Around $3k.
I told them this was absurd.
I ‘knew my rights’. Typical American arrogance.
After two hours of yelling at each other via Google Translate in their sweaty little station, they made me go back to my apartment and give them my passport, told me they’d be in touch and that I was not to leave Thailand.
Jeff Stryker says:
Michigan Native & Long-term South East Asia (SEA) Expat Here
I cannot say I would prefer a Thai jail but I would live on Thai beach in a fishing hut & let lizards crawl up my anus before I would return to the low-cost housing of Greater Detroit Washtenaw county.
I spent 30 K building my estate here & the irony is that my grandmother’s condo in Washtenaw County was worth $400 K in 1986 & after it was sold 20 years later it was worth 50 K-and my brother told me that whoever bought it was a fool. That is property value in Michigan for you.
Not long ago on FB I got ahold of a Polish kid who shared my dorm room at Central. The poor fool is still stuck in Flint. His formerly tidy if modest Polish-Catholic neighborhood is one great big crack house.
So that is one expat’s response.
As for Canukistan, well, they may export our leaders but try immigrating there. They don’t want us.
Americans that travel a lot can legally have two passports.
Not a lot of people know this.
It’s the same passport number but you can usually bank on the fact that if you get into trouble somewhere, it will take time for the various government departments to communicate with each other, and you have a window to clear the country.
I’d talked with a nice local lawyer girl after this happened and her advice was to get the hell out of Thailand. So that’s what I did.
I was gone within 48 hours, this time via a land border, which I assumed was insecure.
I crossed into Cambodia, made my way to Phnom Penh, and then flew to Bali for a few weeks.
Stupidly, I returned to Thailand a month later.
I thought somehow the problem would have ‘gone away’, as it was all a scam.
Ha!
They grabbed me at the airport, after clearing customs. That’s always the shitty part. They let you clear customs and grab your bag, thinking you are free. And then they grab you.
My passport number had been communicated to Border Police.
They were as surprised as I was that I had returned!
The charges were now serious.
In addition to injuring others on a scooter, I had tried to flee the country.
A few other minor charges.
Worst case: I was facing up to 3 years in a Thai prison.
I would now be remanded until I had a chance to appear before a judge. There were a series of holidays going on, related to the new King’s ascension, so the whole country was closed for at least a week. Bad timing on my part.
I spent around two weeks in a Thai jail back in the town where the crime had been committed.
Mulga Mumblebrain says:
It is very hard to contemplate leaving your homeland. Just leaving Sydney, that I knew like the back of my hand, but was unaffordable, was a dreadful break.
Unfortunately, Australia, that from c.1970 to 1990 was making good progress in creating a decent society, has since fallen into the Pit of Hell, led by the Right, monsters like Howard, Abbott, Morrison et al, and the complicity of the zombie remnants of the ALP, now the Another Liberal Party.
All driven by the Murdoch cancer.
Now the place is locked in a suicidal frenzy of treacherous and deeply racist Sinophobia, after decades when China did us NOTHING but good. Such duplicity is bound to get its just desserts-and soon.
The Thai jail is not a place I’d want to return to.
I was new so I had to sleep with my head directly next to the open toilet in the corner, my head getting kicked every time someone went to shit in the middle of the night.
I did meet a lot of nice Burmese guys in there, who insisted on sharing every single meal they had with me.
They taught me how to sleep with a water bottle under your neck, as it helps your posture on the concrete floor.
There was a Dutch man who’d killed his Thai wife.
A few Americans and Australians recently nabbed on drug charges. Lots of Iranian guys. They were the most aggressive towards Americans.
The common theme from everyone was, ‘I was set up’. I began to doubt my own story.
Fast forward a few weeks later.
I am out on some sort of conditional release.
They have both passports this time. I have to check in every week to a ‘parole’ office and wait for my official trial date which is set 4 or 5 months in the future.
I can’t leave Thailand.
Radicalcenter says:
Sweet numbers, brah. But that works only if you can avoid spending all the profit on the next, also wildly appreciated house, right?
One can do this by moving to a house that is smaller, older, or in a less desirable climate or location, of course. That isn’t a good option for everyone, though, especially families. We have a number of children, so we need to move someplace bigger, not smaller.
Once past that stage of life, yeah, it’s usually feasible to downsize and come out ahead that way on housing costs and equity: i.e., sell a big house and buy a smaller house. That way you come ahead even if you stay in the same locale, saving/investing some of the proceeds and/or having a lower monthly mortgage payment.
Also, those inland “flight” / retirement areas aren’t so cheap anymore.
One used to profit from expensive coastal and/or big-city home sales and buy really cheap inland. But this is changing fast. Primarily due to the acceleration of decent people fleeing even mid-sized cities (not just NY, LA, Chicago, Houston), and millions working mostly online for the first time.
Home prices continue to rise far faster than our salaries/wages in booming country & exurban counties across Utah, Nevada, Texas, Florida, eastern OR and WA, Montana, Wyoming, etc.
My mother is selling her house in a fairly expensive part of NJ and buying out West. The prices for the newer houses far from any city in Utah or Nevada, are shockingly higher than when we started looking in earnest less than two hears ago. We thought we were savvy and sufficiently apprised of costs in these boom-towns, but nope.
In the two inland flight areas we’re looking at, newer-home prices are going up maybe 4x faster than my Mom’s house. Houses we thought might cost $300,000 are surging to $400,000 and $500,000. If we thought she might pick up a house with a certain amount of property for $400,000, it’s now $600,000 to $800,000.
As for California real estate, man, you killed it!
I’m happy for you. I too would have bought when you did if we had lived in Cali then. We’d try to buy in SoCal even now, as overpriced and overcrowded as it is, if we weren’t raising children. But we won’t subject our kids to the California curriculum much longer — it’s getting more extreme by the month. Nor will we live in a jurisdiction with “vaccine” “passports”, which may be on their way here. In the new lockdown America, even the prospect of real estate profits isn’t enough to keep families in certain places long-term, like California.
Also, how are young Americans to buy real estate to raise their own families? The artificially low interest rates won’t last. And even rock-bottom rates don’t help if you can’t come up with a down-payment. A 20% down-payment could easily be $70-80,000 or more in many areas with good jobs. Many, probably most, Americans don’t inherit a house. Given the number of children we have, ours won’t each inherit a house either. How do they ever get on this absurd merry-go-round?
When home prices consistently riser faster than salaries and wages, this cannot serve most people well in the long run. You made out very well, and we may do alright, but this system already hurts more people than it helps, and it cannot go on forever.
And before you ask, no, the embassy does nothing.
You’ve watched too many television dramas. They only intervene in capital crimes or a crime that makes the US look bad.
While I was in the jail, they told me to hang tight and let them know if I was being mistreated.
When I got out they gave me a list of lawyers.
I picked the one who bragged to me that ‘Her husband was a high up police officer’. In any other country, this would have been a warning sign, but I figured in Thailand, it was a golden ticket.
I hang out in Thailand for a while.
Avoiding scooters and bars. freaking out, obviously, but pretty powerless.
No amount of American money could help me at that point. The government didn’t care.
The “trial” was bizarre.
No visitors are allowed. The courtroom I was in was underground. You’re brought to a jail before the trial where you have to take off your shoes and belt and then stand in a cage inside the trial room.
I was with three other guys in the cage.
There’s no one in the courtroom aside from some grim-looking guard with a rifle.
Jeff Stryker says:
An Expert Speaks
[1] You can stagger around drunk & be puking on yourself in Siam & nobody will care a whit.
[2] However, you can stone cold sober & drive & if you get into an accident…you are in trouble.
[3] Generally, you can buy yourself out of any reasonable situation for a few grand. You really should not be traveling in SEA if you don’t have $3000 spare cash in the event of a serious situation.
[4] It would be typical of an American new comer to believe that Americans are not detested overseas & that being American will mean jack in SEA. Canadian? Maybe a little respect. British? Okay. American? Zero. The USA is regarded as the worst Superpower that ever existed & the average white American is regarded as a loudmouthed hick & ignorant too boot. However, in Siam, generally Thais don’t care.
[5] If you get locked in jail its the other American-hating nationals like Iranians, of whom there are a considerable number, or even Pakistanis who will threaten you for political reasons. Thais do not care. For that matter, even some Aussies or Brits are anti-American to come at you in an Immigration jail.
[6] Doing drugs is a tricky business. If you have to do drugs, score from ladyboys or from hotel staff of a younger hipper variety who themselves smoke weed. You can buy your way out of a weed bust, but Ya Ba & Meth are going to get you time. If you deal drugs or try to smuggle them in Pattaya or Bangkok, you are so stupid you should commit suicide when you get busted. Which you will be. Scoring drugs randomly on the street will always be a set up. With Tuk Tuk drivers or taxi drivers who ask you if you want to purchase drugs it will be a set up. You can score in Sukhumivit around Soi 4 from the Africans but they are periodically hit for raids.
[7] Many bar girls or hookers are meth addicts.
[8] An American married to Issan girl who does not know these ropes is not very bright.
[9] Make one or two semi-important friends.
[10] Remember the property laws. They are not in your favor. Property belongs to your wife.
Many posters here are naive hicks who have no business being outside the small city or town they were born. Some hicks are scammed in SEA.
After an hour of waiting, a prim little woman walks in, sits down at a table facing the cage.
She calls out your name and you walk to the front of the cage.
She reads your file out loud: the charges, I guess. It’s all in Thai.
My lawyer is then allowed to enter the room.
They talk quietly for a few minutes in Thai.
She’s very deferential, not making eye contact with the judge.
The lawyer then approaches the cage and asks if I am sorry.
I’m ready: I know this is my cue to turn on the histrionics.
I bow and wai repeatedly at the judge, the guards, the other Thais in the cage.
My lawyer had prepared me.
I repeat the Thai phrase I had prepared, over and over again and again. “I am so sorry and ashamed. I am so sorry and ashamed.” Likely mangling the pronunciation.
I cry. I plead.
The judge looks at the lawyer. Laughs.
Scribbles something on the file and then proclaims something in Thai. Before the lawyer has a chance to translate, I’m taken by a guard from the cage back to the primary jail in the courthouse.
I sit there for two hours.
Eventually, they call my name and my lawyer is at the jail door.
She’s smiling.
If you’re interested, my total penalty was…wait for it…a 100,000 baht fine paid to the court and an agreement to ‘not do anything bad in Thailand’ for one full year.
Emslander says:
Your experience with the Thai legal system is fairly typical of experiences with any legal system anywhere. I have drilled it into my sons’ heads from birth to NEVER get involved with the police other than to say “Yes, sir” or “No, sir.” I told them that, if they wanted bad attention or to be punished, to just come home and I’d accommodate. They mostly complied. The deeper you get into any sort of trouble, the more it will cost you in time, money and degradation.
I pay my lawyer another 100,000 baht, wait to get my 100,000 baht bond back from the courthouse (which has to be fronted by a Thai…in this case, my lawyer), and I am on my way.
I fly to KL that night.
I bear no ill will towards the Thai people.
I made a stupid mistake and, in retrospect, should have paid the fine upfront. Scam or no scam.
The normal Thai people live in a shitty, corrupt system. They’re just trying to get by. At least they have the comforts of family, community, culture, and tradition to return to after a long day of sentencing Americans to prison.
Disclaimer says:
In response to a comment by @obwandiyag who said
“…Wait till he needs a doctor…”
The medical care in most of the world is far better than in the US. Its not even close. US is ranked 37th (and dropping) on quality of medical care which is basically dead last in the first world.
US medical care was the best in the world until around 1975 or so since then its been steadily downhill.
To answer your earlier question, I think most of the white nationalists are the disgusting pigs. Potato-shaped genetic-mutt trash dropping rancor and CheezeIt crumbs all over their cum-stained keyboards.
There is no hope for the United States if these guys are the vanguards of “our” future. I’ll take the “Orientals” or the Muslims any day of the week.
Europe is a weird case.
As a political or economic union it’s toast, but the individual states will still have a lot of interesting possibilities. In many ways, Europe’s inevitable dissolution is good for guys like me.
It will be easier to get in and purchase citizenship, or property, or whatever. The fragmentation of Europe will be a boon for those fleeing the West.
The ‘least developed’ European countries have the most interesting long-term prospects, at least as places I like to live. I’d look for those that are food-secure and have good access to clean water.
john cronk says:
I find the guy’s life as described to be mis-spent, randomly purposeless and morally bankrupt. He may as well have been an ant or a fly. However, the subject of escaping the deteriorating West is a salient one and I’m interested in how it can be done in a sensible, considered, and productive way.
There are some nice towns in Bulgaria (mostly in the Rhodope foothills) and Albania that I’d consider long-term. Portugal was great until the Golden Visa, and will now be flooded with Brits heading back to Spain or Chinese opportunists.
I’ve always been a fan of Poland, of Polish cities and people. Georgia and Abkhazia are gorgeous and ripe for sustainable development–whatever that means.
Northern Spain, west of Basque country, towards Galacia, is gorgeous and peaceful. There are some great small towns in Slovakia but you have to be ready to handle Gypsies. Northwestern Greece, in the mountains, has a great climate and food culture. No one will bug you there.
There’s also East Asia, but that’s a whole other article.
Reading about your adventures everywhere, some readers might think you’re just an anchorless hedonist, but you’re actually happily married, and your wife does travel with you. Since it’s nearly impossible to synchronize wishes or demands on the road, this is very rare. You’re very lucky. To wrap up, do you have advice for Americans who might want to get out?
Yes, for much of the past 5 years of non-stop travel my wife has been by my side. It’s been pretty amazing and I am incredibly fortunate to have someone so willing to be ‘unsettled’ throughout the world.
It’s always fun to travel alone but having someone to wake up and make breakfast for–no matter the weird city we’re in–is pure pleasure.
For those looking to escape, my advice would be to have a plan but not to commit to it too firmly.
Too many people over-utilize the Internet to the detriment of on-the-ground intelligence.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who’ve ‘sold everything’ back in the States and then bought a one-way ticket to Fethiye or Chiang Mai without ever visiting these places once! All based on some Youtuber’s drone videos.
It’s ridiculous.
These are, unsurprisingly, the people that go back to Michigan in a few years.
Once travel opens back up, get your money right in the US first. Don’t burn bridges.
Then, pick a region.
Pack minimally.
I recommend warmer countries first simply because there’s less to pack. Don’t worry about booking an apartment for a month. Book a few days on Airbnb. Move around to a different neighborhood. In a city like Jakarta or Yangon or even Milan, you can have a dramatically different experience based on your neighborhood.
Keep in mind, no matter where you travel, you’ll always bring yourself along. If you aren’t happy in your own head, in your own body, then no amount of wandering will change that.
Jonathan (41-years-old)
cohen says:
Linh
You are doing a good job to some degree in telling the audience the real interesting and historical stuff about counties you travel to.. unlike you, when I travel I don't talk to “intellectuals”.
I to go to small cafes and talk to locals who don't speak a word of English but somehow there is always a one eyed men among blinds, one who wants to speak and brush up his English with in the crowd. To me that is fun.
The most common bonding is the sense of humor and bonding through jokes. That is something so common among people of various background. Try that experience next time.
Your stories about Serbia, and Lebanon did lack information. For instance, in Belgrade the American bombing or missiles attack were incredibly precise and ironically US got away bombing the Chinese Embassy by claiming an error. No way Jose. The defense ministry building destroyed were among big building and in front of each. There was no damage to any neighboring buildings.
Philip Morris bought the Serbian Cigarette company for one dollar? and the Yugo (bad or good beside the point) car company was sold to an American car company for 1 dollar. There are three KPMG offices in Belgrade. Why an American company needs 3 offices in the same city. Privatization my man.
You are hung up on Albania. Did you see the digging of an old gladiator arena by the sea? Or their political parties. People like me care less about the nice pictures of food from a restaurant menu. At least I for one.
Go to Jakarta, or Casablanca and see Muslim women with their Hijab driving taxi without fear of any physical harm. You can not imagine that happening in America, This is information and not pictures of food which is very subjective. Try to go to Tangier in Morocco and get a taste of Europe and Africa in one place. And the weather one has to experience it oneself. Daniel Craig has a house in Tangier on the Atlantic side (lot of French artists, mostly fags).
Talk to a native Jews of Casablanca and learn why on earth they don't want to go to their “promised homeland”. The answer would surprise you. I was amused when one of them in a synagogue said “Then what the hell we will be doing there once we get to Israel”.
Try some volcanic islands in Indonesia where Comodo dragons still roam. Or Lake Biakal. Very different than the food information with prices.
Put some information in your writing that would be worth reading. Food? Who gives a sh… We have the tendency to talk about foreign foods and feel cultured and well informed.
Or at least that HIS opinion.
I liked the story. Seems like this fellow was in the right place, at the right time, and husbanded his money well. Good for him. My life has been one scramble after the other, with no time to take a breather.
Americans have a lot of issues they need to sort out before they go elsewhere. One of which is the hooks and claws that “Uncle Sam” has in just about everything you do. And another thing is the bad Intel that you have. You are better off living under a mattress for the last forty years than listen to anything available off the internet.
The Ugly American
All of this reminds me of an old movie titled “The Ugly American”.
An intelligent, articulate scholar, Harrison MacWhite, survives a hostile Senate confirmation hearing at the hands of conservatives to become ambassador to Sarkan. Sarkan is a southeast Asian country where civil war threatens a tense peace.
Despite his knowledge, once he’s there, MacWhite sees only a dichotomy between the U.S. and Communism.
He can’t accept that anti-American sentiment might be a longing for self-determination and nationalism.
Imagine that!
This 1963 MARLON BRANDO film ' The UGLY AMERICAN ' is an all too often overlooked effort from such a truly talented actor as was Mr. Brando. Relevant upon release 53 years ago, it is relevant today. The AIRPORT ARRIVAL scenes as Ambassador MacWhite speeds off in his 1957 Cadillac Fleetwood limousine are a CINEMATIC TRIUMPH alone !
-Robert D.
Over the years, the term “the ugly American” has come to describe a pompus know-it all attitude that is dismissive of others, and that basks in the tattered remains of American patriotism.
The big problem with expatriation is the IRS. If you renounce your citizenship you are treated as though you have sold all your assets at fair market value, and must pay tax accordingly. If you don’t do that, you can simply live abroad and keep your US citizenship (and hopefully your new country allows dual citizenship). You will still have to file US tax returns and pay US taxes, although you will get a credit against it for any foreign taxes paid.
-Hapalong Cassidy
I found this review of the movie enlightening.
Viet Nam 1963
I was in Viet Nam from June 1963 to March 1964. We saw “The Ugly American” at the American movie theatre in Saigon, the Capitol Kinh Do.
There were many Americans and their dependents in Saigon and in Viet Nam at this time–most were isolated with cocktail parties, teas, and American activities. Most American children went to the American Community School outside of Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Their parents belonged to the exclusive Cercle Sportiff, hobnobbing with the Vietnamese elite who monetarily benefited from the war. There were opportunities for American civilians to teach the Vietnamese English, but I never knew of any opportunities for Americans to learn Vietnamese or national customs.
Many of the children of the diplomatic corps were instructed that if their shirt tails hung out or if they ate with their fingers when eating implements were available, they would be considered “ugly Americans.” Nothing was said about the teenage boys drinking, whoring, and racing their motorcycles through the darkened Saigon streets in the early morning hours. Nothing was said about how we knew the way to “win” the war against the popular nationalist freedom fighter known as Ho Chi Minh who organized the successful campaigns against the Japanese and French occupiers.
Perhaps if we had listened a little more, learned the language and customs, and understood that the desire for national freedom is not communism, we wouldn’t still be trying to “win” the Vietnam War.
…
I’m an American myself. So what is the deal?
Hum.
Not nearly good enough.
What is “it” with Americans?
I’m an American. So what’s the deal, eh?
America soon.
Why do we want to leave the “home of the free”, and “the shining house on the hill”, where the entire world wants to move to? Are we stupid? Are we too full of ourselves?
The U.S. government doesn’t formally track how many Americans leave the U.S. but the most recent estimate puts the figure at nearly nine million. This figure represents a doubling of the 1999 figure, placed at 4.1 million. The number of expats has more than doubled in the last fifteen years — a number growing faster than the rate of the U.S. population itself.
Juan jwayne says:
I live in Nicaragua/ Costa Rica. My $ goes much farther. The people are poor but happy,happier than Americans.You must have an income, me, union pension. My Atm card works here,so no worries.Takes a lil while to get used to it, different culture, but you’re easy going about things, it’ll work out. Good Luck
steinbergfeldwitzcohen says:
I would think that a smart guy would have learned something about the culture of THAILAND before he went there! You can go to jail for being disrespectful to their Royals.
Never, ever show anger.
Never: it is disrespectful and shows weakness (an inability to control emotions or to be properly afraid of those with the power of life and death, ie. 3rd world cops).
In fact, treat every cop and govt official as a long missed uncle you deeply love and respect. If you do that you cannot lose in the game.
You could have walked out of that station in 1 hr or less by being respectful and calm, wishing to pay while indicating a recent family hardship of a medical nature or, even better, allude to a recent family death that you had to cover the funeral costs for as you are the eldest.
The cops and robbers would have settled for 50% and you would have left happy.
After fifteen months of travel, I returned to the United States ready to give American life another try. After a few months at home with my family, I moved back to San Francisco, the city I lived and worked in before traveling. I started looking for a job, looking for apartments, looking for new friends. I felt eager to re-enter American society, and pick up somewhat where I left off.
Within four months, I had changed my mind.
After struggling with so many aspects of United States society and culture, I ended up finding a pretty great life in Cape Town, South Africa (along with a pretty great American boyfriend who had moved here years ago and found the same). I spent much of last year, hopping back and forth between the two countries, allowing me to distinctly see the differences between them. I moved here officially this past July.
A new survey shows I’m not alone: according to a TransferWise national survey of over 2000 adults, around one in three Americans say they’d consider leaving the United States for another country.
For us millennials, it’s even worse: 55% of Americans between the ages of 18-34 say they’d consider it.
What scares me most is that I won’t be able to enjoy life as I do here if I were to move back to the United States. Though life in South Africa comes with its own unique set of struggles, my life here in many ways became far easier than what I experienced in the States.
Here’s how:
1. I don’t have to worry about getting sick.
In the Transferwise Survey, “more affordable healthcare” was the number one improvement respondents said would make living in the US more appealing.
For years, the US has had the most expensive yet least effective healthcare system in the world. The recent drug price-hike scandal reminded us that unlike Canada, Australia, and many countries in Europe, our country does not regulate drug prices in the same way we regulate other basic needs, like water and electricity. Instead, we are the only developed nation that allows drug makers to set their own prices, regardless of whether average Americans can afford it.
America today.
As a freelancer, healthcare became one of my top priorities when deciding where to live. Individual plans in New York city can go up to a grand a month. And in my homestate of Florida, the limited access to affordable women’s health needs like pap smears, yearly gynocologist visits, and affordable birth control became a large part of why I left. Planned Parenthood was few and far between in Florida, and charged comparatively high rates after losing funding from the state government. The St. Petersburg Times reported that in 2001, presidential candidate Jeb Bush cut over $300,000 for family planning services through Planned Parenthood. The result? In 2014, an evaluation of health data found that Florida was tied with Oklahoma and Arkansas for the worst state for women’s health.
2. “Work-life balance” actually seems possible.
In the Transferwise survey, “a better quality of life” was the most popular reason people chose to consider leaving the country. It was top on my list too.
I enjoy living in places that prioritize joy instead of only productivity.
In South Africa, I saw people both engaging in meaningful work, and enjoying their weekends. I saw workers consider their loved ones and their overall well-being in their work decisions, without feeling guilty or selfish.
And, I’ve seen people with the most opportunity for financial gain simply choose not to capitalize on it. My boyfriend once asked the owner of a coffee shop we often visited why she closed on Saturdays and Sundays, and so early during the week. He explained to her she could make a killing with brunches on Saturday.
She shrugged her shoulders and told him she already knew that.
But she said she’d rather be with her family on Saturdays than have to worry about work. Similarly, I’ve seen some wine bars close Friday at 10pm, at the time they’d perhaps be most profitable.
I prefer this kind of prioritizing.
3. As a person of color, being an “expat” instead of a “minority” is kind of relieving.
Many articles have discussed how a person of color from the US can often receive more privileges abroad than in the United States.
In his New York Times article “The Next Great Migration” Thomas Chatterton Williams describes the story of his friend who moved from New York to London:
“He confessed, ‘The race situation back home occupies so much space in your mind, even just safety-wise, I actually never fully understood what it meant to be American, and all the advantages that come with it, until now…
You immediately remove that affirmative action target from your back.
A work visa gives you the validation that you’re good at what you do.”
In South Africa, I’ve had similar experiences. Instead of being the “affirmative action kid” I was often labeled at college, here my achievements are never tied to my racial background. People care far more about my US college degree and work experience than how I racially identify.
And because my racial background doesn’t matter nearly as much, race no longer has to matter as much in my life.
My primary identity in South Africa is “American” in a way it never was back in the States. After years of trying to figure out my how my Latino identity fits among my life, it’s kind of relieving for once to live in a place where frankly, no one gives a shit.
4. My values as a global citizen are affirmed.
Life in the United States is generally only about the United States. This is reflected in everything from American travel habits to American media to American curriculum in schools.
But life in other countries is about the world.
For example, Business Insider ran a story that illustrated the differences between US media and media internationally. They put side-to-side the cover stories for Time magazine’s US edition versus its editions abroad.
One month, the cover in the US had the headline “Chore Wars”, while the rest of the world got “Travels Through Islam.” Another month, while the rest of the world had a front page story on rebellion in the Middle East, the US got “Why Anxiety is Good For You.”
Statistics back up this apparent lack of interest in the rest of the world: a State of the Media survey found that in 2008, news agencies in the US devoted only 10.3% to foreign coverage.
While watching the news in South Africa, I also noticed that how we present international coverage also makes a difference. When watching coverage of developments in Iraq and Syria, newscasters actually interviewed Iraqis and Syrians.
I realized that this was perhaps the first time I had ever seen an Iraqi or Syrian civilian given substantial time on television to tell their story. In the US, though civilians from these areas were covered briefly in video footage, I never saw them personally asked for their opinion.
In some ways you could argue that our media is just catering to what Americans truly want to know– which unfortunately, seems to be only about ourselves. People from the US generally don’t have an interest in what happens internationally.
In 2013, The Daily Mail reported that in a survey of over 2,000 Americans, almost half of respondents who had never been abroad said that the only things worth seeing were in our own country. Almost a third answered that even if they had the money, they’d prefer to travel to local areas.
I know I want to live in a place where citizens and institutions care about the world around them and have a natural curiosity for learning about others. Unfortunately, it seems more difficult to find that in the States.
I’m not sure if I’ll live abroad forever, or if these four priorities will be my same priorities in the future. But for now, the US will have to put up a far better show to convince me it’s worth going “home.”
The Alarmist says:
When I was still military, in a so-called “friendly” country, one of my buddies decided our cab fare to town was too much … it was about $1 too much … BFD or Biloxi Fire Department, as we used to say … anyway, buddy decides to pay what he thinks is fair and walk away, so cabbie says, “No good… we go to police!” So buddy says, “Ok, we go to police.” I say, “You know the police beat people in this country, right?” and hand the cabbie the rest of the fare, figuring I was feeding one of his rugrats. When you are an American abroad, you have far fewer friends than you think, and they certainly don’t include the authorities … their and ours.
America soon.
So I am going to kind of throw some shit to America right now…
6 Uncomfortable truths about life in the United States
1. The only country that incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than the U.S. is North Korea.
The International Centre for Prison Studies estimates that we have more than 2.2 million people behind bars, or around 716 people per 100,000 citizens, which is far higher than Russia, China, and Iran. To put this in even more perspective, the number per 100,000 citizens in European countries: 78 in Germany, 103 in France, and 99 in Italy. Even worse, 60% of U.S. prisoners are non-violent offenders. The numbers demonstrate how the United States contributes a completely disproportional amount of prisoners to the global environment: we are responsible for around 22% of the total amount of inmates in the world, even though we only account for 4.4% of the world population.
2. Though we spend more money on health care than any other country in the world, our life expectancy in some areas of the South is lower than the life expectancy in Nicaragua, Algeria and Bangladesh.
Though our life expectancy overall has improved (Americans live around eight years longer now than they did in 1970), our rate of improvement is far slower than other countries, and in some counties is on-par with countries far less developed than we are. We also rank last among rich countries in overall health performance, according to a 2014 survey by the Commonwealth Fund that looked at measures like equity of care and efficiency.
This suggests that Americans overspend on technology, without achieving higher results. For example, Americans have the highest rate of MRI exams. And yet in Austria, where the MRI exam rate is around half of ours, the life expectancy is still two years longer than ours.
We also rank low among developed nations for the amount of doctors we have: only 2.5 per 1,000 people (in 2005). In most of Europe, that number is far above three. In Cuba it was 6.7 in 2010. A 2015 report suggested that by 2025 our country would need between 46,000 and 90,000 more physicians than we have today.
3. Out of all developed nations, we have the highest teen pregnancy rate.
The Guttmacher Institute found that the pregnancy rate for American girls is 57 out of every 1,000 girls, far higher than most developed countries. Many argue that this derives from the failure of our abstinence-only education programs. The majority of European countries use comprehensive sex-ed. The result? A teen pregnancy rate of 5.3 per 1,000 in the Netherlands, 4.3 per 1,000 in Switzerland and 9.8 per 1,000 in Germany.
…one-third of the world’s paper and around a quarter of the world’s oil, coal and aluminum.
5. We are the only developed country that still executes prisoners.
111 UN member nations have expressed their agreement with a moratorium on the death penalty. And yet the US stands alone among developing countries in continuing the practice.
We can’t argue that we’ve kept the death penalty because it works: several articles have shown how capital punishment in the U.S. has been significantly racist, economically costly, and ultimately inefffective in deterring future crime.
6. We are one of only three nations in the world that does not guarantee paid maternal leave.
Though 70 percent of children live in families where both adults work, the United States still has made little effort to provide paid maternal leave for American families.
The small company we keep? Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.
A 2010 survey found that 76 of registered voters supported some form of paid leave.
Other studies also show that when maternity leaves are short and unpaid, immunization and health visit rates go down and infant mortality rates go up. An OECD study on nineteen countries from 1979 to 2003 also found that paid parental led to significantly greater productivity.
So what is the point in all of this?
Life is what you make of it.
Do not live your life in fear.
Just because you were born in the United States, and was raised as an American with all the baggage and advantages that comes with it, you can change the script.
Forest Gump says that “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get”. I argue that you can change the box.
And who cares why?
Really!
If you want to be a hedonistic slime-ball or, a forever-back-packer, or settle down with a family somewhere else. It is no one else’s business. It’s only yours.
So when I read the comments here, I see the arrogance of self-righteous American calling others out for doing things that they themselves are far too afraid to do.
It is really quite simple, really.
You migrate to where your happiness can manifest and become reality. That chick that I mentioned above was far happier in South Africa than in the States. And I am not doubting her. the things that matter to her are important. You just don’t brush them off to the side and call her a “coward” or a “traitor”. Do you?
If you are happy were you are now, then stay there.
I do miss many things about the United States, but for me personally it is literally a prison as a third-rate citizen.No matter what aspects that I miss, that I long for, and what fond memories that I have, I know that they are just that; memories.
We have to look at what is important to us all, and use faith, prayer and affirmation campaigns to make it manifest.
With a plan, backed up with action, understanding and wisdom, you will be able to manifest your desires
May your life become the source for your greatest happiness.
May your life become the source for your greatest happiness.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my index about Escape! (from America)
All through our lives we have been told that “news” provides us with a “window to the world”, and that we need to keep abreast of the events of the day. The argument is that this is how we grow, learn and understand our place in society.
This, now more than ever, is absolutely false.
And as I have repeatedly tried to explain this to you all, you all still don’t FUCKING GET IT!
(Sorry for being so brash and in your face, but Jeeze! Louise!)
All, yes all and every, item of “news” that comes out of the United States is manipulative propaganda. That’s what it is, that’s all it is, and if you respond that you have something that you read from this alternative news source… I will have to shake my head in sadness and disbelief.
There is no longer any free, independent “news” out of the United States today. It is all a very well-honed network of manipulation and deceit.
This means ALL OF IT.
Key Points
Point One. All “news” manipulates.
If you want to get a full perspective on something then you need to get a wide selection of information from many sources. And NO I DO NOT MEAN AMERICAN SOURCES. I mean international sources.
This is key point Two.
Oh, Mr. So-and-so wrote a "well researched" book on China. Great.
Did he write on his experiences inside of China?
No.
Why not?
He used many well documented sources.
Well, what were his sources?
Oh! All American publications, written in English, by people who have never been to China regurgitating what they have read.
And how is the opinion, of a person, who forms his opinions, by other opinionated people who know absolutely nothing about China going to improve your life?
It isn’t.
Instead, you should use that money and you buy a plane ticket and you look around yourself.
That’s key point Three. See what is important with your own two eyes, using your ears, on the ground and touching things with your hands. Books and periodicals and articles are so deceptive these days that they are more of a hindrance to the truth than information.
Now, the world has many many, MANY people pretending to be journalists.
Thus, you have to take each and every “report” and “news article” cautiously (in America we call this “with a grain of salt“). You can read it as most articles are really nothing more than opinions, NOT reporting, and some of those opinions have some value.
I think the most important key point is four. There is no longer any actual reporting inside of America today.
Zero.
Reporting of events in America has been replaced by carefully constructed narratives used to manipulate American citizens to follow herd behaviors.
One of the most important things that we must understand is that America has constructed the most powerful and elaborate propaganda network in history.
The American (levers of government) owns, through proxy, all of the major media, and all of the alternative media.
Yes, please read that again.
The American government owned Rush Limbaugh. The American government owns Free Republic. The American government supports GAB, the American government promotes Salon, the American government is the voice of the Huffington Post. The American government injects Zero Hedge. The American government controls the narratives on LinkedIN.
Those beloved Conservatives, and those funny progressives are all tools for the government. ALL OF THEM.
Thus key point five; actual events (and truths) are hidden from Americans.
So what is the purpose of “news” manipulation?
The actual purpose brings us to key Six. It is more than just a distraction. It’s a “snipe hunt”. The purpose of American news is to keep the American people ignorant.
It is to keep Americans away from the truths.
It is to keep Americans ignorant of the real situations.
This is because if they realized what they were, they would be extremely angry; angry to a point of killing everyone on sight in rolling fits of rage.
That’s why.
SNIPE HUNT
A snipe huntisa type of practical joke or fool's errand, in existence in North America as early as the 1840s, in which an unsuspecting newcomeris duped into trying to catch a nonexistent animal called a snipe. Although snipe are an actual family of birds, a snipehunt is a quest for an imaginarycreaturewhosedescriptionvaries.
-Wikipedia
Those of us “in the know” only have clarity on small tidbits of Intel. However, when we start linking up with others (such as through MM, here) who also have their information and we start putting the information together a very… very… VERY disturbing picture comes to light.
Which is point Seven. The actual reality of how Americans are, the lives they live, and the operation of the government is so far distanced from that which is promoted by the media that it resembles something completely different.
Indeed, the true reality of what America is really resembles the movie the Matrix where young Neo is exposed to the truth of what the world actually looks like.
Central to the philosophical edge of The Matrix is the red and blue pill scene. Morpheus, a human awakened to mankind’s reality, offers the same enlightenment to Neo, who is still plugged into an illusion. Alas, the choice must be Neo’s alone and to this end, Morpheus presents him with a metaphorical choice between two brightly colored pills. Take the red variety, and Neo will be unplugged, finally capable of seeing the world for what it really is. Swallow the blue pill, however, and Neo will not only go back to his digital, make-believe existence, but he’ll also forget ever having questioned what is real and what could be a lie.
Thus point eight. America is not a “shining city on the hill” with “democracy” and “freedom”, with a nation ruled by “justice”.
America is instead, an [1] oligarchy-owned Corporatocracy.
It is one that [2] operates as a military empire, and budgets it appropriately.
America [3] treats it’s people as disposable debit-serfs for profit, with a million tiny “hands in the wallet” with thousands (no longer hundreds) of taxes, fees, rules, and requirements that siphon money away from the citizenry in every shape, and in every form.
And America [4] engages on the international scene as a war-mongering bully, and is [5] presently a serious threat to the future of mankind.
Like a cancer the sicknesses that the leadership has permitted to grow has festered until now, the cancer has metastasized. America has become a dangerous monster that is thrashing around angerly, and trying to maintain it’s respect, it’s authority, and it’s world position. It cannot do that, and of which, it is quite dangerous.
But we are not going to talk about that.
Instead we are going to get back to the point that American “news” is a SNIPE HUNT of misdirection to keep Americans going around and around, and around, and around in circles.
American “news” as a “snipe hunt”
To illustrate how Americans are manipulated to go after “snipes” on a “snipe hunt” we will use the 2009 movie “Push” to illustrate this point.
What is real and what is an illusion when someone else controls your eyes and your memories?
Really.
What if everything that you know is an artificial construct that you now believe and that the truth was erased and false memories were implanted in your brain? Could you tell the difference?
I argue you cannot.
And just like many Americans “had a bad experience with Huawei”, who never owned a Huawei phone…
Who swear that they are never going “to use 5G”…
And now “will not get their RNA vaccination”…
… is no different than you remembering a brother that never existed.
The movie “Push” 2009
As that was one of the scenes in this movie. I am going to use this movie as the basis of discussion on the idea that other forces are so powerful that they can change what you think, what you believe, what you remember, and thus control how you act.
Push 2009.
This movie is sort of a “sleeper” movie about people with super-powers. But unlike that same-old nonsense about being bitten by radioactive spiders and the like, this one discusses …
These days you can't throw a half-brick in the air without it landing on someone who can fly, or was bitten by a radioactive spider (and that's assuming that the 'half-brick' in question doesn't GIVE the person it lands on the power to fly or climb walls!).
However, back in 2009, superhero movies (or those generally showing young, good-looking people with superpowers) weren't quite always guaranteed to make as much money as today's average Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
Therefore, 'Push' sort of flew below radar at the time.
I'd like to say that it's achieved a 'cult following' over time and it's a bit more of a 'sleeper hit,' however, it seems to have been completely forgotten. And, in my opinion, that's a shame - I really enjoyed it!
-bowmanblue
The movie start out with a narrator describing how those with “abilities” have been involved with the US government since 1945.
These abilities are various flavors of telekinetic powers. Some can push thoughts into other people’s brains, others can see into the future, and some can kill others by thoughts alone.
Two of the people with these special “abilities” or “powers”, are known as “movers”.
Movers
Movers are powerful telekinetics who are trained to identify the specific atomic frequency of a given material and alter the gravitational field around it, usually causing the nearby air to appear warped.
This allows them to move both animate and inanimate objects.
Advanced Movers can work at the molecular level, creating protective force fields in the air around them or to reinforce punches and other strikes to make them stronger.
A “mover” can move things with their mind.
Two “Movers”, Nick Gant and his father, are on the run from the “Division”. Which is a waved, unacknowledged special access program in the United States government W(U)-SAP.
Realizing that escape is impossible, Nick’s father tells him of a vision he received from a “Watcher”.
Watchers
Watchers have the ability to foresee the future to varying degrees.
As knowledge of the future invariably causes that future to change, Watchers' visions of the future in their direct sphere of influence are subject to frequent shifting.
This is another type of person who's telekinetic powers involve the power to see the future.
This, in this case, a girl will give him a flower and he is to do whatever she says in order to "save us all."
A “watcher” can see into the future.
Nick’s father throws Nick into an air vent as Agent Henry Carver of the Division arrives. Nick sees his father get killed before escaping.
A decade later, the American Division tests an augmentation drug on a “Pusher”, named Kira.
Pushers
Pushers have the ability to implant memories, thoughts and emotions into the minds of other people in order to manipulate them.
The skill level of the Pusher determines how many people the Pusher is able to control at one time, and how vivid the implanted memories are.
A powerful Pusher can push a large group of people at the same time, basically creating a personal army.
A Pusher is able to make a person do anything the Pusher desires, even commit suicide.
A Pusher's eyes indicate how powerful they are: their pupils will dilate to certain degrees depending on how powerful the push is (for example, Henry Carver's eyes are rendered completely black, signifying that he is an extremely able and effective Pusher).
A “pusher” can put thoughts in your head, and change your memories.
This drug either kills the host or greatly increases their powers exponentially.
The test works after many tries.
Rendering the doctor unconscious, Kira steals his security clearance card and an augmentation drug-filled syringe and escapes.
In Hong Kong, Nick (now older as a young man) is hiding from the Division as an expatriate.
He attempts to use his ability to make a living, but his poor skills at “moving” at a dice game leave him indebted to a local Triad. Which for you all who do not know, is the name of a Chinese criminal organization.
This particular Triad is controlled by “Bleeders”, bred by the now-defunct Chinese Division.
In the movie, the Chinese tried to make their own version of the American “division” but failed. The remnants were either absorbed by the American organization or went “underground” and became criminal syndicates.
Bleeder
Bleeders have the ability to emit high-pitched sonic vibrations that cause ruptures in a target's blood vessels.
While using this ability, their eyes turn into slits because of synthetic materials implanted in them to protect the blood vessels from the effects of their own ability.
They are also sometimes known as Joe Mama.
Bleeders can kill you.
A young girl named Cassie Holmes arrives at Nick’s apartment.
She explains to him that she is a “Watcher”.
Watchers
Watchers have the ability to foresee the future to varying degrees.
As knowledge of the future invariably causes that future to change, Watchers' visions of the future in their direct sphere of influence are subject to frequent shifting.
She further explains that they are going to find a case containing 6 million dollars. But shortly afterwards, they are attacked by Triad Bleeders but escape.
All of the reviews I've read of this movie have savaged it and, personally, I didn't think it was nearly bad as bad as all that.
There were some interesting characters (the guy they enlist to help them hide themselves from the bad guys comes to mind here), and it put a new and interesting spin on the whole "people with super powers" genre.
BUT...what really makes me love this film is the depictions of Hong Kong.
See, I have been living in Hong Kong for almost 5 years now and I've told all my friends and family that if they want to get a good look at the many sides of the city (other than the touristy facade is typically presented), watch this movie.
The film makers really did a great job of capturing what it's like to wander around Hong Kong, and the cinematography is like eye candy.
-srvblooze
Problems arise.
And Nick is nearly killed by the Triads. To recover, Cassie uses the help of a “stitch” to heal him.
Stitch
Stitches are psychic surgeons trained to quickly reconstruct cells to their previous or healthy state.
Using only their hands, they can heal and even "unheal" whatever they have done. For more detailed work, Stitches use a silver based cream on their hands which acts as a conductor for their ability.
Once healed up, Nick and Cassie go to a nightclub on a hint from Cassie’s predictions.
Nick sees an old friend, “Hook” Waters, who happens to be a “Shifter”.
Shifters
Shifters can temporarily alter the appearance of an object by manipulating the patterns of light interacting with it.
Once the illusion is established, it remains with the object for a short period of time.
For example, a Shifter could touch a one dollar bill and alter it to appear as a one hundred dollar bill until the effect expires.
The object shifted must have roughly the same dimensions as the object it is shifted into. The length of time that the effect will last is based on the Shifter's experience and ability.
Shifters can temporarily alter the appearance of an object by manipulating the patterns of light interacting with it.
The shifter uses his abilities to make a replica of the clue in Cassie’s drawing and tells them to go to Emily Hu, a highly skilled “Sniffer” who can help them find Kira.
Sniffer
Sniffs are highly developed psychometrics who can track the location of people or objects over varying distances.
Like bloodhounds, their ability is increased if they have tactile access to an object that has been in direct contact with the subject.
Sniffs receive information in the form of images, which is why identifiable landmarks help increase their effectiveness.
Nick and Cassie find Kira, who once had a romantic relationship with Nick.
They recruit a “Shadow” named “Pinky” Stein to hide Kira from the “Sniffers”.
Shadows
Shadows are trained to block the vision of other clairvoyants such as Sniffs, making any subject within their target radius appear "dark".
Experience will enhance the size of the area they can shadow and the intensity of their shielding effect.
Shadows need to be awake to manifest their ability, so it is common for a detail of two Shadows to operate in shifts while protecting a person or object for extended periods.
Most Shadows are effective only against Sniffs, but some extremely powerful Shadows are able to block even Watchers.
Cassie finds the key to a locker in which Kira hid a valuable case.
With the aid of Cassie’s visions, they piece together the events that led them to meet; Cassie’s mother used her visions to set a complex plan in motion that will destroy Division.
The plan to thwart the American Government
Nick comes up with a plan that involves seven envelopes in which he places instructions; each person in the group is entrusted with one red envelope, and none are to be opened until the right time.
Thus no one knows the content in the envelopes. That way, no one knows the plan except the person who made the envelopes.
While Kira and Pinky leave in a taxi, Nick and Cassie share a goodbye. Cassie tells him to “take an umbrella, it’s going to rain”, he replies with “you be careful too”.
Nick uses a “Wiper” to erase his memories of the plan, ensuring that Watchers from both Division and the Triads will no longer be able to interfere.
Wiper
Wipers are skilled at either temporarily or permanently erasing memory, an invaluable asset in espionage.
Experience will dictate the accuracy of their wipes, though there is always the danger that they will eliminate a desired memory.
Wipers are skilled at either temporarily or permanently erasing memory, an invaluable asset in espionage.
Hook retrieves the case (which does not have 6 million dollars, but instead has the syringe Kira stole) and brings it back to Cassie.
He shifts another case to match the case with the syringe.
Cassie takes the shifted case to Nick’s apartment and waits.
Nick regains consciousness: he has no memory of the envelopes or his plan.
He opens his envelope, which tells him to return home.
He finds the case in his room but Carver introduces himself to Kira as a friend, stating that her memories are false; she is a Division agent who volunteered to take the augmentation injection and suffered amnesia as a side-effect.
Agent Carver is the All-Powerful, all-controlling United States government.
Carver shows Kira her badge.
She believes him, because (after all) her memories and all the events confirm this narrative.
Nick goes to retrieve the augmentation drug and confronts Carver and Kira.
Carver tells Kira and Nick that the relationship they believe they had never happened and a special evening together at Coney Island was a “push” memory.
Kira reveals she has been using Nick the entire time and Nick takes the three to the building which contain the lockers and the case.
They are ambushed by the Triads.
In the midst of the fight, Carver injures Nick.
Nick grabs the case and jams the syringe into his arm, which “kills” him. This is because, after all, the injection is fatal to over 90% of the people so injected.
After the fights ends, Nick wakes up. He wasn’t killed.
Cassie appears with an umbrella and smiles at him, “I told you it was going to rain” she tells him, revealing that it was part of the plan.
Cassie retrieves the true case, revealing that Nick injected himself with soy sauce, as they planned.
Asked whether they will see Kira again, Cassie tells Nick that they will see “little miss trouble-maker soon enough”.
“Little miss trouble-maker”, a watcher for the Triad.
Flying back to America with a sleeping Agent Carver, Kira opens her purse, finding her red envelope.
She remembers Nick telling her to open it when “she started doubting the truth” and opens it.
She finds a photograph of herself and Nick, obviously in a relationship, at Coney Island and a message that says “Kill him, See you soon!”.
Kira “pushes” Carver, commanding him to put his gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.
The screen fades to black, followed by the sound of a gun shot.
…
Push is also, as I said, greatly artistical.
It has a lot of fantastic colors and utilizes lighting very well, it's set in very beautiful environments, and there are a lot of other great cinematic techniques being used.
I especially like the choice of soundtrack in this movie.
It reminds me a lot of the way they choose to use music in The Dark Knight. Instead of some really catchy, noticeable soundtrack there's been a very diligent work done with a subtle yet powerful soundtrack that emerges only when necessary and gives an indescribable force to the movie.
All in all, Push is a quite non-mainstream, entertaining, good movie worth watching.
-that-wierd-guy
Conclusion
For you to really understand what is going on in this reality, that you inhabit, you need to understand that (just like in the movie “Push”) that there are very powerful forces that want to control your mind. If they cannot have you, control you or profit from you, then they will kill you.
Just like in the movie.
They have unlimited resources, buckets of money, skilled and talented assistants, and experts in abilities equal or better than the best you can cobble together.
Just like in the movie.
They control what everyone around you does, plans, thinks, behaves and acts upon.
Just like in the movie.
And they are convinced at how everything will work out. They believe that they will be successful stamping out what tiny inconsequential opposition that still remains to their idea of a global utopia.
Just like in the movie.
But, like the movie, you need to realize that there are ways for you to counter their efforts and avoid becoming one of the mindless zombies that they control. And all of these techniques are spelled out in the movie.
[1] Look at what is NOT being presented as “news”.
For the origin of the Coronavirus, all the discussions boil down to two narratives, and only two narratives.
The Coronavirus is either a natural pandemic or a Chinese bio-weapon. Nothing else.
There is absolutely ZERO coverage on the idea that it was all part of the Donald Trump "hybrid war" against China and that John Bolton was the man in charge of the United States Bio-weapon program.
Which is amazing as that theory is the only one where ALL of the puzzle pieces come together.
[2] If the subject is being presented in a thousand different ways and details, then you are GUARANTEED that it is a United States government narrative. It is not independent and unique. It’s just another color of “Soylant Green”.
Notice that the same narrative is not present in other international publications. Of those, only the ones associated with the "five eyes" intelligence organizations will have similar articles. With some "bleed over" into the EU.
[3] You have to control your memories, as to what is real and what is not, to be fully independent.
We have all be preconditioned to act like Pavlov's Dog. We instinctively behave in certain ways reactively without thinking.
All the time we believe what was taught to us as being correct.
But that is false. Very few things that you accept as truth are really factual. They are all erroneous programming.
So you all are concerned about vaccinations. You are worried about the implications of “passports” and RNA, and unproven issues, and all this against a virus that is promoted as being nothing special nor dangerous. And I am telling you that all the “news” is bullshit. All of it.
The truth is hidden from you.
The dangers to you and your family are real, but NOT what is being described. The American RNA vaccinations are adaptable. They have abilities to adapt to a wide spectrum of viruses and biological weapons.
…a wide spectrum of biological weapons.
And it is critical that people be vaccinated right NOW.
So please ignore all the noise. Be careful and judicious in the selection of the vaccine that you take, and realize that the West has opted for a very unlikely candidate to fight an apparently “harmless” virus.
That makes my, and all of my hidden friends*, hair stand on end.
"Hidden friends" and idiom that refers to non-public MM members who have prior experience in American Black Programs and who understandably do not want any public association with MM, but communicate with me through back channels.
I do not trust anything out of America. But that is just me.
The Sinopham vaccine is based on long-duration, tried and proven technology, but is limited to the Coronavirus.
The American vaccines seem to have a for-profit motive, does involve unproven technology, and is adaptable (with some other injection boosters) to be able to combat a spectrum of other viruses. All this points to the construction of a new type of vaccination market that would require boosters from everything from the common cold to smallpox.
…with some additional boosters (at a price)…
…with annual or semi-annual inoculations (also at a price)…
…can enable the human host to combat new viruses…
…that can vary from the common cold to Smallpox.
The evil American empire has some nefarious plans ahead. I do not know what they are. But I do know that discussion of this, and what the plans could be are functionally being omitted or steered away from the public dialog.
If you read about it in the “news”…
…then you are being misdirected.
Any questions, please query in the comments.
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.
Of course, I have covered the insane level of disinformation, lies, and distortions that are spewed from the American media. I have discussed why and how this has come about, and have provided quite an excessive number of examples. But what this article is about is what is NOT being reported.
If you would tell an American that they are ignorant of the “news” they would laugh in your face. They would respond that that idea is absurd. With the millions of articles being pumped out hourly from the vast American media, in all of it’s forms, of course Americans are “well informed”.
But nope. Americans are not.
Americans are subject to a fire-hose of outright lies, intentional distortions, eye-catching gossip, nonessential tidbits, and fear mongering. It is amazing in it’s size, scope, intensity and diversity.
If you exist within the by now almost hermetically sealed-off mindscape of Western mainstream media, and if you also happen to like knowing the truth, then life must seem increasingly unfair to you—because you can’t win.For decades now the modus operandi has been as follows. Regardless of which party has the majority in Congress or controls the presidency, the same unchanging national (and increasingly transnational) elite ensconced in Washington sets the agenda and pushes it through using any means necessary, whether legal, illegal or blatantly criminal (increasingly the latter as national bankruptcy looms and desperation sets in).Their operatives make sure that there is no real investigation of what happened. All Western media reports that contradict the official mendacious narrative are quashed. Any independent efforts to investigate and to find out the truth are denigrated as “conspiracy theories”—a derogatory term coined by the CIA for exactly this purpose.Any non-Western media sources that dare to contradict the official mendacious narrative are ignored, subjected to ad hominem attacks and all manner of false allegations and, if all else fails, banned outright (as is currently happening with the satellite TV channel Russia Today).
But do not be under the impression and “real and actual news” is somehow caught up in this flood of articles. The good stuff are all culled away before Americans ever get near the truth. Americans never see the REAL news.
Some recent examples of “withheld news” include…
The use of drones to spray swine flu over Chinese pig farms.
The content of John Bolton’s meetings when he was the head of the American military bio-weapons office.
The Chinese complaint about American involvement of COVID-19 to the UN.
And those are just right at the top of my head.
If you read foreign news, you will be well aware of these events, but Americans… nope. they would rather read other things.
This particular article is going to concentrate on the public messages that both Putin and Xi Peng have been making to the United States. They are not being (accurately) reported at all.
Any reports are of the content style of “Foreign clownish national leader says something insulting to America. They are just jealous.” And the same yada, yada, yada that you can expect from the Alt-Right and the American mainstream press.
If we swallow the official lies we are being told, knowing full well that they are lies, then we feel like fools.
If we refuse to swallow them, then we either have to accept some alternative interpretation...
... or narrative as real in spite of lacking all the facts we need to prove the case...
...because nobody is going to give them to us—and risk ostracism and marginalization...
... or we have to take an agnostic stance and declare that while we are not privy to the truth.
We know enough to declare that the official story is a tissue of lies.
The first two of these are both clearly losing moves while the last is a refusal to play and therefore a forfeit; thus, all three are defeats.There are no winning moves here.But it’s even worse than that; not only do we lack a winning strategy, but we also happen to be on a losing team that doesn’t know how to play and loves to be played.
If Americans would read what I am presenting here, maybe they would start placing calls to their Congressmen representatives urging them to tone-down the belligerent aggressive war-drums.
Ai.
Take the example of the ill-fated US invasion of Iraq: 4,801 servicemen dead, 1,455,590 dead Iraqis, a once prosperous country destroyed and turned into a terrorist playground with a weak central government that is aligned with Iran, buying weapons from Russia and increasingly hostile toward the US.The war was sold to the public in the US using a technique called “proof by juxtaposition” which works like this: keep showing a picture of Bob next to a giant pile of corpses and eventually everyone comes to believe that Bob is a mass murderer, never mind the fact that Bob only killed maybe half a dozen people, and all but one in self-defense or by accident.This is what was done with Saddam Hussein (who, by the way, was Osama bin Laden’s arch-enemy, who, in turn, had worked for the CIA). By 2003 70% of Americans had been made to believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center.“Proof by juxtaposition” works well for the TV-addled zombies in the US, but for the rest of the world, as represented by the UN Security Council, a stronger tissue of lies had to be woven—using forged “intelligence” of Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” The world blinked and either voted for or failed to veto the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.The putative weapons were never found and the intelligence that was used to convince the world of their existence turned out to have been fabricated.
But since the American people (the “sheeple”) are so dumbed down and are unaware of what is going on, no one is sending up messages to Washington, and so they all believe what they want to believe.
“Foreign clownish national leader says something insulting to America. They are just jealous.”
First up is an article about what Putin had to say to America and it’s “allies”…
Putin to Western Elites: Playtime is Over
An excellent blogger about Russia distills Putin’s Sochi speech into 10 simple points
Dmitry Orlov Thu, Mar 17 2016 .A longer version of this article originally appeared at the ClubOrlov blog. All credit to the author.
Most people in the English-speaking parts of the world missed Putin’s speech at the Valdai conference in Sochi a few years ago, and, chances are, those who have heard of the speech didn’t get a chance to read it, and missed its importance.
Western media did their best to ignore it or to twist its meaning. Regardless of what you think or don’t think of Putin (like the sun and the moon, he does not exist for you to cultivate an opinion) this is probably the most important political speech since Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech of March 5, 1946.
In this speech, Putin abruptly changed the rules of the game. Previously, the game of international politics was played as follows: politicians made public pronouncements, for the sake of maintaining a pleasant fiction of national sovereignty, but they were strictly for show and had nothing to do with the substance of international politics; in the meantime, they engaged in secret back-room negotiations, in which the actual deals were hammered out.
Previously, Putin tried to play this game, expecting only that Russia be treated as an equal. But these hopes have been dashed, and at this conference he declared the game to be over, explicitly violating Western taboo by speaking directly to the people over the heads of elite clans and political leaders.
Here’s what he said…
1. The games are OVER.
Russia will no longer play games and engage in back-room negotiations over trifles. But Russia is prepared for serious conversations and agreements, if these are conducive to collective security, are based on fairness and take into account the interests of each side.
2. America cannot guarantee anything.
All systems of global collective security now lie in ruins. There are no longer any international security guarantees at all. And the entity that destroyed them has a name: The United States of America.
3. There is no New World Order as envisioned by America.
The builders of the New World Order have failed, having built a sand castle. Whether or not a new world order of any sort is to be built is not just Russia's decision, but it is a decision that will not be made without Russia.
The UN failed.
The NWO failed.
And so America launched the “Rules Based Order”, and it is…
…failing.
4. Russia prefers cautious and careful diplomacy.
Russia favors a conservative approach to introducing innovations into the social order, but is not opposed to investigating and discussing such innovations, to see if introducing any of them might be justified.
5. Russia will not play any games that America has created.
Russia has no intention of going fishing in the murky waters created by America's ever-expanding “empire of chaos,” and has no interest in building a new empire of her own (this is unnecessary; Russia's challenges lie in developing her already vast territory). Neither is Russia willing to act as a savior of the world, as she had in the past.
6. Russia does not want to lead the world.
Russia will not attempt to reformat the world in her own image, but neither will she allow anyone to reformat her in their image. Russia will not close herself off from the world, but anyone who tries to close her off from the world will be sure to reap a whirlwind.
And neither does China.
Which, of course, runs contrary to the K-street narrative out of Washington DC.
7. Russia does not want war, but sees America eyeing it as the next world war.
Russia does not wish for the chaos to spread, does not want war, and has no intention of starting one. However, today Russia sees the outbreak of global war as almost inevitable, is prepared for it, and is continuing to prepare for it. Russia does not war—nor does she fear it.
8. Russia will not interfere in the goals and objectives of other nations, just leave it alone.
Russia does not intend to take an active role in thwarting those who are still attempting to construct their New World Order—until their efforts start to impinge on Russia's key interests. Russia would prefer to stand by and watch them give themselves as many lumps as their poor heads can take. But those who manage to drag Russia into this process, through disregard for her interests, will be taught the true meaning of pain.
This is what China is doing as well. It’s a big night and day comparison to what the Untied Sates and it’s “allies” are doing.
9. Russia is about Russians. Nothing else.
In her external, and, even more so, internal politics, Russia's power will rely not on the elites and their back-room dealing, but on the will of the people.
Yes., And China is for the Chinese.
To these nine points I would like to add a tenth:
10. There can be no unilateral action.
There is still a chance to construct a new world order that will avoid a world war. This new world order must of necessity include the United States—but can only do so on the same terms as everyone else: subject to international law and international agreements; refraining from all unilateral action; in full respect of the sovereignty of other nations.
To sum it all up: play-time is over. Children, put away your toys. Now is the time for the adults to make decisions. Russia is ready for this; is the world?
But Americans just don’t “get it”
They are living in some kind of stupid haze, or just morons, or perhaps they have never seen the pain and suffering and despair that war brings. Maybe they view war as something that is done far away and that doesn’t affect them. they don’t see that when Putin and Xi Peng are making these statements that they are not talking about Russians and Chinese dying. They are talking about American dying in mass.
They just don’t “get it”.
So here is another article. This one is about the absolute frustration that Putin has with the fucking morons that run the West.
Putin LOSES IT, Warns Journalists of War: ‘I Don’t Know How to Get Through to You People’
‘How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction?’
Enrico Braun Wed, Jul 6 2016 | 320 words 238,361 Comments This post first appeared on Russia Insider.
Vladimir Putin has finally taken the kid gloves off.
The Russian president was meeting with foreign journalists at the conclusion of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 17th, 2016 when he left no one in any doubt that the world is headed down a course which could lead to nuclear war.
This was in 2016, right before Trump was elected President of the United States.
Putin railed against the journalists for their “tall tales” in blindly repeating lies and misinformation provided to them by the United States on its anti-ballistic missile systems being constructed in Eastern Europe. He pointed out that since the Iran nuclear deal, the claim the system is to protect against Iranian missiles has been exposed as a lie.
The journalists were informed that within a few years, Russia predicted the US would be able to extend the range of the system to 1000 km. At that point, Russia’s nuclear potential, and thus the nuclear balance between the US and Russia, would be placed in jeopardy.
Putin completely lost patience with the journalists, berating them for lazily helping to accelerate a nuclear confrontation by repeating US propaganda.
He virtually pleaded with the western media, for the sake of the world, to change their line:
We know year by year what's going to happen, and they know that we know. It's only you that they tell tall tales to, and you buy it, and spread it to the citizens of your countries.
You people in turn do not feel a sense of the impending danger - this is what worries me.
How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction?
While they pretend that nothing is going on.
I don't know how to get through to you anymore.
Does anyone in the reeking garbage heap that is the Western mainstream western media have a conscience? Do they even have enough intellect to get what Putin is saying – that they are helping to push the planet towards World War III?
That all was five years ago.
What about today?
Quite a bit has happened since Putin laid the line down with the West, and they repeatedly ignored his warnings. But you see trump started to focus on China instead, and that gave Russia a “breather” .
Of course the world has been turned upside down and no there is not a person alive who thinks that 2016 was an unstable time compared to the Biden / Trump years.
What has happened since then is a sequence of war events that were not reported in the Western press. And taken as a whole we can easily see what actually has transpired. And knowing this, and the results of the March 2021 Anchorage Alaska meeting, we know that after that meeting a significant shift occurred in Geo-political relations.
America told the world to accept it as their overlord or expect to be destroyed.
Russia, China and Iran formed a massive joint defense and economic block. Then laid out precise lines; “Red Lines” that will trigger World War III.
And sure, most certainly, the ambassadors have been quite clear on this.
And while I can well relate the various warnings over and over, and over to the moronic idiots who run Washington DC, let’s just keep things simple.
The stage has been set. Both China, and Russia are not going to pretend that America (and it’s cronies) are anything other than despotic-ruled military empire desirous of world conquest, and they WILL retaliate against the United States in a very substantive and spectacular way.
You all might as well ignore the “news”. None of this is being reported, and if you rely on the “news” for Intel, one day you will wake up in a reality that might not be to your liking.
No one is buying the mainstream media, or the same-old dialog any longer. It’s a new day. it’s a new beginning, and the old is sinking into the waters aflame. The only ones unable to see this are the rats scrambling on the deck of the collapsing ship.
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.
Well China has unveiled a new operating system, and it is a BIG DEAL. And I am going to tell you why.
Why this is a big deal.
Presently America controls 99% of all operating systems in the world. America controls the vast number of computer operating systems (Microsoft, and Apple), and the vast number of cell phone operating systems (Microsoft, Google, and Android). The few remaining systems such and Linux and other odd-balls are hit and miss in regards to this control.
Now, I am not talking about American companies being in control of these operating systems.
Instead, I am discussing the American government controlling the operating systems themselves.
It is no secret that the United States government has offices in the development offices of Microsoft, Apple, and Google. And it is more than just “back doors” to operation access.
The Utah Data Collection Center.
To use any of these systems is to give the United States absolute control over your electronics,
As I can PERSONALLY affirm when the government burst into my home in 2006, seized my computer, plugged it into a machine and had full access effectively bypassing all of my passwords, biomedical fingerprint scanning mechanisms and folder locks. They (passwords, biometrics, etc.) are there to give you the illusion of security. The fact is, the US Government owns your computer and they can access it at will.
They can do it at any time. At any place, and there isn’t a fucking thing that you can do about it.
Enter China
This situation, where America has it’s fingers and hands on all communication and electronic communication, is dangerous. Not just for you as an individual who no longer has privacy in any form, but for governments who are exposed to electronic blackmail at the touch of a button.
Which pretty much explains the Morrison government in Australia.
Whether this is economic, such as what the Trump Administration was trying to do with Huawei, or domestically, such as the control of dams, pipelines, and military, the risk of a malevolent foreign actor… especially an out of control military empire such as the United States to have this ability is very, very dangerous.
And now China has it’s own OS.
And the entire “ballgame” has changed.
America must stop this from happening!
Thus we have an on-going war with everything Huawei.
After four years of anti-China disinformation, and anti-Huawei disinformation, most Americans will regurgitate the propaganda that they have been programmed.
All the sheeple feel “bad” about Huawei and have “bad experiences”. Not that they have any experiences, mind you, but they just regurgitate the narratives. And it’s like listening to a robot. Seriously.
I met a fellow who was like this just last week. We were in a Shaomi store, and we started chatting. He said that he didn’t like Huawei products. And so I naturally asked him why.
He said that he had a “bad experience” with it.
So, I wanted to know. What was it? Was it breaking down? Was it too expensive, did it remind him of a bad girl friend? What? Was he swindled? Did the screen fall off? Were there connection problems? What was it?
I asked him over and over.
All he would say for the umpteen time was that he had a “bad experience”. I was just about to give up when he admitted that he never really and actually owned a Huawei phone. It’s just that he read a lot of bad stuff about it.
Sheeple.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Harmony OS
After years of speculation and rumor, Chinese tech giant Huawei formally unveiled its Harmony OS operating system in 2019. It’s fair to say that more questions have been raised than answered. How does it work? What problems does it solve? And is it a product of the current feud between Huawei and the U.S. government?
Is Harmony OS Based on Linux?
No. Although both are free software products (or, more accurately, Huawei has pledged to release Harmony OS with an open-source license), Harmony OS is its own distinct product. Moreover, it uses a different design architecture to Linux, preferring a microkernel design over monolithic kernel.
But wait. Microkernel? Monolithic kernel? I’ve lost you.
Let’s try again. At the heart of every operating system is something called a kernel. Like the name implies, kernels are at the heart of every operating system, effectively serving as a foundation. They handle interactions with the underlying hardware, allocate resources, and define how programs are executed and operated.
All kernels have these fundamental responsibilities. However, they differ in how they work.
Let’s talk about memory. Modern operating systems try to segregate user applications (like Steam or Google Chrome) from the more sensitive parts of the operating system. Imagine an impenetrable line dividing the memory used by system-level services from your applications. There are two main good reasons for this: security and stability.
Microkernels, like the one used by Harmony OS, are extremely discerning about what runs in kernel mode, effectively limiting it to the basics.
Bluntly, monolithic kernels aren’t discerning. Linux, for example, allows many OS-level utilities and processes to run within this privileged space in memory.
At the time Linus Torvalds started work on the Linux kernel, microkernels were still something of an unknown quantity, with few real-world commercial uses. Microkernels also proved harder to develop, and tended to be slower.
Nearly 30 years later, things have changed. Computers are faster and cheaper. Microkernels have made the leap from academia into production.
The XNU kernel, which sits at the heart of macOS and iOS, lends much inspiration from earlier microkernel designs, namely the Mach kernel developed by Carnegie Mellon University. Meanwhile QNX, which forms the basis of the Blackberry 10 operating system, as well as many vehicular infotainment systems, uses a microkernel design.
It’s All About the Extensibility, Man
Because Microkernel designs are intentionally limited, they’re easy to extend. Adding a new system service, like a device driver, doesn’t require the developer to fundamentally alter or interfere with the kernel.
And that hints towards why Huawei chose this approach with Harmony OS. Although Huawei is perhaps best known for its phones, it’s a company involved in most sectors of the consumer technology market. Its lineup includes things like fitness wearables, routers, and televisions.
And let’s not even get into AI, robotics, infrastructure such as roads, trains and intelligent mining and farming initiatives.
And Huawei is an incredibly ambitious company. Taking a leaf from rival Xiaomi’s book, the firm has started selling IoT products through its youth-focused subsidiary Honor, including intelligent toothbrushes and smart desk lamps.
And while it’s not clear whether Harmony OS will run on every bit of consumer technology it ultimately sells, Huawei aspires to have an operating system that will run on as many devices as possible.
Part of the reason is compatibility. If you disregard hardware requirements, any application written for Harmony OS should work on any device running it. That’s an attractive proposition for developers. But it should also have benefits for consumers, too. As more and more devices become computerized, it makes sense for them to be able to easily work as part of a broader ecosystem.
But What About Phones?
It’s been nearly three years since the Trump administration’s Treasury Department placed Huawei on an “entity list,” thereby preventing American firms from trading with the company. While this has exerted pressure on all levels of Huawei’s business, the biggest pain has been felt in the company’s mobile division, preventing it from releasing new devices with Google Mobile Services (GMS) included.
Google Mobile Services is effectively the entire Google ecosystem for Android, including mundane apps like Google Maps and Gmail, as well as the Google Play Store. With Huawei’s latest phones lacking access to most apps, many have wondered whether the Chinese giant will abandon Android, instead moving to a homegrown operating system.
This seems unlikely. At least, in the short term.
For starters, Huawei’s leadership has reiterated its commitment to the Android platform. Instead, it’s focused on developing its own alternative to GMS called Huawei Mobile Services (HMS).
At the heart of this is the company’s app ecosystem, the Huawei AppGallery. Huawei states it’s spending $1 billion to close the “app gap” with the Google Play Store and has 3,000 software engineers working on it.
A new mobile operating system would be forced to start from scratch. Huawei would have to attract developers to port or redevelop their apps for Harmony OS. And, as we’ve learned from Windows Mobile, BlackBerry 10, and Samsung’s Tizen (and previously Bada), that’s not an easy proposition.
That said, Huawei is one of the most well-resourced tech firms in the world. And thus, it would be unwise to completely dismiss the prospect of a Harmony OS-powered phone.
Made in China 2025
There’s an interesting political angle to discuss here. For decades, China has acted as the world’s factory, building products designed overseas. But in recent years, China’s government and its own private sector has invested heavily in research and development. Increasingly, Chinese-designed products are making their way onto the international stage, offering new competition for Silicon Valley’s tech elite.
Amidst this, the Beijing government has an ambition it calls “Made in China 2025.” Effectively, it wants to end its reliance on imported high-tech products, such as semiconductors and airplanes, replacing them with their own homegrown alternatives. The motivation from this stems from economic and political security, as well as national prestige.
Harmony OS fits into this ambition perfectly. If it takes off, it’ll be the first globally successful operating system to emerge from China—with the exception of those used in niche markets, like cellular base stations. These homegrown credentials will come in particularly handy should the cold war between China and the United States continue to rage.
And as a result, I wouldn’t be surprised for Harmony OS to have some very enthusiastic supporters in the central government, as well as within the wider Chinese private sector. And it’s these supporters who will ultimately determine its success.
China Manufactures hardware for the world
99% of all hardware is made in China. What happens when China decides not to preload Windows 10, Apple OS, or Linux and only allows Harmony OS installed?
Sure you can write over the OS when you get the hardware. And that is probably what will happen. Certainly in the USA, American will be FORCED to use American OS.
It will begin as coercion. Where Americans will be warned about the dangers of Harmony OS.
Then it will be mandated by law.
Americans will be FORCED to use American computer operating systems. Just like they are forced to do other things, like pay taxes, buy health insurance, register guns, show identification to buy alcohol, and buy car insurance, etc.
Americans will be forced to use systems to allow their monitoring by the US government.
But that’s not the real concern. Actually. Americans lost their freedoms back hundreds of years ago.
What the real concern is that Microsoft will lose it’s substantial market share, as will google, and Apple. And without this dominance int he market will come a slowly eroding Intel collection ability for the American government.
And the folk at Langley are all in arms about it.
Keep in mind why the United States government wants you to hate Huawei.
Conclusion
The United States dominance on access to privacy, control of information, control of the media, and manipulation of thought are all being challenged by China. And the oligarchy inside of Washington DC do not like this one single bit.
They are flooding the media with warnings, fears and hype and doing everything within their power to assure complete dominance in the intelligence, and communication technologies.
The sheeple believe this.
That is because they have nothing else to compare it against. So they believe the one thousandth article on why Huawei is dangerous and how China is stealing from YOU!
Do not believe it.
If you all could only see things from my point of view, from me…
…standing outside…
…and looking in at the absolutely insanity inside of America today, you too would see what is going on and why.
And a nice little video that I took. I want all you you readers in MM land to start seeing what it is like living outside of America. So that you can see how God-awful America has become. You can watch it HERE. 180MB.
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.
Can you believe that the morons in the American “news” media, the assholes in Washington DC, and the “talking heads” all still refer to America as a “democracy”. Really! Seriously!
It’s a De Facto Military Empire.
It’s the largest Military Empire in history. And it lives for war. The vast budget of America is devoted to…
…wait for it…
…war!
Ah…
Which goes to show you just how stupid and idiotic America is today. It’s no longer a matter of being delusional. It’s a matter of pure and utter insanity and stupidity.
The American government would look quite different if it was focused on serving the needs of it’s people. It would look something like this…
But you know, people are slowly waking up. It only took them all until the nation is teetering at the edge of the cliff to notice, but well, better late than never. Don’t you know.
I initially found this on MoA in the comment section. It’s pretty good and I expounded upon it. It was originally found on Zero Hedge alongside the rest of the COVID nonsense that is day-to-day fodder in the “alternative” media.
Ah. You know what I am talking about; that Coronavius is just an excuse for more government powers.
Yup. It’s a comfortable narrative.
Far easier to digest than the truth; that the Coronavirus was a part of a multi-stage bio-weapons attack against China on CNY that went “tits up”.
go tits up[1] rude slang To break or malfunction; to die, fall apart, or cease to work. (A play on the phrase "go belly up." "Tits up" is sometimes hyphenated.)
[2] rude slang By extension, to have a poor, undesired, or ruinous outcome; to fail completely or not come together at all.
Never the less, the obvious points that he had made are worthy of consideration, and at that, I have expounded upon that comment and added my very own “two cents”.
Here are Ten Things We Have Learned …. about American (and United States) government, democracy and the superiority of “the American way of life”, “freedom” and “liberty”…
1. The American political system is hopelessly corrupt.
It is irredeemably corrupt. Virtually all politicians are hopelessly corrupt. No political party can be trusted. They all can be, and have been, bought. They serve themselves, pretend to work in the interests of the nation while all the time acting as the "bag men" for the oligarchy.
2. Democracy is a sham.
It has been a sham for a very long time.
There will never be any real democracy when money and power amount to the same thing.
The Founding Fathers who wrote the Federalist Papers were absolutely correct. A Republic tends to turn into a Democracy. A Democracy tends to turn into an Oligarchy, and an Oligarchy tends to devolve into a Military Empire if left unchecked.
America is an oligarchy ruled military empire. It hasn't been a democracy for centuries.
3. The system will stop at nothing to hold on to its power and, if possible, increase its levels of control and exploitation.
It has no scruples. No lie is too outrageous, no hypocrisy too nauseating, no human sacrifice too great.
Those in power are psychopaths, surrounded by psychopathic toadies, and empowered by a corrupt well-established "good old boys" network.
4. So-called radical movements are usually nothing of the sort.
From whatever direction they claim to attack the system, they are just pretending to do so.
These "radical movements" are just useful tools of the oligarchy, and serve to channel discontent in directions which are harmless to the power clique and even useful to its agendas.
5. Any “dissident” voice you have ever heard of through corporate media is probably a fake.
The system does not hand out free publicity to its actual enemies.
The entire media machine is owned, run, funded (either directly or indirectly) by the government, or it's controlling interests; the oligarchy.
Real and actually dissident voices are silenced through technological means, or barring that, killed outright.
6. Most people in our society are cowards.
They will jettison all the fine values and principles which they have been loudly boasting about all their lives merely to avoid the slightest chance of public criticism, inconvenience or even minor financial loss.
Additionally, most American people have a price, and they will sell their soul, their businesses, their families and their futures for financial gain.
7. The mainstream media is nothing but a propaganda machine for the system…
...and those journalists who work for it have sold their sorry souls, placing their (often minimal) writing skills entirely at the disposition of Power.
There are no longer any true dissident voices, or real journalism.
Those that try to practice it must rely on social networks to get their messages heard, and the government, in one way or the other, controls all social media.
8. Police are not servants of the public…
...but servants of a powerful and extremely wealthy minority which seeks to control and exploit the public for its own narrow and greedy interests.
9. Scientists cannot be trusted.
They will use the hypnotic power of their white coats and authoritative status for the benefit of whoever funds their work and lifestyle.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. And they all live for government funding. Either direct, or though an NGO that is supervised through the government.
10. Progress is a misleading illusion.
The “progress” of increasing automation and industrialization does not go hand in hand with a progress in the quality of human life.
Rather, it is becoming increasingly evident, that it will tend to “progressively” reduce it to the point of complete extinction unless managed expertly and adroitly.
So… is “black”, actually “white”?
There is a percentage of the population in America that is waking up to the fact that the American government is corrupt. That it controls all media, not just the mainstream media, and that “alternative” media outlets are all corrupted. And the beloved alternatives are now, themselves part of the government narrative.
To check who is who…
See which of your favorite “alternative media” sources are parroting the government line. Let’s use this one; “China is the source of Coronavirus, and they are covering it up.”
Any “alternative media” that repeats some form of this narrative, is a de facto arm of the American government.
When they should really be talking about how neocon John Bolton (psychopathic neocon) was put in charge of the bio-weapons office in 2017.
When anyone is talking about Coronavirus being a bio-weapon but omits this most critical piece of information should tell you reams about what your source of information is. That’s like buying a new automobile without wheels, an engine, and a steering wheel.
If you cannot see that your beloved “alternative media” are simply parroting one of three key media talking directions, then you too… must be… a sheeple.
And while I am at it…
How all that “dangers of 5G” working out now?
Why, all the news articles about it all suddenly came to an end when American companies were able to compete against the Chinese lead in 5G technology. Imagine that! What a coincidence!
Who was promoting the “don’t use 5G” narrative?
Rush Limbaugh
Hall Turner
FOX News
The ones who promoted the government narrative, are themselves agents of the government.
Remember, boys and girls, your most beloved “alternative media” are just mouthpieces of the government. That way they control your actions and your behaviors by controlling your favorite news outlets. They construct one of three narratives and you end up following the narrative that appeals to what you want to believe.
Meanwhile, what is actually going on is hidden from sight.
Alt-Right
“It’s the evil Chinese. They mishandled a bio-weapon that they stole and are covering it up.”
Mainstream
“Everything is just fine, and America will recover soon.”
Alt-Left
“Don’t be afraid. Everything is under control and the Coronavirus is being tracked.”
Conclusion
I need a beer.
Is there any American out there in MM land that disagrees with this appraisal? If so, I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter. Personally, I found it “on point” and accurate. But then again, I have a “bone to pick” with the USA, so I am biased.
And with that in mind, let me close with a short video that I made of my life here in China. It’s all of a few minutes long and worth the while for you all to have some perspective what things are like…
…for me on the outside looking into the house of madness that the USA is today. The video is HERE. 150MB.
To understand what is going on inside of the forest, you need to step out of it, climb a nearby hill and look at the bigger picture. There, from that vantage point, you will be able to see a much clearer and bigger picture of what is going on.
Forest Fire.
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.
There was a song that I used to listen to by Triumph called “It’s Just a Game”. Their theme, at the time, was that life was just one game after the other. Ah. It was a nice theme, but you know, maybe they were right? Humans follow the rules of society, and when you have rules, you are actually playing a game.
Such as described in a particular song “Lay it on the line” where they decry the apparent game-play in relationships. It’s all just a game. Work. Relationships. Career. Family.
It’s all just a game.
And sure things have changed since the late 1970’s when I listened to this music and used the album covers to clean my nickel bags of twigs and seeds. And when I would have parties at my parent’s house with beer, whiskey, and (then illegal) marijuana.
Yes, sure things have changed since the late 1970’s.
But just because you are not wearing earth shoes, elephant bell-bottom trousers, and a fringe leather vest, doesn’t mean that the ideas and concepts of that time …
…were just short-lived conceptional fads. Perhaps what we thought at that time was actually correct. Maybe life was actually a game.
And whether you were downing Rolling Rock beer, or Coors, or an imported Beck’s beer you were too distracted to take note on the “rules of the game”. You just accepted your role. Whether it was a pawn, a rook, or a knight.
Maybe life was actually a game.
And maybe…
…just maybe…
…we all have been taking it far too seriously.
Life is a game and we have been taking it far too seriously.
And thus, maybe we should sit back, and stop being so anal about life. So what if you want to drive home and have lunch with your family during lunch break? So what if you want to go have a smoke outside? So what if you need to stretch your legs and walk around the building to give yourself a chance to think. So what if you want to have a icy cold beer at lunch with your hamburger?
In England you can get a beer with your whopper. It’s all very English, don’t you know.
Imagine that! Well, why not get a bottle from the quickie-mart, get some takeout burgers and drink the beer, eat the burger in a park?
That’s always a good idea. I used to do that. I would hop in my car, go through the drive through and order a combo meal, and then drive to a shady glade and sit there listening to El’ Rush Bo. I wouldn’t dare buy a beer. That would have gotten me fired. Not that they needed the excuse, mind you. In those days, they treated employees like toilet paper. Use and discard. Use and discard. Use and discard. There was always plenty more where they came from.
Of course, I do not advise sitting in the car listening to Rush Limbaugh right now. Since, he’s dead, and the narrative is still the alt-right US government propaganda. They are still following the script, set forth by John Bolton back in 2016, and drinking coke-cola daily is not good for you, and it’s lonely to boot.
But heck…
Go ahead, get a taco salad, and get a beer from the quickie mart, and go to a park.
What?
No park?
Well, how about driving your car to the never-visited cemetery at the end of the lane. Pulling over and either sitting in your car under the shade of a mighty oak tree, or getting out and enjoying the beer on a granite tombstone?
Lunch in a car is a typical way that American corporate clones get some private time.
What?
The grounds-keeper might call the police for observing your flagrant display of enjoying lunch with a beer in a quiet park setting!
Sacrilege!
Go to a cemetery and enjoy a beer.
Like I am saying. We are playing the game too seriously, and we are way too caught up in it.
If you are a corporate drone, and you sit back. Watch how you are participating inside a big elaborate game. And …
It's just a game, you're in it all the way
It's just a game, don't let yourself slip away
It's such a shame, I heard somebody say
It's just a game, and all I can do...is play
And it is a game.
And the rules of the game are constantly changing, and we are all adapting to the changing rules instead of defining our own rules.
Did you realize that they made a female version of Sherlock Holmes? Yup. I am not shitting you. It’s a bonafied version of Sherlock Holmes with his sister taking all the credit. Jeeze! It’s called Enola Holmes(2020).
When Enola Holmes-Sherlock's teen sister-discovers her mother missing, she sets off to find her, becoming a super-sleuth in her own right as she outwits her famous brother and unravels a dangerous conspiracy around a mysterious young Lord.
It’s all just a game.
Don’t get too caught up in it.
I dug up this interesting article on Strategic Culture, and it’s worth a study. Now, before we get into the subject matter too deeply, let’s consider life as a human has evolved (devolved?) into some kind of game with rules. All of which were created by other humans a long, long time ago. And we are all stuck “playing the game”, when we really don’t have to…
The Curse of Game Theory: Why It’s in Your Self-Interest to Exit the Rules of the Game
Game theory, the mathematical theory of games of strategy, was developed by John von Neumann. It was created in several successive stages from 1928 and into 1940-41. It was published in his book “Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour” which he co-authored with Oskar Morgenstern.
The crux of the theory is that an individuals’ behavior will always be motivated towards achieving an optimal outcome, which is determined by self-interest.
An assumption made is that the players in such a game are rational, which translates to, “will strive to maximize their payoffs in the game”.
In other words, it is assumed they are motivated by selfish self-interests.
Over the years, other contributors such as John Nash (Nash equilibrium) and John Maynard Smith (evolutionary stable strategy) have added to the theory.
Today, we are now at a point where it is considered by many to be an essential tool when modelling economic, political, sociological or military behaviors and outcomes.
As such, it is taught as such in many prestigious universities as something pretty much set in stone.
But what if we have made a terrible mistake?
After all, it is acknowledged by the theorists themselves that the entire functioning of their model relies upon the assumption that we are governed by rational selfish behavior.
People feel confident about this assumption since reality has apparently confirmed this fact to them.
But what if this game is not objectively mirroring a truthful depiction of us?
What if this game has rather, been used as a conditioning tool, a self-fulfilling prophecy, a positive feedback loop?
How can we know what is true?
How can we know what kind of a person we truly are and not what we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as?
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
Before we can answer such a question, we need to look at the forms of simplification and assumptions that were used.
This may be counter-intuitive to some, but the “philosophy” or “hypothesis” must always precede the actual model.
The [1] variables you choose to use, [2] the variables you discount for, [3] how you define the variables, [4] how you define the relationship between the variables are not being defined by the model, but rather the creator of the model.
Once the model is created it can now, theoretically, add to that beginning structure and mimic a simplified version of reality.
However, we should keep in mind that a model that has been created on a false hypothesis could still “function.”
That is, of course, if the variables are not too much in contradiction to the other variables’ operations.
Such a model is not “aware” that it is not a representation of “reality,” and cannot indicate so to its creator.
Thus, a model can be a representation of a simplified reality or it can represent a completely artificial reality.
The Disclaimers
At the beginning of von Neumann’s book, he goes through several disclaimers which are highly problematic towards the relevance of his theory.
One of them being the acknowledgement that “there exists, at present, no satisfactory treatment of the question of rational behavior.
There may, for example, exist several ways by which to reach the optimum position.
They may depend upon the knowledge and understanding which the individual has and upon the paths of action open to them, because they imply, as must be evident, quantitative relationships.”
As becomes rapidly evident, von Neumann makes endless assertions such as these.
As if they were obvious and thus need not be examined at all.
The assumption that an under-defined “rational” selfish behavior is merely quantifiable and nothing more…
… and does not account for qualitative change (a mathematician’s worst nightmare)…
… is taking great liberty in over-simplifying human behavior to conveniently fit the limited parameters of his model.
In other words, it is cheating.
You are manipulating the definitions and interactions of your variables to fit an artificial reality of your model.
An Example of how this model fails
Let me give you an example.
In Euclid’s fifth postulate, it is considered a “rule” that two parallel lines will never intersect. Euclid was alive around the time of the mid-4th century BCE, before Eratosthenes (276-194 BCE) made his beautifully elegant discovery that the Earth was indeed curved and also made a pretty accurate first measurement of the size of Earth.
That is, Euclid assumed a linear geometric space upon which the real universe was expected to “fit”. While it is true that two parallel lines will never meet on a two-dimensional plane, they can meet on a three-dimensional plane.
As is now understood, line A and line G, can be measured as 90 degrees from the equator line and thus are parallel lines, and yet they can eventually interface with each other if the surface is curved.
The problem with assumptions such Euclid’s is that they are ultimately only true in an artificial situation and are not reflective of how such things will interact in reality. Also, there is no way to predict from Euclid’s fifth law, how two parallel lines would interact in a three dimensional space, let alone in n dimensional space as described by the physicist Bernard Riemann.
Ironically, in his book, von Neumann likens his “pioneering” work in the field of game theory to that of what physicists have been doing for centuries, that is, mathematical formulations that represent, albeit simplified, the “laws of nature,” concerning matter and energy. However, von Neumann again showcases that he has no comprehension as to what constitutes the foundation for such “laws of nature.”
…but rather dimensions defined by an ever growing array of discovered physical principles such as magnetism, light, heat, gravity, sound, etc….
… each organizing principle being ironically characterized by both a finiteness and unboundedness with quantized least-action pathways discoverable therein.
According to Euclid’s logic, you never “see” two parallel lines intersecting and thus it is unfathomable that they ever could intersect.
His “rule” was based off of shared assumptions of what we “think” we are observing in such phenomena, however, this is not necessarily reality and it certainly does not translate to a “rule” that governs all.
By von Neumann acknowledging that he himself is heavily relying on his so-called “self-evident” truths in simplifying human behavior…
… he is asserting an outcome…
… he is not proving the outcome’s natural occurrence.
The Robinson Crusoe example in Monetarist Economic Theory
According to von Neumann, the Robinson Crusoe example was used by the Austrian economic school to model an individual’s behavior towards maximizing pay-off in an environment (in this case an island) where the resources available to you are set and limited.
There are many problems with this…
… but the most unforgivable one is the assumption of a set, limited and unchanging reserve of resources available to the individual.
In other words, the Austrian school of economy and von Neumann with them, consider Crusoe’s deserted island as the perfect case study for a limited resource, zero-sum game scenario.
Ironically, this assertion is entirely missing the point of what actually occurs in Daniel Defoe’s story of “Robinson Crusoe,”…
…and it causes one to wonder whether these theorists ever read the book or rather read a two line cliff’s notes synopsis.
Henry C. Carey, Lincoln’s economic advisor, would say in his book “Unity of Law” (1872):
“Crusoe having made a bow, had thus acquired wealth; that wealth exhibiting itself in the power obtained over certain natural properties of wood and muscular fibre, thereby enabling him to secure increased supplies of food with greatly diminished expenditure of labor.
Having made a canoe, he found his wealth much increased, his new machine enabling him to obtain still further increase of food, and of the raw materials of clothing, at still decreased cost of personal effort.
Erecting a pole on his canoe, he now commands the services of wind, and with each and every step in this direction finds himself advancing, with constantly accelerated rapidity, toward becoming master of nature, and a being of real wealth and power.”
Does that sound like the description of a “limited resource,” “zero-sum game” scenario?
In other words, where is the “set” limit?
The limit is constantly being readjusted to what the individual creates which changes his/her relationship to the “utility” of the resource.
For example, the resource wood, depending on the individual’s innovation can be used to keep one warm and dry, cook food, create weapons, create shelter, create a ship for travel etc. etc.
The existence of yet-to-be-created potential thus offsets the entire system of von Neumann because his system has no way of predicting potential, i.e. qualitative transformations, nor how it will affect behavior.
If you cannot predict future qualitative change, which is ongoing, such as the discovery of electricity or the creation of man-made Plutonium and other transuranic elements…
… or the potential waiting to be unlocked by the very feasible fusion plasma torch that can turn landfills into resource mines…
… how can you assume a defined set limit or even a defined zero-sum game as a “self-evident” truth when you cannot even predict what is the limit?
The Supposed Paradox of “The Greatest Good for the Greatest Possible Number”
In von Neumann’s book he refers to “the greatest good for the greatest possible number” as a contradiction, because according to von Neumann you cannot maximize two or more functions at once, that in a social economy, all maxima are desired at once by various players.
That is, there is no concept that it is possible to cooperate and share an optimal outcome, without it coming out of “your” share so to speak, that comes at a cost of having less instead of more.
This is a very basic understanding of economy, and again does not account for how cooperation and creative potential can work to transform the “goods” of an outcome.
For instance, country A is militarily stronger than country B, which is rich in many raw resources.
Country A is also stronger politically than country B in that, there are no other countries that will likely intervene against country A’s actions if it chooses to invade country B.
What course of action will yield the greatest return to country A?
Well, there is a very obvious answer to that question; however, contrary to popular thought it will not yield the greatest optimal outcome.
The greatest optimal outcome is rather to cooperate.
It is in both country A and country B’s best interest to share knowledge, even if country A has much more knowledge, such that country B develops the capability to refine its raw resources.
By doing so, country B will yield a greater return in trade over the long-term to country A, and country A does not have to worry about a future retaliation from country B.
By developing a more advanced economy the wealth of trade is increased for both countries.
By cooperation, the optimal outcome is transformed and offers a greater return.
This is exactly the model that is being used by China presently in their philosophy of “win-win cooperation,” and it has proven itself most effective despite all attempts to villainize it as something nefarious.
Rather than fight over resources, there is a cooperation to share technology, increase resource yield and share a greater boon than originally existed.
John von Neumann goes on to state in his book, that the more players in the model, the easier it is to predict the outcome, since the use of statistics and probability are increasingly better indicators of behavior and performance. As he states:
“When the number of participants becomes really great, some hope emerges that the influence of every particular participant will become negligible and that the above difficulties may recede and a more conventional theory become possible. These are, of course, the classical conditions of ‘free competition’.”
He goes on to use the example of our solar system, with its nine major bodies, as being much harder to model than 10^25 freely moving gas particles, as per gas theory, simply due to the sheer number of objects you are dealing with.
This is truly a remarkably absurd statement, where von Neumann is asserting that if the solar system had more major bodies orbiting within it, it would thus be easier to model based off of probability.
Every planet in our solar system is a different size and weight, with a different number of moons. Every planet revolves around the sun in imperfect elliptical orbits that change slowly overtime, the planets travel along these orbits in a non-uniform way that is observable through planetary retrograde motions.
The fact is that our solar system is not some perfectly closed system that is uniform and consistent in its actions, there are cyclical changes but there are also non-cyclical changes that are occurring.
This is due to our solar system orbiting around a galactic center of the Milky Way which is itself moving in yet-to-be discovered ways within a larger cluster of galaxies.
Therefore, you cannot use any theory of probability because the system is in a state of ongoing non-linear change. The more bodies you add to such a system the more complex it becomes, not the more negligible.
For example, there exists no straightforward formula to identify all prime numbers, though there are an infinite number of prime numbers.
Prime numbers are a reflection of a non-linear process of change.
Such an oversimplification of nature shows the audacity behind the assumptions that make up such formulations like game theory.
You are nothing more than a virtual avatar in their synthetic world with programmed limits to what you can and cannot do in the game they have created for you.
Game theory does not represent the motivations behind human nature, but rather imposes such limitations since, as they acknowledge themselves, it is easier to predict and control your chosen selfish behaviors which are encouraged and rewarded with “incentives.”
It is a system of enslavement that encourages its slaves to fight each other for “table scraps” and never question the hand that withholds, the system that creates false scarcity and promotes antagonism over artificial stressors.
We are taught never to question the rules given to us in these game theory scenarios, but to react accordingly to what has been defined to us as a limited set of options in an artificial scenario.
Perhaps the best indicator to this is, ironically, the very creator of the prisoner’s dilemma, John Nash. Nash had won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994 for his “landmark” work beginning in the 1950s on game theory.
Although it is not clear whether he was suffering with paranoid schizophrenia when he developed the Nash Equilibrium, starting in 1959, Nash would go in and out of mental hospitals for over nine years.
In 2007, he was interviewed while still working at Princeton. Here is his very unselfish offering of his “enlightenment” (his words) on game theory after over 50 years of work in the field. Keep in mind he is using the definition of rational behavior according to game theory, which is defined as a selfish self-interest:
“I have had some trouble myself on the psychological level; I’ve been in mental hospitals…
I realize that what I had said at some time may have overemphasized rationality…
And I don’t want to overemphasize rational thinking on the part of humans…
Human beings are much more complicated, the human being as a businessman….
Human behavior is not entirely motivated by self-interest of each human…
...game theory works in terms of self-interest, but…
...some game theory concepts could be unsound. There is over-dependence on rationality. That is my enlightenment.”
The entire West are basing all their plans, their strategies, their efforts, and their predictions upon “Game Theory”. But this theory is faulted,; tremendously faulted, and those that follow it against a society that has a better understanding of how the world works, will lose.
And the entire world is waking up to this realization.
There’s one easy prediction, though. The US is just about done as a world power, society, economy, concept or even joke.
- One night in Amerika
Inside America you have people that are watching their world crumble around them… and it’s not a game, and they want out.
On the global stage, we see nations in competition and those that follow the “Game theory” model fail, time and time again.
The world belongs to those societies that embrace things as they are, and not as they want them to be. And that means getting off the game board, and changing out the game pieces for real, tangible and accurate measures of society.
Daily Video Report
I am going to add a semi-daily video report on what is going on in China. This is going to be my first one. I took it about 45 minutes ago. I guess you can say it’s my pissed off opinions to counter the wide-spread of lies and disinformation that bombards my morning feeds day-in and day-out.
You can view it HERE. 137MB. I talk a bit about cameras and why the “color revolution” sponsored by the NED (the CIA) failed in Hong Kong. Of course, you will never read what I am talking about in the Western press.
They have more important things to talk about, don’t you know…
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.
For the longest time, I had believed that the Strauss and Howe predictions for the Fourth Turning was correct but that the timing was slightly off. Instead of a Crisis Catalyst in 2005 and a Climax in 2020. I argued that the Crisis Catalyst occurred three years later in 2008. Which would launch a Climax in 2023.
Now I am not so sure.
What Strauss and Howe stated
If the Crisis catalyst comes on schedule, around the year 2005, then the climax will be due around 2020, the resolution around 2026. What will America be like as it exits the Fourth Turning? History offers no guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly wrong—the possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to incurable plagues, from terrorist anarchy to high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume that Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible tragedies that have overtaken so many others: not just temporary hardship, but debasement and total ruin. Since Vietnam, many Americans suppose they know what it means to lose a war. Losing in the next Fourth Turning, however, could mean something incomparably worse. It could mean a lasting defeat from which our national innocence—and perhaps even our nation—might never recover. As many Americans know from their own ancestral backgrounds, history provides numerous examples of societies that have been wiped off the map, ground into submission, or beaten so badly they revert to barbarism.
Indeed, the dates are close but seem to be off by a few years.
In our case, it appears that the “Crisis catalyst” did not occur in 2005 as predicted. It occurred in 2008 with the Wall Street “too big to fail” debacle.
That was three years later.
But does that mean that the Climax would also be delayed by three years?
I am now thinking “no”.
What is the Forth Turning Crisis?
This is what Strauss and Howe wrote;
And finally we enter the Fourth Turning, which is a Crisis.
This is an era in which America’s institutional life is torn down and rebuilt from the ground up—always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival.
Civic authority revives, cultural expression finds a community purpose, and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group.
In every instance, Fourth Turnings have eventually become new “founding moments” in America’s history, refreshing and redefining the national identity.
Currently, this period began in 2008, with the Global Financial Crisis and the deepening of the War on Terror, and will extend to around 2030.
If the past is any prelude to what is to come, as we contend, consider the prior Fourth Turning which was kicked off by the stock market crash of 1929 and climaxed with World War II.
Just as a Second Turning reshapes our inner world (of values, culture and religion), a Fourth Turning reshapes our outer world (of politics, economy and empire).
To be clear, the road ahead for America will be rough.
But I take comfort in the idea that history cycles back and that the past offers us a guide to what we can expect in the future.
Like Nature’s four seasons, the cycles of history follow a natural rhythm or pattern. Make no mistake. Winter is coming. How mild or harsh it will be is anyone’s guess but the basic progression is as natural as counting down the days, weeks and months until Spring.
As you can see, the essay originally published on 3/11/19 by Neil Howe confirmed that the “Crisis catalyst” did not occur in 2005 as predicted. It occurred in 2008 with the Wall Street “too big to fail” debacle.
But no one knows exactly WHEN the actual Crisis will occur.
It could be as early as 2020, or as late as 2025. And as I look at what is going on around the world, most especially with the belligerent activities of the American military empire, I see elements of a Hot War everywhere.
A “hot war” is a hallmark of this Crisis.
The Hot War
America has been involved in all sorts of operations against China since 2017 when Trump become President and John Bolton was put in charge of the Bio-Weapons office.
John Bolton was in charge of the American military bio-weapons operation.
Most notably was the attempt(s) at trying to generate famine and starvation inside China. This all was attempted by the selective destruction of food, grains, and livestock via drone-propagated bio-weapons.
But…
…it is when PEOPLE are targeted for death and destruction is when a “hot war” occurs.
I am convinced that the Hot War started in 2020 with the carpet bombing of China by the three strains of bio-weapons designed to target the Chinese people.
COVID-19 strain B against China, Iran. (Death by seizure virus) February 2020
No longer was the COVID-19 A-strain (light sniffle virus) going to provide herd immunity. The lethal B-strain was starting to rampage. And Americans started to “drop like flies” just like they did inside of China on CNY2020.
Oh, well, that was not to the liking of President Trump.
Washington still did not accept the message…
So that is when he unleashed the (Death by diarrhea virus) in July 2020 in China. This is a very, very nasty tick based virus. In Beijing. You do realize that there are no ticks in Beijing, don’t you?
Ah, the American media...
...keeping Americans stupefied since 1980.
And as soon as the CIA courtiers handed the vials to their local assets inside of China…
…these “assets”, in a strong action suggesting of Chinese patriotism, and perhaps some Geo-political understanding…
… dutifully handed over the vials to the PLA immediately.
And Washington DC was stunned.
So. Round Two. Or is it three, or four…
So then round two, the two-double punch, was unleashed. H1N1 flu G4 strain (Death by diarrhea virus) July 2020. It’s an extremely dangerous, lethal and contagious swine flu that was adapted to kill humans.
And yet again…
… the CIA assets dutifully handed over the vials to the PLA.
And China took action. China started to perform the “famous” anal swabs for testing for the three viral agents, and the American press is aghast as to why would China dare do this for a simple “flu like” virus.
Ah. The ignorance of the manipulated American sheeple.
But China handling three bio-weapons strains and interrogating the CIA assets inside of China did not go down well in Washington. As soon as it was discovered that the Chinese (and Russian) leadership were aware of what was going on…
But nothing happened, and three days later, in October 2020 he exited. With a remarkable “cure”. In which case he was miraculously cured in three days. And the media was all aghast at how amazing the President was to get cured so quickly.
Ah. American sheeple. Kept as clueless as ever.
Now, of course, none of this is reported in the “news”. At least not in context. It’s just random noise with no contextual meaning or connections.
So a Carrier Battle Group set sail for China
But you know, the morons in Washington DC, and Jesus H. Christ, they must be morons…
…decided to go ahead with that eight carrier flotilla to the South China Sea.
And the result of it has not been reported in the Western press. Still giving the idea of the American invincibility on the high seas.
Ah. American media is the "window to the world" as described by Washington DC.
Such a pity.
As well as the absolute fiasco that occurred with the Trump eight carrier invasion force that steamed home with it’s tail between it’s legs after confronting China in the South China Sea. Read about it HERE.
This is only the tip of the iceberg
As well as a number of other events that I will not go into detail about. Anyways, all of this pretty much tells me that a hot “shooting” war between China and the USA started in 2020.
Both American and Chinese people have died as a result of it.
The showdown.
And the policy positions of the two belligerents were put on the table for the entire world to see in the meeting on March 2021 in Anchorage, Alaska. And that meeting told the world that war was on-going.
Sure, there were other elements of conflict.
We have the eight viral strains designed to cause starvation inside of China that were propagated by drones. We had the color revolutions in Hong Kong. We had the positioning and build up for action “to save the Uighur Muslims” in Xinjiang, and the efforts to make Taiwan a United States protectorate.
But none of those events involved military forces.
American military were used to hurt China on Chinese soil
The American military forces started using their skills to kill, destroy and create havoc in 2020. In fact, it was precisely American military “boots on the ground” in China, at Wuhan that kicked off the first wave of biological warfare.
And the only reason that it did not erupt into World War III is because of the calm composure of China in the face of the moronic instability of the United States leadership.
But don’t relax yet.
Let’s not forget these words…
The next Fourth Turning could mark the end of man. It could be an omnicidal armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing. If mankind ever extinguishes itself, this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly.
So with that being said, let’s look at the timing.
The date of 2020 is the Strauss and Howe initial target date for the Climax of the Fourth Turning. But the Crisis Catalyst was supposed to occur in 2005 to have a Climax in 2020.
I have previously argued that since the Crisis Catalyst occurred three years later in 2008, it would launch a Climax in 2023. Now I am not so sure.
I am starting to believe that the Climax hit as planned on 2020. And as a result we are seeing the Strauss and Howe “textbook” results of that Climax.
The only difference is that it is not being reported at all in the American media. Which is surreal, in all the previous Fourth Turning events, the issues were always reported. But the United States is so absolutely fucked up today, that no one really knows anything, and the amount of crime, corruption and sheer incompetence is mind boggling.
So, with all that being said, let’s make it official…
The Fourth Turning Climax hit in 2020
And the next three years to five years will determine the followup events that the crisis started.
Historically, the Crisis would always set the pace of the resulting changes that would follow in the subsequent decades. And there are so many aspects and issues going on that it is difficult to anticipate what to expect.
What can we look forward to?
[1] It could go really, really, REALLY bad…
And when I mean BAD, I mean Baaaaaaaad!
The next Fourth Turning could mark the end of man.
It could be an omnicidal armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing. If mankind ever extinguishes itself, this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly.
But this end, while possible, is not likely.
Human life is not so easily extinguishable.
One conceit of linear thinking is the confidence that we possess such godlike power that—at the mere push of a button—we can obliterate nature, destroy our own seed, and make ourselves the final generations of our species.
Civilized (post-Neolithic) man has endured some 500 generations, prehistoric (fire-using) man perhaps 5,000 generations, Homo Erectus ten times that.
For the next Fourth Turning to put an end to all this would require an extremely unlikely blend of social disaster, human malevolence, technological perfection, and bad luck.
Only the worst pessimist can imagine that.
[2] It could change the way the world works.
And if the United States keeps on bearing down and pushing the combined nations of Russia/China/Iran you can well expect to see this…
The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity.
The Western saecular rhythm—which began in the mid-fifteenth century with the Renaissance—could come to an abrupt terminus. The seventh modern saeculum would be the last.
This too could come from total war, terrible but not final.
There could be a complete collapse of science, culture, politics, and society.
The “Western Civilization” of Toynbee and the “Faustian Culture” of Spengler would come to the inexorable close their prophesiers foresaw.
A new dark ages would settle in, until some new civilization could be cobbled together from the ruins.
The cycle of generations would also end, replaced by an ancient cycle of tradition (and fixed social roles for each phase of life) that would not allow progress.
As with an omnicide, such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation (like today’s America) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet.
But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence.
[3] It could end the USA, but spare the rest of the world.
Which seems to be what the entire globe is hoping for. Few people outside of Washington DC wants America to continue being what it is. That includes most Americans. America is not “balkanized” for nothing. Most people want this “nightmare” to end.
The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation.
It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify.
This nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, Etruria ten, the Soviet Union (perhaps) only one.
Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival.
Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger:
In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a threat in more than one battle.
In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most horrible war in history.
In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed.
In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale.
...
The new saeculum could find America a worse place.
As Paul Kennedy has warned, it might no longer be a “great power.”
Its global stature might be eclipsed by foreign rivals.
Its geography might be smaller, its culture less dominant, its military less effective, its government less democratic, its Constitution less inspiring.
Emerging from its millennial chrysalis, it might evoke nothing like the hope and respect of its “American Century” forbear.
Abroad, people of goodwill and civilized taste might perceive this society as a newly dangerous place.
Or they might see it as decayed, antiquated, an Old New World less central to human progress than we now are.
All this is plausible, and possible, in the natural turning of saecular time.
The items highlighted in BROWNhave already happened.
[4] Or, it could just be a “place holder” in the grand scheme of things.
The aggressive elements inside of Washington DC might retreat, and the same-old would continue in the same-old “well worn” pathways.
Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum.
Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere.
Afterward, there would be a new mood, a new High, and a new saeculum. America would be reborn. But, reborn, it would not be the same.
[5] Or,alternatively, things could end up being very, very good.
Alternatively, the new saeculum could find America, and the world, a much better place.
Like England in the Reformation Saeculum, the Superpower America of the Millennial Saeculum might merely be a prelude to a higher plane of civilization.
Its new civic life might more nearly resemble that “shining city on a hill” to which its colonial ancestors aspired.
Its ecology might be freshly repaired and newly sustainable, its economy rejuvenated, its politics functional and fair, its media elevated in tone, its culture creative and uplifting, its gender and race relations improved, its commonalities embraced and differences accepted, its institutions free of the corruptions that today seem entrenched beyond correction.
People might enjoy new realms of personal, family, community, and national fulfillment.
America’s borders might be redrawn around an altered but more cogent geography of public community.
Its influence on world peace could be more potent, on world culture more uplifting.
All this is achievable as well.
But I strongly doubt that such a positive outcome is possible.
Conclusion
As I sit here in a hot May 2021, it appears that scenario number [3] (above) is the most likely scenario.
With the option scenario number [2] (above) still possible.
We can only wait and see.
And these are my thoughts on this matter. If you feel otherwise, you are welcome to posit which of the five scenarios that you believe is possible. But for now, I am strongly placing my bets on scenario number [3].
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.
It's true, and as time goes on it appears that America is just the big bad neighborhood bully that everyone is afraid of, and that no one ever stands up to. That is until one day...
This is a pretty damning and frightening title, don’t you think? Well, it’s true and it’s accurate. But you won’t ever see anyone be so absolutely blunt as MM here. This isn’t salacious and eye catching as some kind of “click bait” for “doom porn”. Never the less, it’s a real and serous issue. And we are talking about it here, simply because the “drums of war” are beating loudly inside of America.
American war drums are beating loudly.
#7 ·
It's a shame that everyone is China bashing these days, and all of that is based on the USA government controlled press.
If anyone were to do some research on the subject of China's claim to sovereignty over these South China Sea Islands, then they would quickly agree with China's stance.
However, almost all are like "LindaLou" who watched "some" of a morning program "Inside China" and immediately made up his/her mind that China was bad and should be condemned for standing up for their rights.
If this were the USA, making these claims, then ALL of the pandering USA citizens would be following the government press and saying "YES, YES, YES".
The citizens of the USA should be very mindful of the fact that you're being manipulated to believe whatever the government wants you to believe.
Ever watched "1984" ?
Listen to me.
.
Please.
.
America is not able, and is not capable, of fighting either Russia, or China on their territory. And would suffer catastrophic losses at a horrific level. Probably one that would result in the absolute collapse of the country (the entire United States as a nation) to a point where it is completely unrecognizable afterwards.
And you know, many, many people are starting to wake up to this fact. Even the most deluded sheeple. Some Americans. Maybe in numbers as high as 1% are scratching their heads and asking… what? You want to fight?
Why?
You're not suggesting that taking out China would be as easy, are you?
I guarantee you that the US cannot defeat China. We are no longer the world's leading super power and, in fact, we're on the verge of becoming #3.
China is #1 and we're close to coming in behind Russia.
#18 ·
Any of the following areas of American provocation would result in the nuclear detonation upon American cities…
China over Taiwan.
China over Tibet.
China over Hong Kong.
China over Xinjiang.
China over the South China Sea.
Russia over the Ukraine.
The American military planners are aware of this fact. And so they have been conducting all sorts of studies, and war games, to find solutions where America would win a war again either Russia, China or both simultaneously.
They can’t find ANY.
Many in the know, believe America has two options when it comes to winning a world war against China and Russia. Also, what most agree on is the fact that America cannot win a conventional war against either power, or both.
- Can America Win World War III? A Critical Analysis
Of course, because everyone is “dancing around it” and refuses to look at the issue “face to face” the actual study results (studies… many) are coded in euphemisms. Instead of saying that the United States military was wiped off the face of the globe, the studies say…
"...there were challenges and difficulties that were encountered..."
Instead of saying that all the United States carriers were non-functional after three days, the reports read…
"...the Navy needs to invest money to improve defensive capabilities in a new and contentious environment...".
Instead of saying that half of the expensive and elaborate high cost weapons and equipment were no longer operable, the reports stated…
"...challenges in training must be addressed..."
These euphemisms have become the “New Speak” of American Imperial Policy. As this quote outlays…
"Question: So you think that the United States can no longer be called a democracy?"Answer: Democratic countries do not engage in blackmail and threats against other sovereign states, do not interfere in their internal affairs. They do not violate international law, do not use military force and economic sanctions bypassing the UN. They do not trample on human rights or restrict freedom of speech on their territory and abroad. They do not try to use racism of all stripes to solve internal problems, nor do they lure extremists and terrorists to their side for geopolitical purposes. They do not allow transnational corporations to interfere in the work of the government, imposing their own interests on the country and society, much less block the legitimate head of state in social networks and mass media. In democratic countries, the administration that came to power does not disavow the decisions of its predecessors simply because there has been a personal antagonism between them."
But a "democratic country" is whatever America defines it as--at any given moment!
America is just like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland: “When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
Torture is Enhanced Interrogation.
Coup D'etats are Regime Change.
Kill Lists are a Disposition Threat Matrix.
Wars of Aggression are Wars of Choice (or Pre-emptive kinetic military action).
Ignorance is Strength....
As a former high-level Bush Regime official boasted, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Welcome to the American Rules-Based Order.
-Posted by: ak74 | May 4 2021 23:21 utc | 30
And this use of euphemisms has been seriously misinterpreted by the American leadership elite who mistakenly believe that they can fight either or both Russia and China simultaneously and win in any conflict. And here you have Metallicman saying that this is simply not true.
Fifty years of fighting small, lightly armed military, in under-developed nations that rely on obsolete technology and who, at best engage in GuerillaWarfareshould not be considered the same thing as fighting a determined, skilled, peer capable military in Asia.
Well, this is well understood.
But whether or not American military is able to fight a war is not a concern to the bureaucracy in Washington DC. Whether they are able to profit from the threat of war is. And thus we have this curious article…
Warships sink. Bases burn. F-35s die on the runway. Can $24 billion a year — 3.3 % of the Pentagon budget — fix the problem?
WASHINGTON: The US keeps losing, hard, in simulated wars with Russia and China. Bases burn. Warships sink. But we could fix the problem for about $24 billion a year, one well-connected expert said, less than four percent of the Pentagon budget.
“In our games, when we fight Russia and China,” RAND analyst David Ochmanek said this afternoon, “blue gets its ass handed to it.”
In other words, in RAND’s wargames, which are often sponsored by the Pentagon, the US forces — colored blue on wargame maps — suffer heavy losses in one scenario after another and still can’t stop Russia or China — red — from achieving their objectives, like overrunning US allies.
No, it’s not a Red Dawn nightmare scenario where the Commies conquer Colorado.
But losing the Baltics or Taiwan would shatter American alliances, shock the global economy, and topple the world order the US has led since World War II.
Hey! Boys and Girls! I've got news for you all. The US no longer leads the world. It just thinks it does. The American Leadership shill haven't read the reports yet. -MM
Body Blows & Head Hits
How could this happen, when we spend over $700 billion a year on everything from thousand-foot-long nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to supersonic stealth fighters?
Well, it turns out US superweapons have a little too much Achilles in their heels.
“In every case I know of,” said Robert Work, a former deputy secretary of defense with decades of wargaming experience, “the F-35 rules the sky when it’s in the sky, but it gets killed on the ground in large numbers.”
Even the hottest jet has to land somewhere.
But big airbases on land and big aircraft carriers on the water turn out to be big targets for long-range precision-guided missiles.
Once an American monopoly, such smart weapons are now a rapidly growing part of Russian and Chinese arsenals — as are the long-range sensors, communications networks, and command systems required to aim them.
So, as potential adversaries improve their technology, “things that rely on sophisticated base infrastructure like runways and fuel tanks are going to have a hard time,” Ochmanek said. “Things that sail on the surface of the sea are going to have a hard time.”
That’s why the 2020 budget retires the carrier USS Truman decades early and cuts two amphibious landing ships, as we’ve reported.
It’s also why the Marine Corps is buying the jump-jet version of the F-35, which can take off and land from tiny, ad hoc airstrips, but how well they can maintain a high-tech aircraft in low-tech surroundings is an open question.
While the Air Force and Navy took most of the flak today at this afternoon’s Center for a New American Security panel on the need for “A New American Way of War.” the Army doesn’t look too great, either.
Its huge supply bases go up in smoke as well, Work and Ochmanek said. Its tank brigades get shot up by cruise missiles, drones, and helicopters because the Army largely got rid of its mobile anti-aircraft troops, a shortfall it’s now hastening to correct.
And its missile defense units get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming fire.
“I think it’s unanimous from all the soldiers involved that we got this one right,” said the Army’s project manager for the Future Tactical Unmanned Aerial System. Manned aircraft, FARA and FLRAA, are also moving out sharply.
- Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“If we went to war in Europe, there would be one Patriot battery moving, and it would go to Ramstein. And that’s it,” Work growled. “We have 58 Brigade Combat Teams, but we don’t have anything to protect our bases, so what different does it make?”
Worst of all, Work and Ochmanek said, the US doesn’t just take body blows, it takes a hard hit to the head as well.
Its communications satellites, wireless networks, and other command-and-control systems suffer such heavy hacking and jamming that they are, in Ochmanek’s words, “suppressed, if not completely shattered.”
The US has wargamed cyber and electronic warfare in field exercises, Work said, but the simulated enemy forces tend to shut down US networks so effectively that nothing works and nobody else gets any training done.
“Whenever we have an exercise and the red force really destroys our command and control, we stop the exercise,” Work said, instead of trying to figure out how to keep fighting when your command post gives you nothing but blank screens and radio static.
The Chinese call this “system destruction warfare,” Work said: They plan to “attack the American battle network at all levels, relentlessly, and they practice it all the time.”
In short, if Biden rashly sends the military to Taiwan’s defense, he could be sending us to our greatest naval defeat in our history.
If the president’s military advisers convince him to attack military targets on the mainland, the results would be mushroom clouds over U.S. cities.
-1945
The $24 Billion Fix — And Cuts
So how do you fix such glaring problems?
The Air Force asked RAND to come up with a plan two years ago, and, surprisingly, Ochmanek said, “we found it impossible to spend more than $8 billion a year.”
That’s $8 billion for the Air Force. Triple that to cover for the Army and the Navy Department (which includes the US Marines), Ochmanek said, and you get $24 billion.
Yes, these are very broad strokes, but that’s only 3.3 percent of the $750 billion defense budget President Trump will propose for the 2020 fiscal year.
Work was less worried about the near-term risk — he thinks China and Russia aren’t eager to try anything right now — and more about what happens 10 to 20 years from now. But, he said, “sure, $24 billion a year for the next five years would be a good expenditure.
So what does that $24 billion buy?
To start with, missiles. Lots and lots of missiles. The US and its allies notoriously keep underestimating how many smart weapons they’ll need for a shooting war, then start to run out against enemies as weak as the Serbs or Libyans. Against a Russia or China, which can match not only our technology but our mass, you run out of munitions fast.
Specifically, you want lots of long-range offensive missiles. Ochmanek mentioned Army artillery brigades, which use MLRS missile launchers, and the Air Force’s JAGM-ER smart bomb, while Work touted the Navy’s LRASM ship-killer. You also want lots of defensive missiles to shoot down the enemy‘s offensive missiles, aircraft, and drones. One short-term fix there is the Army’s new Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense (MSHORAD) batteries, Stinger missiles mounted on 8×8 Stryker armored vehicles. In the longer term, lasers, railguns, and high-powered microwaves could shoot down incoming missiles much less expensively.
The other big fix: toughening up our command, control, and communications networks. That includes everything from jam-proof datalinks to electronic warfare gear on combat aircraft and warships. The services are fond of cutting corners on electronics to get as many planes in the air and hulls in the water as possible, Ochmanek said, but a multi-billion dollar ship that dies for lack of a million-dollar decoy is a lousy return on investment.
In the longer run, Work added, you want to invest heavily in artificial intelligence: not killer robots, he said, but “loyal wingmen” drones to support manned aircraft and big-data crunchers to help humans analyze intelligence and plan. Of course, you have to find the money for new stuff somewhere, which means either raising the defense budget even further — unlikely — or cutting existing programs. Ochmanek was unsurprisingly shy about specifics, saying only that the services could certainly squeeze out $8 billion each for new technologies.
Work was a little harder-edged. He said cutting a carrier and two amphibious ships over the forthcoming 2020-2024 budget “seems right to me.” He argued the US Army has way too many brigade combat teams — tanks and infantry — and way too little missile defense to protect them. And he bemoaned reports the US Air Force will retire the B-1 bomber, one of its few long-range strike aircraft: If the Air Force doesn’t want them, he said, give them to the Navy, revive the old VPB “Patrol Bomber” squadrons, and load them with Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles to sink the Chinese navy. Pentagon leaders should challenge the armed services to solve very hard, very specific problems.
Work said: Sink 350 Chinese navy and coast guard vessels in the first 72 hours of a war, or destroy 2,400 Russian armored vehicles. Whoever has the best solution gets the most money. Those are hardly easy goals, Work said, but they’re also doable with technology now in development.
Easy Solution. The immediate problems could be fixed with technology already in production, Ochmanek said. For $24 billion, “I can buy the whole kit,” he said. “It’s all mature technologies and it would scare the crap out of adversaries, in a good way.”
It’s all about the money…
According to Washington DC K-Street neocons, the solution is more money. Not, instead, to rethink the value of conducting war against a peer-capable enemy. Especially one that has no intention on invading America. And they should think about the consequences…
No matter how one calculates it, fighting China over Taiwan would harm American interests and security without even holding the potential for benefit.
We must resist the temptation to act on the presumption that we can always choose to fight because we will always win.
The future of our country might hinge on getting this right.
-1945
The only threat to America these days is domestic. Internally, America is collapsing and the rest of the world isn’t. But… Let’s suppose that the money-grabbing Washington “think tanks” have made the necessary Power Point PPT presentations and convinced, actually convinced, those that control the utilization of the military that it is indeed possible to win a war. What then? Well let’s look at the situation from this point of view…
Biden Can’t Assume America Beats China in a Taiwan War
Joe Biden will face a host of difficulties and challenges when he assumes office on January 20, but perhaps none more consequential than deteriorating China-U.S. relations.
It is the potential flashpoint of Taiwan that will have the greatest urgency. Many in Washington are advocating a shedding of the decades’ old policy of “strategic ambiguity,” in favor of an overt declaration that we would come to the defense of Taiwan if China ever seeks to reunify the island by force.
Well. According to the UN, and both China and Taiwan, Taiwan is Han Chinese and part of China. It operates independently like Hong Kong does. But in no way is it an American territory. Which is something that the United States media and the neocons in Washington DC wants everyone to believe.
Assumed in such advocacy is the presumption the U.S. Armed Forces would be able to successfully accomplish that mission. For at least three major reasons, those assumptions are badly misplaced.
First, the risk is high that on purely military fundamentals, the United States would fail to successfully prevent a resolute and committed Chinese assault. As the most recent Department of Defense annual report to Congress on China details, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – remains on a multi-decade modernization push that has seen them develop a substantial defensive capability, known as anti-access, area-denial (A2/AD).
China’s A2/AD strategy, the Pentagon report explains, is designed to “dissuade, deter, or, if ordered, defeat third-party intervention during a large-scale, theater campaign such as a Taiwan contingency.”
Their strategy includes the use of modern weaponry including warships, new fighters, increasingly lethal missile forces, heavy armor, and cyberattack capability.
When comparing the armed forces of the United States and China, we are still substantially more capable than China. Our ability to project power, for example, remains ahead of China.
Critically, however, the balance of power near China’s shores would give them virtually EVERY military advantage.
Repeated wargames conducted in the United States pitting the U.S. against China in a Taiwan scenario reveal the ugly truth.
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense and current RAND analyst David A. Ochmanek revealed earlier this year that simulation exercises have exposed troubling results when the U.S. intervenes in war between China and Taiwan.
The American side, Ochmanek admitted, has “had its ass handed to it for years.”
The reasons for the simulated combat losses aren’t hard to understand.
Over the past few decades, the Chinese have developed modern weapons of war and have improved the quality of their fighting force substantially above where they were when the U.S. dismantled Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army in 1991.
Though our military is globally superior any fight within the so-called “first island chain” near China’s coast would play to Beijing’s tactical advantage.
As if 2020, this is now obsolete. According to the United States military, and the Trump White House the "first island chain" delimitation line is no longer an American advantage.
It is an area of Chinese military advantage.
Our conventional and nuclear power deter China from ever attacking the U.S. mainland or Armed Forces – but if we choose to intervene in their back yard, they would have the advantage.
Second, in the event of war, Taiwan may defend itself not merely by targeting the attacking Chinese forces, but by hitting military bases on the Chinese mainland.
If the U.S. joins the fight against China, it is unlikely China would differentiate whether an attack against its mainland came from a Taiwanese or American source and may well prompt a Chinese retaliation against U.S. targets either in the region (such as in Japan, South Korea, Guam, or Hawaii) or directly on our continental homeland. The risk would then rise precipitously of a nuclear response against American Cities on American soil.
Third, even if we overcame all the difficulties and imposed an outright defeat on the Chinese, there’s no guarantee China wouldn’t try again and we would be saddled with permanently garrisoning Taiwan, indefinitely making its security our responsibility. It would also all but guarantee a new war with China, as an American military presence across the Strait would entice Beijing to prepare for the next round. Taiwan is a core interest of China and they would never quit fighting.
As China has repeatedly warned the brain-dead American leadership, that Taiwan is Chinese territory.
Any American killing of Chinese people on Chinese soil would result in American deaths on American soil.
Of course, the idea that China would stick to a conventional strategy and isolate Taiwan and allow it to work with the United States unencumbered is another major illusion.
There is a much higher chance of San Fransisco turned to a flat, glassed over radioactive plain than this scenario coming into being. The Chinese leadership does not think like an American oligarch.
We would have to spend scores of billions annually to perpetually defend Taiwan, placing severe strain on our economy, diverting military forces and resources from everywhere else in the world, and require a major increase in the size of our military and thus base defense budget.
Undertaking such a burden as the “prize” for successfully preventing China from taking Taiwan could literally bankrupt our country and leave us more vulnerable than we’ve been since before World War I.
If you thought that Afghanistan's trillions of dollars was a waste, you ain't seen nothing yet.
China would make that look like play-money.
China could turn Taiwan into Verdun if it wanted to. And America would be trapped in throwing trillions of dollars into that sink hole, all to the glee of the neocons on K-street.
It should be beyond clear that it is not in America’s interests to take such an enormous risk. Naturally, the United States is a genuine advocate for freedom and self-determination across the globe.
It is not, however, our responsibility to be the global guarantor of every land and peoples’ freedom on the planet.
It would be a tragedy beyond compare if in trying to defend one country’s freedom, we put at risk our ability to guarantee our own.
Why are we even talking about this?
Well? Why?
Like him or hate him. Bernie Sanders made a great point thirty years ago (30 years!) that is even more pointed now. And it describes exactly what is going on right now. It describes the WHY everyone in Washington DC is talking about war with China, or War with Russia…
This video was made exactly 30 years ago.
Now, China at that time was truly third world. Over 90% of it’s people lived in poverty. But the government did exactly what Bernie Sanders proposes in this video, and now look at China today.
Now we have America looking to start a major war.
Idiots!
The next war will reduce all of America to slag. All of it. And the nations… nations… fractured remains that rise up, will be fourth world nations working hard to become more than just a radioactive banana republic.
How a War Against China Could Cripple the United States
Once China has decided to use military force to reunify Taiwan, their first actions will be covert actions designed to quietly set the stage for the assault of their main combat forces.
The assumption is...
The first action that will signal a full-on war has begun will be an initial, major barrage of ballistic missiles screaming across the strait at multiple civilian and military targets.
Once that happens, everything happens at warp speed.
The first barrage of missiles will target critical infrastructure and seek to destroy Taiwan’s ability to respond to the Chinese onslaught.
They will target military airfields to make them unusable, seek to destroy aircraft on the ground, especially those with the ability to conduct command and control and to direct other weapons (like AWACs-type craft); missile boats and Aegis-type destroyers in their births; anti-air and missile batteries on the ground.
“We warn those ‘Taiwan independence’ elements – those who play with fire will burn themselves, and Taiwan independence means war.”
— Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian
In the early hours of the battle, Taiwanese troops are shocked, confused, lack clear communications, and are fighting in the rear and from the front at the beaches.
Also an assumption.
China’s initial objectives will be to secure at least one of the three airfields and capture one or more beach landing sites by the end of the first day of fighting.
If they do, they will have a chance to open an airbridge and beach landing site through which they can pour more and more material with limited opposition. Like at the Normandy beach landings in 1944, once the invading force breaks through at the beach, it is almost impossible for the defenders to win.
The defenders’ primary objective is to identify and destroy all Chinese efforts on the island as quickly as possible, retain control of all airfields, and keep the beaches impregnable.
If China is not successful in landing the knock-out blow within the first 48 hours, it will likely have to switch its efforts to dramatically increasing its use of ballistic and cruise missiles, fighter and bomber sorties, and ship-to-shore missiles to try and force an opening at one or more beach landing zones.
They will try to overwhelm the island through brute force. If Taiwan is successful at preventing any large scale incursions either on the beach or via airborne or air-assault operations, their chances of thwarting the invasion increase dramatically. But they still won’t be out of the woods.
If China cannot penetrate the beach after two weeks of fighting, they may shift to a siege mentality, in which they will continue sustained bombing of the island, but at a reduced rate while putting into effect a naval blockade.
If things broke well for Taiwan, it is entirely possible that they could prevent China from opening any beachheads against their defenses. A naval blockade, however, will be more difficult to overcome.
Without any ability to replace the missiles and other ammunition they expend, no way to medically evacuate their wounded, or to import oil to power their warships, fuel their armored vehicles, and generate electricity – not to mention feed the population.
Though Taiwan can inflict serious damage to the PLA military, China’s capacity to absorb the damage and replace losses – while maintaining a blockade – is unlikely to be enough to stave off eventual defeat.
Taipei’s hope that by holding out long enough the U.S. will come riding to a the rescue will, one way or another, be dashed.
Constraints on U.S. Response
As Admiral Philip Davidson said in recent Congressional testimony, it would take American ships based in Alaska 17 days to reach Taiwan; 21 days from the U.S. West Coast.
Which is the entire idea behind the QUAD. To have massive military forces within close proximity of China. And thus American military would stream from Australia into the South Pacific Sea.
Beijing’s attack will require a no-notice launch to minimize the Taiwanese defender’s ability to man their positions, but possibly the greater purpose will be to ensure the U.S. Navy and Air Force are caught flat-footed and unable to mount an effective response.
To even have a chance at success, U.S. Forces in the Pacific region would have to have months to prepare.
They would have to bring personnel strength up near 100%, make all their ships and aircraft combat ready and fully supplied with wartime ammunition and fuel stocks.
That will never happen. At best American equipment is at 35% readiness, with a goal of some day reaching 50% readiness.
Any shortfalls in personnel, ships, and planes would have to be redeployed from other theaters to bring the Pacific naval and air fleets up to full capacity. None of those will be possible with a no-notice surprise attack by Beijing – and that vulnerability will put the U.S. president in a real bind.
Crisis in the White House Situation Room
The instant the first report reaches the Situation Room, the White House will assemble a crisis response team of senior advisors to begin analyzing the situation and debating potential responses.
Some will suggest the president order immediate long-range missile attacks against Chinese invasion air and naval forces in an attempt to aid the defenders.
Others may advocate hitting the Chinese bases supporting the invasion.
China will likely warn Biden that any attack on China-proper will result in missile strikes on American cities with conventional warheads* (still very lethal).
Word is that America HAS been warned. And the type of weapon used has not be specified.
*One of the biggest problems that Americans make is assuming that everyone else thinks like them.
As Mike Sweeny recently wrote for Defense Priorities, such attacks against targets on the Chinese mainland will inflame the Chinese domestic audience against the United States in increase the pressure for a nuclear response.
Again. There is a serious fundamental difference between China and America. In China, day to day public option does not matter. Decisions are not made by mob rule. They are made by merit-appointed true experts and the decisions are always sound. If China believes that the advantage would be to eviscerate New York City with a cluster of six nuclear war heads, then it will do so, and what the newspaper reader on the street thinks will not factor into the equation.
The risk of a war between Washington and Beijing escalating to nuclear is higher than many understand.
Duh!
But the president will face enormous pressures to act militarily in the face of Chinese aggression.
Taiwanese officials will certainly be pleading for the U.S. to intervene. Those in the United States who are already China hawks will almost certainly advocate “limited” military retaliation.
They will argue that Washington cannot stand passively by while China swallows a leading democratic country in Asia.
To refuse to act would be tantamount to Neville Chamberlain’s infamous appeasement at Munich and encourage China to try and conquer other nations militarily. In all fairness, such concerns would not be without merit.
But Biden’s ability to respond militarily would be far more limited than would be commonly understood.
If Congress declared war on China or gave Biden authority to launch a military strike, the best he could do would be to unleash a relatively few cruise missiles and order some long-range bombing sorties from regional bases.
Those would have some impact but be insufficient to stop China’s invasion.
“China’s navy is viewed as posing a major challenge to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain wartime control of blue-water ocean areas in the Western Pacific.”
—Congressional Research Service analysis
To engage in sustained operations in support of Taiwan’s defenses, it would take the U.S. Navy and Air Force months to properly enter the war theater.
Trying to rush our military into a fight as soon as it can reach Taiwan would be near suicidal, as we would be arriving to the fight in sub-optimal condition, not fully resourced – and would face the full brunt of the Chinese air and naval forces (which are about double the size of the U.S. Pacific fleets). As importantly, PRC air and naval forces have long had existing plans to fight a U.S. force sent to aid Taiwan and have conducted countless computer simulations and field exercises.
We would be outnumbered, out-prepared, and out-gunned while fighting a motivated enemy engaged in what it considers an existential battle.
Duh! If Texas was Attacked how would American react? The same kind of visceral reaction should be expected of China.
All of the recent U.S.-based computer simulations reach similar conclusions.
In short, if Biden rashly sends the military to Taiwan’s defense, he could be sending us to our greatest naval defeat in our history.
If the president’s military advisers convince him to attack military targets on the mainland, the results could be mushroom clouds over U.S. cities.
The leaders in Washington DC believe that the loss of a city like Los Angles would be acceptable “collateral losses” in the quest to maintain Democracy off the coast of China.
Fortunately, however, there are superior options for Biden to choose that don’t involve dead Americans.
Preserving U.S. Military Power, Maintaining Security and Freedom
If China bull-headedly turns to violence to take Taiwan by force, the U.S. Government’s overriding priority will be to safeguard American security, freedom, and prosperity.
America's "freedom", and "prosperity"? Americans are so used to repeating the narrative that they no longer know what the words mean.
If Biden resists the temptation to respond immediately, he can dramatically shift the balance of power back in America’s favor by adopting realistic and attainable diplomatic and military strategy that features isolating, resisting, and containing China.
LOL. As if that is going to happen. Did you see any reasoning or strategy in the Alaskan meeting in April 2021 between Washington and China?
If China is foolish enough to gamble its future by attacking Taiwan – and America is smart enough to stay out of the war – the PRC will be severely weakened from its current status.
I disagree.
The entire world relies on Chinese manufacturing. And factories do not grow on trees. There are no quality alternatives for precision manufacturing, high technology products or innovation. Everything has been outsourced to China, and that includes Japanese products and design, German products and design, Korean products and design and all the rest.
The United States has, for some time, championed Taipei building a defensive fortress that would make any Chinese attempt to invade prohibitively expensive.
If anything, (America) should encourage Taiwan to expand further their defenses.
Even if China were successful in catching Taiwan unprepared, the surprise would not be complete, and Taipei would still have the ability to launch retaliatory strikes against the Chinese.
Unlike the United States, Taiwan would have no incentive to resist attacking mainland targets and would attack mainland airfields, naval bases, rocket and missile launch sites, and Chinese defense industry targets.
It would be very difficult seeing that the Chinese can render all missiles inactive by energy beam weapons.
They would also successfully sink some Chinese warships, knock out some fighter jets, and destroy thousands of their troops.
Maybe.
But China does not think like that.
Let me tell you what is more probable.
Nothing happens. Then one day the news says that Taiwan has embraced China as a co-family member. And has decided to get closer to the mainland.
That is the kind of level of strategy that we are dealing with here. Not the crude "blow 'em up" Rambo style of neocon warfare.
The net result of even a successful attack would gouge the PLA, severely weakening their ability to wage war; if Taiwan somehow held out and prevented an island takeover, the PLA would be set back decades and the PRC itself at risk of falling internally.
Um. Not even remotely realistic.
Any nation that can build two (x2) 4000 bed hospitals in ten days, or a 80 story skyscraper in a week, would have no problem replenishing military forces.
In either event, America’s advantage over China would be significantly increased, our ability to protect U.S. interests global continue to be unmatched, and our people continue in complete freedom.
Americans living in "freedom"? Obviously he was doing drugs when he wrote this. I think that he is just rolling off some trite sayings without thinking, rather than adding constructive dialog to make his points with.
Moreover, we would then have decades to increase our defenses from Guam to Hawaii to the West Coast – should that be deemed necessary – to ensure China could never, even decades into the future, successfully mount a cross-Pacific attack.
With what money? When it would take a wheel-barrel full of $100 bills to buy a hamburger?
What Americans think China’s military is like…
This is exactly what Americans think that the Chinese military is today. It’s what most people think. It’s a group of peasant, illiterate, with little training using 1980’s era hand-me-down old Soviet Union weapons. Where, their only strength is in their enormous numbers of people.
What China’s military is actually like…
This has rapidly become my favorite video. This is what the Chinese military is actually like.
This is a singular unit in XinJiang, you know the place; where the gateway to the BRI is, and where America must stop at nothing to disrupt it.
You probably know of it though the propaganda campaign about Uighur Muslims in Concentration Camps and other bullshit. You know. That America “must do something to help those poor oppressed Muslims”. As if the American oligarchy ever cared about Muslims at all, ever.
And some of the technologies that China has. Their quads operate and behave quite differently than what the American units do. And it’s very interesting. You have to keep in mind that all, and every Chinese person is a member of the irregulars. They all have military training, and the enormous size of the Chinese military is only the active “professional” warrior class. Not the irregulars.
And every squad has one of these curious weapons. They also have this other “neato” gun which is sort of a pocket howitzer that is the size of a rifle.
Chinese knives are sure cool, eh?
A personal mortar. Also standard with all squads…
The jeep howitzers are pretty cool too…
And aside from the regular training, and the mandatory of all military train for every single 14 year old boy and girl in China, you have elements of training that is simply not present in the United States, such as being able to shoot, and load a weapon with one hand. As in this movie…
And of course, since all the parts and engines, and subsystems of all the latest military hardware is contracted out to China, it should be no surprise that their home-gown, home-design, and home-manufactured weapons systems would be equal or better than the American ones that spawned them…
All the videos
If you cannot access all or some of the videos you can get them all HERE. Some good stuff, especially if you are a military buff.
Conclusion
In sum, by staying out of a China vs. Taiwan war, not only would America maintain our current strength, our national security would be stronger.
Conversely, if we foolishly insert ourselves into their fight, we will suffer severe damage to our Armed Forces at a minimum, placing our national security around the world at higher risk; in a worst-case, American cities could smolder in radioactive waste for years to come.
No matter how one calculates it, fighting China over Taiwan would harm American interests and security without even holding the potential for benefit.
We must resist the temptation to act on the presumption that we can always choose to fight because we will always win.
The future of our country might hinge on getting this right.
MM Comments
Ah. Perhaps. I can parse though many of his comments and poke holes through them.
(Taiwan) "...would attack mainland airfields, naval bases, rocket and missile launch sites, and Chinese defense industry targets."
Perhaps if he looked at a map he would see how ridiculous this statement is.
Taiwan would try.
And the planes wouldn’t be able to fly with directed energy beam weapons causing them to fall out of the sky.
And even if they could make it back, where would they land.
All the airfields would be cratered.
Ok. You can never predict the outcome of a military operation.
Certainly [1] the failure of the Trump administration to cause starvation in China by using drone launched bio-weapons against livestock didn’t work. The [2] aggressive “color revolution” in Hong Kong didn’t work. The [3] attempt at destabilizing Xinjiang didn’t work, and most certainly [4] the COVID bio-weapon attack against China on CNY with the lethal B-strain did not work.
Any military action in defense of Taiwan… … has a very small likelihood of working.
Chances are that it would not be successful.
And the participation of the American military against China WILL LAUNCH a hot war against America. Which would have at least a few of the following characteristics.
Destruction of Guam
Destruction of Diego Garcia
End of all trade with China… resulting in a collapse of many American industries as they still rely on Chinese trade to operate.
Probable war with Australia and the destruction of Australian Cities.
Russian involvement for certain as an ally of China.
Destruction of the cities in Hawaii.
And a high chance of nuclear destruction of American cities.
I would suggest the destruction of every city over a population of 750,000 in America. That would include all the “big names”. Perhaps the capital of the United States could relocate to Salina , Kansas.
All of these potential issues have an over 65% chance of happening if the USA gets involved and tries to provoke a war regarding China.
So the question really is… …just how out of touch, insane and crazy is the United States leadership? Would they be that foolish to tangle with Russia and China over some South China Sea incident?
Well…
Maybe this next article will provide the answer…
CIA Wokeness
Michael Tracey writes about a weird CIA video that is making the rounds (emphasis added):
In a mind-blowing marketing video first published on March 25, but which had escaped widespread notice until recent days, the CIA enthusiastically endorsed several key tenets of what has now indisputably become a hegemonic left/liberal ideological and rhetorical construct:
“I am a woman of color,” the video’s protagonist, an unnamed CIA officer, triumphantly proclaims. “I am a cisgender millennial who’s been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise.”
She continues, “I used to struggle with imposter syndrome. But at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I’m supposed to apologize for the space I occupy.”
I have to admit that I do not know what the words are supposed to mean. (Nor does my Firefox spellchecker. It flags them.) I also do not understand the phrases. To me they sounds like utter bullshit. But if the CIA wants to hire more such people I am all for it. Folks who can not leave their personal issues at the door typically muck up their workplace and create productivity problems. A less effective CIA will be a plus for the rest of the world.
But it will certainly enable the already insane leadership to go blindly towards a very dangerous path.
And that path looks, more and more everyday, like a high-speed rail straight to Hell.
It’s all over the chat rooms. America has the best training, the most capable leaders, the strongest military, and the best manufacturing in the world. While China is what? “A third world, has been nation, that has stolen more than it contributes”, right? That’s the narrative. This is typical…
(This article is) Complete BS. You don't understand how military power and capability works.
China doesn't have any Carrier groups, not one. That is a BIG deal.
They can't project any significant sea / air power.
They also don't have any significant amphibious assault capabilities such as the USMC.
Their air-force isn't close in capability.
The majority of their service members have very rudimentary training at best. There is much more to "staff" a military than just hand a rifle to a 16 year old peasant. A 155mm artillery shell or 1000 lb air delivered bomb takes care of numbers.
#34 ·
But the interesting retort is here…
I completely understand how military power and capability works. I didn’t say they could or would invade the US. I said we couldn’t defeat them in a context of their island building in the South Pacific. They’ve been testing and demonstrating anti-satellite weapons for over a decade. They don’t have a lot of carriers but they have a lot of submarines to take out carriers. They don’t have the capability to deliver an invasion force on the US but they definitely have that capacity throughout the South Pacific.They have massive manufacturing capacity and we have dwindled ours to virtual non-existence. In WWII, our fleet was decimated in short order but we had massive manufacturing capacity and we cranked out ships and carriers in droves. Where are we going to do that today? Where are we going to make the electronic components to drive a modern fleet?
Read that carefully. We get our legitimate Mil-Spec electronic parts from China and we get fake parts from China. Where are we going to get them when we go to war with China and have to rebuild a fleet?What about training? We’re training them on how to defeat us:
If you think of China as a backwards country where the soldiers would be 16-year-old peasants, I think you’re wrong.Then you have to consider the likelihood of China using a tactical nuke. Are they crazy enough? They don’t have to be; they need only convince our President that they might be.
But it doesn’t matter. Decades of anti-China propaganda and an onslaught in the belief that America is a nation of Rambo’s has created a situation where everyone is living in this fantasy world…
They would not stand a chance vs the US today.
China has never won a war. They are defensive by nature, they are not an offensive power. historically they build walls. Their "islands" are an example of that. They don't plan on projecting force, they plan on defending what they see as their's.
China can't build a jet engine worth a poop. China can't come up with their own ideas and relies on stealing to make their military products - so how do you conclude they can figure out how to out-think the west?
China has virtually NO access to oil/gas/coal should a war happen. Sounds like a short war.
Their navy would have a fair fight with japan.
If I recall correctly, Japan was beaten without any foot troops...
Ah. A bunch of “arm chair” warriors debating some war that is on the other side of the world. A place where they never visited, and a society and culture that they know nothing about. It’s 2021. China has been very clear about what would happen;
Taiwan, and the SCS islands are all Chinese territory.
Kill one Chinese person on Chinese land, and China will retaliate in an equal measured manner.
They have already demonstrated this…
April 2020 China’s first Type-075 amphibious assault carrier, designed for launching helicopters, caught fire. It was mysterious how it happened. The Chinese Navy put out the fire, and repaired the damage and launched the ship as scheduled.
Then…
July 2020 The Navy’s USS Bonhomme Richard burned for days at its pier in San Diego. After the fire was put out, the Navy registered the destruction as “total” and wrote off the vessel as a total loss.
The Chinese Do Not Play.
A fine reminder…
Here’s a fine reminder for all the jack-asses that believe that American could shoot and kill Chinese people, on Chinese land, and somehow go unscathed…
And let’s continue…
We need to look at the full scope about what it going on…
The full scope
American leadership are clueless psychopaths.
Their toadies are sociopaths that run the levels of government.
The bureaucracy that serves them has been politically and socially corrupted beyond usefulness.
Never the less, all studies point to catastrophic consequences if the United States tries to get involved in a war with either Russia or China.
And Russia and China have signed mutual military treaties so that they will work together if the USA tries to instigate a war.
The public is not aware of this. And because of that, we have a situation where American and their leadership wants a war. And this was made obvious in the April 2021 meeting in Anchorage Alaska.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are not FOOLS. They know exactly what the stakes are, and they will absolutely not permit any “wars of democracy” to land anywhere near them. And if they do… oh, Lordy. God help the American citizenry. There will not be any mercy.
Why?
Because the Chinese know history…
.
Make no mistake.
The Chinese will fight to the death to guarantee that they will not be exterminated like vermin by the psychopaths in Washington DC. They will guarantee it.
Like it or not, but Trump has a real chance of winning the 2024 elections. This in fact will be the best thing ever because the whole world will immediately turn their backs on USA the way they did.
Personally I can't wait for him to f*ck USA up and try to start a war with either China or/and Iran. About time USA get its ass whipped.
Do not worry, the “new and improved” military forces are more than ready to deal with 16 year old goat-herders with malfunctioning cheapo Chinese AK-47 clones…
Check out what the fuck happened to the enormous Armada that steamed to China in 2020. Nope, it did not go as planned. It was a fiasco, and President Trump sacked the top military brass for not following through on his wishes.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
'Murikans are just natural born retards. And arrogant ones at that.
Posted by: Et Tu | Apr 17 2021 18:06 utc | 1
As I have repeatedly stated, the most dangerous propaganda is the propaganda that you want to believe. And it is so very easy to control the narrative when you control all media, and suppress any alternative voices. Which is exactly how the American (and Western) press operates these days.
While I have mentioned these absurd articles in the past, I pretty much assumed that the reader would realize their sheer insanity. But later, when we watched Donald Trump and his cabal of neocon advisors actually believe the echo chamber that they created, it runs shivers down my spine. Just how stupid can people be?
Ai!
They can be pretty darn stupid. Ya!
Well, if all you know is what is presented to you, then you have nothing else to go by. And this is what is presented to you. The following is from BING Image Search.
It’s anti-China article after anti-China article focusing on XinJiang…
Well, if you have no other source of news, and the ONLY news you get is the absurd, then you tend to believe it.
No matter how bat-shit crazy it actually is.
You believe it simply because you have no other source of information.
Why the anti-China propaganda about the Uighur Muslims…
Xinjiang is a major logistics center for China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. Xinjiang is the gateway to Central and West Asia, as well as to European markets.
The Southern Xinjiang Railway runs to the city of Kashgar in China’s far west where it is now connected to Pakistan’s rail network under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a project of the BRI.
The U.S. government is deeply hostile to this vast economic development project and is doing all it can to sabotage China’s plans. This campaign is part of the U.S. military’s “Pivot to Asia,” along with naval threats in the South China Sea and support for separatist movements in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet.
The BRI must be stopped at all costs!
It connects Russia, Iran to China, and thus opens up a direct trade route to Europe that bypasses all naval shipping.
It bypasses all shipping by water.
Shipping that has had the sword ofdamocles on it ever since the USA placed assault carrier battle groups, and hunter-killer submarines there. All as a threat that China must do as America demands; the “rules based order”, or America will destroy all shipping.
The "swordofDamocles" is a modern expression, which to us means a senseofimpendingdoom, thefeeling that there is some catastrophic threat loomingover you.
That's not exactly its original meaning, however. The expression comes to us from the writings of the Roman politician, orator, and philosopherCicero (106-43 BC).
-What Did Cicero MeanbytheSword of Damocles?
So what is this “rules based order”? Why doesn’t China obey?
Well, the “rules based order” is very simple. America makes the rules. You obey them, and the UN is completely ignored.
No U.N. report on Xinjiang
The U.S. and its corporate media charge that the Chinese government has rounded up 1 million people, mainly Uyghurs, into concentration camps. News reports cite the United Nations as their source.
This was disputed in a detailed investigative report by Ben Norton and Ajit Singh titled, “No, the UN did not report China has ‘massive internment camps’ for Uighur Muslims.” (The Grayzone.com, Aug. 23, 2018) They expose how this widely publicized claim is based entirely on unsourced allegations by a single U.S. member, Gay McDougall, on an “independent committee” with an official sounding name: U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has confirmed that no U.N. body or official has made such a charge against China.
CIA/NED-funded ‘human rights’
After this fraudulent news story received wide coverage, it was followed by “reports” from the Washington-based Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders. This group receives most of its funds from U.S. government grants, primarily from the CIA-linked National Endowment for Democracy, a major source of funding for U.S. “regime change” operations around the world.
Here’s a fellow in Washington DC “rubber stamping” the use of a local proxy force to attack China with…
The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders shares the same Washington address as Human Rights Watch. The HRW has been a major source of attacks on governments targeted by the U.S., such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Syria and China. The network has long called for sanctions against China.
The CHRD’s sources include Radio Free Asia, a news agency funded for decades by the U.S. government. The World Uighur Congress, another source of sensationalized reports, is also funded by NED. The same U.S. government funding is behind the International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation and the Uyghur American Association.
The authors of the Grayzone article cite years of detailed IRS filing forms to back up their claim. They list millions of dollars in generous government funding — to generate false reports.
This whole network of supposedly impartial civil society groups, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks and news sources operates under the cover of “human rights” to promote sanctions and war.
CIA-funded terror
Central Asia has experienced the worst forms of U.S. military power.
Beginning in 1979, the CIA, operating with the ISI Pakistani Intelligence Service and Saudi money, funded and equipped reactionary Mujahedeen forces in Afghanistan to bring down a revolutionary government there. The U.S. cultivated and promoted extreme religious fanaticism, based in Saudi Arabia, against progressive secular regimes in the region. This reactionary force was also weaponized against the Soviet Union and an anti-imperialist Islamic current represented by the Iranian Revolution.
For four decades, the CIA and secret Pakistan ISI forces in Afghanistan sought to recruit and train Uyghur mercenaries, planning to use them as a future terror force in China. Chechnyans from Russia’s Caucasus region were recruited for the same reason. Both groups were funneled into Syria in the U.S. regime-change operation there. These fanatical religious forces, along with other small ethnic groups, formed the backbone of the Islamic State group (IS) and Al-Qaida.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center bombing, the very forces that U.S. secret operations had helped to create became the enemy.
Uyghurs from Xinjiang were among the Al-Qaida prisoners captured in Afghanistan and held in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo for years without charges. Legal appeals exposed that the Uyghur prisoners were being held there under some of the worst conditions in solitary confinement.
U.S. wars dislocate region
The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and the massive U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 created shockwaves of dislocation. Social progress, education, health care and infrastructure were destroyed. Sectarian and ethnic division was encouraged to divide opposition to U.S. occupations. Despite promises of great progress, the U.S. occupations sowed only destruction.
In this long war, U.S. prisons in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq were notorious. The CIA used “enhanced interrogation” techniques — torture — and secret rendition to Guantanamo, Bagram and the Salt Pit in Afghanistan. These secret prisons have since been the source of many legal suits.
According to U.N. investigations, by 2010 the U.S. held more than 27,000 prisoners in over 100 secret facilities around the world. Searing images and reports of systematic torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Bagram airbase in Afghanistan surfaced.
Exposing coverup of war crimes
In July 2010 WikiLeaks published more than 75,000 classified U.S./NATO reports on the war in Afghanistan.
In October of that year, a massive leak of 400,000 military videos, photos and documents exposed, in harrowing detail, torture, summary executions and other war crimes. Army intelligence analyst former Private Chelsea Manning released this damning material to WikiLeaks.
Based on the leaked documents, the U.N. chief investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, called on U.S. President Barack Obama to order a full investigation of these crimes, including abuse, torture, rape and murder committed against the Iraqi people following the U.S. invasion and occupation.
The leaked reports provided documentary proof of 109,000 deaths — including 66,000 civilians. This is seldom mentioned in the media, in contrast to the highly publicized and unsourced charges now raised against China.
Prosecuting whistle blowers
The CIA’s National Endowment for Democracy pays handsomely for unsourced documents making claims of torture against China, while those who provided documentary proof of U.S. torture have been treated as criminals.
John Kiriakou, who worked for the CIA between 1990 and 2004 and confirmed widespread use of systematic torture, was prosecuted by the Obama administration for revealing classified information and sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Chelsea Manning’s release of tens of thousands of government documents confirming torture and abuse, in addition to horrific photos of mass killings, have led to her continued incarceration. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is imprisoned in Britain and faces deportation to the U.S. for his role in disseminating these documents.
Rewriting history
How much of the coverage of Xinjiang is intended to deflect world attention from the continuing crimes of U.S. wars — from Afghanistan to Syria?
In 2014 a Senate CIA Torture Report confirmed that a torture program, called “Detention and Interrogation Program,” had been approved by top U.S. officials. Only a 525-page Executive Summary of its 6,000 pages was released, but it was enough to confirm that the CIA program was far more brutal and extensive than had previously been released.
Mercenaries flood into Syria
The U.S. regime-change effort to overturn the government of Syria funneled more than 100,000 foreign mercenaries and fanatical religious forces into the war. They were well-equipped with advanced weapons, military gear, provisions and paychecks.
One-third of the Syrian population was uprooted in the war. Millions of refugees flooded into Europe and neighboring countries.
Beginning in 2013, thousands of Uyghur fighters were smuggled into Syria to train with the extremist Uyghur group known as the Turkistan Islamic Party. Fighting alongside Al-Qaida and Al-Nusra terror units, these forces played key roles in several battles.
Reuters, Associated Press and Newsweek all reported that up to 5,000 Turkic-speaking Muslim Uyghurs from Xinjiang were fighting in various “militant” groups in Syria.
According to Syrian media, a transplanted Uyghur colony transformed the city of al Zanbaka (on the Turkish border) into an entrenched camp of 18,000 people. Many of the Uyghur fighters were smuggled to the Turkish-Syrian border area with their families. Speaking Turkish, rather than Chinese, they relied on the support of the Turkish secret services.
China follows a different path
China is determined to follow a different path in dealing with fanatical groups that are weaponized by religious extremism. China’s action comes after terror attacks and explosives have killed hundreds of civilians in busy shopping areas and crowded train and bus stations since the 1990s.
China has dealt with the problem of religious extremism by setting up large-scale vocational education and training centers. Rather than creating worse underdevelopment through bombing campaigns, it is seeking to engage the population in education, skill development and rapid economic and infrastructure development.
Terrorist attacks in Xinjiang have stopped since the reeducation campaigns began in 2017.
Two worldviews of Xinjiang
In July of 2020, 22 countries, most in Europe plus Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, sent a letter to the U.N. Human Rights Council criticizing China for mass arbitrary detentions and other violations against Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. The statement did not include a single signature from a Muslim-majority state.
Days later, a far larger group of 34 countries — now expanded to 54 from Asia, Africa and Latin America — submitted a letter in defense of China’s policies. These countries expressed their firm support of China’s counterterrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang.
More than a dozen member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation at the U.N. signed the statement.
A further statement on Oct. 31 to the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly explained that a number of diplomats, international organizations, officials and journalists had traveled to Xinjiang to witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of counterterrorism and deradicalization.
“What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the [Western] media,” said the statement.
The Head Scratchers…
Of course, no one is talking about the real “head scratchers”; why [1] American war machine is currently fighting eight wars against Muslims presently, would be wanting to help the Muslims inside of China. Or, [2] that the BRI, which connects Russia, Iran and China together goes right though Xinjiang. Or that [3] all the articles are all aligned with the Western five-eyes dissemination mills.
It’s an onslaught of the ridiculous for the idiotic to believe.
Here’s a work of “science fiction” which is being promoted as a true reality within China.
This is a great read… argumentum ad absurdum on a plate.
There are now so few Uyghurs left in Xinjiang now that they are dressing up Han Chinese to do dance performances for tourists.
Summary of the nonsense article…
Oh what amazing nonsense!
The CCP has run out of money to maintain its concentration camps and is now resorting to other means.
China has now moved on to the final solution.
The aim is to kill ⅔ of the population. About 10 Million people.
The number of Uyghurs detained and presumed dead now already exceeds the number of Jews killed in the holocaust.
In one county 80% of the population has disappeared.
Only 1/3rd of the Uyghur population is being kept alive for proof of life, forced labour, vaccine testing, organ harvesting and biological weapons testing.
Uyghurs in detention are divided for organ harvesting, biological experimentation and other purposes including simple extermination.
The government has gone to great pains to conceal the actual Uyghur population, downplaying the numbers and then gradually adjusting it upwards to conceal the fact that between 6-11 million people are unaccounted for.
They are using chemicals to dispose of the bodies rather than mass graves and destroying all evidence of previous identities.
Uyghur women are subjected to forced sterilizations, forced contraception and forced abortions.
(We already know that…) Females in detention are being routinely gang raped by guards as form of torture.
They are also using school children for vaccine testing.
All Uyghur language, religion and culture in the region is now gone.
The region has become like a deranged Disneyland, with paid actors performing the roles of genuine Uyghurs.
The government initially billeted Han Chinese to learn Uyghurs skills and then sent the Uyghurs themselves to concentration camps
The people you see in Xinjiang tourist attractions, the people you see singing and dancing and playing instruments, are Han Chinese but dressed up like Uyghurs.
Well, it seems that some sanity is returning….
From my email…
Read this….
Why is the West suddenly concerned about Uyghur Muslim ‘genocide’?
A motion by Senator Rex Patrick to label China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority as genocide failed to pass Australia’s Senate on 17 March.
Unusually, this leaves Australia slightly out of step with its main ally, the United States, and fellow “Five Eyes” country Canada, which have both labelled China’s policy in the Xinjiang region as genocide, starting with a declaration by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and reiterated by his successor Antony Blinken.
The drumbeat in Australia against China’s policy continues.
However, as seen in the discussion on the ABC’s 15 April QandA program, when a questioner demanded Australia cut off trade with China over the issue, and a panelist compared China’s policy to Nazi Germany.
So why the sudden prominence of this issue?
The Citizens Party has had more than 30 years of experience in analyzing foreign policy and geopolitical issues.
We have opposed the dangerous lurch towards confrontation with Russia and China, including through proxy regime-change interventions, by the USA and UK and their allies, including Australia.
Elements of the Xinjiang allegations immediately raised suspicions.
Including the sudden concern being expressed for Uyghur Muslims by extreme right-wing US and UK neoconservatives who have spent decades demonising Muslims in their countries.
As well as championing wars that have killed millions of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa.
Another cause for suspicion was the overlap between the “human rights” narrative about Xinjiang, and the similar human rights narratives against Syria and Libya starting in 2011.
Too similar for comfort.
Both of which were accused of atrocities against their own people.
Of course, omitting that the “rebel” groups opposed to those “regimes” were extremist jihadists either aligned with al-Qaeda or actual members of al-Qaeda.
The very terrorist organization blamed for 9/11 that our soldiers are supposedly fighting in Afghanistan.
The Office of the Legal Advisor at the US State Department has recently fueled more suspicion.
In effect, contradicting the current and former Secretaries of State by finding there’s insufficient evidence to call China’s Xinjiang policy genocide after all.
Original research
The Citizens Party has therefore conducted its own research into the Xinjiang issue, to situate the claims in their fullest historical and geopolitical context.
This research led to an eight-article series in the Citizens Party’s weekly magazine the Australian Alert Service in November 2020–March 2021.
The Citizens Party urges everyone who is concerned about this issue to download and read the whole package.
As the USA, UK and European Union…
—with applause from the Australian government—
…slap sanctions on China for alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang…
… and the weighty term “genocide” is thrown around without evidence…
… our series demystifies what is going on in and around Xinjiang, and why.
We expose the Anglo-American sponsorship of “East Turkistan” separatism.
As well as the Anglo-American fostering of radical Islamist terrorism, which hit China hard from the 1990s up to 2014 and prompted tough anti-terror programs.
We detail how al-Qaeda and its successors grew out of US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s program to strike at the Soviet Union’s “soft underbelly” in Central Asia.
He did this, even at the risk of nuclear war, by backing the Afghanistan mujaheddin against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in 1979.
Young ethnic Uyghurs from Xinjiang fought in Afghanistan and received US- and Saudi-funded training in Pakistan;
Some went back home to “destabilise China”.
Which is the exact the words of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), chief of staff to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
We also recount the history of “Pan-Turkism” and its activation against Russia and then China after the breakup of the USSR.
The final two articles deal with the decades-long manipulation of the Uyghur diaspora by Anglo-American intelligence agencies.
This also includes those operating under the banner of “human rights”, like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
As with the so-called Captive Nations groups during the Cold War, the diaspora is exploited as a propaganda base.
Not only to destabilize or even fragment the targeted country, but also to set “thought rules” for public opinion and political circles elsewhere.
For example, in the USA or Australia.
Uyghur émigré groups uniformly oppose China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
They do so, even as it raises living standards in Xinjiang, all China and abroad.
Since China has recently been practically the sole engine of world economic growth…
… while cultivating scientific optimism in its education policies and a commitment to promoting classical culture…
… a strategic posture that exploits the Uyghurs of Xinjiang to attack China is insane.
Here are the chapter titles from our report. The first two pages of the Special Report PDF are a full, annotated table of contents.
Part 1. East-West gateway on the Silk Road
Part 2. The Arc of Crisis
Part 3. Xinjiang becomes a target
Part 4. Pan-Turkism
Part 5. The Anglo-American-Saudi promotion of violent jihad
Part 6. ‘Afghan’ jihadist terrorism come to Xinjiang
Parts 7 and 8. The ‘East Turkistan’ narrative
China detaining millions of Uyghurs? Serious problems with claims by US-backed NGO and far-right researcher ‘led by God’ against Beijing
Reprinted as found. All credit to the original author, and please kindly note that it was edited to fit within this venue.
Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.
It is legislation which calls for the Donald Trump administration to impose sanctions against China over allegations.
Allegations that Beijing has detained millions of Muslim-majority Uyghurs in the western region of Xinjiang.
To drum up support for the sanctions bill, Western governments and media outlets have portrayed the People’s Republic as a human rights violator on par with Nazi Germany.
Republican Rep. Chris Smith, for instance, denounced the Chinese government for what he called the “mass internment of millions on a scale not seen since the Holocaust,” in “modern-day concentration camps.”
The claim that China has detained millions of ethnic Uyghurs in its Xinjiang region is repeated with increasing frequency.
However, little scrutiny is ever applied.
Yet a closer look at the figure and how it was obtained reveals a serious deficiency in data.
The second study relied on flimsy media reports and speculation.
It was authored by Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China.
As Washington ratchets up pressure on China, Zenz has been lifted out of obscurity and transformed almost overnight into a go-to pundit on Xinjiang.
He has testified before Congress, providing commentary in outlets from the Wall Street Journal to Democracy Now!
As well as delivering expert quotes in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ recent “China Cables” report.
His Twitter bio notes that he is “moving across the Atlantic” from his native Germany.
Before Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal questioned Zenz about his religious “mission,” at a recent event about Xinjiang inside the US Capitol, he had received almost entirely uncritical promotion from Western media.
The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which first popularized the “millions detained” figure, has also been able to operate without a hint of media scrutiny.
Washington-backed NGO claims millions detained after interviewing eight people
The “millions detained” figure was first popularized by a Washington, DC-based NGO that is backed by the US government, the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD).
In a 2018 report submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination…
… often misrepresented in Western media as a UN-authored report…
… CHRD “estimate[d] that roughly one million members of ethnic Uyghurs have been sent to ‘re-education’ detention camps.
As well as roughly two million have been forced to attend ‘re-education’ programs in Xinjiang.”
According to CHRD, this figure was “[b]ased on interviews and limited data.”
While CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals.
This is all based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million.
The CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that
“at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.”
Applying these estimated rates to the entirety of Xinjiang, CHRD arrived at the figures submitted to the UN claiming that one million ethnic Uyghurs have been detained in “re-education detention camps” and two million more have been “forced to attend day/evening re-education sessions”.
“arbitrarily detain[ing] 800,000 to possibly more than two million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslims in internment camps designed to erase religious and ethnic identities.”
“there [are] no so-called ‘re-education camps’ in Xinjiang at all. The vocational education and training centers legally operated in Xinjiang aim to help a small number of people affected by terrorist and extremist ideologies and equip them with skills, so that they can be self-reliant and re-integrate into society.”
In its mounting pressure campaign against China, the US is not only relying on CHRD for data; it is directly funding its operations.
Together, the two helped found the World Anti-Communist League that was described by journalist Joe Conason as “the organizational haven for neo-Nazis, fascists, and anti-Semitic extremists from two dozen countries.”
Lev Dobriansky, pictured below with Eisenhower & Reagan, invented Captive Nations Week in 1959, and got Yaroslav Stetsko his first visa to the United States in 1958 against the wishes of the CIA & the State Department. Reagan appointed Dobriansky to be Ambassador to the Bahamas. pic.twitter.com/NmOvsnvNmg
— Moss Robeson (@mossrobeson__) July 19, 2019
Today, Dobriansky’s daughter, Paula, sits on the board of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
A former Reagan and George HW Bush official and signatory of the original Project for a New American Century document, Paula Dobriansky has become a fixture in neoconservative circles on Capitol Hill.
From its office in Washington, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation agitates for regime change from Venezuela to the periphery of China.
Zenz’s politicized research on Xinjiang and Tibet has proven one of this right-wing group’s most effective weapons.
In September of 2018, Zenz wrote an article published in the Central Asian Survey journal concluding that
“Xinjiang’s total re-education internment figure may be estimated at just over one million.”
(A condensed version of the article was initially published by the Jamestown Foundation, a neoconservative think tank founded during the height of the Cold War by Reagan administration personnel with the support of then-CIA Director William J. Casey).
Like the CHRD, Zenz arrived at his estimate “over 1 million” in a dubious manner.
He based it on a single report by Istiqlal TV, a Uyghur exile media organization based in Turkey, which was republished by Newsweek Japan.
Far from an impartial journalistic organization, Istiqlal TV advances the separatist cause while playing host to an assortment of extremist figures.
One such character who often appears on Istiqlal TV is Abdulkadir Yapuquan.
He is a reported leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a separatist group that aims to establish an independent homeland in Xinjiang called East Turkestan.
“2013, thousands of Uighurs… have traveled to Syria to train with the Uighur militant group Turkistan Islamic Party and fight alongside al-Qaida,” with “several hundred join[ing] the Islamic State.”
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) has been among the most recalcitrant forces operating in the Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib province, rejecting all ceasefire efforts while indoctrinating children into militancy.
TIP leadership has called on foreign Muslims to wage jihad in Syria, publishing an online recruitment video in 2018 that celebrated the 9/11 attacks as holy retaliation against a decadent United States awash in homosexuality and sin.
“called for armed jihad not only in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region but all over the world and described China as a nation of savages, worse than the Jews.”
The Istiqlal TV report relied on by Zenz published an unverified table of “re-education detainee figures” allegedly “leaked” by Chinese authorities, totaling 892,000 individuals in 68 Xinjiang counties as of Spring 2018.
(The Uyghur Human Rights Act recently passed by Congress mandates the US Agency for Global Media – the governmental parent of Radio Free Asia – to report on Xinjiang, including “assessments of Chinese propaganda strategies.”)
With his cobbling of questionable sources, Zenz extrapolates an extremely broad estimate
“at anywhere between several hundred thousand and just over one million.”
While admitting that “there is no certainty” to his estimate, he has concluded that it is nevertheless “reasonable to speculate.”
He attempted to evade personal responsibility for the figure’s questionable reliability, however, by stating
“[t]he accuracy of this estimate is of course predicated on the supposed validity of the stated sources.”
As time goes on, Zenz continues to inflate his speculative estimate of Uyghur detainees.
Speaking at an event organized by the US mission in Geneva in March 2019, Zenz stated,
“Although it is speculative it seems appropriate to estimate that up to 1.5 million ethnic minorities [have been detained by China in Xinjiang].”
Zenz bumped up his estimate again in a November 2019 interview with Radio Free Asia, claiming China was detaining 1.8 million people.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Zenz claimed that China has effectively outlawed the practice of Islam in Xinjiang.
“Anyone in Xinjiang who engages in any type of religious practice, anyone who even has a single Koran verse saved on their mobile phone, will be subjected to a brutal process of reeducation without trial,”
He maintained.
These incendiary claims have vaulted Zenz to the status of international “expert” on Xinjiang, earned him invites to testify before US Congress and Canadian Parliament, and to deliver commentary in major US media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Democracy Now!
“[l]inguists, document and Xinjiang experts, including Zenz, who reviewed the documents have expressed confidence in their authenticity.”
Given Zenz’s habit of speculation and the questionable reliability of the lone Istiqlal TV media report he relies on for his estimates, it is troubling that Western governments and media have accepted and promoted his claims without a trace of skepticism.
A closer look at Zenz’s own biases should magnify these concerns, as he is a full-blown evangelical End Timer who appears to be believe that God has sent him on a holy crusade against the People’s Republic of China.
Fundamentalist Christian ‘led by God’ in mission against China, homosexuality, and gender equality
This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the
Which makes you wonder WHY he would be so concerned about the plight of Muslims. Because according to his own religious belief only “born again” Christians will enter Heaven during the rapture.
“I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation.
In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
Zenz predicted that the future fall of capitalism will bring to power the Antichrist within a “few decades.”
He identified the force that “will usher the Antichrist into power” as “the economic and financial fall of ‘Babylon,’ with ‘Babylon’ symbolically representing the world’s global economic system (capitalism).”
Along with the fall of capitalism, Zenz also views “postmodern relativism and tolerance thinking” and their apparent promotion of homosexuality, gender equality, and non-violent parenting to be threats to Christianity and “[t]he deceptive, leopard-like power behind the Antichrist.”
“It is very likely that the global persecution of true believers will center on the charge that they promote ‘intolerant views,’” Zenz wrote, “especially related to preaching against homosexuality.”
Zenz argued that “[h]ate crime and anti-discrimination laws will likely play a major role in the suppression of biblical Christianity” and formed part of an “anti-Christian ‘tolerance’ campaign” because they “forbid employers to discriminate based on gender or sexual orientations.”
“The outcome of this process is open rebellion against both God and God-given human authority structures”,
Zenz stated, decrying that
“[r]ising numbers of countries are banning all forms of physical punishment of children, the primary scriptural method for instilling respect for authority in the young generation and protecting them from rebellious tendencies.”
Zenz assures readers that
“true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence.”
“Another important God-given authority structure that Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit is that of gender authority structures”,
Zenz continued.
“Through notions of gender equality […] the enemy is undermining God’s unique but different role assignments for men and women.”
Given these obscurantist right-wing views, it is not surprising that Zenz’s proclaimed concern for the condition of Muslims in China does not seem to extend to Muslims elsewhere.
A search of Zenz’s Twitter profile returns no tweets concerning the rise of Islamophobia in the West, nor US wars and drone strikes against Muslim-majority countries.
The only Tweet by Zenz concerning Muslims that is unrelated to China is a denial that there is a double standard in how violence is judged when committed by white people compared to Muslims.
‘The End Times is a very fascinating topic’
In his December 10, 2019 testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Adrian Zenz took a victory lap of sorts for Congress’ passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Act the week before which placed new sanctions on the Chinese government.
Citing the bill’s success, he called for opening a new front against China with a US investigation into “involuntary labor in relation to Xinjiang.”
That same day, Zenz also appeared on a panel dedicated to Xinjiang that was hosted by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in the US Capitol Visitor Center.
On hand were Republican heavyweights like Sam Brownback, the ferociously anti-LGBT, anti-abortion former governor of Kansas.
Who is now the current US ambassador-at-large for religious freedom, as well as top staffers of Sen. Marco Rubio, the sponsor of virtually every China sanctions bill to be rubber-stamped by Congress in recent weeks.
During a question-and-answer session, The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal asked Zenz about his fundamentalist religious views and far-right politics.
Zenz did not distance himself from his past statements denouncing gender equality and “tolerance thinking,” or his advocacy for the “scriptural spanking” of children.
Instead, he asserted that there was no inconsistency between those views and the quality of his research on China’s Xinjiang region.
“I do have a diverse background and I have personal connections which I do not believe are inconsistent with my research,”
Zenz responded to Blumenthal.
“I do not support China’s authoritarian methods in any way, and I do believe there’s a God who is bringing judgment in different forms. The End Times is a very fascinating topic, a very complex topic, and I think, very relevant. And I think it’s good to live aware of that.”
Adrian Zenz is considered an expert in DC. His research influenced the Uyghur Human Rights Act that sanctioned China.
But he’s also a Rapture-ready evangelical who says he’s “led by God” against Beijing.
I challenged him on Capitol Hill.
More here: https://t.co/HPJUcHddlepic.twitter.com/czZtxxvXxO
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 22, 2019
Moments later, a visibly upset young man rose from his seat to “condemn the tankie Max Blumenthal.”
Unleashing a torrent of insults at Blumenthal, he made no attempt to refute the journalist’s line of questioning.
The rigorously enforced conviction on display in the politically hermetic chambers of the US Capitol also encompasses the whole of Western media, where even purportedly progressive outlets have provided Zenz with an uncritical platform.
From Washington’s halls of power to major newsrooms, few are willing to let inconvenient facts get in the way of a new, undeniably faith-based Cold War crusade.
More…
The Australia Citizens Party produced 8 original fact-based articles (with a lot of useful hyperlinks for researchers) on Xinjiang issues “Xinjiang: China’s Western frontier in the heart of Eurasia”: https://twitter.com/OcastJournalist/status/1383221132560531456
Oh, that first bullshit article… what a fun read. It’s nice to leave reality every now and then and smell the lollypop trees, pet the golden unicorns, and swim in the streams of icy-fresh beer.
But then, there are two more serious, well researched articles that crush the American anti-China narrative. I hope that you all found them enlightening.
It seems that the talks in Alaska were a turning point for china and Russia is also taking its cues from actions verses words moving forward here... the USA is like a runaway train, gone off the rails.... an accident in the process of happening... no one appears in command.... will be interesting to see where this ends up.. the fact china is giving the USA the cold shoulder is long overdue... same deal with Russia giving a similar response... at what point do they say enough is enough?? it looks like we are at, or close to that spot now..
Posted by: james | Apr 17 2021 18:38 utc | 4
What is truly frightening about all this is that there are many people who actually believe this nonsense.
I may be wrong but imho 99% of the work done in China is by Forced Labor!
Prove me wrong!
-13 posted on 10/24/2020, 10:16:25 AM by prophetic
Jeeze! Louise!
Just keep in mind that this noise is all just that…noise as the United States tries to gear up for efforts to destroy the gateway to the BRI; Xinjiang. China knows this.
It’s all the same “song and dance”. Get American all upset about some “evil” and then launch the American military into the region to “save it”.
Yes. Everyone knows. The United States are training terrorists to absolutely create destruction and mayhem in Xinjiang. And they are proud to fund it, and proud to be doing it. And they believe that it will be successful.
Ah.
Not THIS time, bucco.
Because…
China knows that the USA wants to inject military forces into Xinjiang to destabilize it. And this is why they have military forces in place for the American attempts to do so. And whatever proxy forces they establish to do the fighting.
The Chinese Do Not Play.
What do I mean?
Watch this little demonstration of the military in Xinjiang protecting the Uighur’s from the American proxy terrorists…
Check out this most interesting and telling video HERE, if it doesn’t load properly.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my Uyghurs sub-index under my China index.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
We are witnessing the end of the United States military Empire. As well as the rise of a unified Asia.
There are all sorts of articles on this subject. Most out of the United States are pretty limited in scope. No one is looking at the big picture, and instead what they see is evil or frightening. But it need not be.
First, lets look at history…
All credit to the author. And note that it was formatted to fit within this venue. The article is titled “The Last Days of Rome: How A Great Empire Fell With Barely a Whimper“, and it makes some very interesting points.
…
Unlike the valiant last stand by Constantine XI in Constantinople which marked the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Roman Empire in the West did not fall after a notable battle. Indeed, it is perhaps ironic that one of the greatest empires in history surrendered rather meekly without much of a struggle. Although the end of the empire is said to have occurred when Odoacer marched into Rome and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus on September 4, 476, the end was nigh for quite some time.
A Fragmented Empire
Although Diocletian managed to bring the disastrous Third Century Crisis to an end by taking control in 284, the Empire was fundamentally weakened. Aside from widespread economic strife throughout the Empire in the fourth century, the tribes of Germany significantly increased their populations and became more of a threat.
By 376, an enormous influx of barbarians from across the Danube threatened the Eastern part of the Empire, and the Romans suffered a disastrous defeat at Adrianople in 378 when Emperor Valens died with most of his army. By the end of the fourth century, Emperor Theodosius was reliant on barbarian warlords who lacked discipline and loyalty. It was the equivalent of allowing wolves into the chicken coop.
To make matters worse, Theodosius had to contend with the usurper Magnus Maximus who declared himself Emperor of the West in 383. Theodosius finally defeated his enemy in 388 but with heavy losses on both sides that only served to weaken the Empire. When he died in 395, his sons Honorius and Arcadius became emperors. Both were incompetent and little more than puppet rulers.
Sack of Rome
Much like the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 was the beginning of the end for the Byzantine Empire, the Sack of Rome in 410 can be seen as the start of the Western Empire’s last days. The King of the Visigoths, Alaric, first attempted to invade Italy in 401 but was repelled by Stilicho at Pollentia the following year. When Emperor Honorius ordered a massacre of Goths serving in the Roman military, some 30,000 of them defected to Alaric in 408.
He laid siege to Rome that year and forced its citizens to pay a sizeable tribute to prevent them from starving to death. Alaric did not want to destroy the Empire; he just wanted a recognized position within its borders. After another siege in 409, he tried to negotiate with Honorius the following year. The influence of an enemy Goth during negotiations angered Alaric, so he laid siege to Rome once again. This time, he succeeded in breaking through and sacked the city.
Oddly enough, there was relatively little destruction during the three-day sacking of Rome. Alaric invited barbarian slaves to join his army, and a large proportion was happy to do so. He had no intention of remaining in Rome and decided to sail to Africa. However, his ships were battered by storms, and he died of fever. Although Alaric did not remain in Rome to conquer it, the sacking of the city was an indication of just how weak the Empire in the West was. The countdown to its demise began in earnest.
A Continued Collapse
The Empire disintegrated further throughout the fifth century. It lost Carthage to the Vandals in 439 and was at the mercy of Attila the Hun during the 440s and early 450s. After successful campaigns against the Eastern Empire, he turned his attention to the West, and while he suffered defeat at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451, he invaded Italy. Attila accepted a favorable peace treaty but planned to invade Italy once again before his death in 453.
After a brief resurgence under the rule of Emperor Majorian (457-461), the Empire once more plunged into chaos. A Germanic general called Ricimer entered Rome in 472, but he died just six weeks later. Over the next four years, the Western Empire had a succession of Emperors who were little more than puppets for barbarian warlords.
A Sad End
In 475, a man named Orestes drove the Emperor Julius Nepos out of the capital Ravenna and declared his 16-year-old son as Emperor Romulus Augustus. The teenager was never recognized as the ruler outside Italia, and when his father refused to grant federated status to the Heruli, its leader Odoacer launched an invasion. He chased Orestes to Pavia and then Piacenza where the Emperor’s father was executed on August 28, 476.
On September 4, 476, the Senate compelled Romulus Augustus to abdicate, and it is typically on this day that the Western Roman Empire is said to have officially fallen. The unfortunate boy remained in Ravenna, but instead of executing him, Odoacer showed mercy by sending him to live in Campania. The fate of the last Emperor of the West is unknown because he disappears from the historical record.
Although 476 is used as a convenient date to mark the end of the Empire, it is a little more complicated. The deposed Julius Nepos continued to claim that he was the Emperor of the West until he was murdered in 480. In the meantime, Odoacer began negotiations with Zeno, the Emperor of the East. Although Zeno accepted Odoacer as viceroy of Italia, he insisted that the barbarian continue to recognize Julius Nepos as the Emperor in the West.
Odoacer invaded Dalmatia when he learned of Nepos’ murder while in 488, Zeno authorized the Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great’s invasion of Italia. After five years of indecisive fighting, Odoacer and Theodoric agreed to rule jointly, but the Ostrogoth betrayed his new ‘ally.’ At a banquet celebrating their new arrangement in 493, Theodoric’s men slaughtered Odoacer’s troops, and he cut his rival in half.
And so one of the greatest Empire’s in history ended not with a fearsome battle, but with a sorry capitulation. Its hold on the East lasted for almost 1,000 years after that, and while the Byzantine Empire also fell apart meekly, the final battle at Constantinople was at least more befitting of a regime’s downfall than the slow, painful demise of Rome.
Likewise, we can expect America to die with a whimper.
Indeed, unless [1] World War III occurs, or [2] the United States government starts acting and behaving like people who care for America, the nation is destined the long slow crawl towards the gutter. It will be just like Rome. With insignificant minor events as defined by technology rather than structure.
Let’s consider China. Indeed, let’s understand what contemporaneous Chinese think of America through the lens of their own history.
The Rise and Fall of the Han Dynasty
Although the brief Qin dynasty managed to unite the Warring States of China, the Han dynasty is considered to be the second great Chinese imperial dynasty after almost 800 years of Zhou control. The Han had such a profound impact on its nation’s culture that the word ‘Han’ ultimately referred to a person who was ethnically Chinese.
The short-lived Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) began with the unification of six warring states. Led by a man who proclaimed himself the Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the empire unified China for a brief period before Qin died in 210 BC. The result was a vicious civil war which was won by Liu Bang who defeated Xiang Yu. Liu led the Han since 206 BC and after four years of fighting, finally got the better of Xiang after surrounding him at the Yangzi River where his rival committed suicide. From 202 BC until his death seven years later, Liu was known as Emperor Gaozu of Han, the first leader of the dynasty.
He decided to pick Chang’an as the empire’s new capital as all major roads converged there; it was also the eastern end of the legendary Silk Road. Within 200 years, the population of the city grew to approximately 250,000 as it was the economic, cultural and military center of the nation.
When the emperor died in 195 BC, his wife Lu Zhi tried to take the empire for her family. She murdered all of her husband’s sons born to concubines and mutilated his favorite mistress. The Empress embraced nepotism by installing relatives in positions of power, replacing those who had been loyal to the emperor. Emperor Gaozu’s heir apparent was his teenage son, Liu Yang who became Emperor Hui of Han. Once he found out what his mother was doing, the frightened emperor took great care not to disobey her.
Rise & Fall of the Lu Clan
Emperor Hui did not have any children so when he died in 188 BC; his mother showed that she was the real powerbroker in the Han dynasty by placing one ruler on the throne before removing him for someone else. During the reigns of her handpicked emperors, Lu Zhi issued imperial edicts and picked family members as kings, military officers and officials.
Once Lu Zhi died in 180 BC, the King of Qi (grandson of the first emperor) raised an army to fight the Lus but before they could engage, the Lu Clan was destroyed by a coup. The King of Qi did not become the new ruler; instead, the King of Dai, Liu Heng, became Emperor Wen and ruled until 157 BC.
Stability & Prosperity
Wen was succeeded by Emperor Jing who ruled until 141 BC. The near 40-year period of combined rule by these two men was an era of stability and prosperity for the Han dynasty. While the Qin dynasty was known for its cruelty, the Han tried to show a different face of power by issues multiple amnesties, reducing tax on agricultural goods and abolishing mutilation as a legal form of punishment.
However, kingdoms that rebelled against the Han were ruthlessly dealt with as their territories were reduced and in some cases, kingdoms were abolished altogether. The result was an increase in the number of kingdoms and commanderies.
Emperor Wu was one of the longest reigning Han rulers; he became the leader in 141 BC and ruled until his death in 87 BC. Although he had to contend with the Xiongnu and fought a lengthy war with this enemy, literature, poetry and philosophy flourished under Wu. The ‘Shiji’ was written by Sima Qian, and this Historical Records text set the standard for later histories sponsored by the government. The Shiji recorded information about ‘barbarians’ that lived on the borders of the empire among other things.
Emperor Wu also established Confucianism as the kingdom’s basis for proper conduct and education.
China regained a number of territories under his rule with new commanderies formed in Korea. In 101 BC, the Han conquered Ferghana and several neighboring regions which enabled them to steal a large quantity of horses. At this stage, China had control of important trade routes around the Taklamakan Desert. The nation traded its coveted silk and gold for items such as grapes, wine, broad beans, and alfalfa.
Fall of the Western Han
The death of Emperor Wu resulted in a variety of social and political conflicts that eventually led to the downfall of the Western Han dynasty. The Empress Wang Zhengjun oversaw the succession of emperors and ensured her male relatives took the throne one after another.
In 8 BC, her nephew, Wang Mang, became General-in-Chief but was removed from office less than a year later. Pressure from his supporters ensured he returned to the capital in 2 BC.
The following year, Emperor Ai died, and as he had no son, Wang Mang assumed the title of regent over Emperor Ping.
When Ping died in 6 AD, Empress Wang confirmed Wang Mang as the acting emperor. Although he promised to relinquish power when the child Liu Ying came of age, he clearly decided that he enjoyed being emperor.
Wang Mang started a propaganda campaign, announced the end of the Han dynasty and proclaimed himself the leader of the new Xin dynasty in 9 AD.
Rise & Fall of the Eastern Han
To Wang Mang’s credit, he tried to change the unfair land ownership situation but failed. In 23 AD, a rebellion led by a group called the Red Eyebrows sacked the capital city of Chang’an and beheaded the unfortunate Wang Mang.
The court of the Eastern Han dynasty was laden with scheming and intrigue during the first century AD as there was no real line of succession.
Most of the emperors died relatively young with no heirs, so a close relative usually became the next ruler. Towards the end of the second century AD, eunuchs had far too much power in the royal court, and the people ultimately grew tired of government corruption.
The Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 AD threatened the capital city (Which was Luoyang since 25 AD), and six years later, a warlord called Dong Zhou captured the city and placed a child named Liu Xie on the throne.
Although the young boy was a member of the Han, Zhou was the real leader, and he proceeded to murder all the eunuchs and burn the city to the ground.
A succession of battles significantly weakened the empire, and in 220 AD, Liu Xie agreed to abdicate and allowed Cao Pi, King of Wei, to take over. This marked the end of the Han dynasty and the formation of the Cao Wei state which was a major player during the period of the Three Kingdoms.
Confusing?
In China the nation was ruled by the elite. Much like America is ruled by the elite in Washington DC. And this rule involved all kinds of “back stabbing”, “power plays”, “alignments”, and subterfuge. And that is what we see here. The entire dynasty was broght down by the very people who were supposed to make it last, and work; the leadership.
But they were far too preoccupied with petty squabbles, wealth and power, and politics that they let the empire dissolve around them. Sure, there had capable people, and technologies at their disposal, but their interest wasn’t in the good of the nation.
It was themselves.
Let’s look at America today…
The best articles are the ones that come with a historical perspective. They are the best. And here is one right here. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I have. What is surprising is that it comes right out of America. Imagine that someone stuck their head out of the echo-chamber bubble to throw this one together.
Of course, all credit to the original author. Note that it was reformatted to fit this venue, but the content stays the same. You can read the original article HERE.
How Empires End
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson
Histories are generally written by academics.
They, quite naturally, tend to focus on the main events: the wars and the struggles between leaders and their opponents (both external and internal). Whilst these are interesting stories to read, academics, by their very nature, often overlook the underlying causes for an empire’s decline, – reports the Internationalman website.
Today, as in any era, most people are primarily interested in the “news”—the daily information regarding the world’s political leaders and their struggles with one another to obtain, retain, and expand their power. When the history is written about the era we are passing through, it will reflect, in large measure, a rehash of the news. As the media of the day tend to overlook the fact that present events are merely symptoms of an overall decline, so historians tend to focus on major events, rather than the “slow operations” that have been the underlying causes.
The Persian Empire
When, as a boy, I was “educated” about the decline and fall of the Persian Empire, I learned of the final takeover by Alexander the Great but was never told that, in its decline, Persian taxes became heavier and more oppressive, leading to economic depression and revolts, which, in turn led to even heavier taxes and increased repression. Increasingly, kings hoarded gold and silver, keeping it out of circulation from the community. This hamstrung the market, as monetary circulation was insufficient to conduct business. By the time Alexander came along, Persia, weakened by warfare and internal economic strife, was a shell of an empire and was relatively easy to defeat.
The Tang Dynasty
Back then, I also learned that the Tang Dynasty ended as a result of the increased power amongst the eunuchs, battles with fanzhen separatists, and finally, peasants’ revolts. True enough, but I was not taught that the dynasty’s expansion-based warfare demanded increases in taxation, which led to the revolts. Continued warfare necessitated increasing monetary and land extortion by the eunuchs, resulting in an abrupt decrease in food output and further taxes. Finally, as economic deterioration and oppression of the citizenry worsened, citizens left the area entirely for more promise elsewhere.
Is there a pattern here? Let’s have a more detailed look—at another empire.
The Spanish Empire
In 1556, Philip II of Spain inherited what was regarded as Europe’s most wealthy nation, with no apparent economic problems. Yet, by 1598, Spain was bankrupt. How was this possible?
Spain was doing well but sought to become a major power. To achieve this, Philip needed more tax dollars. Beginning in 1561, the existing servicio tax was regularised, and the crusada tax, the excusado tax, and the millones tax were all added by 1590.
Over a period of 39 years (between 1559 and 1598) taxes increased by 430%. Although the elite of the day were exempt from taxation (the elite of today are not officially exempt), the average citizen was taxed to the point that both business expansion and public purchasing diminished dramatically. Wages did not keep pace with the resultant inflation. The price of goods rose 400%, causing a price revolution and a tax revolution.
Although Spain enjoyed a flood of gold and silver from the Americas at this time, the increased wealth went straight into Philip’s war efforts. However, the 100,000 troops were soon failing to return sufficient spoils to Philip to pay for their forays abroad.
In a final effort to float the doomed empire, Philip issued government bonds, which provided immediate cash but created tremendous debt that, presumably, would need to be repaid one day. (The debt grew to 8.8 times GDP.)
Spain declared bankruptcy. Trade slipped to other countries. The military, fighting on three fronts, went unpaid, and military aspirations collapsed.
It is important to note that, even as the empire was collapsing, Philip did not suspend warfare. He did not back off on taxation. Like leaders before and since, he instead stubbornly increased his autocracy as the empire slid into collapse.
Present-Day Empires
Again, the events above are not taught to schoolchildren as being of key importance in the decline of empires, even though they are remarkably consistent with the decline of other empires and what we are seeing today. The very same events occur, falling like dominoes, more or less in order, in any empire, in any age:
The reach of government leaders habitually exceeds their grasp.
Dramatic expansion (generally through warfare) is undertaken without a clear plan as to how that expansion is to be financed.
The population is overtaxed as the bills for expansion become due, without consideration as to whether the population can afford increased taxation.
Heavy taxation causes investment by the private sector to diminish, and the economy begins to decline.
Costs of goods rise, without wages keeping pace.
Tax revenue declines as the economy declines (due to excessive taxation). Taxes are increased again, in order to top up government revenues.
In spite of all the above, government leaders personally hoard as much as they can, further limiting the circulation of wealth in the business community.
Governments issue bonds and otherwise borrow to continue expansion, with no plan as to repayment.
Dramatic authoritarian control is instituted to assure that the public continues to comply with demands, even if those demands cannot be met by the public.
Economic and social collapse occurs, often marked by unrest and riots, the collapse of the economy, and the exit of those who are productive.
In this final period, the empire turns on itself, treating its people as the enemy.
The above review suggests that if our schoolbooks stressed the underlying causes of empire collapse, rather than the names of famous generals and the dates of famous battles, we might be better educated and be less likely to repeat the same mistakes.
Unfortunately, this is unlikely. Chances are, future leaders will be just as uninterested in learning from history as past leaders. They will create empires, then destroy them.
Even the most informative histories of empire decline, such as The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon, will not be of interest to the leaders of empires. They will believe that they are above history and that they, uniquely, will succeed.
If there is any value in learning from the above, it is the understanding that leaders will not be dissuaded from their aspirations. They will continue to charge ahead, both literally and figuratively, regardless of objections and revolts from the citizenry.
Once an empire has reached stage eight above, it never reverses. It is a “dead empire walking” and only awaits the painful playing-out of the final three stages.
At that point, it is foolhardy in the extreme to remain and “wait it out” in the hope that the decline will somehow reverse. At that point, the wiser choice might be to follow the cue of the Chinese, the Romans, and others, who instead chose to quietly exit for greener pastures elsewhere.
Editor’s Note:The US government is overextending itself by interfering in every corner of the globe. It’s all financed by massive amounts of money printing. However, the next financial crisis could end the whole charade soon.
The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve ever seen before.
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Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
Lately I have been really driven to throw things out. It’s almost like a real crush. I feel that I must send out as much as I possibly can, for some strange compulsion. It’s darn strange and tiring me out.
Seriously.
You all would be surprised at the rate my fingers are typing and the pace that these darn articles are coming out.
It’s a good thing that I have to go to a couple of factories and give my typing fingers a rest. It’s wearing me out. I’m set up for some fun in my near future. Some great friends, some fantastic food. A goodly amount of booze, and some friendly environments from where I can make some new friends in. I’m trembling in anticipation, I’ll tell you what.
I think that it’s a fair time to go play with some dice, make some new friends, and sing a song or two.
Anyways, I would suggest that all of you all also take the time to spend with some friends and play some games. Talk a little bit, chat some and have a good time. Don’t forget the food. And don’t buy cheap booze. Life is too short to waste on cheap booze.
And if you have the means, go ahead and make some new friends. There’s an entire world of interesting and colorful people to meet.
The world is filled with all kinds of interesting and colorful people. Everyone has a story, and everyone likes food. So what is stopping you?
Anyways…
The thing that I have been trying to underline all week is a very simple point.
Which is…
Make no mistake. A war with a major military power will result in the complete annihilation of America.
I’ve really been somewhat fixated in driving this point home. I don’t understand why. I don’t think that I have tapped into any kind of non-physical data stream or anything like that. But never the less, I am driven. Who’d figure.
So…
Don’t poke the Panda, or kick the bear.
Not that anyone will listen to me. It seems that either the United States leadership has a death wish, or that they are seriously retarded morons without a lick of sense.
…
Consider just how dangerous the “deep state” has become.
Now… imagine that a serious REAL war takes place. Missiles are flying back and forth. Entire cites are blasted out of existence, and evil people at the local level take up arms to defend their little patches of land and territory. Here and there.
What do you think the “deep state” would do?
You just cannot assume that they would all disappear, or slink under a rock, or go a hiding in the bushes. they will still exist, and given their (former) levers of power… what do you think they would be capable of? And how far do you think that they would go to exert full regional control in a nation that is in the process of going absolutely mad?
…
It’s bad enough that they are poking the bear and panda…
…but they will utilize what ever happens to their own personal benefit.
Military, Deep State and the American Naivety
While only 11% of Americans trust Congress, a whopping 74% have a “great deal or quite a lot of” trust in the military, which also vastly outperforms newspapers (23%) and even the US Supreme Court (37%).
Similarly, the CIA and the FBI get an “excellent” rating from 58% of Americans.
While reverence to military is quite common all over the world — perhaps related to evolutionary fear — it behooves us to be a bit more critical and objective.
Like the Old Testament characters who never asked Moses for evidence regarding the burning bush, Americans blindly accept all verdicts from the intelligence agencies.
The rise of the colossal military and the “Deep State” are new phenomenons in American history, and a dispassionate scrutiny underscores the need for more vigilance on our part.
Military-Industrial Complex – Eisenhower
While many Americans consider it heretical to question the US military, none other than a five-star military general and US president did just that.
“we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Such a speech would now be derided as a conspiracy theory and even labeled as treasonous.
CIA – Truman
Guess who thought that the CIA had turned into an American Gestapo?
Harry Truman, the US president who created the CIA.
“Those fellows in the CIA don’t just report on wars, they go out and make their own (wars), and there’s nobody to keep track of what they’re up to. They spend billions of dollars on stirring up trouble. The CIA has become a government all of its own.”
Former Director of the CIA, William Colby, described CIA’s culture in his memoir as follows:
“cult of intelligence … that held itself to be above the normal processes of society, with its own rationale and justification, beyond the restraints of the Constitution …”
Election Meddling and Coups by the CIA
Since World War II, the CIA has meddled in more than 80 foreign elections around the world (doesn’t include coups and regime changes!).
And the RAND corp has the nerve to refer to Russia as a "rogue state". I discussed this HERE.
The US Senate’s Church Committee in 1975 documented several instances of US meddling in other nations.
The operations included suitcases of cash to bribe politicians and voters, manuals for psychological warfare, sensational fake news, organized mass protests, armed violent oppositions etc.
Starting in the 1980’s, the Deep State refined its plans for regime changes, resorting to the use of sophisticated NGO’s such as the USAID, NED and Open Society Foundations of George Soros, which all specialize in mass propaganda and color revolutions.
When asked a few months ago, if we still meddle in other countries’ elections, CIA director James Woolsey grinned and responded, “myum, myum, myum.”
There are incontrovertible proofs for some of the coups, thanks to declassified CIA documents – for example, the overthrow of democratically elected leaders in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.
Assassinations
Recently released “JFK Files” from the CIA archives show detailed plans to assassinate Fidel Castro that included exploding cigars and tuberculosis-laced diving suit.
Other leaders targeted in these documents include General Trujillo of Dominican Republic and Patrice Lumumba of Congo.
William Blum has done extensive research and documented numerous foreign assassinations – successful and attempted – by the CIA and/or the US military.
Theoretically, nothing stops the killing machine in operating within the US.
Even intellectuals like David Talbot — founder of Salon magazine and editor of Time magazine — are convinced that some from the top echelons of the CIA assassinated JFK.
President Truman also seemed to suggest the same when he wrote an extraordinary op-ed in Washington Post one month after JFK’s assassination saying that CIA’s covert operations must be terminated.
By the way, the phrase “conspiracy theorist” was invented by the CIA in 1967 to discredit anyone challenging the official narratives!
The US has supported and installed numerous brutal tyrants and authoritarians all over the world in the last century.
Suharto in Indonesia, for example, killed two million people, but was loved by the West, since he let western corporations exploit his people and plunder his country.
Nazis and Jihadists
After the defeat of Hitler, the US recruited more than 1000 Nazis, including high-ranking officials, to work against the Soviet Union.
Under Operation Paperclip, the CIA brought numerous Nazi scientists into the US.
As I explain in my book, Deconstructing the Syrian War, the US has trained, armed and funded Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Libya, Syria etc. to wage proxy wars.
Drug Trafficking
From 1950 to 1975, the CIA — using a fleet of planes and helicopters known as Air America — was involved in massive heroin trafficking from the Golden Triangle area in Myanmar, Thailand and Laos.
After the Vietnam War, the Deep State in the 1980s used heroin in Afghanistan to fight the USSR and cocaine in Central America to fight leftist leaders. According to Gary Webb, the CIA also imported cocaine into the US.
In 1998, a Congressman entered into official records a shocking document called “A Tangled Web: A History of CIA Complicity in Drug International Trafficking” that summarizes CIA’s nefarious drug activities from 1947 to 1996.
Since the US invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, opium cultivation there has exploded. Correlation or causation? As a NY Times investigation revealed in 2009, the biggest Afghan drug dealer was on the CIA payroll.
Propaganda & Psy Ops
America did this for “democracy”. What do you think that a leader would do to you and your family for his own personal power.
CIA’s Operation Mockingbird was an extensive operation to infiltrate and control all the major news organizations.
Over the decades, the CIA and the Pentagon have actively participated in over 800 major movies and 1000 TV shows to make sure that the right (propaganda) message reaches the audience!
Declassified documents on MK-Ultra and other mind-control and brainwashing programs and experiments –LSD and numerous other drugs, hypnosis, electric shock etc. – are right out of a sci-fi horror movie.
Wars and Lies
Remember all the deceit and fearmongering that convinced us to go to Iraq war after 9/11?
He could launch chemical weapons against Israel and British soldiers (in Cyprus) in just 45 minutes
Through innuendos and bold lies, the Establishment convinced 70% of Americans that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and even the Anthrax attack that followed.
Go back in history, there are many such lies, including the Gulf of Tonkin claim that helped the US launch the Vietnam War.
Wars and Corporatism
America did this for “democracy”. What do you think that a leader would do to you and your family for his own personal power.
Every American should read General Smedley Butler’s amazing testimony titled, “War is a Racket.”
John Perkins’ book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” is another must read to understand how banks and corporations drive geopolitics, coups, regime changes and wars in the 21st century.
False Flag Attacks
Somehow, it’s psychologically hard for people to think that their government might stage false flag attacks.
However, as recently declassified documents show, the CIA had many such ideas – killing boatloads of Cuban refugees or blowing up ships and then blaming Fidel Castro;
…carrying out “terror campaigns” – their own words – with bombs in Miami and Washington D.C. to frame Castro;
…and buying Russian planes to attack US soldiers to start a war with the Soviet Union.
Shockingly, these plans got approved all the way up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and only got stopped by JFK or his brother.
There are convincing evidence to prove the CIA carried out similar false flag attacks — Operation Gladio — in Europe in the 1950’s through the 1970’s to blame the communists and shift the political landscape to the right.
In recent years in Libya, Syria and Ukraine, false flag attacks were used to launch the regime change operations.
Wild accusations such as the Novichok poisoning in the UK by Russia also bear all the hallmarks of fake or false flag attacks.
Torture and Human Experiments
America did this for “democracy”. What do you think that a leader would do to you and your family for his own personal power.
While our politicians are skilled at crying crocodile tears over human rights abuses by our geopolitical adversaries, the CIA runs secret torture prisons in many countries to avoid scrutiny.
Sometimes we do it ourselves, like in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
According to a 1994 government report, hundreds of thousands of Americans were subjected to unethical radiological, chemical, biological and medical experiments between 1940 and 1974.
The US military even conducted biological warfare testing on the entire city of San Francisco!
Nuking 1200 Cities
Another deeply held American belief is that our elites always hold high moral standards, value lives and are compassionate.
In September 1945, merely one month after Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the US military drew up plans to drop 204 atomic bombs on 66 cities in the USSR, who was our ally during World War II and still an ally at that time!
Then a decade later, in 1956, the US military had detailed plans to drop 2,000+ atom and hydrogen bombs on 1,200 cities in Russia, China and Eastern Europe.
This would have immediately killed 500 million people, 99% innocent civilians.
Think about what kind of evil monsters and sociopaths would come up with such genocidal ideas.
Also, if they had carried out their psychopathic plan, the nuclear fallout might have ended the entire human race.
Perpetual Wars
Since 9/11, the US/NATO wars have already cost $5.6 trillion and killed 5 to 7 million people, but clever propaganda hide or justify such atrocities.
In the 1990s, half a million Iraqi children died from US sanctions, which Sec. of State Madeleine Albright said was “worth it.”
Wars and conflicts are extremely profitable for the military-banking-intelligence complex, which uses the soldiers as pawns. 2.7 million Americans have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11; and more than 400,000 of them suffer from PTSD.
If diplomacy, free trade and fair wages become the norm, we wouldn’t need 800 military bases in 140 countries to prop up friendly dictators, bully competitors, and enforce the Ponzi scheme of the Petrodollar regime.
The unsustainable Empire thrives because we cannot question or challenge it.
Mass Surveillance
America did this for “democracy”. What do you think that a leader would do to you and your family for his own personal power.
In the land of the free, Americans don’t mind NSA spying on them.
While many assume that it’s to protect us from terrorists, Edward Snowden revealed that the mass collection of phone calls has been going on since 1985.
If the spooks have dirt on every single American, it’s no wonder that no politician speaks out against the Orwellian nightmare.
The attacks on Wikileaks and Julian Assange also reveal how much the Deep State hates transparency and accountability.
Conclusion
The zeitgeist in America demands blind support for military, defense industry and the intelligence community.
Like fish in the water, Americans have lost the ability to notice the pervasive and omnipresent propaganda.
However, we owe it ourselves to be more knowledgeable and objective in processing and reacting to information.
We also need to be more cynical about our government and the mass media.
Freedom, liberty and prosperity are not achieved and maintained through willful ignorance, blind allegiance and naïve faith.
Now, when a full SHTF event occurs, these very same people will capitalize on the situation and turn it into their own personal benefit. You all need to be ready and aware of that. For this is what always happens after the dust settles and the war subsides.
Where will you be when that happens, and will you be ready to handle the new leaders that rise up out of the ashes? Are you ready?
I’m getting ready. I’m spending my time getting drunk and making all sorts of new friends. Because, as I have stated over and over again, it is your friends that will be able to help you when you need it the most. Nothing else.
I’m spending my time getting drunk and making all sorts of new friends.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
The soaring contempt and smug exceptionalism made me almost gag on my weetbix as I read this. I've never met an empire more in dire need of a slap down...
-Posted by: Patroklos | Apr 14 2021 19:50 utc | 6
For shits and giggle, I often read some of the policy papers that are generated out of Washington DC. They are fantastical and outlandish and shows that either [1] America is a nation run by herd-mentality idiots, or [2] that they are so enraptured in their own echo chamber that they don’t realize what fresh-air is. Here is one such policy paper.
It is from RAND.
Which is a big “Think Tank” out in Washington DC that loves war, like I love sex, pizza and wine.
I love sex, pizza and wine.
It’s a hoot. I’ll tell you what.
Here’s access to the document yourself, and a nice summary with my MM comments thrown in for some points of stability.
Russia Is a Rogue, Not a Peer; China Is a Peer, Not a Rogue
How do Russia and China challenge U.S. national security and global influence?
How can the United States meet those challenges?
Russia and China represent distinct challenges to U.S. national security.
Russia is not a peer or near-peer competitor but rather a well-armed rogue state that seeks to subvert an international order it can never hope to dominate.
So Russia; enormous Russia with a population larger than the United States is a "well armed" rogue state.I can agree that it is well-armed. But, a rogue state?Arogue state otherwise known as an outlaw state, is a term appliedby some international theorists to states that they consider threatening to "the world's peace".
This means being seen to meet certain criteria, such as [1] being ruled by authoritarian or totalitarian governments. [2] That severely restrict human rights. That [3] sponsors terrorism and [4] seeking to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.
By these criteria, it is America that is a rogue state.
Yet, the term is used most by the United States, and in his speech at the United Nations in 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated this phrase.
In contrast, China is a peer competitor that wants to shape an international order that it can aspire to dominate.
Yes. China is a peer competitor with the Untied States, and in many areas it has surpassed the Untied States.
But this idea that it wants to "shape an international order" that it can dominate is flat-out false.
It wants to follow confucianism values in cooperation and harmony so that all can benefit. Of course China wants to put the Chinese people first. This is the function of all governments. But to call a peaceful nation that hasn't been involve din a war for over 50 years desirous of dominating others is really outlandish.
4 Confucian principles that are integral to a moral life and a moral society[1] Development of the self. The development of the self and the cultivation of virtue and morality are crucial to Confucius’ vision of a harmonised world.[2] Filial Piety. Filial piety is a love and respect for one’s parents. ...[3] Theimportanceof tradition. ...[4] We must behumane. ...
No wonder that RAND and those psychopathic personalities in Washington DC are confused with China. these values are completely alien to them.
Both countries seek to alter the status quo.
But only Russia has attacked neighboring states, annexed conquered territory, and supported insurgent forces seeking to detach yet more territory.
Russia assassinates its opponents at home and abroad.
Russia interferes in foreign elections.
Russia subverts foreign democracies.
Russia works to undermine European and Atlantic institutions.
And so does the United States. Historically this is known as spy-craft, international politics, and intrigue. It's not a reason to go to war over.
In contrast, China’s growing influence is based largely on more-positive measures: trade, investment, and development assistance. These attributes make China a less immediate threat but a much greater long-term challenge.
True. China is not an immediate military threat.
But the only challenge here is whether the Untied States is able to compete with it. After throwing away it's scientists and engineers, it's going to be a hard slog trying to compete with "diversity directors" and "accountants".
In the military realm, Russia can be contained, but China cannot.
Its military predominance in east Asia will grow over time, compelling the United States to accept greater costs and risks just to secure existing commitments.
But it is geoeconomics, rather than geopolitics, in which the contest for world leadership will play out.
It is in the domain of geoeconomics that the balance of global influence between the United States and China has begun shifting in China’s favor.
Key Findings
China presents a greater geoeconomic challenge to the United States than Russia does
China’s per capita GDP approaches Russia’s; its population is eight times Russia’s, and its growth rate three times.
As of 2017, China’s economy was the second largest in the world, behind only that of the United States. Russia’s was 11th.
Russia’s military expenditure is lower than China’s, and that gap is likely to grow.
Russia is far smaller, has poorer economic prospects, and is less likely to dramatically increase its military power in the long term.
You can tell just how out of sync this entire paper is when they start using GDP instead of PPP for comparison values. I argue, rather convincingly I must add, that if you remove the top 0.1% of the super-billionaires out of America in your GDP calculations, the GDP slides way down to a value that is half of China's GDP.
Also the level of crime and corruption is far lower than what you see in America. Thus you can make and create things with far, far less effort and money.
Thus you really cannot make the comparisons that are being made here.
It truly is like comparing apples with bananas.
Russia is a more immediate and more proximate military threat to U.S. national security than China is but can be countered
Russia will probably remain militarily superior to all its immediate neighbors other than China.
Russia is vulnerable to a range of nonmilitary deterrents, such as sanctions on the Russian economy and limiting Russian income from exports of fossil fuels; multilateral efforts would be more effective than U.S.-only operations, however.
China presents a regional military challenge and a global economic one
Militarily, China can be contained for a while longer; economically, it has already broken free of regional constraints.
Russia backs far-right and far-left political movements with a view to disrupting the politics of adversarial societies and, if possible, installing friendlier regimes. China, in contrast, seems basically indifferent to the types of government of the states with which it interacts, increasing its attractiveness as an economic partner.
Recommendations
In the security sphere, the United States should continue to hold the line in east and southeast Asia, accepting the larger costs and risks involved in counterbalancing growing Chinese military capabilities. Meanwhile, Washington should help its regional allies and partners to field their own antiaccess and area denial systems. Finally, the United States should take advantage of any opportunities to resolve issues and remove points of Sino-American tension, recognizing that its bargaining position will gradually deteriorate over time.
In the economic realm, the United States needs to compete more effectively in foreign markets, persevere and strengthen international norms for trade and investment, and incentivize China to operate within those norms. Given China’s efforts to take technological leadership in the long term and the potential advantages that such leadership brings, the United States also needs to improve its innovation environment. Measures could include greater funding for research, retention of U.S.-educated foreign scientists and technologists, and regulatory reforms that ease the introduction of product and process improvements into businesses and the market.
In responding to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the United States should move to secure its own preferential access to the world’s largest markets, the industrialized countries of Europe and Asia; assist nations in increasing connectivity with the world economy; work with partners to ensure more transparency in China’s Belt and Road projects; and increase support to U.S. exporters and investors.
In all these challenges, the United States will be more successful coordinating action with allies and trading partners.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation perspective series. RAND perspectives present informed perspective on a timely topic that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND perspectives undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Well, well. Here’s some thing for thought. What? You didn’t think that the United States couldn’t be contained, did you?
I struggle to understand people like Cohen (and Blinken and Pompeo and Albright and the rest of them). I don't think pathologizing them as psychopaths or sociopaths is definitive. Simply evil comes closer. And yet we let them rule us.
-Posted by: NoOneYouKnow | Apr 14 2021 19:26 utc | 2
.
Indeed, everything on the “news”, almost without exception, is about how America is doing this to “contain China”, and doing that “to sanction Iran”, and doing this other such thing to “contain Russian actions”. You read this automatically, and you automatically get this idea in the back of your mind that…
.
America is out of control.
It is everywhere doing everything.
America is super powerful.
No one dares fight back.
.
And that is only because America controls the “news” media over most of the Western world, and if you read, speak or think in English, your thoughts are being manipulated.
But,you know, don’t you think that it is pretty fucking sick for the United States to try to contain anyone? I mean, that’s what “freedom” and “liberty” is supposed to be all about. It’s supposed to be a “live and let live”, and only fight at the very last possible moment when someone gets up in your face…
Instead, the US is out in everyone else’s face and “laying down the law”.
A schoolyard bully located in The state of Alabama purportedly assaulted a 9-year-old female, resulting in the girl having a major concussion, a pair of black eyes in addition to a head rife with bruises. Institution authorities were adamant that this particular young lady had not been picked on, rather these bruises were self-inflicted and that the girl had some personality “issues”. Not that a bully had beat her to a pulp.
.
That’s what the USA is today.
It’s a big bully, and when anyone tries to point it out, the toadies of the bully come up with all kinds of excuses.
It is NOT, not, not sustainable.
And unless it stops, and stops quickly, someone’s nose is going to get awfully bloody.
Unless the bullying stops, some of the victims of the bullies are going to rise up and go “Sandy Hook” on their asses.
Here’s The 20-Point Plan For How Russia Could Contain The US
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov’s dramatic declaration that his country “will pursue the policy of active containment of the US on all fronts” if American pressure on Russia doesn’t soon end inspired a unique 20-point plan for what this could look like in practice.
Russia’s Anti-American Containment Policy
Russia finally appears to be serious about “decoupling” from the West after over half a decade of its well-intended and passionate efforts to enter into a rapprochement with it following the onset of the Ukrainian Crisis.
This event was a game-changer which would push Russia to accelerate its foreign policy diversification strategy towards non-Western countries, especially those in the Global South.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov is evidently very serious about this after dramatically declaring in February 2021 that his country “will pursue the policy of active containment of the US on all fronts” if American pressure on Russia doesn’t soon end.
He promised to [1] prevent foreign meddling in his country’s democratic processes, [2] promote multipolarity across the world, and [3] impose counter-sanctions on the US.
Markov’s 10 Euro-Centric Proposals
Prior to Ryabkov’s policy announcement, Russian expert Sergey Markov predicted ten ways in which his country could respond to more EU sanctions against it. As Google Translated into English from his original Facebook post and slightly edited for clarity, these are:
“1. Russia may recognize the DPR and the LPR and accelerate their integration into Russia;
2. Russia may impose strict sanctions in the economy against the EU;
3. Russia may cease to consider the interests of Europe in Syria and Libya;
4. Russia may impose strict restrictions on the work of Russian-speaking media that are supported by the EU;
5. Russia may limit the work of NGOs, with which the EU tries to influence Russian public opinion;
6. Russia may tighten the position regarding the Russophobic regime in Ukraine and start working on its elimination and replacement with a pro-Russian government;
7. Russia may switch its economic projects from the EU to other countries, especially the East;
8. Russia may significantly increase its military resources in the Kaliningrad region and other regions close to the EU;
9. Russia may begin to react significantly more strictly to the Russophobic policies of EU countries such as Poland, the Baltic countries, Romania;
10. Russia may dramatically reduce consultations with France and Germany on important global strategic issues. This will reduce the impact of France and Germany in the world.”
Korybko’s 10 Non-Western Proposals
I regard all ten of his proposals as viable options.
However, you have to understand and believe that they are (never the less) quite Euro-centric and reactionary.
For that reason, here are ten non-Western ones that could prospectively be paired with Markov’s and pursued even in the event that the West temporarily stops provoking Russia:
1. Rigorously implement “DemocraticSecurity” at home to safeguard Russia’s domestic political processes in accordance with Ryabkov’s vision;
2. Thoroughly articulate the unofficial national ideology of multipolarity and actively promote these views abroad through foreign policy & civil society outreaches, including through academia and the media;
3. Export bespoke “Democratic Security” solutions to at-risk Global South states modeled off of the CentralAfricanRepublic, Congo Republic, and Togo precedents to help defend others from US HybridWar threats;
4. Double down on “military diplomacy” with China through increased cutting-edge arms sales and joint military drills in order to send a message of unwavering security solidarity with the People’s Republic;
6. Prioritize progress on the N-CPEC+/RuPak Corridor in order to fulfill President Putin’s envisioned Arctic-Indian Ocean corridor that he first publicly proposed in October 2019 while speaking at the Valdai Club;
7. Ensure that Azerbaijani President Aliyev’s six-country regional integration platform is a success in turning the South Caucasus into the zone of geostrategic convergence between Russia, Iran, and Turkey;
8. Bring together steps 4-7 to ultimately create an expanded Golden Ring in the Eurasian Heartland which would function as the center of gravity for the emerging Multipolar World Order;
9. Continue practicing “vaccine diplomacy” to creatively establish strategic inroads in non-traditional partners that could then be courted to contribute to the collective cause of multipolarity;
Ryabkov’s official announcement that Russia is seriously countenancing the creation of an anti-American containment strategy proves that the Kremlin is finally fed up with the West’s games.
Markov’s prior ten proposals for how his country could react to the potential EU-initiated worsening of bilateral relations are thought-provoking and deserve to be considered.
However thy are nevertheless Euro-centric and reactionary.
The addition of these other points, which are non-Western in focus can be added to the mix. As such they can be proactively undertaken even without Brussels taking the first step by sanctioning Russia.
Taken together, this 20-point containment strategy should hopefully give Russian decision makers a better understanding of the full range of options available to them.
They probably won’t implement every proposal, but it’s likely that at least some of them will see the light of day, though it might still take time for their effects to be felt as would be the case with my long-term policy suggestions.
Comments
Is the greater public ever going to get a clear view of the difference behind the "rules based order" of the West (we own the money system and make the rules) and the negotiated International law based order?
Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 20 2021 17:05 utc | 4
You know, most American don’t have a clue to what is going on in Russia. it’s the same thing about China. It’s been a near non-stop hate-fest against Shina for the last five years, and yet the American (and Western) readership still hasn’t a clue as to anything. It’s all the same old nonsense.
And they are all falling for it. It’s like this…
Well…
These other nations are fed up.
They are linking together. They are investing time and money and doing so with very little “fan fare” and publicity. You might read about one thing or the others in your travels of daily “news” reading. But that’s about it. You read about a rail line in Pakistan, and an oil pipeline in the Black Sea. But since most people don’t know geography or history they have no context to put everything into context.
Russia has stopping playing games.
China has stopped playing games.
They have set things up for a big “spring loaded” global powers reset, and are just waiting for the USA-led Western powers to walk into the trap.
Mouse Trap.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my “International America and the rest of the world” index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
America has been conducting warfare with military forces dressed in civilian attire for decades now. These forces use military tactics, training, and utilize military support structures to accomplish their objectives. They do everything that a normal and regular military does, except that they are not easily identified as combat forces. As they operate in secret and disguise.
Most well known of these assault troops are NGO’s.
What Is an NGO?
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is a non-profit group that functions independently of any government.
Meaning that it operates as a separate entity where there are no obvious direct connections between the NGO and the parent government.
NGOs, sometimes called civil societies, are organized on community, national and international levels to serve a social or political goal such as humanitarian causes or the environment.
The largest and best funded NGO’s out of the United States are dedicated to “spreading democracy”, “advocating liberty”, and “promoting American values”.
But all NGOs are different and some are met with intense criticism for lack of transparency in budgeting or effectual action. When donating money or looking for work in the NGO world, it is always important to do your research about how much of the group’s budget goes to administrative costs and how much goes directly to the cause you care about. The website Charity Navigator is a useful resource for this.Another important critique of NGOs is that all too often organizations staffed with Americans and Europeans come into developing nations with action plans that don’t fit the local context and end up adversely affecting their target populations. This, however, is not an inherent flaw of NGOs but rather a symptom of failing to acknowledge the importance of local expertise within the NGO framework.Because NGO funding commonly comes from developed nations, a particularly effective model for NGOs includes using local in-country staff to plan and implement programs on the ground while working with an international board focused on fundraising, outreach, and strategic group planning.It would be untrue to claim that NGOs are immune to political influence simply because they are not directly connected to governments; NGOs’ funding and even daily operations are subject to political approval.For example, NGOs working to bring amnesty to political refugees will often face intense political adversity, and even violence during their in-country work. But unlike government organizations, NGOs typically have more flexibility to defy a political status quo to pursue what they believe to be important social change.– Shelly Grimaldi
Key Takeaways
NGOs, is an abbreviation for Non-Governmental Organizations.
NGO’s tend play a major role in international development, aid and philanthropy.
NGOs are non-profit by definition, but may run budgets of millions or up to billions of dollars each year. They are classified this way for tax reduction strategies.
NGOs rely on a variety of funding sources. This varies from private donations and membership dues to direct government contribution and training.
Many NGO’s, especially American ones, are almost entirely funded directly by the United States government. Either directly or though proxy in a “pass through” arrangement.
About NGOs
While “NGO” has various interpretations, the term is generally accepted to include non-profit, private organizations that operate outside of government control. Some NGOs rely primarily on volunteers, while others support a paid staff. The World Bank identifies two broad groups of NGOs:
Operational NGOs, which focus on the design and implementation of development projects.
Advocacy NGOs, which defend or promote a specific cause and seek to influence public policy.
Some NGOs may fall under both categories simultaneously. Examples of NGOs include those that support human rights, advocate for improved health or encourage political participation. The ones funded though by the United States all are involved in political participation at some level or the other.
How NGOs are Funded
As non-profits, NGOs rely on a variety of sources for funding, including:
Membership dues
Private donations
The sale of goods and services
Grants
Direct government grants
Hidden government funding though “pass through” arrangements
Despite their supposed independence from governments, many NGOs rely heavily on government funding. Large NGOs may have budgets in the millions or billions of dollars.
Types of NGOs
A number of variations of the NGO acronym exist, including:
INGO: An international NGO. For example, the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe is comprised of more than 300 participating INGOs.
GONGO: This means government-organized NGO, often derogatory. Foreign Policy describes GONGOs as a government-backed NGOs set up to advocate on the behalf of a repressive regime in the international arena.
QUANGO: Chiefly a British term, often derogatory. A quango is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization that relies on public funding. Its senior officials are appointed by the government. A Financial Times opinion piece writes that quangos are seen as useless and are often staffed by quangocrats.
ENGO: An environmental NGO, for example, Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund. Both groups operate internationally in addition to advocating for the environment. They are often simply referred to as NGOs.
NGO’s in China
The United States government uses NGO’s as the primary method to inject military personnel inside enemy nations. This injection of assault troops and CIA associated military forces for point-of-force disruption of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet primarily come from one singular NGO’s. Which is the NED.
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. Each year, NED makes more than 1,600 grants to support the projects of non-governmental groups abroad who are working for democratic goals in more than 90 countries.
https://www.ned.org
Here is a very interesting work. It’s a complete book, reproduced here in in PDF format. It is titled “SOF Civil Affairs in Great Power Competition” and comes from the United States military; specifically the “Joint Special Operations University and the Department of Strategic Studies”.
The work describes how the United States uses military personnel to control civilian populations for military objectives. It discusses NGO’s and how to foment revolutions and turmoil, as well as how to control unruly populations such as within America.
It discusses among other things…
How the United States military is engaged in harming and causing turmoil within China. All without wearing military uniforms, or firing guns and automatic weapons.
Journalist, NGO, or CIA operative?
As well as the very interesting segment(s) on…
How the United States military is engaged in controlling the American population to prevent uprisings, armed resurrection and “torches and pitchfork” moments.
It’s an interesting read, though many of us within MM know about much of the techniques used. We watched them in “real time” as all of Hong Kong is on video camera, wired and recorded.
It is useful to keep in mind that these techniques are being employed inside of America against Americans today. Which pretty much explains the idea why the sheeple haven’t risen up against the oligarchy class yet…
…yet.
Rather than reproduce the work in HTML, it is reproduced in the PDF format. Just click on the link below and download it and read at your convenience.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
I pretty much agree with migueljose. I'm 77 years old, US native-born citizen and life-long resident. The main problem in the US is the intense interracial animosity of all against all, and the deliberate race baiting by our ruling class. Race relations were better in the 50's despite segregation (worse in the North).
The second problem is the collapse of our educational system K-post doc, and the resulting incompetence of our Ruling Class. The attempt to actually destroy important Russian and Chinese companies and institutions, like Huawei, is an actual act of war. When that game was run against Japan in the late 30's, we got the Pacific War. Our current policies will give us a war with Russia-China. After the Biden interview and Alaska meeting fiascos, it is clear Russia and China are now coordinating their future actions. One fears the worst.
Posted by: bob sykes | Mar 23 2021 19:23 utc | 6
I do not want to sound alarming. But… Jeeze Louise…
After this last week with [1] the events of the Alaskan meeting between the United States and China, and [2] the “write ups” leading to it are quite horrifying.
I wonder what the Hell is going on in the minds of the folks back in Washington DC, for they have obviously have a mixture of numerous mental illnesses. Not a singular one. A mixture.
The Alaskan meeting was stunning in it’s insanity.
For starters, America demands that China (and the rest of the world) STOP working with the United Nations. Instead they order all other nations, and their leaders to “follow the United States” as it leads.
Yes.
You read that correctly.
Well, for one thing, the Americans demand a “Rules based obedience“. Not one that follows the United Nations. I know that it sounds so nice, and so orderly. “Rules”. ‘Why would anyone not want to follow “rules”?’ says the American sheeple. And yes, it does play well in the “red states” back inside of America, but it is dangerous.
It is very, very dangerous.
Because this “rules based obedience” means…
There is not any kind of national sovereignty, only American sovereignty.
Nations exist at the pleasure and allowance of the United States.
The United States makes the rules at will.
The United States changes the rules at will.
All other nations are subservient to the United States.
The United Nations has no say what so ever in International affairs.
The United Nations is a convenience that America uses when it wants to, and ignores when it decides to.
This is a very authoritarian and demanding posture.
It is unyielding and fixed.
It’s almost as if the leaders in America are Megalomaniacs. To believe and allow such an insane level of insanity.
Megalomania is a psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of power, relevance, omnipotence, and by inflated self-esteem.
Historically it was used asa name for narcissistic personality disorder prior to the latter's first use by Heinz Kohut in 1968, and is used today as a non-clinical equivalent.
But it’s not just that.
It’s many other things.
Such as the litany of demands that America placed on China.
Such as…
China’s actions and behavior regarding 台湾.
China’s actions and behavior regarding 西藏.
China’s actions and behavior regarding 香港.
China’s actions and behavior regarding 快乐的脚.
All of which might not look familiar to the American readers in the audience.
As all of the items (that America demanded on China) are de facto Chinese land, cities, areas and territories.
These are regions as specified within the United Nations and identified as Chinese domains.
Such as Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan.
So it really is insulting that these jackasses from Washington DC have the fucking nerve to tell the Chinese what to do in 香港.
Which is like China demanding that America do thing about Baltimore, the killings in Chicago, and the maritime operations in the Gulf of Mexico and Boston harbor.
This illness, where you cannot understand the personal barriers of others is known as CognitiveDysfunction.
Cognitive disorders, also known as neurocognitive disorders, are a category of mental health disorders that primarily affect cognitive abilities including learning, memory, perception, and problem solving.
Neurocognitive disorders include delirium and mild and major neurocognitive disorder.
They are defined by deficits in cognitive ability that are acquired, typically represent decline, and may have an underlying brain pathology.
The DSM-5 defines six key domains of cognitive function: executive function, learning and memory, perceptual-motor function, language, complex attention, and social cognition.
Why were the American delegation so rude, demanding, and ill behaved during the Alaskan meeting? Could it be that they ACTUALLY BELIEVED that they were that powerful, and that they indeed represented the United States within that capacity?
How and why would they hold this amazingly dangerous position? It’s not patriotism. It’s pure evil.
It is exactly what Hitler demanded of Austria, West Prussia, Poland, the Netherlands, and France in the late 1930’s.
It’s pure evil.
The hatred towards China inside America is just ripe for war
The last four years of spewed hate has been horrible. Here’s the “news” from today…
In April 2020, immediately after China stopped the COVID-19B virus, Mike Pompeo laid out a speech decrying China. In his speech he stated that all efforts to contain it has failed and that new aggressive measures must be taken.
I guess Pompeo and trump were surprised that China could completely stop a major bio-weapons attack with an R0=20; the very dangerous “B strain” when China was must vulnerable; CNY.
In comparison, the American "safe strain", has a much smaller R0=0.01, and a much small lethality footprint. Which is why it is called the "herd inoculation strain".
This speech was bemoaned by the entire global community as unrealistic, a throwback to World War II, and entirely antagonistic as well as a violation of the UN charter.
Don’t believe me? Here we look at an American “policy paper” known as “The Longer Telegram“.
It’s called a “telegraph” as it is used as a “fair warning” that the United States considers China as a hostile enemy that must be destroyed. Thus the message is “telegraphed” to all people involved.
It is a reissue, and rewording of a post World War II document on how to be Master of the World. And it is being followed with religious fervor in the United States by the Biden administration. Following this outdated, outmoded, and insane cartoon-image of what the world is today is hastening the demise of the United States.
As well as forcing the hands of the Chinese, Iranians and Russians towards nuclear war.
It’s authored by “anonymous“, but we can see clearly that the contributors are the entire neocon establishment on “K street”. That’s John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and the rest of the neocon cabal.
What is this “telegram”?
It’s a strategy and orders towards “reclaiming American greatness” by the destruction of the largest threats “to the American way of life” in the world. In it, it describes a very militaristic policy of total annihilation of the enemies of the United States.
Not cooperation.
Not negotiation, and trade.
Not Geo-political alignments, and posturing.
No.
It’s about total annihilation of all the threats the the United States global leadership, and how to go about making sure that it is successful.
Primarily the destruction of China.
Isolation of China from Russian support and alliances.
Isolation of China geographically.
Isolation of China internationally, culturally and socially.
Isolation of China in technology, skills, knowledge and science.
America is a military empire.
It’s a long-worded tome.
Obviously it was written by one or more “think tanks” in the military-industrial complex. Obviously a number of committees wrote various parts, spliced them together, and achieved “buy in” as a group.
The document describes a China that exists only in their furtive imaginations;
An “authoritarian” country whose communist rulers are divorced from the people they rule, in which President Xi is described as more or less a warlord surrounded by “cronies,” enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else, and who have visions of ruling the world. This fantasy is in fact a mirror-image of the United States.
Indeed.
It has absolutely no resemblance with China, as it is today, in any way, shape or form.
The American military are experts at fighting wars in far away lands.
Facts do not matter to the ideologically obsessed.
But, enough of Anonymous’ fancies – they have no base in reality:
The USA out-sourced its manufacturing to China long ago and won’t be getting it back.
Wokeism is killing its education system.
America's politics are broken.
America's military is losing everywhere and doesn’t realize it.
A tsunami of debt has built up.
Most absurd of all, after years of needless hostility to Russia, Washington has no hope of separating Moscow from Beijing.
And Xi Jinping is not some rogue who seized control...
...he is the top of a robust pyramid.
The only significance of this paltry effort is that it gives us another – and depressingly influential – example of the curious American obsession with personalities – everything in Chinese-U.S. relations was going along swimmingly until Xi.
But actually, as anyone capable of seeing reality knows, China is much, much more than one man.
China/Russia/Iran/Iraq/insert-name-of-country was happy to accept its place in the Rules-Based International Order...
... until that nasty Xi/Putin/Ayatollah/Saddam/insert-name changed everything; get rid of him and it will all fix itself.
Sure...
When are they going to understand that it’s a whole country, not just one guy?
In an extraordinarily provocative move, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has warned China that it is pushing for a more aggressive strategy...
... all the way up to instigating war.
In a tome-like article published by the Washington-based Atlantic Council, there are foreboding demands for numerous “red lines” to confront China over.
Entitled ‘The Longer Telegram’ the article is a strange throwback to Cold War thinking. It is ostentatiously mimicking the famous document authored by George Kennan in 1946 who as a U.S. diplomat based in the Moscow wrote ‘The Long Telegram’ prescribing a hostile strategy of containment against the Soviet Union.
Thus the Atlantic Council is billing the recent article as a seminal historical contribution to formulating U.S. policy towards China, and one that is more bellicose and “comprehensive”.
The suppression of China will require “boots on the ground” inside of China.
The paper repeats the mistake inherent in all American thinking about the world, of [1] inventing a rival that does not exist, and then [2] positing strategies to deal with this fiction.
Washington, Beijing and European capitals have been firing off barrages of commentary in the past weeks on an anonymously authored paper on China published on January 28 by the U.S.-NATO think tank, the Atlantic Council, entitled “The Longer Telegram: Toward A New American China Strategy.”
It is modeled on another policy paper written by George Kennan in 1946.
That policy paper was called the Long Telegram. In it Kennan set out a strategy for “containing” the Soviet Union.
Which is a nice euphemism that means “destroying it”.
The American military has been training to seize Chinese islands and fight within Chinese cities.
Kennan’s advice was adopted and became U.S. strategy. The Longer Telegram purports to set out a strategy for undermining China and its socialist system.
Which is really fucked up as the Chinese system is far, far, FAR superior to the American system of oligarchy-run military-empire that pretends to be a democracy.
The Longer Telegram has met with approval by some U.S. and allied strategists and governments but alarm by others. China has denounced it for what it is, a plan for aggression against China and its socialist system.
The paper repeats the mistake inherent in all American thinking about the world, of inventing a rival that does not exist, and then positing strategies to deal with this fiction.
This delusory thinking has led the United States into one defeat after another and caused the world untold troubles as it tried to throw its weight around to secure markets and resources for its industries and capital.
Yemen
Panama
Libera
Afghanistan
Syria
etc, etc…
The destruction of one country after another to achieve that objective, the deaths of millions, the immiseration of entire regions of the world are nothing to American capital so long as it can make money.
All their rhetoric about “human rights” “democracy” and other such platitudes is just a cover for maintaining their economic hegemony and keeping everyone else down.
American occupation of Xinjiang, Taiwan, Tibet and Hing Kong are all part of the war plans.
They even sometimes admit this.
In the National Defence Strategy issued in 2018, the real reason for the slanders against China, the constant provocations in Hong Kong, and the South China Sea is stated clearly…
“Failure to meet our defense objectives will result in decreasing U.S. global influence...
...eroding cohesion among allies and partners...
...and reduced access to markets...
...that will contribute to a decline in our prosperity and standard of living.”
Of course even this is a lie since American capital does not care at all about the standard of living of the American people, only about the prosperity and standard of living of the big capitalists.
The world can see what conditions are in the United States.
The [1] failure to protect their people from the Covid pandemic, [2] the almost daily extrajudicial killings of blacks and poor people, [3] the hollow promise of Biden to institute a higher minimum wage, [4] the collapse of the power grid in Texas are[5] eloquent expressions of the contempt and disregard big capital has for the common people.
The document describes a China that exists only in their furtive imaginations;
…an “authoritarian” country whose communist rulers are divorced from the people they rule, in which President Xi is described as more or less a warlord surrounded by “cronies,” enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else, and who have visions of ruling the world.
This fantasy is in fact a mirror image of the United States.
The American marines have been drilling and practicing the invasion and seizure of Chinese held islands for the last four years.
The anonymous author(s) sees China as he has been conditioned to see America, and then projects that outward to any nation that attempts to develop its economy and improve the conditions of its people.
And just as the forces of capital in the United States manipulate elections and the political system to guarantee their power in order to feather their own nests, the author of the Longer Telegram accuses the President of China of doing the same in China, of using his position for his own benefit.
It then offers recommendations on how to try to split the Chinese leadership from the people, and even on how to split the Communist Party from its membership and the people, using false claims as propaganda to undermine social cohesion.
American military.
China did well to kick out the BBC last week and to arrest the U.S. and British agents in Hong Kong.
The document adopts the Henry Kissinger strategy urging a soft approach to Russia to try to lure it away from its alliance with China.
This would require a complete reversal of American strategy of surrounding Russia with bases, ships and missile systems, of attempting to ruin the Russian economy with all the illegal trade and financial embargoes.
It is not going to happen.
But the suggestion shows the confusion in the American leadership on how to stop its economic decline that precedes its decline as the world hegemon.
For decades the Americans have claimed to support nations trying to raise themselves from the poverty created by European and American colonialism, to achieve economic prosperity and a better life for their peoples.
But when a country achieves those goals it suddenly becomes an enemy.
America want no rivals.
The Chinese military are not 1980’s era conscripts with out-of-date Russian weapons systems. They are a modern and formidable army.
China is declared an enemy simply because the Communist Party has, over its long struggle from the Long March to today, raised a billion and more people out of poverty, has created a social and economic system no western nation can equal.
China is as big as the United States.
China has more factories than the United States.
China has a peer capable military.
China is a threat on all levels of (former) United States dominance.
And most importantly…
Their example shows the world what can be achieved by nations finally freed from colonialism, and shows the strength and vitality of socialism.
But now America faces renewed threats from the aspiring colonial powers.
China is a serious, serious nation that does not play.
Defeated in 1949, the colonial powers have never abandoned their ambitions to again reduce China to a colony.
They are, once again, actively engaged in trying to undermine China as a sovereign nation.
To slander it.
To sabotage its economy.
To threaten it with armed force.
And to break it into smaller, manageable pieces, as they want to do with Russia.
The method of attack is wide.
The Canadians, on U.S. orders, have essentially kidnapped and still hold hostage, Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of the technology company, Huawei.
At the same time, the U.S. used the arrest as a warning to others trading with Iran.
They have increased their military provocations off the Chinese coast.
With the U.S. and its vassal states sending naval ships, time and again, through the Taiwan Strait, claiming to be enforcing “freedom of navigation” …
…but in reality declaring that Taiwan, a province of China, is an American protectorate.
The Chinese are not illiterate goat herders living in mud huts.
The complete response to the Longer Telegram is found in China’s national defence white paper which states, “Though a country may become strong, bellicosity will lead to its ruin.
The Chinese nation has always loved peace.
Since the beginning of modern times, the Chinese people have suffered from aggressions and wars, and have learned the value of peace and the pressing need for development.
Therefore, China will never inflict such sufferings on any other country.
Any attack on China will come with an enormous price tag.
Since its founding 70 years ago, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never started any war or conflict.
You just cannot say this about America; the biggest military empire in history.
Since the introduction of reform and opening-up, China has been committed to promoting world peace, and has voluntarily downsized the PLA by over 4 million troops.
China has grown from a poor and weak country to be the world’s second largest economy neither by receiving handouts from others nor by engaging in military expansion or colonial plunder.
Instead, it has developed through its people’s hard work and its efforts to maintain peace.
China has made every effort to create favorable conditions for its development through maintaining world peace, and has equally endeavored to promote world peace through its own development.
China sincerely hopes that all countries will choose the path of peaceful development and jointly prevent conflicts and wars.”
All those who want peace in the world, can support that statement.
The US military experts gave a high estimate of the tests of the new Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile which showed that the US aircraft carriers are in real danger as reported by Washington Free Beacon at the beginning of July. The tests took place in the South China Sea, where, in particular, the US Navy ships are deployed. It is specified that the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) requires hi-tech surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting systems. According to the Pentagon, China has already deployed all of those. The US has no missile systems of the kind, and the possibilities to counteract them are limited, according to the website.
The Longer Telegram is not just a policy paper, it is also propaganda.
Dangerous anti-UN propaganda
Propaganda which must be rejected as a call for the violation of all the principles set out in the Charter of the United Nations.
A charter that guarantee every nation [1] the right to peaceful development, [2] to its sovereignty and [3] to non-interference from other nations; [4] to be treated with respect.
Instead of contemplating strategies on how to contain China…
….the world must instead contemplate strategies for containing the United States of America.”
It’s all pretty damning. But why does MM believe that America has chosen to engage in a hot war?
Americans are ripe and “chomping at the bit” for a war.
There is unrestrained budget constraints and the debt is at twenty trillion dollars with no signs of any kind of fiscal responsibility. Either the American governance is counting on a financial and fiscal collapse, or…
…or…
…they plan on looting a large, plump and ripe nation to compensate for their fiscal irresponsibility.
And they are eyeing China.
History tells us that when nations have depleted their coffers, and their citizenry have taken to “torches and pitchforks” the only way out…
…socially, economically, and as a way to control the situation…
…is a war.
If they win, and conquer the opposing targeted nation, they can loot it, and fill their empty coffers. They can unite an upset and disturbingly angry citizenry with an enemy, and they can postpone the demise of their government that caused the fiscal irresponsibility in the first place.
For a start (the policy paper) denigrates China’s President Xi Jinping in the most pejorative terms unbecoming of diplomatic norms. It proposes that “U.S. strategy must remain laser-focused on Xi, [and] his inner circle.”
The document states:
“At home, Xi has returned China to classical Marxism-Leninism and fostered a quasi-Maoist personality cult, pursuing the systematic elimination of his political opponents… Xi is no longer just a problem for U.S. primacy. He now presents a serious problem for the whole of the democratic world.”
What the Washington policy elite are explicitly calling for is “regime change” in Beijing by aiming to destabilize the senior government.
This marks an unprecedented notice of increased hostility towards the Chinese leadership. This is taking things way past U.S. aggression under Obama and Trump and brings it to a whole new level.
What’s even more alarming is the Atlantic Council article sets out numerous “red lines” which could trigger military confrontation.
These red lines include [1] “major hostile action” by China in the South China Sea, or [2] an attack on Taiwan, or [3] cyberattacks against the United States.
This is alarming because these actions are being exacerbated by the U.S. itself.
China is not afraid to use it’s nuclear weapons on any attacking force, and no one within America, England, Australia or wherever the aggressors want to hide .
[1] A“major hostile action” by China in the South China Sea
Since Biden took office last month, his administration has sent two navy carrier strike groups to conduct exercises in the South China Sea, which Beijing has condemned.
[2] Taiwan
A U.S. warship also recently passed through the Strait of Taiwan.
[3] And cyberattacks against the United States.
As for cyberattacks, they can be easily fabricated and falsely attributed by U.S. intelligence agencies. As clearly specified in the Vault 7 release by Wikileaks.
At one point the Atlantic Council article notes:
“U.S. strategy must understand that China remains for the time being highly anxious about military conflict with the United States, but that this attitude will change as the military balance shifts over the next decade.
If military conflict were to erupt between China and the United States, and China failed to win decisively, then – given the party’s domestic propaganda offensive over many years proclaiming China’s inevitable rise – Xi would probably fall and the regime’s overall political legitimacy would collapse.”
This last paragraph is a clear sign that Washington planners are actually considering a preemptive waragainst China in which the latter “failed to win decisively” thereby precipitating the fall of President Xi.
The reaction from China has been surprisingly reserved.
Beijing condemned the American Cold War mentality but seemed to avoid condemning what are clearly U.S. threats of war.
One analyst for Global Times speculated that the Atlantic Council article was a “remnant from the Trump administration”.
Such thinking is dangerously complacent.
America wants China destroyed
For the evidence points to the article being an expression of policy formulation by the Biden administration.
It is notable in a recent interview with CBS, President Biden sounded remarkably disrespectful towards his Chinese counterpart.
Biden said he hadn’t yet spoken directly with Xi since the U.S. presidential inauguration ceremony nearly three weeks ago.
Such an absence of communication seems to be a calculated snub from Biden and his policy planners in Washington which is in total keeping with the proposed strategy outlined in the Atlantic Council article to “laser-focus” on denigrating Xi and his leadership.
Here’s another notable oddity.
While Biden has yet to contact Xi, the American leader held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin the day after his inauguration.
In the Atlantic Council article, the author proposes:
“Dividing Russia from China… is critical.” It calls for “stabilizing relations with Russia” and the United States.
In the 1970s, it was the other way around.
U.S. policy then, first under Richard Nixon and later successors, was all about drawing China away from the Soviet Union because Moscow was perceived as the main threat to American hegemony.
Now, as the Biden administration and other Washington planners assert over and over, it is Beijing that is perceived as the principal challenger to the waning U.S. global empire.
But the same tactic of divide and rule is at play.
Officially, the Biden White House says it has yet to formulate definitive policies on relations with China or Russia.
America has no defense for the hypersonic DF-17 carrier killer.
But the vibe and tone of the Atlantic Council article has Team Biden’s fingerprints all over it – indicating that it is preparing to take a reckless aggressive course toward China. The Trump administration – which was brazenly antagonistic to China – is criticized for lacking “comprehensive strategy”.
That’s Orwellian euphemism for the Biden administration telegramming the threat of much more confrontational policy.
It may all just be reckless rhetoric by Washington’s imperial planners.
Nevertheless, the mere playing with war rhetoric is reprehensible and speaks of American desperation to salvage its diminishing global power.
It’s a time to be very careful and guarded.
Do not be under the impression that Russia and China are all unaware of all this.
No wonder, China has been hurriedly mass-producing nuclear warheads, MIRV ICBM missiles, and state of the art weapons technology at a hectic pace.
They are not fools.
The DF-41 will render all of America completely radioactive rubble.
Do not be under the illusion that China is a far away land and that American military can engage China…
…on Chinese territory…
… in a superior manner…
…where American lays out the terms of conflict…
…and Americans can watch on their television sets eating popcorn as the war and conflict rages in far, far away China.
Nope.
It’s not going to be like that.
As the Saker has pointed out…
And crucially, “keep the barbarians from coming together” applied to Russia, China and Iran. That was Pax Americana in a nutshell. And that’s what’s totally unraveling now.
Hence the Kill Bill logic. It goes back a long way. Less than two months after the collapse of the USSR, the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance preached total global dominance and, following Dr Zbig, the absolute imperative of preventing the emergence of any future peer competitor.
Especially Russia, defined as “the only power in the world with the capacity of destroying the United States.”
Then, in 2002, at the start of the “axis of evil” era, came the full spectrum dominance doctrine as the bedrock of the US National Security Strategy. Domination, domination everywhere: terrestrial, aerial, maritime, subterranean, cosmic, psychological, biological, cyber-technological.
And, not by accident, the Indo-Pacific strategy – which guides the Quad – is all about “how to maintain US strategic primacy.”
China should be taken seriously and respected.
This mindset is what enables US Think Tankland to formulate risible “analyses” in which the only “win” for the US imperatively requires a failed Chinese “regime.”
After all, Leviathan is congenitally incapable of accepting a “win-win”; it only runs on “zero-sum,” based on divide and rule.
And that’s what’s leading the Russia-China strategic partnership to progressively establish a wide-ranging, comprehensive security environment, spanning everything from high-tech weaponry to banking and finance, energy supplies and the flow of information.
Yup. Russia and China are coming together to defend against the American monster…
Do not be under the misguided impression that America can conduct a far-away war with China or Russia independently. They are working together.
It will not happen that way.
Neither China, or Russia will allow that to occur.
Doing so, would result in American cities blasted out of existence. It’s real.
Consider the “dead hand” for instance…
Dead HandDead Hand, also known as Perimeter, is a Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system that was used by the Soviet Union. General speculation from insiders alleges thatthesystemremains in use in the post-Soviet Russian Federation as well. An exampleoffail-deadly and mutual assured destruction deterrence, it can automatically trigger the launch of the Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles by sending a pre-entered highest-authority order from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Strategic Missile Force Management to command posts and individual silos if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors even with the commanding elements fully destroyed. By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, it is said to remain fully functional and able to serve its purpose whenever it may be needed.-Wikipedia
But, America need not worry, right? A few strategically placed bombs here and there, a capture of an island or two and some “boot on the ground” will force China to obey America. Right?
Dead Hand
Russia upgrading its ‘Dead Hand’
29 Mar 2018 in 10:20
It’s active and alive. As this three year old article points out…
Russia is upgrading its nuclear final defence system which automatically launches it entire arsenal in a doomsday-like barrage, one of the US leading authorities on nuclear disarmament Bruce Blair said.
Russia’s defence chiefs are working to improve the so-called “Dead Hand” weapons system – also known as Perimeter. It has been referred to as a “Doomsday device” by analysts and was first developed during the paranoia of the Cold War.
Blair, who is the former US Air Force nuclear launch officer, said he believes the system is still operational and is even being “upgraded,” Daily Star Online reported.
Dead Hand is described as a “fully automatic” system which is turned on amid times of crisis by Russia. It is operated by three crew members whose sole job is just to make sure the system is operational with “no judgement” involvement.
Despite the terrifying concept, Dr Blair, co-founder of disarmament campaign group Global Zero, said the existence of such a weapon actually helps reduce the risk of nuclear war.
However, he questioned the system’s “vulnerability to cyber attack” as a cause for concern to global security. Dead Hand’s operation means the West will always have to think twice if there is a temptation for a nuclear strike.
“[Dead Hand] is fully automatic except that it has to be turned on by the general staff during a crisis, and there is a small crew that would perform a small number of functions before it would operate,” Blair said. “It is not a risk unless it could hacked and trigger an unauthorized launch,” he added
But don’t worry. China is isolated from Russia. And can be beaten easily by the superior American military…
Right?
Are you willing to bet your life, and your families lives on it?
So you really trust this man with your future…
Mike Pompeo
Or
Or, his “official” replacement in the Biden Administration.
Antony Blinken
So
So, do you really think that things are just going to be a lot of “hot air” and posturing?
And that nothing will come of all this, that somehow it will all go away…?
China will not be provoked
America will try and push and push China into an action. If China fails “to take the bait”, then America will make up and excuse a “false flag” event that will justify a war.
Now, let it be understood that America is not allowed to go to war without Congressional approval.
But that is meaningless.
America is currently fighting eight simultaneous wars all over the world directly and another twenty or so surreptitiously. None of which were specifically authorized by Congress.
So do not expect that the normal war declaration process will be followed. It will not.
Just expect a “false flag” event as an excuse to go to war within the next couple of years, if not months.
Afalse flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blameon a second party. The term is popularamongst conspiracy theory promoters in referring to covert operations of various governments and cabals.
-Wikipedia
Keep in mind that war is unpredictable
Please keep in mind that war is madness.
.
Yes it is crazy.
On one hand, don’t be so sure that China will be able to stop America, and this “road map towards destruction”. They might not be able to. And the United States might, and could very well, roll right over China. Destroy it, and carve it up into much smaller vassal states to service the American wealthy. Indeed, China might easily crumble after a concerted attack by skilled military forces working in unison.
After all, America is a well trained battle empire. It has over 75 years of non-stop military excursions, the top line and highest quality weaponry, and lots and lots of nuclear missiles.
It also has it’s cronies like the UK, Australia Korea, Japan and India who will participate in a conflict with China. Combined, it seems that China doesn’t have a chance, and while China can train and train, they do not have active hostile fighting experience like the American military has. The United States could plausibly rip right through China like a hot knife though butter.
And of course, please don’t be so sure that Russia will sit everything out. They might. They might just allow America and China to duke it out while they watch from the side-lines. Yes. That could happen, but don’t count on it. Russia and China see America as a very unpredictable enemy.
But war is about betrayals.
You will think that one nation and people are on your side, and then they could flip at a moments notice. Sort of how Italy was aligned with the Nazi Germans and then flipped and allied with the American during World War II.
Don’t be so sure that America will win a war against Asia. I know that this will come to a shock to those that watch the Rush Limbaugh show and watch FOX news. For in their minds, America is invincible!
There is no such thing as invincibility. There is only layers and degrees of damage, and ones varying ability to contain and repair the damage.
Don’t be so sure that any destroyed American cities will be able to be rebuilt either. America does have that ability any longer. Sure there are handymen, and construction companies. Sure there is the potential. But the real, active and genuine skills required to rebuild a devastated nation, it’s not really there.
I am sure that any destroyed city can be rebuilt. However we know from history that when Genghis Khan decimated Western Europe and the “Silk Road” cities, they remained empty and devoid of inhabitants for centuries afterwards. Indeed, many were never rebuilt.
America has lost the skills, and the ability to build, let alone rebuild. As well as the technical expertise in the most basic of constructions. While there are trillions of dollars in the value of American companies, most do not make anything. They either play with numbers or images in communication venues, or provide services. Both of which are not capable of rebuilding cities, infrastructure or societies.
Don’t be so sure that nuclear weapons will not be used. China does not play. They have repeatedly warned in words and deeds that they will respond in absolute terms with any American aggression. Do not think, for a minute, that they will risk allowing the United States to attack them unopposed.
This idea, this fantasy, that America can dictate terms to China, and bludgeon them into compliance as some kind of bargain-basement slave is very dangerous. China is like the nerd in High School that everyone picks on, makes fun of, and taunts without mercy….
….Meanwhile he’s also the kid who has built a death-ray in his basement.
Don’t expect anything.
But do not be under the misguided impression that the bullshit narrative the the “Long Telegram” is based upon has validity. It is a fantasy, and if the American leadership follows this “roadmap” for the “suppression” of China, it was end up turning out quite…
…ugly.
Conclusion
Yes, this is a profoundly sobering and disgusting article. I am sorry for it.
Any war with China will not be contained to the South China Sea, but will land inside of America in a most horrific manner.
But everything points to a historical progression of events. One that can no longer be ignored. It’s not if there will be a hot war, but rather how it will develop and whether or not it can be contained.
Certainly the American leadership believes that China can be “suppressed” and a war could be fought on American terms, with American rules of engagement, and on American defined battle fields. They might be right.
But I have a completely different projection.
And the earth might not survive the resulting insanity that will manifest.
If I were to take bets, I would argue that both Russia and China are working on plans to preemptively annihilate and castrate the United States before it slaughters the entire world.
But what do I know?
Be safe you all.
This is the meeting that China had with Russia immediately after the Alaskan meeting with the United States. I wonder why China was in such a rush to chat with the Russians…?
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on March 22, 2021
CCTV:Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said in an interview that the Untied States and Western countries are pursuing policy of hegemony in international affairs, trying to impede the trend toward a multi-polar and democratic world, and imposing its will and requirements on others. The primary task of China and Russia is to strengthen high-level collaboration and jointly advance multipolarity and regional integration and collaboration. What’s your comment?
Hua Chunying: Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are right to the point. The more unstable the world is, the more China and Russia need to advance our cooperation.
For a long period, the US and the West wantonly interfered in other country’s domestic affairs by using democracy and human rights as an excuse. Such moves created troubles in the world and even became the source of instability and war.
China and Russia always stand together in close cooperation, firmly rejects hegemony and bullying practice and have become a pillar for world peace and stability.
In the past year, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping and President Putin, China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era achieved remarkable outcomes. In the face of once-in-a-century pandemic and changes, China and Russia stand in solidarity to fight the virus together, and advance cooperation in such areas as economy, trade and scientific innovation despite challenges.
The two sides firmly support each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests and jointly uphold international fairness and justice. It is fair to say that China-Russia relations withstood the test and emerged stronger with our friendship becoming even closer.
We believe Foreign Minister Lavrov’s on-going visit will further cement the sound momentum of the high-level bilateral relations and bring the two countries closer in the strategic collaboration on international affairs.
China is ready to work with Russia to follow through on the consensus of the two heads of state, and take the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation as an opportunity to carry forward the spirit of the treaty and advance China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era at greater scope, in wider areas and at deeper levels.
The two sides will join hands in building a model of international relations featuring strategic trust, mutually beneficial cooperation, close people-to-people ties, fairness and justice. Together, the two sides can make greater contribution to upholding world peace and stability.
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This article was compiled back in 2018.
It is a "Franken-article" comprising a selection of elements from other articles that I have read, by other authors. I collected the key points, and had annotations linking to the articles, and then suffered a rather catastrophic computer failure, leaving my note in RTF format without links. Anyways, to make a long story short, the following is a Fraken-article compiled together to make a point.
Originally it discussed 2018 through 2028. I've updated it to 2020 through 2030.
This article was written before the Trump Trade war onslaught, and before the COVID-19 Bioweapon that Trump unleashed on the Chinese New Year celebrations. It was written before any of the riots and protests in Portland, Chicago or Los Angeles.
This was written in 2018. And I could see that…
There are dangerous times ahead.
Every 80 years, nations often experience colossal events. There are different theories about this cycle – for example, the Fourth Turning
theory focuses on the cyclical strengths of institutions versus
individuals. Others surmise that four generations after a major crisis,
there are no more older people to warn the society, and the younger
people take peace and prosperity for granted.
Well, exactly 80 years ago, America was mired in Great Depression,
and World War II was about to begin. Yet, predictably, most Americans
and Europeans now cannot even fathom such scenarios repeating in their
lifetime.
There are two major catalysts that can ignite catastrophic wars in the next decade. They are;
The debt/economic crisis in the West.
Growinge great-power rivalries (US + EU versus Russia + China).
Geopolitical tensions that are simmering now will reach a crescendo very soon. (I predicted in 2018.) Without extraordinary caution and prudence, we’re destined to become another victim of history’s inexorable cycle of conflict and collapse.
America is #2
Pretty much.
How many American politicians and elites will say, “America is the second largest economy in the world”? How will Americans react when they hear it for the first time?
For certain, there will be shock, anger, denial and a lot of blame and finger-pointing. However, most Americans fail to realize that not only is this scenario almost inevitable, but it will happen within the next 6-10 years.
Consider that China’s nominal GDP grew 200% since 2008, while the US
grew only 35%. Even if China slows down a lot and grows only 100% and
the US continues at the same pace, China will be #1 before 2028.
Chart of real GDP growth USA (blue) vs. China (red).
What does China’s rise mean to western corporations and the
globalists who control them? Loss of power and wealth. And that’s
something the globalists aren’t going to just let happen.
There’s more to China’s rise than just GDP.
In late 2017, US News and World Report ranked China’s Tsinghua University as #1 for computer science and engineering, dethroning MIT.
In hi-tech areas such as 5G, driverless vehicles, electric vehicles, passenger drones (“flying cars”), 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence, super computers, quantum computing and numerous other fields, China is #1. America is #2.
Throughout history, an established power has never passively watched a rising power take its spot. As Harvard Professor Graham T. Allison points out, 75% of the time, the established power goes to outright war with the rising power.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, American intellectuals’ favorite phrase was “the end of history.”
And John Bolton famously claimed that there should be only one country in the UN’s Permanent Security Council:
USA! America has the won the Cold War and will stay as the hyper-power forever! Everyone will embrace America’s exceptionalism and remain submissive.
Alas, Putin came along and resuscitated the Russia.
He[1] thwarted the globalists in Ukraine and [2] Syria, [3] survived a Wall Street-engineered drop in oil price (from $115 to $45 in mere six months), [4] prevented the collapse of the Russian economy in spite of severe sanctions, [5] shored up enormous gold and foreign exchange reserves, and [6] even managed to develop hyper-sonic ICBMs that can evade America’s vaunted missile defense systems.
Worse, Putin is also working with the Chinese on US-independent versions of the Internet, banking system, credit card system etc.
All these have turned Putin into the globalists’ public enemy #1.
… expect much more in the coming months and years.
The Middle East is in play.
In the 1990s, Neocons in Israel and the US (remember PNAC?) dreamed of hegemony over the Middle East.
All you need to do is take out Iraq and Iran, and the domination is complete.
Imagine controlling all that oil and the strategic waterways through which much of global trade passes.
And if western firms can construct oil/gas pipelines from the Middle East to Europe, the latter can say, “Nyet” to Russian oil/gas. Without Europe as the customer, Russia will suffer immensely and surrender.
Controlling the Middle East also means controlling the land and the sea routes of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. A few “moderate rebels” in strategic locations can greatly disrupt China’s Europe-bound trains.
In response to the belligerent comments by Esper and the Australian report, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said “China is firmly on a path of peaceful development and our national defense policy is defensive in nature”.
China has gone further by providing a cooperative framework under the Belt and Road Initiative which is built around the brilliant political agenda of providing diplomatic solutions to geopolitical points of tension through economic development strategies that enrich all participants.
This approach has provided China great payback through the defusing of tensions with other nations claiming territory within the South China Sea- especially under the pro-BRI orientation of Malaysia’s Dr. Mahathir Mohammed and the Philippines’ President Duterte.
-America Loses Asia-Pacific as Full Spectrum Dominance Continues to Fail
Road and Belt. This requires Pakistan agreements and ports in the Mediterranean. Everything has been going well. That is up until a massive explosion that some have referred to as a “mini-nuke” totally and completely gutted the Lebanon port in Beirut. An interesting assessment;
The Port of Beirut poses the biggest geostrategic threat to American power projection because China’s Silk Road is fast creeping towards the docks at Beirut Port. The US, having recently forced Israel to cancel its Haifa rail contract with China, has dampened the Chinese advance in the eastern Mediterranean, and what remains now in the path of the US is the Beirut Port. The US must either invade it to block the Chinese geostrategic mission creep, or else destroy it.
https://thesaker.is/china-newsbrief-sitrep-3/
And then it appears that a great accident destroyed it.
Moreover, the Port of Beirut also poses the biggest geostrategic threat for the US’s eastward-bound power projection where China and its new Silk Road operation is fast creeping westwards and is attempting to land at the eastern coastal strip of the Mediterranean, right where the Beirut Port docks. The US having recently forced Israel to cancel its Haifa contact with China has somewhat dampened the Chinese advance in the eastern Mediterranean, and what remains now in the path of the US is the Beirut Port. The US must either invade it to block the Chinese geostrategic mission creep, or else destroy it.
Evidently, the US has chosen the latter option – with Israel assigned the task of accomplishing the destruction of Beirut Port. After all, for different reasons, both benefit greatly from Beirutshima.
And so very timely is this destruction of the Beirut Port as the Lebanese government has very recently been in official talks with the Chinese over their offer to vastly invest in and develop the Beirut Port: a much needed gateway port and bridge into Europe for China, which represents an absolutely intolerable equation for the US’s hegemony in Europe. The Beirut Port’s rebuilding to its previous standard of activity will be contingent on strict conditions imposed by the US and Israel on the Lebanese government, if the port is allowed to be rebuilt at all, that is. Most certainly, the US is determined not to allow the Chinese any executive, investment or managerial access to it.
...
And this larger US project has everything to do with the current US war on China, albeit presently a non-military war, but a war nevertheless, a war that the Pentagon is militarily preparing for – hence the ever increasing and breathtakingly high defense budget that Congress has been allocating to the US military throughout the terms of the last three Presidents.
The US having lost Pakistan to the China sphere of influence, thus losing an attack dog bordering China, and having recently assigned Turkey as its new enforcer in the middle east, it now behooves the US to use its Mideast allies of both Turkey and Israel, two infamous terrorist states who regularly break international law with impunity: use them as spoilers and saboteurs against an advancing China and against any of Beijing’s Mideast regional allies.
Beirutshima is clearly an apparent US endeavor to push-back the Chinese advance in the highly strategic eastern Mediterranean, as the US attempts to simultaneously pivot eastwards itself through secured territories wherever China is successfully backtracked by the US and its regional henchmen.
But, can this grand geostrategic plan really work for the benefit of the US? Can the US really succeed at remaining the only superpower in the world by the incessant knee-capping of China’s new Silk Road project?
This is yet to be determined. But judging by the deep budgetary and societal crisis engulfing the US homeland, with no sign whatsoever of its deepening troubles abating, analysts doubt that the US has lungs large enough to last the whole race through with China. Here I will add that the US-China fight over the Beirut Port is not yet over. One wonders what went through the mind of the wily Chinese ambassador in Lebanon to witness the Beirut Port exploding as it shockingly did: to witness his pet project and assignment be destroyed right before his eyes and right before a signed agreement was made between him and the Lebanese government of Diab.
-UR
A War to Contain China
China’s Achilles heel is that it’s surrounded by America’s vassal states – Taiwan, Japan and South Korea for now.
The Philippines used to be America’s puppet, but it’s now leaning towards China and Russia, thanks to Duterte. How North Korea will turn out is yet to be seen.
India, which was colonized by the British for 200 years, is experiencing amnesia and is quickly ceding its sovereignty to the US.
Japanese elites – under pressure from globalists – are trying to
change their constitution so that Japan can build up its military again.
This is obviously an ominous sign.
Thus globalists have a lot of options to wage a proxy war on China. Asia has been growing rapidly and enjoying unprecedented prosperity, but there’s a good chance they will screw it up by becoming sacrificial pawns in the geopolitical chessboard.
Drawing China and Russia together
China knows what the neocons are doing. China and Russia share intel data, and combined saw that America was an active and real threat. If China collapses, Russia would be next. If Russia collapses, China would be next. So what did they do?
Then at the same time, they started to warn the United States to stop; just stop… please just stop…
Among the myriad, earth-shattering geopolitical effects of coronavirus, one is already graphically evident. China has re-positioned itself. For the first time since the start of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1978, Beijing openly regards the US as a threat, as stated a month ago by Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference during the peak of the fight against coronavirus.
Beijing is carefully, incrementally shaping the narrative that, from the beginning of the coronovirus attack, the leadership knew it was under a hybrid war attack. Xi’s terminology is a major clue. He said, on the record, that this was war. And, as a counter-attack, a “people’s war” had to be launched.
Moreover, he described the virus as a demon or devil. Xi is a Confucianist. Unlike some other ancient Chinese thinkers, Confucius was loath to discuss supernatural forces and judgment in the afterlife. However, in a Chinese cultural context, devil means “white devils” or “foreign devils”: guailo in Mandarin, gweilo in Cantonese. This was Xi delivering a powerful statement in code.
When Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, voiced in an incandescent tweet the possibility that “it might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan” – the first blast to this effect to come from a top official – Beijing was sending up a trial balloon signaliing that the gloves were finally off. Zhao Lijian made a direct connection with the Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019, which included a delegation of 300 US military...
-https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us/
They also watch with some degree of hope that the intel information was incorrect, and that the United States would stop. That the United States would end it’s anti-Chinese propaganda campaign, it’s anti-China technology assault, and it’s anti-China biological warfare programs…
…but that is not in the cards. Not yet, anyways.
Financial Wars
If the globalists have mighty military and vassal states to impose their hegemony, they have one tremendous weakness: a fake economy based on debt and money-printing.
America’s enormous strength is based on petrodollar – an unfair system that forces other countries to buy oil and other commodities in US dollar.
Take that away, the American Empire starts to wobble. Without enormous demand for the US dollar and treasuries, interest rates will go up, debt will become expensive, and interest payments on existing debt will skyrocket.
This is why China, the largest importer of oil, just started oil futures that trade in Yuan. China has implemented systems where one can directly buy and sell oil in Yuan. If China were to get out of the globalist hegemony, there’s no better way than to establish petroyuan, especially if it’s backed by gold.
US will go to war to stop emergence of petro-yuan !
The introduction of oil trading in yuan is a very bold move by the Chinese, because the US will not give up the basis of its hegemony – the dollar as the world’s reserve currency – without a fight. The Chinese plan to roll out a yuan-denominated oil contract is a very “brave” move, since countries who “tried to exit the oil-dollar matrix have met terrible ends,”.
...
The US financial sector and its military-industrial complex are unlikely to give up the dollar hegemony without a fight, though, as the dollar is both the basis and the main product of America. And the US will use its other favorite tool for it – war…
“Maybe they will start a war between Japan and China, and maybe they will start a war with North Korea. America will do anything to keep the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency,” “They will invade the countries, like Afghanistan, they will stop at nothing. Because this is the basis of the US empire. It’s not land-based, it’s not based on material goods, it’s based on rent-seeking. It’s based on landing dollars, getting out income and when countries can’t pay they dismantle the assets and take them over. We saw it in Latin America, South America, this is how America built its empire.”
What’s Next?
America’s military impotence when faced with the new cutting edge technologies unveiled by Russia and China was outlined in a recent report released by the US Studies Center at the University of Sydney which stated that “America no longer enjoys military primacy in the indo Pacific and its capacity to uphold a favorable balance of power is increasingly uncertain.”
Referring to China’s advanced anti-aircraft weapons, the report says“Chinese counter-intervention systems have undermined America’s ability to project power in the Indo-Pacific region” which the authors say, could be rendered impotent within the first 8 hours of conflict.
-America Loses Asia-Pacific as Full Spectrum Dominance Continues to Fail
Thanks to Deep State and the Democrats, US-Russia relations will
continue to deteriorate as sanctions pile on. Globalists will also use
the anti-Russia hysteria to create an EU army, bolster NATO, and provoke
Russia with missile defense systems and military build up on its
borders. Russia’s neighbors — Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania, Sweden,
Poland etc. — will all be used as pawns to needle and threaten Russia.
The US will continue to build its troops to encircle China, saber rattle in the South China Sea, incite Muslim separatists in Western China (Xinjiang), and try to turn Asian countries against China.
I’ve covered all the elements in other posts in far greater detail. There you can see the details. Links are as provided herein.
This is just an overview.
Create strife in HK. The “pro-democracy” protests were implemented by NED / NID insurgents under the guise of being “journalists”. <HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE>
Create strife in Xinjiang. Radicalized and CIA trained Muslim insurgents creating “fifth column“ activities. <HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE>
Forced Starvation. Destruction of the pork industry via drones and aerosol viruses, destruction of the chicken industry, the wheat and rice industries, and multiple waves of germ attacks. <HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE>
African Incentives. This is ongoing. Though lately a number of nations are demanding that China pay billions of dollars to them for COVID-19 damage. I cannot help but see a CIA hand in all this. <HERE><HERE><HERE>
Incentivize American Businesses. Enormous amounts of money has been handed to American companies throughout trumps first term of office, the greatest amounts came during the 2020 “COVID bailout”. However, no companies have shown any interest in returning operations to America. <HERE><HERE><HERE>
Anti-China propaganda campaign. This is hot and heavy. Apparently it’s working a full 30% of Americans hate China and blame it for all the American ills. <HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE>
Anti-China technology campaign. Well the arrest of the Huawei President and the suppression of 5G technology is only the tip of the iceberg. <HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE>
A Pandemic that would suppress China but ignore America. This is the highlight of the plan and really interesting. Three strains. A, B, and C. All unleashed on the world. Lethal strain B is for China. It is dangerous and lethal. However, Americans get the A virus. This virus is mild and safe. It self inoculates (or was intended to). It is designed for Americans to have “Herd Immunity”. <HERE><HERE><HERE><HERE>
An Alliance of other nations. By building a coalition of nations, the entire group could gang up against China in bulk. This includes strong showings by Australia, Canada, and the UK. <HERE>
Establish American Bases on Taiwan. Ongoing and NOT public.
There will also be endless economic, propaganda and hybrid wars against both Russia and China in the coming years.
US, EU, Russia and China will be developing many dangerous and effective weapons in the near future. This will include miniaturized nuclear bombs, weaponized satellites, and possibly a combination of both — satellites armed with nukes. Then there are hypersonic missiles that travel at 20 times the speed of sound, killer robots and fleets of armed drones.
Biological and germ warfare are also being developed by the US in many vassal countries. It’s a multi-dimensional and hybrid arms race that’s more lethal and destructive than ever before.
America is only 5% of the world’s population. It cannot expect to rule the other 95% forever. America’s unipolar dominance is a blip in the history. Americans have to learn to coexist with other great powers and focus on creating a peaceful, prosperous world.
Instead, America’s elites are filled with hubris and hegemonic fantasies of full spectrum dominance.
Full-spectrum dominance also known as full-spectrum superiority, is a military entity's achievement of control over all dimensions of the battlespace, effectively possessing an overwhelming diversity of resources in such areas as terrestrial, aerial, maritime, subterranean, extraterrestrial, psychological, and bio- or cyber-technological warfare.
-Wikipedia
The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020. With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking…
Back in 1997, the now-re-established US Space Command announced its commitment to “full spectrum dominance.” The Vision for 2020 explains that “full spectrum dominance” means military control over land, sea, air, and space (the so-called fourth dimension of warfare) “to protect US interests and investment.” “Protect” means guarantee operational freedom. “US interest and investment” means corporate profits.
-Countdown to “Full Spectrum Dominance”
Americans – and sadly most Europeans now as well – are ignorant about geopolitics, easily swayed by propaganda, and programmed to accept wild stories without demanding proof or evidence. The combination of ruthless elites and gullible masses is extremely dangerous.
Without great restraint, diplomacy, wisdom and compromises, we will be sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster in the next decade.
2020 to 2030.
All the warning signs and signals are lit up and flashing.
Warning.
Those American military officials promoting the obsolete doctrine of Full Spectrum dominance are dancing to the tune of a song that stopped playing some time ago. Both Russia and China have changed the rules of the game on a multitude of levels, and can respond with fatal force to any attack upon their soil with next generation weaponry beyond the scope of anything imagined by ivory tower game theorists in the west.
-America Loses Asia-Pacific as Full Spectrum Dominance Continues to Fail
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I have been thinking and musing (a lot) about the absolute arrogance of the United States (out of Washington DC) and the myth of “American exceptionalism”, and that “America has never lost a war”. This has really come into mind with the things that President Trump is doing with multiple assault combat carrier fleets sitting right off the Chinese coast right now.
What he is doing is extraordinarily dangerous.
It reminds me of the bully in school. The one that always gets his way. That always behaves erratically, well because he’s a thug, but also because he never came across another “tough guy” that was bigger than him.
(Time for old guy memories…)
When I was growing up back in the hills of Western Pennsylvania, there was this boy who was two or three years older than me. I cannot say that he was a bully, exactly. It’s just that something wasn’t quite right about him. He was a spoiled brat, that’s for certain, that just was oblivious to the world around him. We was, well, a little “off” in the head, don’t you know.
He was an only child, and he attended the “special education” classes at our High School. They were all pretty much frowned upon as being “weak in the mind”. Which is terrible, I know, as I’m sure that wasn’t the actual case, but we were kids, and that was what we thought.
His father owned a local grocery store as well as a tri-county trash pick up service. They had a house in the nicest part of the town where we lived in, and had an indoor pool that was cool and really unique.
Think of a world where Bruce Wayne wasn't really "Batman". But instead was "The Joker". I guess it was sort of like that.
He would be off doing stuff and getting into all kinds of trouble. Just odd-ball stuff. You know how kids would build a tree-house. Well, he built one too…
…In the back yard of a house that was occupied by two little old ladies that were in their 90’s. The local constable had to have him come and tear it down.
While in High School he lobbed this flat steel disk (Lord only knows where he found it) into a crowd of my classmates. He just somehow got on the roof, yelled at us kids, and threw it. Luckily no one was killed by the flying fifty pound UFO.
He was the one that shocked us fifth graders by telling us how babies were made and how a boy puts his penis into a young lady. He even had magazines to help describe this activity. Not only that, but he was willing to demonstrate to the girls how it worked. (Don’t worry, we all left. Nothing became of it.) Never the less, we were scarred for weeks afterwards. We were just not ready.
Anyways, in hindsight, as an adult you can see that this kid had problems, and it would only be a matter of time before something bad would happen.
When I was 16 I started working in the mines, and perform stock duties in the local grocery store. There we would hear all the local gossip of the community. Of course, we called it “scuttlebutt”. Which was just a guys’ way of gossiping. We found out that he had died.
It turned out, that one Friday evening, around 7PM he was riding his bicycle all over the road. Meaning “all over the road in big lazy arc’s and meandering turns”. He was blocking traffic and forcing the cars to move at abnormally slow speeds. Since the roads were all tight and wove in and out of the hills there, the cars were trapped at the mercy of this crazed Joker-like insane young man. (He was maybe 18 years old at the time.)
Riding a bicycle, not driving a car. You see, he couldn't pass the driving tests at 16.
One of the cars (in the long train of cars beeping and honking behind him) was occupied by three United States marines, who in the early 1970’s probably had done some time in Vietnam (at the American war there). And they were not too pleased with this punk.
So…
So, they got out of the car and grabbed him. And Lordy, they beat the living Dejesus out of him. I mean they really fucked him up bad. They beat the snot out of him, and do you know what?
Do you know what happened?
He died.
That’s right. He was killed.
And the Marines, well they went to Prison. It’s a sad story all the way around. I like to think that everyone learned a lesson in all this. I would see the kid’s father from time to time as he did his business, and lived his life in the town. But, he was a now a small pale sort of man. Not the tall strong man that used to be. I guess that the death of your only child, and the turmoil of life, would do that to you. It’s a sad story for certain.
That’s my story and now for my point.
It’s human nature to believe that we are bigger, smarter, stronger, and more intelligent than everyone else. And if we evolved over time when our notions of who we are and what we are, are not tested, then we continue believing these things long after it becomes obvious that they are no longer true.
The childhood kid ended up getting his “ass whooped” because he had never confronted someone who was bigger, stronger and more aggressive than him. For he was the “big fish in a small pond”. And the Marines that he encountered were some very mean and nasty sharks.
I think of this story often, and it comes to my mind every time I see an article about how “invincible” the United States Navy is.
Now while this might make reading for the American civilian population, the truth is that the leadership of the American military machine are not fools. They know it’s strengths and weaknesses, and are not very keen on testing these expensive military machines with a peer-capable rival.
But, unfortunately, they are not the ones that are making the top-level decisions in Washington DC today. It is Donald Trump, and Mike Pompeo and the rest of the Neocon cabal that are running the country, making the decisions and playing with the military as if it was their very own personal army.
Which brings me to this article…
The following is a reprint of “China Sea Blues: A Thing Not to Do” written by Fred Reed on October 30, 2015. It is reprinted as found on the UNZ site and you can read the Comments to it there. All credit to the author, and note that it was edited to fit this venue, but remains as intact to intent.
China Sea Blues: A Thing Not to Do
It appears that Washington, ever a seething cauldron of bright ideas, is looking for a shooting war with China, or perhaps trying to make the Chinese kowtow and back down, the pretext being some rocks in the Pacific in which the United States cannot possibly have a vital national interest. Or, really, any interest. And if the Chinese do not back down?
The Vincennes. The boxy thing up front is the radar. It is not hardened.
Years back I went aboard the USS Vincennes, CG-49, a Tico class Aegis boat, then the leading edge of naval technology. It was a magnificent ship, fast, powered by a pair of airliner turbines, and carrying the SPY-1 phased-array radar, very high-tech for its time. The CIC was dark and air-conditioned, glowing with huge screens—impressive for then—displaying all manner of information on targets in the air. Below were Standard missiles, then on a sort of chain drive but in later ships using the Vertical Launch System. It was, as they say in Laredo, Muy Star Wars. (The Vincennes was the ship that later shot down the Iranian airliner.)
Being something of a technophile, I took all of this in with admiration, but I thought—what if it gets hit?
As a kid in my preteens I had read about the battleships of WWII, the Carolinas but in particular the Iowa class, fast, brutal ships with sixteen-inch belt armor and turrets that an asteroid would bounce off of. The assumption was that ships were going to get hit. They were built to survive and continue fighting.
American hull armor in a Japanese World War II battleship. Showing not only the thickness, but also the type of damage that it could take.
By contrast, the Vincennes was thin-skinned, hulled with aluminum instead of steel, and the radar, crucial to combat, looked perilously fragile. A single hit with anything serious, or perhaps even a cal .50, but certainly by anything resembling a GAU-8, and she would be hors de combat until refitted.
Damage to the thin hull of the USS Cole by improvised munitions on board a terrorist skiff.
The Iowa, BB-61. I went aboard her at Norfolk at the Navy’s invitation. It altered my appreciation of guns. I came away thinking that if you can’t crawl into it, it isn’t really a gun. And solid: There is a reason why no battleship was sunk after Pearl Harbor.
One hit.
I also knew well that the Navy played Red Team-Blue Team war games in which our own submarines—then chiefly 688s—tried to “sink” the surface fleet. The idea was that if the sub could get into firing position, it would send up a green flare. The subs were then running if memory serves the Mk 48 ADCAP torpedo, a wicked wire-guided thing with a long range. Sailors told me that invariably the subs “sank” the surface force.
When I mentioned this at CHINFO, the Navy’s PR operation in the Pentagon, flacks told me that the potential bad guys only had piddling diesel-electric subs, far inferior to our nukey boats, and couldn’t get near the fleet in open seas. Yes, no, maybe, and then. It sounded like happy talk to me. In WWII, diesel-electrics certainly got in range of surface ships, perhaps the most famous example being when Archer Fish sank Shinano.
DF-21D anti-ship (read: anti-carrier) missile. This is not the place for detail, but China has anti-ship ballistic missiles designed to kill carriers, and is working on others, hypersonic glide vehicles, that are not real interceptible. I do not know how well they work. If I were a carrier, I would make a point of not finding out.
The Chinese DF-21D anti-Carrier missile. This missile is mass-produced and is designed to be fired in clusters of multiple groupings designed to saturate the defensive capabilities of an American Carrier battle group.
I do not know a great deal about the Chinese Navy, having been out of that loop for years. I do know that the Chinese are smart, and that they have optimized their forces specifically to take out carrier battle groups near their territory.
They do not try to match the US ship-for-ship in the kind of war America wants to fight. They would lose fast, and they know it.
The key is to swarm the fleet with cruise missiles arriving all at once, accompanied perhaps by large numbers of aircraft. Would this work? I don’t know, but that is certainly the way I would bet.
The United States Navy has not been in a war for seventy years.
It has sat off various shores and launched aircraft, but the fleet has not been engaged. Over decades of inaction, complacency sets in. Unfortunately, wars regularly turn out to be otherwise than expected. Further, the American military’s standard approach to a war is to underestimate the enemy (there is probably a manual on this).
Yet further, great emotional and financial capital resides in a carrier-battle group, one of the most impressive achievements of the human race. (I mean this: the technology, organization, and competence involved in, say, night flight ops are…”astonishing” is too feeble a word.)
This assures reluctance to question the fleet’s effectiveness in the face of changing conditions. Such as high-Mach, stealthed, maneuvering, sea-skimming cruise missiles. Or terminally guided anti-ship ballistic missiles.
America is accustomed to fighting enemies who can’t fight back.
This may NOT include the Chinese.
The carrier Forrestal, 1967. A single Zuni missile was fired accidentally. A huge fire ensued, bombs cooked off, 134 men were killed, and the ship was devastated, out of service for a very long time. One five-inch missile. Something to think about.
There is also the fact that the American military simply doesn’t matter, which reduces concern with whether it can fight and who it can fight.
It doesn’t defend the US, since there is nothing to defend it against. (What country has the remotest possibility of invading America?)
So the military is used for what are essentially hobbyist wars, keeping Israel happy, providing markets for the arms companies, and for social engineering: we have girl crews who would be a disaster at damage control, but we assume that there will never be any damage to control.
Uh…yeah. The evidence is that these ships are fragile:
What would happen if in a shooting war the Chinese crippled the American fleet?
Washington is rampant with large egos, especially that of John McCain, the senator from PTSD. If it were discovered that China could disable the Navy, many other countries might conclude that they could do it too. They most certainly would think of this.
But…
Washington could not accept the discovery: Fear of the carriers is a large element in Washington’s intimidation of the world. To save face, the US would be tempted to go nuclear, or seriously bomb China proper, with unforeseeable results.
USS Stark, 1987. Hit by two Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi Mirage.
The Air Force and Navy could hurt China badly by conventional means, yes, for example by cutting off oil from the Mideast, or destroying the Three Gorges dam.
For a variety of reasons this would be playing with fire.
The economic results of any of these bright ideas would be godawful.
Just about every commercial product sold in America is made in China.
Just about every new construction or building project in America is being funded and manufactured by Chinese companies.
China holds a “Lion’s share” of American debt and could collapse the American economy if they wanted to.
Washington seems not to realize that it wields far less military power than it thinks it does, and that the power it does wield is ever less useful than before.
As a land power, it is very weak, being unable to defeat Russia, China, or peasants armed with rifles and RPGs. Air power has regularly proved indecisive.
If Washington somehow won a naval war with China, so what?
It would provide the satisfactions of vanity, but China’s danger to the US imperium lies in increasing economic power and commercial expansion through Asia, where it holds the high cards: it is there, Washington isn’t.
Grrr-bowwow-woofery in the far Pacific, even if successful, is not going to stop China’s commercial expansion, and a defeat would end the credibility of the Navy forever.
As I say, Washington is full of bright ideas.
Conclusion
The purpose of war is to resolve differences when ALL OTHER AVENUES have been exhausted.
However, United States history has clearly illustrated that that doctrine has NOT been followed. Wars have been created for other purposes. Purposes devoted to the obtainment of profits, and to manipulate a compliant and ignorant population.
There is evidence that the last 75 years or so of this behavior cannot end. That those that run and rule over the United States are unable to use the military for any other purpose than what it has been used for.
And like the bully from my High School days, America could see itself on the wrong side of a conflict. One that it started. One that it thinks that it will “win”. And one that will FOREVER change it.
Maybe change it for good, and for infinity.
And, maybe, like the Bully from my High School days, it is long overdue and will be a shock to everyone. From the bully himself who (I am sure) lay there with a look of incredulity on his face, to his toadies who thought he was invincible, to the innocent bystanders (such as myself) who was shocked that such a well-known (if not particularly liked) person could be vanquished so quickly and so easily.
War is NOTHING that the United States should get involved in at this time. It is not healthy. It is a mess, and getting worse. The last thing it should get involved in is a fight with a nation THAT DOES NOT PLAY.
Chinese ships test firing two anti-carrier missiles in the South China Sea in August 2020.
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You’ll not
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Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
Normally I’m not that surprised with things that happen. I know that there is no such thing as coincidences, and that the American military empire is collapsing and thrashing all about. But you know, even I can be bitch slapped from time to time. And this is one of those times.
No shit!
yes. I had bought into the story about the ammonium nitrate warehouse being an accident. I really did. I knew about the Donald Trump / Pompeo shit about the biological weapons attacks on China, the NED, and all that nonsense in Hong Kong. But, you know, I figured that he wouldn’t REALLY start blowing shit up. Not really.
Oh, boy was I wrong!
I just couldn’t believe that Trump would do such a thing. This is true, even though I realized that it was quite a coincidence that this port was earmarked for the Chinese BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), and that suddenly it was destroyed in a completely massive “accidental” explosion. And all of a sudden, a gateway to the BRI is completely obliterated.
An accident?
A coincidence?
Photographs, both visual and thermal, say otherwise.
Not to mention that both President Trump and the Lebanese government has confirmed this to be the case.
The following is a reprint of an article on Veterans Today. It is titled “Updated: Israel hits Beirut with nuclear missile, Trump and Lebanese Govt. confirm”, and written on August 15, 2020. Edited to fit this venue. All credit to the original author and the post.
Updated: Israel hits Beirut with nuclear missile, Trump and Lebanese Govt. confirm
Trump confirms this was a bombing, not an accident and is immediately scourged by pro-Israel press…starting with the Daily Beast.
Overwhelming evidence that Israeli F 16s had just finished an attack run on Warehouse 12 when the large explosion occurred. We have dozens of reliable eyewitnesses and many videos, sound and even the planes pulling out of a dive, not birds, they don’t fly 350 knots, not normally. (Lots of birds were flying away, they look exactly like birds)
Lebanese govt and Hezbollah now accepting that ammonium nitrate was in no way involved. Lebanon is built on rock and everything has to be blasted. The Lebanese know explosives, know how to use AN and all in Lebanon know this is a hoax. AN is not explosive, it burns even in an explosive slurry (ANFO) unless very large TNT charges are used to initiate.
All involved in the AN story, the Russian ship tale, or claiming it exploded are now terror suspects though most are simply internet idiots. AN is debunked.
This video has Trump’s real statement, he is 100% behind VT (embarrassing)…
Investigators are now looking at a two pronged and complex Israeli attack using a probable nuclear tipped Rampage missile (new design) while covering with an F 16 attack and possible conventional explosive. At this point, this is most likely as seen by investigators.
Rampage missile.
Narrative Rewritten
And now to the original story which has been hacked, backward counted by Google and so much more. We love it… VT was right once again while world media just published cheap slop. This never would have happened before early dementia Reagan got on the ‘free enterprise’ train for consolidating America’s wonderfully diverse privately owned local and regional independent media.
#Breaking #Syria President Assad orders all borders and ports in the country open to #Lebanon, orders caravans of ambulances to head to #Beirut and ferry injured to hospitals in #Damascus, and launches an air bridge of medical and food supplies between the two cities
Absurdity squared: YouTube and Facebook “Fact Checkers,” employed by the people VT claims staged the attack are wiping the evidence from the internet…who would have guessed it.
…by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor, with…
Nahed al Husaini, VT Bureau Chief Damascus
Jeff Smith, VT Editor, IAEA Nuclear Inspector/Particle Physicist
Actual Photos of the missiles
This is the original video frame, never posted anywhere, that proves everything on Facebook and YouTube which was taken down is real.
This is the grandfather of them all, one carefully validated as untouched and genuine.
Infrared images of the missile itself prior to impact:
Infrared photos of the missiles
Set II Different camera, different angle
Frame 1 BeirutFrame 2 BeirutFrame 3 Beirut
This is the same missile seen from a slightly different angle on impact.
Israeli Delilah missile carrying 6 kiloton (6000 tons of TNT equivalent) nuclear missile (unretouched photo via VT Damascus) Tineye says this is a unique image and doesn’t appear anywhere on the web. We, however, are always suspicious when something seems ‘too good to be true.’
This is an infrared video which shows, at 6 seconds, the missile coming in and hitting…
This infrared video makes much more sense than ammonium nitrate on its own. Yes NH4NO3 is an oxidising agent and explosive under the right conditions, it is also very stable.
Judge for yourself. Doctored video? Different location? Or #Beirut attacked?
pic.twitter.com/T0LnUqDvoy— Darren of Plymouth 🇬🇧 (@DarrenPlymouth)
August 6, 2020
This is the video that was removed from Youtube for “violating content”.
Pixel analysis says this is a good photo. Thus, debunking it will become a huge issue. An army of trolls is already on Twitter and Facebook.
” First explosion was caused by Gabriel anti ship missile of Israel. The second explosion was caused by Israeli Delilah missile from F16. Our country is in complete jeopardy with this lazy and corrupt regime.”
This is the radiation signature of the explosion received from a source in Italy, submitted to VT by the International Atomic Energy Agency (UN).
So it is actually a NUCLEAR WEAPON.
Evidence of a nuclear fission event in the Eastern MediterraneanTrump confirms attack (nuclear not mentioned) and has suddenly become an “Enemy of Israel” (In 2015, Trump was referred to VT as a source of intelligence briefings. Eventually his staff turned to InfoWars and Steve Bannon. You can see how that has worked out.)
The media in the west claiming that this massive nuclear like explosion is from "fireworks"
-NO THE HELL IT WAS NOT!-
My heart is so heavy 💔😔😭
-Prayers for Beirut, Lebanon 🇱🇧pic.twitter.com/yAom0z9ZgG
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) August 4, 2020
Official statements from Lebanon
VT: A general in the Lebanese Army reports that Israel dropped a tactical nuclear weapon on the port of Beirut today. He reports that this was done to collapse the current political regime there and revolt against Hezbollah.
Their denial, almost identical to Israel’s supports this hypothesis.
As the lies begin, nothing about this explosion, the mushroom cloud or the strength of the explosion is fireworks, which was the first lie, then ammonium nitrate fertilizer, they say under 3k tons, which was stored for years to use on Lebanon’s golf courses, when they decide to build them. No, nothing about today is funny.
Israel statement
We also add that earlier today, Netanyahu’s statement which we believe is Israel taking credit for the attack. Beirut is still bomb damaged by Israel from 2006. How you take Netanyahu’s statements as outlined in Times of Israel today, is a matter of faith, trust or conjecture.
نتنياهو قال اليوم بأن اسرائيل ستفعل”ما هو ضروري"لحماية نفسها،تهديد لحزب الله- ما يفسر التفجيرات في #بيروت
-Netanyahu said “will do what is necessary in order to defend ourselves”. An obvious warning to Hezbollah, and this explains the explosions in #Beiruthttps://t.co/8ZVLNBA31A
— Reem Al-Harmi ريم الحرمي chez moi 🏠 (@Reem_AlHarmi) August 4, 2020
“Getting reports from Beirut, a tactical miniature nuclear bomb has been used to attack the port, nuclear experts and researchers have randomly pointed out to the reacted particles in the fire ball.
Even if there is going to be a government cover up for peace and political implications in the coming hours, one thing is clear, it is a clandestine operation by some anti-Lebanon foreign agency not by some random terrorist (non-state actor).
Terrorists involved in Urban Warfare in ME do not have access to these highly advance tactical weapons. If they have it now, then someone is equipping them for political gains. Let us wait for the official statements from Lebanon. I hope our friends from Beirut are safe.
As per my latest source of information from Beirut. There is going to be a government cover up. The story about “Nitrate in the containers” is going to be declared as the original cause of the second massive explosion that caused the major damage. This will become the official narrative in the msm.
However, what influential and credible sources from Beirut are telling me is this: “The Beirut explosion is about 100 times the energy than the 2015 Tianjin explosion, or 5.4 kilotons of TNT equivalent (using linear extrapolation from Tianjin, which involved 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate).
Conventional nukes against Japan had 15 to 21 kilotons. But this explosion is different, it is because of modern tactical nuke that contains up to 10 kilotons of the hybrid material including uranium. It is this reason why we still have acid and radiation in the air. The storage facilities near the grain elevator are NOT marked for hazardous material storage, but are instead marked for general cargo. Therefore, you can guess it, what we will be fed in the coming hours.” – Ghayet Ali
” First explosion was caused by Gabriel anti ship missile of Israel. The second explosion was caused by Israeli Delilah missile from F16. Our country is in complete jeopardy with this lazy and corrupt regime.”
Hezbollah, we are told, is expected to retaliate against Israel and they say there is no way for Syria not to be brought in.
IAEA Confirms
Jeff Smith of the IAEA confirms this is a nuclear explosion.
The lies about fireworks in ships and fertilizer are what we always get. You don’t store either one downtown in a major city like Beirut under any circumstances. Not much farming in Beirut and they don’t celebrate the 4th of July there.
The smoke could well be missile fuel which may mean a missile storage facility was hit by Israel. We have confirmation from Israel that they were planning to attack Beirut 5 days ago in retaliation for Hezbollah’s military attacks on Golan, which were not reported anywhere.
We are told Lebanon asked for nuclear investigators from Russia but there is no attempt to protect the site which, even if this were a modern clean weapon, still be radioactive.
New video shows nature of the blast a bit better. We will keep updating.
Beirut Governor Calls Explosion a ‘National Disaster Akin to Hiroshima’
“A fire brigade of 10 people arrived at the scene. What happened is very similar to what happened in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They drove to the scene and disappeared. This is a national disaster for Lebanon. We do not know how we are going to deal with this”, Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud said. (Sputnik/Moscow)
“Israel has nothing to do with the massive explosion that rocked Beirut on 4 August, the country’s parliamentary TV channel has announced. A similar statement was made by an anonymous Israeli official in an interview with Reuters, while the country’s Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi alleged that the blast was likely an accident caused by a fire.” (Sputnik/Moscow)
Initial Report 2
Earlier/VT: Two explosions in Beirut, one a conventional guided bomb followed by a small nuclear weapon. The target is now confirmed to be a Hezbollah missile storage facility.
One hospital in Beirut has said it is treating more than 500 injures and is unable to receive any more patients. Tens of the people injured will need surgery and the hospital is appealing for blood donations.
-Follow the latest here: https://t.co/R2Lh904JkCpic.twitter.com/xn85sUgs7q— SkyNews (@SkyNews)
August 4, 2020
This is the second explosion, that looks like the plasma ball of a nuclear explosion to me, note the white colour indicating extremely high temperatures – no conventional explosion burns so hot. Also note the great height of the plasma ball – it is taller than the grain silo. I am very strongly reminded of the nuking of Tianjin a few years ago.The warehouse to the east he speaks of is the black building shown in the video stills above.
A large explosion has been heard in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Security sources said a number of people were injured during the widespread destruction across the city, with residents reporting windows being blown out and ceilings collapsing
-Read more: https://t.co/27zh8LaW5npic.twitter.com/SZ82gxAA7Z— SkyNews (@SkyNews) August 4, 2020
Initial Report 1 – The “official explanation”
This smells like a cover story, I very much doubt there were any fireworks involved, the small explosions seen in the videos were more likely to have been munitions cooking off due to fires started by the first explosion.
RT has just covered the explosions and quotes a Lebanese govt. minister:
Health Minister Hamad Hassan told local media that a ship carrying fireworks exploded in the port. Video footage lends weight to his explanation, as it shows a small explosion followed by the crackling of fireworks, before a second and massively destructive blast.
Local residents have shared images showing extensive damage to property. The office of the Daily Star newspaper was smashed by the blast, with windows blown out and furniture flung to the ground. France24 correspondent Leila Molana-Allen said that her apartment was “blown apart,” adding that she thinks the blast was caused by a “missile from a jet.”
It looks very much like the Lebanese have invented the ship full of fireworks story to cover the truth. Molana-Allen is almost certainly correct – that it was some kind of missile or guided bomb dropped by a jet fighter-bomber.
Or are they going with the one we have heard so many times before when tactical nukes have been used – that it was a store of explosives that went up:Of course they would deny it was an attack, no-one ever admits a nuke went off, it’s terribly bad for public opinion.
Sodium nitrate, basically a big fertiliser bomb, nope, not buying that at all, this is the cover story they appear to be going with.
This local lady describes a feeling of melting, that sounds like radiation hitting her – being hit by radiation feels like heat, it burns you.
Awareness
People in Beirut,Lebanon needs to stay indoors due to the recent Firewooks/nuclear explosion that happened in Beirut. The smoke is filled with nitric acid (Red/pink/purple smoke) which is toxic and can form an acidic rain.
#BeirutBlast#Beirutpic.twitter.com/eyKYSiVJZ0
— Women_Advocate🧕🧕🧕 (@hauwa_farouk) August 4, 2020
I don’t agree with the assessment that it was a fine particulate explosion, that wouldn’t explain the white hot plasma ball, only a nuke can explain that.
The media in the west claiming that this massive nuclear like explosion is from "fireworks"
NO THE HELL IT WAS NOT!
My heart is so heavy 💔😔😭
Prayers for Beirut, Lebanon 🇱🇧pic.twitter.com/yAom0z9ZgG
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) August 4, 2020
Windows blown out 7km away indicates a huge blast, again, suggesting this was indeed a nuke.
The phones going down is probably due to the EM pulse that nukes produce.
The “nay sayers” suggest that people are watching birds. Like sparrows, pigeons, doves, or maybe parrots. Like this. I’m sure that this is a parrot…
Or, it just couldn’t be a nuke. Right? Stations would pick up the radiation.
These stations would measure the alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Since the gamma radiation travels at the speed of light, the stations would be able to register the exact moment the weapon was detonated.
Well, suddenly this station went off line. Imagine that!
It is now reported as “malfunctioning“.
Funny thing this…
Well, malfunctioning station or what, Italy says they are getting radiation readings that are worthy of note…
Conclusion
It seems that Trump authorized the use of 6kt mini-nuke to destroy the port of Beirut. This was conducted by aircraft of the Israel Air Force, and they apparently used two missiles.
Gabriel anti ship missile.
Israeli Delilah missile carrying a 6kt mini-nuke.
Radiation readings in Europe has confirmed that a nuclear warhead was used.
Trump has admitted to participation and direction of this attack. But he did not confess to using nuclear weapons.
This effort puts a immediate pause on the Chinese Belt and Road initiative with a port on the Mediterranean sea.
Trump scares the living daylights out of me. He had no qualms about unleashing a biological weapon to kill multitudes of Chinese with the COVID-19, and is now using nuclear weapons in the Mediterranean Sea. He has two complete assault carrier task forces off the Chinese coast and is working to provoke war with Russia.
What is wrong with this man?
Do you want more?
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You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
Sometimes you come across a great article that puts things into perspective that you are unable to voice. This is one such article. For China has identified who “Patient Zero” is in Wuhan.
And it’s not only that.
Pompeo wanted the Chinese not to publicize what they had discovered.
Yang’s reply:
“We await your solemn explanation, especially about Patient Zero.”
China Wins Big With Covid-19. What Were We Thinking?
China suffered through the H1N1 coronavirus epidemic in 2008 largely because the CDC took 6 months to identify it and, as a result, 300,000 died prematurely. SARS (774 deaths) was the clincher. They (China) created a hair-trigger alarm system, mandated post-mortem pneumonia DNA testing nationwide, and promoted the CDC head, Dr. George F. Gao[1], to Demigod.
Their
Covid-19 emergency has now passed and must give Dr. Gao a B+ because,
though his system contained a potential epidemic it suffered from a
weakness: local politicians could delay, (but not stop) the alarm
sounding. Doubtless for sound bureaucratic reasons, Wuhan officials
delayed notifying Beijing for a few weeks but, after Beijing pried the
information from the Wuhan Director of Public Health[2], the system swung into action, everyone pitched in, and they literally killed it.
National cohesion and coordination were amazing, thanks to the Communist Party.
They coordinated everything and filled all the gaps, no questions asked. Ninety percent of the frontline volunteer medical staff–of whom 18 died–were Party members sworn to ‘bear the people’s burden first and enjoy their pleasures last.’
Zhang Wenhong, a prominent Party member and Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Shanghai’s Huashan Hospital, became a local hero for his pep-talk to Party members :
The first-aid team put themselves in great danger. They are tired and need to rest. We shouldn’t take advantage of good people. From now on, I’ll replace all the frontline medics with Party members from different sectors. When we joined the Party, we vowed that we would always prioritize people’s interests and press forward in the face of difficulties. This is the moment we live up to the pledge. All CPC members must rush to the front line.
I don’t care what you were actually thinking when you joined the party. Now it’s time to live up to what you promised. I don’t care if you personally agree or not: it’s non-negotiable.
Altogether, 40,000 volunteers self-organized and showed up to help Wuhan.
The storm has passed.
Now
the storm has passed and China has become the world’s Santa Claus,
giving out goodies and turning a potential disaster into a real triumph.
Nothing would make that triumph sweeter than the public revelation that our (American) CDC knew about Covid-19 last September.
Like many national public health systems, the CDC ignores novel Coronaviruses every ‘flu season and blends their effects in with the immense, fluctuating number of annual deaths.
That’s why, back in 2008, the CDC took so long to detect H1N1: they weren’t looking.
It was the same old, same old until January 1.
January 1, 2020
That is when China identified a nasty Coronavirus and the US went ballistic and blamed them for starting a pandemic and insulted their culture and their government.
But they handled Covid-19 so competently that they won the world’s admiration[3] and made the American attacks on them look mean.
But no big deal.
People will forget about the huge fuss we made and just remember vaguely that China is filthy and its leaders are liars.
Except for two things:
Their society’s health policies are more compassionate than ours, as older readers will realize. They have always placed a higher societal value on eighty year-olds than we do. So when they were threatened with premature, painful deaths, they put their entire economy on hold for two months and cooperatively saved their parents and grandparents, to worldwide applause (at least from my age-group). Now China is competing to have the lowest per capita Covid-19 death rate of any major country.
The world suspected that Covid-19 was circulating outside China last yearwhen they recalled this: First Vaping Death Reported by USA Health Officials. August 2019, “Amid the lack of information, investigators scrambled to find shared links to the respiratory problems. Officials said earlier this week that many patients, most of whom were adolescents or young adults, had described difficulty breathing, chest pain, vomiting and fatigue.” Covid-19 symptoms. If that’s too speculative, here’s what NPR turned up: Other Countries can Learn Important Lessons from Italy, says Dr. Giuseppe Remuzzi, co-author of a recent paper in The Lancet about the country’s dire situation. The takeaways include how to swiftly convert a general hospital into a coronavirus care unit with specially trained doctors and nurses. “We had dermatologists, eye doctors, pathologists, learning how to assist a person with a ventilator,” Remuzzi says. Some question why Italy was caught off guard when the virus outbreak was revealed on Feb. 21. Remuzzi says he is now hearing information about it from general practitioners.
“They remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November. This means that the virus was circulating, at least in northern Lombardy before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China.“
The WHO has not requested the data from CDC because the US has been attacking the WHO daily and Dr. Ghebreyesus knows the US can get him fired. But Dr. Ghebreyesus and Dr. Gao and every Health Minister on earth know the truth. Dr. Remuzzi’s Italian DNA is traceable. So is China’s.
The world is very good at tracing Coronaviruses back through their generations and China has done so and now it seems the shit is about to hit the fan.
WUHAN OUTBREAK: CHINA DEMANDS AN HONEST ACCOUNTING
It is now virtually certain that COVID-19 was brought to Wuhan by
American troops taking part in the city’s World Military Games last Oct.
18-27.
The 300-strong US contingent stayed 300 meters from the Huanan
Seafood Market where China’s outbreak began (see map below) at the Wuhan
Oriental Hotel.
Five of the US troops developed a fever on Oct. 25 and were taken to an infectious-diseases hospital for treatment.
42 employees of the Oriental Hotel were diagnosed with COVID-19,
becoming the first cluster in Wuhan. At the time only 7 people from the
market had been thus diagnosed (and treated before the hotel staff). All
7 had contact with the 42 from the hotel. From this source, the virus
spread to the rest of China.
The American Military Games team trained at a location near Fort
Detrick, the military’s viral lab closed down by the CDC in July for
various deficiencies.
The big question now is whether the transmission was planned, or accidental.
Chinese authorities are awaiting an explanation from US authorities.
Outbreak source location within Wuhan, China.
A few days ago, Mike Pompeo phoned Yang Jiechi, Chinese State
Councillor for Foreign Affairs. Pompeo’s counterpart is actually Foreign
Minister Wang Yi and Yang is Wang’s boss, so Pompeo wanted to talk
about something urgent and important.
Pompeo wanted the Chinese not to publicize what they had found.
Yang’s reply: “We await your solemn explanation, especially about Patient Zero.”
China’s
leaders have long suspected US military involvement in the Wuhan
outbreak but were determined to stop the disease before pursuing the
Americans for an honest accounting.
Notes
[1]
Dr. Gao has made contributions to the study of inter-species pathogen
transmission. He organized the first World Flu Day on November 1 2018,
commemorating the centenary of the Spanish flu. It was also the 15-year
commemoration of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, SARS,
which led to China prioritising investment in the public health system.
He is a virologist and immunologist. He has served as Director of the
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention since 2017 and Dean of
the Savaid Medical School of the University of Chinese Academy of
Sciences since 2015. Gao is an academician of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences and The World Academy of Sciences, as well as a foreign
associate of the US National Academy of Sciences and the US National
Academy of Medicine. He was awarded the TWAS Prize in Medical Science in
2012 and the Nikkei Asia Prize in 2014.
[2] They fired him the next day. Henceforth local politicians will be out of the loop and everyone will have a CDC hotline number.
[3] Dr Bruce Aylward, head of the WHO International Mission said,“In the face of a previously unknown disease, China has taken one of the most ancient approaches for infectious disease control and rolled out probably the most ambitious, and I would say, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history. China took old-fashioned measures, like the national approach to hand-washing, the mask-wearing, the social distancing, the universal temperature monitoring. But then very quickly, as it started to evolve, the response started to change . . . So they refined the strategy as they moved forward, and this is an important aspect as we look to how we might use this going forward. WHO has been here from the start of this crisis, an epidemic, working every single day with the government of China… WHO was here from the beginning and never left. What’s different about this mission is it’s complementing a lot of other external experts.”
Conclusion
China is holding all the cards now.
Many of the events precipitated by the Trump Administration are beginning to become obvious. Manipulations, trade disputes, germ warfare against grains and wheat, and germ warfare against poultry and pork, as well as the onslaught of anti-Chinese rhetoric are all out in the open and clear for everyone to see. The propaganda machine is running in full swing, but it cannot continue like this forever.
I do not anticipate serious troubles unless the United States decides to “double down”, however this information while not public knowledge to Americans, is widely known to the rest of the government leadership throughout the world.
It certainly knocks the standing of the United States down more than a few notches in the overall scheme of things.
I hope that you enjoyed this post. You can see others in my Trump Trade War Index here…
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Trump, you can love him or hate him. I personally believe that America needs him domestically; the United States is in a real mess and needs a tough “pit-bull” to sort things out. However, that being said, his international leadership has been an absolute fiasco. The world-wide global stability has fallen in every indicator, all across the board. This is not just my opinion, it is all very well documented. I fear that, and history confirms, that if not properly corralled war will be the ultimate result.
I do not want that.
War will not be anything like anyone expects. It will be a nasty, nasty business. America will suffer the most, and most Americans will not be “happy campers”.
This is a reprint of an article titled “America in Distress: The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change” written by ambassador Chas Freeman on 2020-02-20. He makes some very good points (even if he is in the State Department). I have edited his article to fit this forum, but aside from that, I pretty much left it unadorned. I added formatting, and pull-quotes. Please give it a read and kindly note that all credit goes to the author.
America in Distress: The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change
Remarks to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) Senior Fellow, Watson Institute, Brown University 20 February 2020, Providence, Rhode Island
The 21st century arrived belatedly – but with a bang – on September 11, 2001. When aircraft repurposed as improvised cruise missiles blew up the World Trade Towers and part of the Pentagon.
In the two short decades since the shock and awe of that attack, most of the previous century’s American efforts to bolster peace and prosperity have been undone.
Gone are the constraints on the strong bullying the weak provided by international law, multilateral institutions, and plurilateral and bilateral commitments to mutual aid and cooperation.
The norms that long moderated international and domestic behavior have been largely erased. Incivility is now ubiquitous.
Political systems everywhere have been overtaken by socioeconomic and technological change.
There is no sign they are catching up.
In the United States and other democracies, political and economic systems still work in theory, but not in practice.
Democracies work in theory but not in practice.
In some ways, the scene in Washington now resembles that in Saint Petersburg in the last days of the Tsar, with sycophants and charlatans running amok and government capacity in rapid decline.
…And like Tsarist Russia, America is losing its aura of imperial purpose and invincibility.
America is starting to resemble Tsarist Russia before the revolution.
American media and public discourse are dominated by bogus narratives and frenzied bigotry. Nothing seems true, but everything seems plausible.
Almost everyone acknowledges that there are serious unattended problems, but no one seems able to do anything about them.
All this has spawned an age of soul-sickening worry.
Both abroad and at home, the signposts of the past provide no reassurance. We have become pathfinders in the gloom, fumbling our way toward a better future that may or may not exist.
Many analysts attribute the current global and American despondency to President Trump.
Many analysts blame Trump.
Trump, a self-centered sociopath whose incorrigible ignorance, relentless pettiness, and winner-take-all approach to international negotiations…
… have catalyzed the deconstruction of the global political economy…
… and the established legal order.
But the trends that underlay the shocks we are experiencing began long before anyone other than Deutsche Bank, Russian oligarchs, or Gary Trudeau had even heard of Mr. Trump.
Trump is not the cause. Trump is a symptom.
Trends initiated by Trump
Here are some notable trends that have culminated under the current administration…
Diplomacy
Washington has given up on diplomacy.
Instead has turned to an aggressive reliance on exclusively coercive means to exercise influence abroad.
Instead, turning instead to taunts, threats, unilateral sanctions, ultimatums, cyber-warfare, drone and missile attacks, assassinations, proxy warfare, and military invasions and pacification campaigns.
And I would add, germ warfare.
Might once again makes right.
The United States now has over thirty active financial and trade sanctions programs, which it can and does impose on friends and foes alike.
The Trump administration is averaging 1,000 new sanctions on countries, companies, and individuals per year.
The United States currently allocates almost 5 percent of GDP to military and related budgets for past, present, and future wars, a total of $1 trillion. (This is about one third more than the usually cited U.S. “defense budget,” which fails to include many categories of spending accounted for in other countries’ defense budgets.)
Money spent on warfare amounts to about two-thirds of all “discretionary” spending in the federal budget. This doesn’t leave much for investment in anything else…
America is a military empire pushing everyone around.
War on Terrorism
The ill-conceived “Global War on Terrorism” has continued to snowball.
In 2001, anti-American terrorists with global reach were found in only one or two countries.
Today, according to the Watson Institute’s Cost of War project, the United States is engaged in combat with terrorists in 80 nations.
America is fighting in 80 nations.
We respect no sovereignty other than our own and are currently bombing at least seven nations without their permission.
The military operations kicked off by the “Global War on Terrorism” have so far cost $5.4 trillion, plus another $1 trillion in veterans’ care.
No end is in sight.
The relatives and friends of the more than half-a-million Muslims killed since the U.S. anti-terrorist campaign began in 2001 continue to queue up for revenge…
There are many, many people who just hate the United States and what it has done to them, their families and their societies.
American Military Forces
Despite the immensity and prowess of the American war machine, the United States has lost, or is clearly losing, every conflict it has fought in this century.
America’s military reputation is out of touch with reality.
With no fixed objectives or termination strategies for any of these wars, they go on forever…
…And history strongly suggests that once American troops establish a presence in a country, they do not withdraw.
Seventy-five years after defeating Germany and Japan, the U.S. still garrisons them, as it does Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
In the months before the bonfire of takes surrounding the recent crisis with Iran, America’s national security and military establishment wrestled publicly with a different cause for alarm: in wargame after wargame pitched against Moscow and Beijing, the U.S. players wound up, according to one RAND researcher, “getting their asses kicked”—so much so that often games were simply halted midway through.
- You Win or You Die?
Washington has sneered at recent Iraqi demands that it remove American troops from Iraq; it has instead promised to punish Iraq if it persists in pressing for U.S. withdrawal.
This is the behavior of an imperial occupying force, not the deference to local pride and sovereignty characteristic of an ally.
Such arrogance makes the humiliating expulsion of U.S. forces or terrorism by local nationalists inevitable…
Honor and Respect
Once famous for steadfastness and the value of our word, the United States has definitively repudiated the long-established principle of PACTA SUNT SERVANDA (“agreements must be kept”)…
… and replaced it with capricious abrogation of treaties, arbitrary withdrawal from accords, wanton sabotage of multilateral compacts, and money-grubbing hedging of security commitments.
Examples include arms control treaties, the UN Security Council-approved nuclear deal with Iran, the Paris climate accords, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Arms Trade Treaty, and previously unquestioned commitments to defend allies in Europe and Northeast Asia.
The United States has not just forsaken, but in some instances sought to hamstring the multilateral institutions engaged in global governance and cooperative rule-setting it once sponsored…
… setting their mechanisms for dispute resolution aside…
… in favor of bilateral confrontations and tests of strength.
Examples include the United Nations, the World Trade Organization (WTO), UNESCO, and the UN Human Rights Commission.
America has been breaking agreements and well established rules. Thus, it is viewed as unreliable.
Trade
Washington has replaced market-driven trade based on comparative advantage with the tariffs, quotas, and government-managed exchanges characteristic of mercantilism.
Trade policy is now a national security function…
… embodying economic nationalism…
… and the vested interests of the corporate and military-industrial elites.
As China has continued to cut tariffs and eliminate quotas for other trading partners, U.S. tariffs on imports from China have risen from an average of 3.1 percent to 19.3 percent…
… a level last seen in the Smoot-Hawley tariffs that helped bring on the Great Depression.
America prefers to put coercive and punitive measures on nations, rather than to work with allies.
America’s other major trading partners are on notice to expect protectionist pressures like those imposed on China.
Overseas Commitments
Rapacious rent-seeking is replacing the national interest as the justification for U.S. overseas military commitments.
The Trump administration has begun to demand that U.S. military installations and troop deployments be paid for by the nations they help defend.
This is a significant contributor to the growing dissensus in U.S. alliances.
It treats the U.S. armed forces as mercenaries rather than the defenders of U.S. national security.
The US military are used as proxy mercenaries instead of defensive forces.
As U.S. defense commitments originally formulated to assure strategic denial of defeated adversaries to the Soviet empire erode, these former adversaries – nations like Germany and Japan – have been left with no choice but to rebuild their capacities…
… to act independently of the United States.
De-dollarization
Finally, U.S. unilateralism threatens to bring about de-dollarization of the global economy.
The dollar is used everywhere as a unit of account, store of value, and medium of exchange.
Roughly 90 percent of global foreign exchange transactions currently involve a dollar leg.
About 40 percent of global trade outside the United States is still invoiced and settled in dollars.
Almost 60 percent of U.S. dollar banknotes circulate internationally, generating seignorage revenues that the Federal Reserve transmits to the Treasury. (Seignorage is the difference between the face value of dollar bills and the negligible cost of printing them.)
The universal use of the dollar as a global currency has meant lower transaction costs for U.S. businesses engaged in international commerce, lower financing costs for borrowers of dollars, and lessened sensitivity to global economic fluctuations for the U.S. economy.
These “exorbitant privileges” (as a French finance minister once called them) have been a significant U.S. competitive advantage.
But, as the United States increasingly restricts the international use of the dollar through unilateral sanctions, the dollar is ceasing to be usable everywhere.
Dollar dominance has enabled the United States to wield enormous extraterritorial influence in support of its geopolitical objectives.
But there is growing international resistance to Washington’s now routine abuse of dollar sovereignty to turn foreign banks into instruments of punitive U.S. policies opposed by their own governments.
America’s friends and foes alike are considering how best to end the dollar’s central role in global trade settlement…
The supremacy of the US Dollar is coming to an end.
No one can now take the primacy of the dollar in international trade (and investment and the American geopolitical hegemony) it has underwritten for granted.
Foreign Reactions to America
These changes in U.S. policies and practices and their impact on the evolving international system are inevitably eliciting foreign reactions and counteractions…
…many of them detrimental to American interests.
Each implies a very different set of world orders than the one we have known.
And each entails a diminished role for the United States in decisions that affect global stability and prosperity.
American adjustments to these changes.
Sadly, there is now no policy process in Washington capable of considering how to shape the American and global futures.
Congress has unconstitutionally delegated most of its authorities relating to peace, war, and foreign affairs to the executive branch.
Congress is not doing it’s job.
But the great departments and agencies of that branch are no longer effective participants in national decision-making.
Given other historical precedent, there’s nothing wrong with our current government leaders that wouldn’t be solved far more rapidly, by simply chopping 342 of them open with tomahawks and hurling them into the Potomac river-since Boston Harbor is kinda far to toss the bodies.
-Starving Larry
They have become little more than stages on which political performers sing the president’s praises and strut their stuff in hopes of celebrity, future riches, higher office, or all three.
Fiscal Inabilities…
The U.S. ability to adapt to change is severely constrained by fiscal incapacity. Tax revenues are chronically short of expenditures.
The last time Washington balanced a budget was in 2001.
“…and the sad truth is that 95% of the problems we have in this country could be solved tomorrow, by noon… simply by dragging 100 people out in the street and shooting them in the fucking head.”
– An anonymous US Marine.
The federal revenue shortfall (i.e. the budget deficit) is now about $1 trillion annually – about the same size as overall military spending – and it’s destined to grow.
Roughly 40 percent of any U.S. deficit is currently borrowed abroad.
There is no money for the maintenance of human and physical infrastructure, let alone new initiatives to enhance economic competitiveness or project American power abroad.
Sixty percent of the world’s reserves are held in dollars.
…But some day…
… a few astute foreigners will notice that the United States has no plan to finance its mounting debt with anything but further credit rollovers and borrowing.
Those foreigners will then switch to currencies more likely to hold value than the dollar.
Those nations that continue to use the US Dollar might experience financial ruin if the rest of the world decouples from it.
America’s Diplomatic Ability
Meanwhile, years of diplomacy-free foreign policy and rampant militarism have gutted American diplomatic capacity.
This has left the U.S. military to manage America’s international relations.
But the generals and admirals have no answers to the dilemmas their own regime-change interventions and forever wars have created…
… let alone the pressing economic, technological, global governance, and financial challenges now facing the country.
The deficit-induced inability of the United States to invest in human and physical infrastructure…
… science or medical services at home…
…or anything other than military activities abroad continues to erode American competitiveness.
China and other rising or resurgent powers are building rival competencies as American non-military capabilities erode.
So, China and other nations are likely to play a larger role than the United States in determining what is to come.
You get what you can pay for…
… not what you believe past leadership entitles you to.
American leadership on all fronts are sun-setting. Other nations are taking the lead in areas formerly occupied by America.
Democracy!
After 9/11, Americans began a program of hit-and-run attempts to democratize other countries.
As America’s founders had warned, such military and ideological adventurism is lethal to democratic constitutionalism.
U.S. regime-change policies have stimulated smaller powers to develop their own means of striking back at the United States from afar…
… including with nuclear weapons.
North Korea is the prime example of this. But, given recent events, it is hard to imagine that Iran and others will be far behind.
America’s amazing global success derived less from our military might…
… than from our embrace of equality of opportunity…
… and shaping of the world’s multilateral institutions…
… our openness…
… and our ability to constantly redefine ourselves as we assimilated and were changed by successive waves of immigrants.
These were qualities that others everywhere admired and aspired to emulate. Border walls, Muslim bans, and the mean-spirited refoulement (or turning back) of refugees tell the world that the United States has set aside the values that long made it internationally inspiring to others.
And if democracy means citizen participation in setting policies, budgets, and national priorities…
…it is hard for foreigners to find much evidence of it in the contemporary United States…
… a nation now led by plutocrats…
… and manipulated by deceptive media.
Instead, they see American politics as both cynically venal and indecisive.
The United States is now a nation in which intransigent partisanship appears to have succeeded the separation of powers as the basis of decision-making about public policy and personnel.
To many abroad, America has lost its mojo.
American “democracy” is a failure and everyone notices it.
Use of military might.
It is against this unpromising background that the United States has decided that the only way to influence foreign nations is to use economic sanctions and military power to bring them to their knees.
The Trump administration has leavened this approach to problematic opponents by coupling what it calls “maximum pressure” on them…
… and their national interests…
… as they see them with transparently insincere flattery of their leaders and appeals to their greed.
So far, however, the application of this bizarre approach to U.S. relations with nations like China, Iran, north Korea, Pakistan, and Turkey, as well as to Europe, has yielded nothing but pushback.
America is considered a global bully deserving of some comeuppance.
Maximum pressure without the flattery has done nothing to advance U.S. interests in Cuba or Venezuela, while flattery without pressure has gained America nothing with Israel, Russia, or Saudi Arabia.
Clearly, the United States needs to revamp its diplomatic doctrine.
The rest of the world is reacting…
In the meantime, Americans must expect increased hedging on the part of their traditional security partners.
Even Britain now seeks to reduce dependence on the United States and its military technology.
Germany and Japan are cautiously rebuilding the capacity to act on their own interests internationally without regard to the United States.
As they do so, they are rearranging their strategic environments.
It is unlikely that any foreign nation will attack the United States, since the consequences for an attacker would be too severe.
But in time, many of America’s erstwhile military allies and protected states will reemerge as at least limited rivals of U.S. power in third countries and regions.
Their previously confident dependence on the defense capabilities of the United States had successfully precluded this.
Nations are taking things into account that do not include American interests.
But as they look only to their own interests, they will be ever less likely to make common cause with the U.S. on matters that concern them less than Americans.
That is unfortunate.
For decades to come, both the security of Americans abroad and their safety at home are almost certain to be imperiled by delayed reactions from the relatives, friends, and coreligionists of the many dead in our so-called Global War on Terrorism.
International cooperation is essential to manage and mitigate these threats, which are largely of our own making.
Given U.S. self-centeredness and unilateralism, cooperation by other countries will be significantly less forthcoming than it might have been.
Meanwhile, the foreign adversaries of the United States will begin to subject Americans to the deadly techniques Washington has devised to kill presumed terrorists since 9/11 – assassinations, cyberwar, drone attacks, and the like.
The Good News…
The good news is that the “attack surface” – the bases and deployments accessible to enemy attack – that the United States presents to foreign foes will shrink as American forces are brought home either at U.S. initiative or at that of the countries they have garrisoned.
Circumstances have changed.
In the Cold War, a U.S. military presence was valued by other countries as both a deterrent and a tripwire against foreign attack.
Now a continuing U.S. presence is likely to be seen as both an attractive nuisance…
… and an impediment to the negotiated resolution of the issues dividing nations…
… by the peoples of those nations themselves.
Examples include Afghanistan, Iraq, China, and Korea. The tension between the U.S. focus on deterring changes in the status quo and host-country citizens’ eagerness for the restoration of national unity makes longstanding military deployments increasingly precarious.
Some U.S. overseas presences seem certain to generate unwelcome surprises.
Nations no longer want American troops to be stationed there.
Afghanistan.
The ill-considered U.S. pacification campaign in that fractious country has failed.
There has been neither clarity nor fixity about our objectives there.
The main American goal now seems to be to withdraw without having to admit defeat.
For now, however, U.S. and NATO forces remain a feature of the politico-military landscape…
… to be exploited by all sides in their ongoing ethnic and religious conflicts and struggles…
… to siphon off foreign aid and control the drug trade.
As long as foreign troops remain in their country, Afghan factions will avoid the compromises with each other that the foreign presence enables them to sidestep or delay.
The withdrawal of U.S. and other Western forces would remove a key impediment to peace.
Afghanistan wants the United States to leave.
The United States should let Afghans work out Afghanistan’s problems even as we retain the ability to return to Afghanistan if it once again becomes a haven for terrorists with global reach.
Iraq.
The Shi`ite Arab majority in the Baghdad parliament has now formally demanded the departure of U.S. and other foreign forces.
But the Kurds and many Sunni Arabs in Iraq view a continuing U.S. military presence as essential to preserve their ability to defy the authorities in Baghdad.
The United States has inadvertently become the essential bulwark of the ethno-religious divisions that its invasion and occupation of Iraq energized.
It’s withdrawal would force Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi`i to attempt to hammer out a modus vivendi of some sort within a more unified Iraq.
If successful, this would dilute Iraq’s sectarianism…
… deprive the so-called Islamic State of space to maneuver in a divided Iraq…
…revive Iraqi nationalism as the antidote to Iranian domination of Iraqi politics…
…and reopen the possibility that Iraq might once again balance Iran.
Iraq wants the United States to leave.
Taiwan.
The separation of the island from the rest of China resulted from a civil war among Chinese that was suspended but not ended by U.S. naval intervention in June 1950.
Taiwan has since emerged as a far more attractive society than that on the mainland.
Bullshit. Maybe twenty years ago. Not today.
But this is not my article, so...
But the military balance in the Taiwan Strait has shifted overwhelmingly against it. In this context, the Taiwan Relations Act’s vague unilateral U.S. undertaking to help defend the Chinese on Taiwan from those across the Strait provides Taiwanese with a persuasive rationale to avoid pursuing an agreed relationship with Chinese on the mainland.
As frustration with the direction of Taiwan’s politics and American policy mounts in Beijing, a resumption of the Chinese civil war is becoming more rather than less likely.
Again. Complete nonsense.
Less, rather than more U.S. military involvement would arguably both improve prospects for a negotiated resolution of Taiwan’s status by the Chinese parties themselves and eliminate the most likely casus belli between China and the United States.
An active conflict over Taiwan could easily escalate to the level of a nuclear exchange. U.S. policies that sustain involvement in the latest phase of China’s civil war are long overdue for some sort of strategic triage.
I do agree here. Any attempt to conduct military operations regarding Taiwan will see New York City vaporized.
Taiwan can trigger a nuclear conflict.
Korea.
It’s intervention in 1950 successfully prevented Korea’s unification under Pyongyang.
The Korean War resulted in an armistice but no peace. In the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, a large U.S. troop presence was almost certainly the principal deterrent to renewed attack on the South by the North.
But, the balance of power on the peninsula has long since shifted decisively in favor of the South, which has become one of the most successful societies on the planet.
Today, South Korea’s economy is fifty times bigger than that in the North. Its armed forces are also vastly better equipped .
In this century, an increasingly self-confident Seoul has begun to explore the possibility of peace with Koreans north of the 38th parallel.
But the United States has remained focused solely on the north Korean military threat.
Seoul and Washington are no longer in sync, still less in lockstep. “Kachi kapsida” – “we go together,” the US-ROK alliance slogan – rings increasingly hollow.
Some South Koreans favor a continuing U.S. military presence in their country but ever more seem to view it as humiliating.
Despite President Trump’s three meetings with Kim Jong-un, the United States continues to reject addressing North Korea’s security concerns as a prerequisite to facilitating arms control, including denuclearization, and intra-Korean détente.
The American warfare state is adamantly opposed to any troop drawdown in Korea.
Korea wants Americans to leave.
But the possibility that South Koreans will insist on such withdrawals is increasing.
This is in part because they do not want to be caught up in escalating Sino-American tensions and in part because they want a free hand to craft a relationship with their fellow Koreans to the North.
The consequences for the U.S. position in Northeast Asia of a falling out over troop withdrawals could be as strategically damaging…
….as north Korea’s unbroken drive to acquire a nuclear deterrent capable of striking the continental United States.
America is becoming isolated.
As Washington replaces staunch commitments to other countries with noncommittal stands…
… and U.S. alliances decay…
… the risks of American self-isolation from multilateral bodies are also becoming ever more apparent.
American repudiation of multilateral agreements like TPP and the Paris climate accords did not kill these institutions or cause others to discard their objectives.
Japan took the lead in refashioning TPP into an eleven-member grouping that others now seek to join.
It is now forging a loose Japanese-led order in East Asia to balance China.
When Syria belatedly signed on to the Paris accords, the United States became the only nonmember on the planet.
As these groups agree on programs and rules, Americans have no say in them.
Indeed, there is a real danger that compensatory tariffs will eventually be applied to imports from countries that are not in compliance with multilaterally agreed rules about carbon emissions.
The main, if not the only target of such tariffs would be the United States.
America is isolating itself from the rest of the world.
Time for new relationships…
Washington’s efforts to incapacitate the WTO are now spurring the creation of more efficient tribunals for trade and investment dispute resolution.
At the end of January, the EU, China, Brazil, South Korea, and twelve others agreed on a system to stand in for the WTO appellate process, which the United States had hamstrung.
Another example is the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU.
CETA eliminates tariffs on 98 percent of EU-Canada trade, harmonizes standards for regulated professions, facilitates staff transfers between companies operating in multiple jurisdictions, and stiffens the enforcement of intellectual property rights.
It contemplates the establishment of a permanent multilateral investment court with improved rules for its members.
By contrast, the so-called “phase one” trade deal with China…
…entrenches U.S. protectionism…
… and leaves future disputes to be resolved through bilateral tests of strength that amount to renewed trade wars.
The EU has adopted CETA as a model for future free trade agreements (FTAs).
China’s Belt and Road Initiative similarly eliminates barriers to trade as well as transit and creates special courts to resolve trade and investment disputes among its participants.
The new African Continental Free Trade Area does the same.
The biggest things these initiatives have in common are [1] their affirmation of multilateralism and [2] their exclusion of the United States.
The world is inventing post-WTO arrangements to expand trade and investment. It is doing so both despite America and without it.
America is divorcing itself from the rest of the world.
America’s economic warfare.
Meanwhile, the United States has stepped up its use of the dollar as an instrument of economic warfare.
America’s unilateral application and enforcement of dollar-based sanctions…
… including secondary sanctions that penalize third countries and their banks and companies for dealing with any country backlisted by Washington…
… reflects open U.S. contempt for the United Nations, international law, and other countries’ sovereignty.
It is deeply resented internationally.
This has driven the world’s major trading nations into a serious search for ways to end dollar supremacy.
Without other nations using the US Dollar, the gigantic US financial debt would really start to affect the United States.
Their efforts have included the creation of alternatives to SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) to handle money transfer instructions.
Keeping away from America’s grasp…
The Russian “System for Transfer of Financial Messages” (STFS) has already de-dollarized 70 percent of trade within the Eurasian Economic Union.
China’s UnionPay still uses dollars when converting currencies but, later this year, Beijing is expected to expand its Cross-Border International Payments System (CIPS) to connect some twenty banks in a worldwide payments superhighway for clearing and settling transactions in yuan.
It will link up with the Russian STFS and an Indian system now being designed.
Earlier, the EU established a “special vehicle” to conduct trade with Iran outside SWIFT.
The BRICS group of countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) is joining forces to create a single payment system – BRICS Pay.
The People’s Bank of China recently announced plans to issue a digital (blockchain-based) version of the Chinese yuan, allowing the world’s largest non-dollar economy to extend its almost cash-free domestic systems for settling transactions to the world.
The link-up between a digitized yuan and emerging alternatives to SWIFT represents a major threat to the dollar’s continued near-monopoly of international trade settlement.
It also threatens traditional banking because it promises a faster, much cheaper way to handle international transactions.
Still the main driver of this and other new clearance mechanisms is the desire to evade the extraterritorial enforcement of U.S. policies that most of the world considers both illegal and obnoxious.
The USA treats the rest of the world as poor-versions of America. The first step to stop this is to sever the banking and financial ties to America.
An erosion of dollar primacy would have profound effects on American hegemony. The U.S. ability to print money and exchange it for foreign goods and services would be reduced, if not ended.
Dollar notes held overseas represent interest-free loans to the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.
Lessened demand for dollars overseas would lower the dollar’s value in relation to other currencies, reduce its credibility as a vehicle for storing value, and negate the rationale for its continued dominant role in foreign exchange reserves.
The consequences…
The emergence of digital alternatives to the dollar in the global economy would lead to less liquid capital markets in the United States and increased costs to participants in them.
In these circumstances, America could no longer run persistent balance of trade and payments deficits.
The overvaluation of the dollar that its primacy has sustained would end.
The American standard of living would plunge.
Decoupling from the US Dollar would crash the American economy.
Degradation of the dollar’s status would greatly erode U.S. global influence.
In short, the confluence of foreign resistance to U.S. bullying and the emergence of new fintech has created the possibility of a devastating monetary earthquake.
The causes and catalysts of the many nasty possibilities before us are, for the most part, decisions made in Washington, not abroad.
The rise of China and India and the resurgence of Russia are not irrelevant but hardly central to what is happening.
When one creates a strategic vacuum, it’s easier to blame the powers that are sucked into it than oneself.
The rest of the world has had enough!
But it is not China that has substituted the use of force and the pursuit of regime change for diplomacy.
Other countries are not engaged in global drone warfare or “forever wars.”
They do not occupy or maintain multiple bases in lands far from their borders or bill other countries for contributions to the common defense.
They have not felt free to repudiate treaties and agreements to which they are party.
Neither China nor other countries are trying to destroy the institutions of global governance or replace free-market transactions with government-managed trade.
With the notable exception of Israel, other countries are not asserting a right to assassinate foreign officials.
And they are not imposing unilateral sanctions or waging financial warfare on others.
All these things are examples of American self-sabotage, not predatory foreign behavior. Curing these deviations from past practice and their pernicious consequences requires introspection and reform in Washington more than anywhere else.
Nations consider America to be dangerous, and harmful. It is considered to be unreliable and potential threat to local stability.
What to expect…
If no such introspection and reform are forthcoming, the United States will have to compete with others under the law of the jungle that it has reintroduced.
It will face mounting opposition from a loose coalition of resistance to its faltering hegemony.
At the moment, America is trying to best China by pushing it into economic stagnation rather than acting to enhance U.S. economic dynamism.
This is not working, and there is no reason to believe it ever will.
In the end, America can be competitive only if it does what is necessary to rectify home-grown deficiencies and strengthen domestic capabilities and competencies.
This means addressing obvious areas of weakness and the trends that cause them, including:
A continuing refusal to raise taxes to fund the government. This guarantees competitive incapacity. Budget deficits preclude maintenance of existing infrastructure, let alone new initiatives to improve competitiveness at home and abroad.
An undemanding educational system that is content with mediocrity in both world knowledge and vocational training. (Siemens reports that to make American workers competitive with German workers, it must give them six months of remedial training in math and other basic skills.)
Domestic opposition to science and rejection of its findings, coupled with declining funding for basic scientific research and bans on the publication of politically unwelcome scientific data.
Disinvestment in what have long been the world’s best universities and their increasing subjection to national security-derived restrictions on international collaboration.
Visa bans and disapprovals that discourage foreign students, visitors, and investors.
Inadequate and often irrelevant retraining of workers displaced by automation, foreign competition, or changes in industrial structure.
Complacent but mistaken assumptions of superiority to other societies, which remain uncorrected out of disinterest in examining and adopting foreign best practices. (Recall the sneer with which Hillary Clinton dismissed Bernie Sanders’ 2016 suggestion that America might have a thing or two to learn from Denmark.)
A tax structure that directs wealth to the plutocracy at the expense of both the middle class and an increasingly disaffected working class, and that hinders rather than supports socioeconomic mobility. (Among European countries, only Slovenia, Italy, and the U.K. now have less movement between classes than the contemporary United States.)
Racial prejudice and growing barriers to the admission and absorption of foreigners and their ideas.
An economy dominated by uncompetitive oligopolies, in which laws and regulations protect vested interests at the expense of new market entrants, and in which – contrary to the conventional wisdom – innovation is in secular decline.
Disdain for expertise and a marked decline in the competence of government officials.
Many Americans know what we need to do to up our game. Still, there
is next to no public discussion of our competitive weaknesses, their
causes, or their remedies. We are in an election year. But few
candidates have offered anything other than vague, cost-free
prescriptions for restoring American competitiveness.
On one issue – the costs of war – the Watson Institute has stepped up to collect the data and raise the issues the Congress should have but hasn’t.
There is a role for our great universities in stimulating the debate about the state of the nation and its future that the vested interests that dominate Washington have stifled. And there is a long list of neglected issues for the academy to choose from. Is it too much to hope that American civil society will intervene where an increasingly ineffectual government has failed to?
Conclusion
A bit wordy, and long.
…And he doesn’t understand modern contemporaneous China AT ALL, but…
…he does have some good points.
Americans are unaware of how the rest of the world views America. Nor do we understand how the rest of the world are treating the behaviors of America on the global stage. This is independent of whether the president is Bush, Obama or Trump.
“The U.S. government now poses the greatest threat to our freedoms. More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, even more than the perceived threat posed by any single politician, the U.S. government remains a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.”
– John W. Whitehead
We live in some kind of fantasy, and it’s going to get everyone hurt unless everyone “suddenly snaps alert” and wakes up.
Changes are coming, and they all are a back-lash against the American policies of the last five or so decades.
Now, America can do one of only two things…
Work with other nations as equals. And come up with methodologies and systems that provides American advantage.
Demand that everyone follow America and do as we say.
Which course do you think America is on today?
This is what I am most concerned about. While the rest of the world are putting their nations first. The American empire will shrink. To prevent that shrinkage, America might do something dangerous and worse that what it has already been involved in.
Worse.
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One of my on-going themes is the idea that war, real terrible war, hasn’t been conducted by the United States for around 70 years. The last “real” war that the United States fought; one that required full mobilization of resources, and placed the very existence of the United States on line, was World War II. Since that date, the government of the United States has become corrupt, slothful and a money-making organism. If not trying to milk the citizens as servant-serfs, it is trying to conduct “for profit” global military operations for other interests as proxies. The time is fast arriving that this model will no longer be sustainable.
The Navy has not been in a war for seventy years. It has sat off various shores and launched aircraft, but the fleet has not been engaged. Over decades of inaction, complacency sets in. Unfortunately, wars regularly turn out to be otherwise than expected. Further, the American military’s standard approach to a war is to underestimate the enemy (there is probably a manual on this).
-Russia Insider
There are numerous articles on this point. Here is another most excellent one. Posted here for your viewing pleasure.
The article is titled; “Unused Militaries” written by Fred Reed on September 10, 2019. All credit to the author, and please feel free to visit his site for the very interesting and contrary Comments. Presented here will only minor editing to fit this blog venue.
It appears that Washington, ever a seething cauldron of bright ideas, is looking for a shooting war with China, or perhaps trying to make the Chinese kowtow and back down, the pretext being some rocks in the Pacific in which the United States cannot possibly have a vital national interest. Or, really, any interest. And if the Chinese do not back down?
-Russia Insider
Unused Militaries
“America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It’s part of who we are. It’s part of what the American Empire is. We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as Pompeo is doing right now, as Trump is doing right now, as Esper is doing right now … and a host of other members of my political party, the Republicans, are doing right now. We are going to lie, cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That’s the truth of it. And that’s the agony of it.”
- Retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2001 to 2005
For a couple of decades I covered the military for various publications, as for example the Washington Times and Harper’s, and wrote a military column for Universal Press Syndicate. I was following the time-honored principle of sensible reporters:
“Ask not what you can do for journalism, but what journalism can do for you.”
The military beat was a great gig, letting you fly in fighter planes and sink in submarines. But if you take the study seriously, as I did, you learn interesting things.
Such as that a war with a real country, such as Russia, China, or even Iran, would be a fool’s adventure.
A few points:
Unused militaries deteriorate
The US fleet has not been in a war since 1945, the air forces since 1975. nor the Army in a hard fight since Vietnam. Bombing defenseless peasants, the chief function of the American military, is not war.
Bombing defenseless peasants is not war.
In extended periods of peace, which includes the bombing of peasants, a military tends to assume that no major war will come during the careers of those now in uniform.
Commanders consequently do what makes their lives easy, what they must do to get through the day and have reasonable fitness reports.
This does not include pointing out inadequacies of training or equipment.
Nor does it include recommending large expenditures to remedy deficiencies.
Nor does it include recommending very expensive mobilization exercises that would divert money from new weapons.
This assures reluctance to question the fleet’s effectiveness in the face of changing conditions. Such as high-Mach, stealthed, maneuvering, sea-skimming cruise missiles. Or terminally guided anti-ship ballistic missiles. America is accustomed to fighting enemies who can’t fight back. This may not include the Chínese.
There is also the fact that the American military simply doesn’t matter, which reduces concern with whether it can fight and who it can fight. It doesn’t defend the US, since there is nothing to defend it against. (What country has the remotest possibility of invading America?) So the military is used for what are essentially hobbyist wars, keeping Israel happy, providing markets for the arms companies, and for social engineering: we have girl crews who would be a disaster at damage control, but we assume that there will never be any damage to control.
-Russia Insider
Thus an armored command has enough replacement tracks for training, but not enough for tanks in hard use in extended combat.
When the crunch comes, it turns out that getting more track requires a new contract with the manufacturer, who has shut down the production line.
The same is true for air filters, there not being much sand at Fort Campbell but a lot in Iraq.
Things as mundane as MRATs and boots are not there in real-war quantities.
GAU-8
ammo is in short supply because theory says the F-35 will do tank
busting. The Navy runs out of TLAMs early on and discovers that
manufacturing cruise missiles takes time. Lots ot it.
And
of course some things simply don’t work as expected. Military history
buffs will remember the Mark XIV torpedo, the Mark VI exploder of WWII,
and the travails of the Tinosa.
Come the war, things turn into a goat rope. FUBAR, SNAFU.
Conscription
The United States cannot fight a large land war, as for example against Russia, China, or Iran.
Such a war would require conscription.
The public would not stand for it.
America no longer enjoys the sort of patriotic unity that it did at the beginning of the war against Vietnam. It will not accept heavy casualties.
People today are far more willing to disobey the federal government.
Note that many states have legalized marijuana in defiance of federal law, that many jurisdictions across the country simply refuse to assist federal immigration enforcement.
Any attempt to send Snowflakes and other delicates to fight would result in widespread civil disobedience.
The Navy
The existing fleet has never been under fire and does not think it ever will be.
Most of its ships are thin-skinned, unarmored. One hit by an antiship missile would remove them from the war.
Being something of a technophile, I took all of this in with admiration, but I thought—what if it gets hit? As a kid in my preteens I had read about the battleships of WWII, the Carolinas but in particular the Iowa class, fast, brutal ships with sixteen-inch belt armor and turrets that an asteroid would bounce off of. The assumption was that ships were going to get hit. They were built to survive and continue fighting.
By contrast, the Vincennes was thin-skinned, hulled with aluminum instead of steel, and the radar, crucial to combat, looked perilously fragile. A single hit with anything serious, or perhaps even a cal .50, but certainly by anything resembling a GAU-8, and she would be hors de combat until refitted.
One hit.
...
I do not know a great deal about the Chinese Navy, having been out of that loop for years. I do know that the Chinese are smart, and that they have optimized their forces specifically to take out carrier battle groups near their territory. They do not try to match the US ship-for-ship in the kind of war America wants to fight. They would lose fast, and they know it. The key is to swarm the fleet with cruise missiles arriving all at once, accompanied perhaps by large numbers of aircraft. Would this work? I don’t know, but that is certainly the way I would bet.
-Russia Insider
This is as true of the Tico-class Aegis ships as of the newer Arleigh Burkes.
An aircraft carrier is a bladder of jet fuel wrapped around high explosives.The implications are considerable.
A plunging hypersonic terminally-guided ballistic missile, piercing the flight deck and exploding in the hangar deck, would require a year in the repair yards.
The Russians and Chinese are developing–have developed–missiles specifically to take out carriers.
Note that the range of some of these missiles is much greater than the combat radius of the carrier’s aviation. Oops.
USS Stark, 1987, after being hit by a pair of French Exocet missiles.
The USS Stark, 1987, after being hit by a pair of French Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi Mirage.
The USS Forrestal in 1967 after a five-inch Zuni land-attack missile was accidentally launched on deck.
The USS Forrestal
in 1967 after a five-inch Zuni land-attack missile, a pipsqueak rocket,
accidentally launched on deck. It hit another fighter. The resulting
fire cooked off large bombs. One hundred thirty-four dead, long stay in
repair yards.
Through Vietnam, America’s wars were fought by tough kids, often from rural backgrounds involving familiarity with guns and with hard physical work. I know as I grew up and went to Marine boot with them.
Discipline, if not quite brutal, came close.
Physical demands were high. In AIT–Advanced Infantry Training–at Camp Lejeune, it was “S Company on the road!” at three-thirty a.m., followed by hard running and weapons training until midnight. Yes, oldsters like to remember how it was, but that was how it was.
Today America has a military corrupted by social-justice politics.
Recruits are no longer country boys who could chop cordwood.
Obesity is common.
The Pentagon has lowered physical standards, hidden racial problems, softened training. The officers are afraid of the large numbers of military women who are now in combat positions.
One complaint about sexism and there goes the career.
Officer Rot
In times of extended peace the officer corps decays.
All second-tour officers are politicians, especially above the level of lieutenant colonel. You don’t get promoted by suggesting the the senior ranks are lying for political reasons, as by insisting that the Afghan war is being won.
Peacetime encourages careerists who advance by not making waves. Such Pattons of PowerPoint invariably have to be weeded out, at a high cost in lives, in a big war.
Today’s military is not going to fare well in anything resembling equal combat against Afghans, Russians, or Iranians.
The US military has not been able to defeat Afghan villagers in eighteen years with an immense advantage in air power, gunships, armor, artillery, medical care, and PXs. What do you think would happen if they had to fight the Taliban on equal terms–sandals, rifles, RPGs, and not much else?
Unrealism
The future is the enemy of the present.
What would happen if in a shooting war the Chinese crippled the American fleet? Washington is rampant with large egos, especially that of John McCain, the senator from PTSD. If it were discovered that China could disable the Navy, many other countries might conclude that they could do it too. They most certainly would think of this. Washington could not accept the discovery: Fear of the carriers is a large element in Washington’s intimidation of the world. To save face, the US would be tempted to go nuclear, or seriously bomb China proper, with unforeseeable results.
The Air Force and Navy could hurt China badly by conventional means, yes, for example by cutting off oil from the Mideast, or destroying the Three Gorges dam. For a variety of reasons this would be playing with fire. The economic results of any of these bright ideas would be godawful.
-Russia Insider
The military is not ready for a real war now because its focus is always on things down the road.
For example, the Navy cannot now defeat hypersonic antiship missiles but will be able to, it thinks, someday, maybe, world without end, with near-magical lasers still in development.
These will funnel lots of money to Raytheon or Lockheed Martin or somebody whether they work or not. Which isn’t important since nobody really believes there will be a serious war.
This is common thinking.
America is in process of acquiring B-21 intercontinental nuclear bombers for a frightening price. These will be useless except in a nuclear war, when they would still be useless because the ICBMs would already have turned targets into glowing rubble when the B-21s got there.
B-21
What the B21 will look like. It has a seat for Robin. The appeal of such things for adult twelve-year-olds is underestimated.
Why build them?
Because Northrop-Grumman has so much money that its lobbyists use snow shovels to fill Congressional pockets.
In my days of covering the Pentagon, whenever a new weapon was bought, the AH-64 for example, the prime contractor would hand out a list of subcontractors in many states–whose congressmen would support the weapon to get the jobs. It is all about money.
Sometimes Congress forces the military to buy weapons it explicitly says it doesn’t want, such as more M1 tanks from the factory in Lima, Ohio. Jobs.
In short, many weapons are bought for economic reasons, not for use in war. In my day, II saw many not-for-use weapons. The B1, B2, DIVAD, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the M16, the V-22, the LAW.
Nothing has changed.
The Blank Ignorance Factor
The landscape outside of the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel is at least as bleak as that within.
A friend, very much in a position to know, estimates that ninety percent of the Senate does not know where Burma is. Think Hormuz-Malacca-South China Sea.
The likelihood that Trump knows what countries are littoral to the Caspian is zero.
When I covered the military very few in Congress and nobody in the major media knew anything at all about weaponry and it uses: surface duct, deep sound channel, convergence zones, pseudo-random beam steering, APFSDS, staring receivers, chirp coding.
These are the first-grade small talk of people who pay attention.
These do not include minor lawyers-become-Congressmen from East East Jesus, Nebraska. Yet hey vote on military policy.
The Arrival of the Maintenance Hog
Being in a real war is hard on equipment.
There are battle damage and heavy wear and tear. This doesn’t matter in the wars today’s military fights.
America cannot really lose, only be worn down and leave.
If the US “loses” in Afghanistan or Syria, it won’t matter to Americans and few will even notice. Because America always fights from well-protected bases and airfields, it can afford to use weapons that require a lot of maintenance, often including high-tech work.
In a real war, no.
In
WWII, a fighter plane was just a malformed truck: engine, windshield,
tires, motor, stamped metal. If one came back full of holes, repair
crews with reasonable training could repair them fast on the hangar
deck. It wasn’t quite pop rivets and Bondo, but close.
After the Big War, American aircraft almost always flew from relatively safe bases.
For example, in Vietnam the carriers were never in danger. After Vietnam the aerial forces seldom even suffered battle damage. Since the US was always attacking utterly inferior enemies, sortie rates and repair time ceased to matter.
And the military came to expect such luxury.
But
now we have the F-35, the latest do-everything fighter of grotesque
cost. It seems to be a real dog, poorly designed and suffering from
endless problems. By accounts in the technical press, it is a hangar
queen with very low sortie rates, poor readiness, and requiring complex
electronic maintenance often at remote echelons.
This isn’t how you fight a real war.
How Wars Turn Out
Typically, not as planned. I’ve said this before but it is worth repeating.
Look at history:
The American Civil War was supposed to last a day at First Manassas; wrong by four years and 650,000 dead.
Napoleon thought his attack on Russia would end with the French in Moscow, not the Russians in Paris–which is what happened.
WWI was supposed to last weeks and be a war of movement; wrong by four bloody years of trench warfare.
The Japanese Army did not expect WWII to end with GIs buying their daughters drinks in Tokyo, nor the Germans that it would end with the Russian infantry in Berlin.
The Americans did not think they would lose in Vietnam, nor the Russians that they would lose in Afghanistan. And so on.
This happens partly because militaries are overconfident as a job requirement.
You can’t tell the Marines that they are at best mediocre light infantry or the Navy that it is essentially a target set. Instead the American armed forces are always said to be the best equipped, best trained, bravest, most formidable military that the world has ever seen.
Except they aren’t.
Assume that Bolton gets his war against Iran.
Advisers tell him it will be short and sweet, surgical, a cake walk. Have we heard this before?
The Navy says it can keep Hormuz open, grrr, woof. But somehow Iran doesn’t follow the script, doesn’t surrender.
The Navy to its surprise cannot find the deeply dug-in and truck-borne antiship missiles that keep hitting tankers. These keep burning.
Soon nobody will insure them.
They stop coming.
Three weeks into the war the world is screaming for oil, there is no end in sight, Trump can’t admit that he has blundered, and Bolton wants to nuke Tehran.
Or Washington pushes too hard in the South China Sea, an accidental collision turns into a shooting incident, and the Pompeo-Boltonian-Bannonites order the fleet to teach the Chinks a lesson.
Unfortunately the Chinese antiship missiles turn out to be rather better than expected, a carrier is disabled and three destroyers rendered scrap.
Now what?
Huge and uninformed egos in Washington could not accept defeat.
For one thing, it would end American credibility as a hegemon, and everybody and his herd of goats would want to buy Chinese antiship missiles.
Vanity plays a larger in world affairs than the textbooks say.
Washington, stupidly but inevitably, would double down and start an all-out war with China. At that point things would become unpredictable.
Washington seems not to realize that it wields far less military power than it thinks it does, and that the power it does wield is ever less useful than before. As a land power, it is very weak, being unable to defeat Russia, China, or peasants armed with rifles and RPGs. Air power has regularly proved indecisive.
If Washington somehow won a naval war with China, so what? It would provide the satisfactions of vanity, but China’s danger to the US imperium lies in increasing economic power and commercial expansion through Asia, where it holds the high cards: it is there, Washington isn’t.
-Russia Insider
Nuclear War
Men of incalculable stupidity and likely sexual inadequacy talk about nuclear war as winnable.
Dream on.
Reflect: American cities cannot feed themselves. Three days without food shipments and New Yorkers would clear the supermarket shelves. A week and they would kill for cans of tuna fish. Two weeks and they would be eating each other.
A very few nuclear bombs on transportation hubs would prevent distribution of food for months.
Even fewer cobalt bombs, designed to produce a maximum of lingering radiation, would make the farm belts lethally radioactive for a decade.
“Defense Intellectuals,” usually stupid enough that they ought to live in trees, chatter about escalation dominance and the intimidation factor and airtight missile defense.
They are nuts.
What they really need is a codpiece and a subscription to Pornhub Premium.
This is why it is a really, really, bad idea to have a psychopathic cockatoo, two loon Christians, and a pathologically aggressive momma’s boy in a position to start a war.
Trump neocon negotiation team takes on China.
If you enjoyed this post, you might want to check out others in my SHTF index…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
One of the reasons why the Chinese have been so swift in combating this coronavirus is because they identified (quickly and swiftly) it as a biological weapons attack. Most Americans are unaware of this because they read Western propagandized media. They believe that it is either [1] “not as bad as the flu”, or that it is [2] a biological weapon that the Chinese unleashed upon themselves. Here, we won’t get into that argument. Instead we will just present some videos of what went on during the days of 8FEB through 10FEB.
These videos were taken during a two day time period. Past the peak of the biological attack.
You, the reader, can believe what ever you want to. The FACT is that the China put their entire armed forces to DEFCON ONE, and shut the entire nation down.
You do not do this with the flu. You do not do this if you had an accidental leak from a weapons facility. You do not do this, especially in the middle of the biggest holiday of the year, unless there is a FUCKING GOOD REASON.
You can observe and come to your own conclusions.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Video 1 – People getting sick suddenly.
The pesky thing about this virus is it’s high contagious nature, stealth infection, and rapid and sudden lethal outbreaks.
I find it laughable that the media is saying that the flu is far deadlier. Or that it only attacks old people. Here’s a young man in his 20’s going into a seizure on the bus.
I don’t know about youse guys, but I never had a seizure when I had the flu.
Video 2 – Affects children.
The reason why the Chinese video APPs were banned by the American military was so that they would not watch the effects of the biological weapon on the civilian population.
Here we have a little child in the hospital dying from the American bio-weapons attack.
Video 3 – Military decontamination units at work.
If you know what to look for you can clearly see the military decontamination units fighting this virus. Here we have a squad going after a contaminated area.
Decontamination is the process of removing or neutralizing chemical or biological agents so that they no longer pose a hazard. For military purposes, decontamination is undertaken to restore the combat effectiveness of equipment and personnel as rapidly as possible.
-Decontamination - NCBI Bookshelf
Video 4 – Bringing food and checking up.
If you have the virus, you can opt to stay at home instead of going to a hospital or a tent clinic. In that case, the military / police will lock you in your house and seal the door. If the seal is broken, they will come and take you to jail so that you will not be a risk to the community.
Video 5 – Military and police decontamination.
Here’s some units in the decontamination of the streets using the military foggers. It’s a pretty impressive sight.
The Chinese military has invested enormous sums of money perfecting mass decontamination of buildings and people. Here is an impressive array of trucks.
Hit hits suddenly. Up until when it hits, you think (falsely) that you can handle it. But you cannot. Here we see police taking a woman to an emergency station.
Video 8 – At the hospital.
This is pretty much what it will be like once she makes it to the hospital. There will be doctors and nurses in full NBC gear attending to her. But even at that, it will be a rough slog to get better…
Video 9 – Quarantine area
The Chinese government has repurposed sports arenas, and other civics facilities into quarantine areas. The people may or may not be sick. But they do need to wait within safe confines to see what may happen. Here’s one of the facilities within Wuhan…
Video 10 – Morning exercise
The Chinese love to exercise in the mornings and the evenings. This was started by the “dancing grandmothers” and after some abuses, was repurposed to a health initiative, that most of China takes part in. It’s a period of two to three hours of guided line dancing to Chinese pop music and K-pop. Here, we can watch it inside one of the quarantine facilities.
Video 11 – Drones continue to keep people off the streets
Big red banners with bright yellow letters are everywhere. They tell the people to be mindful, careful and to stay at home. Never the less there are those that refuse to listen. Some are just bad apples. Some are crazy. Some don’t give a fuck – they are far too self absorbed. And…
And some are just people going out for a walk and being casual with mask discipline. Such as this chick. The local police drone admonishes her and chases her home.
Video 12 – Inside a Military field hospital
Once Beijing declared this a DEFCON ONE situation, military hospitals were set up in all of the tier one, tier two and tier three cities. This is in addition to the new hospitals being constructed, the regular hospital and the networks of clinics that abound all over China.
China has a much more extensive system of medical care than America has. It has build up this network in great detail and complexity with layers over layers of systems.
Here we see what it is like inside one of the military tent hospital complexes.
Video 13 – Robot food delivery
To keep people from being contaminated, robots are being used in the tier one cities. Some have smiley faces, but most look like white boxes on wheels. Like this…
Video 14 – Assholes
During this period all elevators have tissues that people are supposed to use to press the buttons. Clear tape overlays are on the buttons, and public mechanisms of conveyance are all disinfected multiple times a day.
That’s all well and good, if everyone was “normal”.
One of the things that I hear from people (mostly Americans) is what about people’s rights? What about their freedoms? Well, not everyone is “with the program”. There is a tiny percentage of crazy assholes that want to make life miserable for the rest of us.
Luckily, China is fully wired up. Video feed of miscreants and trouble-makers goes straight to the local police… who know these people and take direct and swift action.
Here’s an asshole…
Video 15 – Going to the hospital
People “on the front lines”; those that need to be in public and are exposed to others are getting sick. Usually, being quite patriotic, they will stay at their posts until they get a seizure or collapse. Here’s a policeman, and that is exactly what happened.
Video 16 – Pull the nation closer.
It’s difficult to imagine the Chinese nation being any more patriotic than it already is, but this bio-warfare attack has pushed Chinese patriotism to mountainous heights. It’s really amazing. Here’s just one of thousands of videos I have collected along this theme.
If you enjoyed this post, please fell free to take a trip to my China / Trump Trade Wars index here…
You’ll not find
any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Well, once a Naval Aviator, always a Naval Aviator. I might have given up my wings for MAJestic, but I sure as fuck didn’t give up my passion. Here is a story, it’s first-person, don’t you know, of an encounter by a F/A-18E Super Hornet with two Su-25 Frogfoots flown by the Iranian Air Force. It’s a great read, and all credit to the authors.
Enjoy.
"There I Was: F/A-18E Super Hornet vs. two Iranian Su-25 Frogfoots" by Paco Chierici written on Sep 10, 2019.
I’ve been hearing and telling “There I was…” stories for my entire adult life. It started for me in flight school, listening to a grizzled old sim instructor tell me about the day he got a MiG kill without taking a shot.
A Vietnamese MiG-21 .
A Vietnamese MiG-21 had been vectored at him thinking his F-8 was actually an A-7. As the story goes, after the pass, instead of tangling with the jet known as “The MiG Master,” the Fishbed pilot established 2-circle flow and wisely ejected.
Kill’s a kill.
I’ve got a few of my own, but they’re mostly comical or nearly tragic. But I love hearing them. Last week I heard a great one:
A couple years ago the Iranians issued a declaration
stating that they would sink the next U.S. warship to enter the Persian
Gulf. Further EU and U.S. sanctions against Iran related to their
persistent nuclear program had begun to adversely affect the Iranian
economy. The value of the Rial had fallen 40% in just a few months.
981217-N-ZZ999-015
WASHINGTON (April 16, 2013) The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) transits the Persian Gulf. Enterprise was one of several ships that participated in Operation Praying Mantis, which was launched after the guided-missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) struck an Iranian mine on April 14, 1988. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Todd Cichonowicz/Released)
Iranian naval exercises coincided with a rare gap in carrier presence in the Persian Gulf and the Iranian Army Chief stated that if a carrier returned to the gulf, Iran would in no uncertain terms “take action.”
Suddenly, after a couple decades of carriers and destroyers splashing around in their bathtub, the Iranians had decided the time was right to claim the Gulf as their own.
Launch of a silkworm missile.
Well the Persian Gulf is on the regular beat for U.S. carriers for the foreseeable future, despite the brief lapse at that time.
The USS Boat was to be the first to pop through the Strait of Hormuz since the edict and the ship was on a relatively high alert status crossing through the narrows.
Silkworm missile being taken cared for.
Everybody knew about the Silkworm missiles lining the Iranian coast just a couple miles away as the Boat cruised through the 20-mile wide strait.
They all knew about the possibility of F-4s at Bandar Abbas and Bushehr, and the world’s last flying F-14A Tomcats based in Shiraz.
Iranian F-14 aircraft.
A few uneventful hours after the passage, Wingnut had made his way to the flight deck to man the Alert on Cat 3.
Super Hornet ready for launch.
By this time, the ship was already 100 miles into the Gulf with not even a dust storm kicked up from the Iranian side. The tension level was easing slightly. As the feet of the pilot being relieved hit the deck, he told Wingnut, “Buddy, if you launch I will kick your ass.”
Wingnut climbed up the ladder to the Rhino cockpit and snapped in his lap belts, leaving the shoulders off to provide a little freedom to move during the four-hour sit.
Catapult on an American aircraft carrier.
He checked the systems and the alignment to make sure he was squared away and then, settling down for the long alert, slapped a desert camo hat on his head to provide the only shade from the harsh sun. Earbuds and tunes in place, he pulled out a book and tried to pretend that he was somewhere else.
He’d gotten himself as settled and comfortable as he was going to be when the call came out over the flight deck 5MC: “Launch alert A, AAW package, side 207, initial vector 240, contact Strike on button 3!”
F/A-18 launching off the Ford.
The bored knots of sailors on the flight deck exploded into action and Wingnut scrambled to get his shit together while the Yellow Shirts, Ordies (Red Shirts) and Green Shirts sprinted in his direction. He started both engines while lowering the canopy and slapping his helmet on.
The bored knots of sailors on the flight deck exploded into action and Wingnut scrambled to get his shit together while the Yellow Shirts, Ordies (Red Shirts) and Green Shirts sprinted in his direction.
A minute later he was taxing the last couple inches to drive the launch bar into the shuttle. Before he had a chance to catch a breath he was shot off, slapping the gear handle up and was desperately trying to snap in the ejection seat shoulder restraints he had forgotten during the mad scramble on the flight deck.
At only five hundred feet and accelerating, the Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet in full blower on a southwesterly heading, Wingnut checked in with Strike on button 3.
F/A-18 Super Hornet.
“Hot vector, on your nose. Fifteen miles, low. Flight of two out of Abu Musa.”
That wasn’t the Iranian mainland at all.
Abu Musa is a tiny mote of an island equidistant from Iran and UAE as the mouth of the Gulf begins to widen. There had never previously been a sense of a threat from there, despite the fact that U.S. warships routinely cruised between that island and the mainland conducting flight ops. But it did have a small airport.
The United Arab Emirates has consistently and forcefully protested Iran’s illegal occupation of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs from the moment Iranian military forces occupied the three islands on 30 November 1971, just two days before the establishment of the UAE and throughout the following decades.
Wingnut pointed his plane and radar in that direction and immediately got a lock. Instantly his system began flashing a symbol he hadn’t seen since the simulators in training: HOSTILE.
He was barely off the boat and 5 miles on his nose was a flight of two Su-25 Frogfoots in combat spread hot on the carrier just a couple hundred feet off the water.
Coming in low, and hot, armed with anti-ship missiles and flying just above the tops of the waves.
SU-25 Frogfoot dash.
Wingnut reported the contact and a voice he recognized immediately as CAG commanded him to VID and check the wings for ordnance.
Roger that.
CAG came back with further instruction; if anything comes off those Frogfoots, splash ’em. He took the nearest Su-25 close aboard and sure enough he could make out, clear as day, Archers and two massive anti-ship missiles.
SU-25 Frogfoot weapons loadout.
From the flight deck, the personnel that had just launched Wingnut gathered at the edge of the flight deck watching the action like it was an air show.
It was close enough to the Boat that they could see the merge and everything that came after. They saw him max perform the jet in the vertical and come back around in trail, chasing the Su-25s from about a half mile astern.
Fighting the sense of surreal in the cockpit, Wingnut first locked the AIM-9 seekerhead on the right hand Frogfoot. Once he got a tone lock he switched to AMRAAM and locked the left hand bandit with the radar.
Fighting the sense of surreal in the cockpit, Wingnut first locked the AIM-9 seekerhead on the right hand Frogfoot. Once he got a tone lock he switched to AMRAAM and locked the left hand bandit with the radar.
All this with the ship rapidly filling his windscreen. Master arm was up and his finger was poised on the trigger. Given the slightest provocation it would be as simple as squeeze, select FOX-2, squeeze.
That plane broke left directly over the carrier salvoing out streams of flares.
As he reported to CAG that he was in a position to splash two, the SPO-15 in the left Frogfoot must have been screaming at high warble.
That plane broke left directly over the carrier salvoing out streams of flares. His wingman was right behind and as Wingnut converged he thought for a moment how sweet and awesome it would be to switch to guns and hose a Frogfoot down at 500′ just off the stern of the ship.
When Wingnut trapped and shut down he said he felt like he was in a bad reenactment of the final scene in Topgun.
The flight deck personnel had witnessed the entire evolution, and as his engines spooled down they crowded about him, slapping him on the back and asked him absurd questions like, “Sir, did you have ‘radar lock’?”
The F/A-18E single-seat and F/A-18F tandem-seat variants are larger and more advanced derivatives of the F/A-18C and D Hornet. The Super Hornet has an internal 20 mm M61 rotary cannon and can carry air-to-air missiles and air-to-surface weapons.
It’s a great story and true.
There is video. It’s also a little sobering to consider the implications had those SU-25 pilots been ordered to martyr themselves.
In all likelihood, the Boat would have sustained some hits and good men and women would have died.
It’s a tight CV Op Area in the gulf. We do our damnedest to avoid irritating the Iranians, but if they ever feel like taking a pot shot, the first one might do some damage.
Conclusion
It’s a great little story and worthy of a posting.
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One of the stories that influenced me in my youth was the science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein titled “Space Cadet”. This little gem inspired me to study aerospace engineering, become a Naval Aviator, and contributed to me joining MAJestic. All in all, it’s a great story.
It’s all about a boy who studied hard and “made the grade”. He got his chance to become a “Spaceman”.
Yeah, it’s a “chance”. But first, he had to qualify. He had to take battery after battery of tests. Then he had to start off as the “low man in the totem-pole”, and “learn the ropes”.
It’s what I expected in my life, and it’s exactly what happened to me when I qualified for Naval Aviation. (Without the embellishments.) Here is his story, and his adventure.
Enjoy it is in all its’ glory.
This is the cover art for the paperback book that I read as a boy in the 1970’s. This book inspired me to become what I am today. Enjoy.
Space Cadet
Robert A Heinlein 1948
SNAFU ON VENUS
“I gather that you were sent here, in answer to my message?”
“Certainly,” Matt said.
“Thank heaven for that-even if you guys were stupid enough to stumble right into it. Now tell me-how many are there in the expedition. This is going to be a tough nut to crack.”
“This is the expedition, right in front of you.”
“What? This is no time to joke. I sent for a regiment of marines, equipped for amphibious operations.”
“Maybe you did, but this is what you got. What’s the situation?”
Burke seemed dazed. “It’s no use,” he said. “It’s utterly hopeless.”
“What’s so hopeless? The natives seem friendly, on the whole. Tell us what the difficulty was, so we can work it out with them.”
“Friendly!” Burke gave a bitter laugh. “They killed all of my men. They’re going to kill me. And they’ll kill you too. …”
CONTENTS
I TERRA BASE
II ELIMINATION PROCESS
III OVER THE BUMPS
IV FIRST MUSTER
V INTO SPACE
VI “READING, AND ‘RITING, AND ‘RITHMETIC-”
VII TO MAKE A SPACEMAN
VIII TERRA STATION
IX LONG HAUL
X GUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES?
XI P.R.S. AES TRIPLEX
XII P.R.S. PATHFINDER
XIII LONG WAY HOME
XIV “THE NATIVES ARE FRIENDLY . . .”
XV PIE WITH A FORK
XVI P.R.S. ASTARTE
XVII HOTCAKES FOR BREAKFAST
XVIII IN THE COMMANDANT’S OFFICE
TERRA BASE
"To MATTHEW BROOKS DODSON,"
the paper in his hand read,
"greetings:
"Having successfully completed the field elimination tests for appointment to the position of cadet in the Interplanetary Patrol you are authorized to report to the Commandant, Terra Base, Santa Barbara Field, Colorado, North American Union, Terra, on or before One July 2075, for further examination.
"You are cautioned to remember that the majority of candidates taking these final tests usually fail and you should provide-"
Matt folded the paper and stuck it back in his belt pouch. He did not care to think about the chance of failure. The passenger across from him, a boy about his own age, caught his eye. “That paper looks familiar, you a candidate too?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, shake! M’ name’s Jarman-I’m from Texas.”
“Glad to know you, Tex. I’m Matt Dodson, from Des Moines.”
“Howdy, Matt. We ought to be about there-” The car sighed softly and slowed; their chairs rocked to meet the rapid deceleration. The car stopped and their chairs swung back to normal position. “We are there,” Jarman finished.
The telescreen at the end of the car, busy a moment before with a blonde beauty demonstrating Sorkin’s Super-
Stellar Soap, now read: TERRA BASE STATION. The two boys grabbed their bags, and hurried out. A moment later, they were on the escalator, mounting to the surface.
Facing the station a half mile away in the cool, thin air stood Hayworth Hall, Earth headquarters of the fabulous Patrol. Matt stared at it, trying to realize that he was at last seeing it.
Jarman nudged him. “Come on.”
“Huh? Oh-sure.” A pair of slidewalks stretched from the station to the hall; they stepped onto the one running toward the building. The slidewalk was crowded; more boys streamed out of the station behind them. Matt noticed two boys with swarthy, thin features who were wearing high, tight turbans, although dressed otherwise much like himself. Further down the walk he glimpsed a tall, handsome youth whose impassive face was shiny black.
-The Texas boy hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked around. “Granny, kill another chicken!” he said. “There’s company for dinner. Speaking of that,” he went on, “I hope they don’t wait lunch too long. I’m hungry.”
Matt dug a candy bar out of his pouch, split it and gave half to Jarman, who accepted it gratefully. “You’re a pal, Matt, I’ve been living on my own fat ever since breakfast- and that’s risky. Say, your telephone is sounding.”
“Oh!” Matt fumbled in his pouch and got out his phone. “Hello?” “That you, son?” came his father’s voice.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Did you get there all right?”
“Sure, I’m about to report in.”
“How’s your leg?”
“Leg’s all right, Dad.” His answer was not frank; his right leg, fresh from a corrective operation for a short Achilles’ tendon, was aching as he spoke.
“That’s good. Now see here, Matt-if it should work out that you aren’t selected,. don’t let it get you down. You call me at once and-”
^ “Sure, sure, Dad,” Matt broke in. “Ill have to sign off-I’m in a crowd. Good-by. Thanks for calling.”
“Good-by, son. Good luck.”
Tex Jarman looked at him understandingly. “Your folks always worry, don’t they? I fooled mine-packed my phone in my bag.” The slidewalk swung in a wide curve preparatory to heading back; they stepped off with the crowd, in front of Hayworth Hall. Tex paused to read the inscription over the great doorway. “Quis custodi- What does it say, Matt?”
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. That’s Latin for: Who will watch the guardians?”
“You read Latin, Matt?”
“No, I just remember that bit from a book about the Patrol.”
The rotunda of Hayworth Hall was enormous and seemed even larger, for, despite brilliant lighting at the floor level, the domed ceiling gave back no reflection at all; it was midnight black-black and studded with stars. Familiar stars-blazing Orion faced the tossing head of Taurus; the homely shape of the Dipper balanced on its battered handle at north-northeast horizon; just south of overhead the Seven Sisters shone.
The illusion of being outdoors at night was most persuasive. The lighted walls and floor at the level at which people walked and talked and hurried seemed no more than a little band of light, a circle of warmth and comfort, against the awful depth of space, like prairie schooners drawn up for the night under a sharp desert sky.
The boys caught their breaths, as did everyone who saw it for the first time. But they could not stop to wonder as something else demanded their attention. The floor of the rotunda was sunk many feet below the level at which they entered; they stood on a balcony which extended around the great room to enclose a huge, shallow, circular pit. In this pit a battered spaceship lurched on a bed of rock and sand as if it had crash-landed from the mimic sky above.
“It’s the Kilroy-” Tex said, almost as if he doubted it.
“It must be,” Matt agreed in a whisper. –
They moved to the balcony railing and read a plaque posted there:
USSF Rocket Ship Kilroy Was Here
FIRST INTERPLANETARY SHIP
From Terra to Mars and return-Lieut. Colonel Robert deFries Sims,
Commanding; Captain Saul S. Abrams; Master Sergeant Malcolm
MacGregor. None survived the return landing. Rest in Peace.
They crowded next to two other boys and stared at the Kilroy. Tex nudged Matt. “See the gash in the dirt, where she skidded? Say, do you suppose they just built right over her, where she lays’
One of the other two-a big-boned six-footer with tawny hair-answered, “No, the Kilroy landed in North Africa.”
“Then they must have fixed it to look like where she crashed. You a candidate too?”
“That’s right.”
Tm Bill Jarman-from Texas. And this is Matt Dodson.”
“I’m Oscar Jensen-and this is Pierre Armand.”
“Howdy, Oscar. Glad to know you, Pierre.”
“Call me Pete,” Armand acknowledged. Matt noticed that he spoke Basic English with an accent, but Matt was unable to place it. Oscar’s speech was strange, too-a suggestion of a lisp. He turned back to the ship.
“Imagine having the guts to go out into space in a cracker box like that,” he said. “It scares me to think about it”
“Me, too,” agreed Oscar Jensen.
“It’s a dirty shame,” Pierre said, softly.
“What is, Pete?” Jarman demanded.
“That their luck didn’t hold. You can see it was an almost perfect landing- they didn’t just crash in, or there would have been nothing left but a hole in the ground.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Say, there’s a stairway down^ over on the far side-see it, Matt? Do you suppose we could look through her?”
“Maybe,” Matt told him, “but I think we had better put it off. We’ve got to report in, you know.”
“We had all better check in,” agreed Jensen. “Coming, Pete?”
Armand reached for his bag. Oscar Jensen pushed him aside and picked it up with his own. “That’s not necessary!” Armand protested, but Oscar ignored him.
Jarman looked at Pierre. “You sick, Pete?” he asked. “I noticed you
looked kind of peaked. What’s the trouble?”
“If you are,” put in Matt, “ask for a delay.”
Armand looked embarrassed. “He’s not sick and hell pass the exams,” Jensen said firmly. “Forget it.”
“Sho’, sho’,” Tex agreed. They followed the crowd and found a notice which told all candidates to report to room 3108, third corridor. They located corridor three, stepped on the slideway, and put down their baggage.
“Say, Matt,” said Tex, “tell me-who was Kilroy?”
“Let me see,” Matt answered. “He was somebody in the Second Global War, an admiral, I think. Yeah, Admiral ‘Bull’ Kilroy, that sounds right.”
“Funny they’d name it after an admiral.”
“He was a flying admiral.”
“You’re a savvy cuss,” Tex said admiringly. “I think I’ll stick close to you during the tests.”
Matt brushed it off. “Just a fact I happened to pick up.”
In room 3108 a decorative young lady waved aside their credentials but demanded their thumb prints. She fed these into a machine at her elbow. The machine quickly spit out instruction sheets headed by the name, serial number, thumb print, and photograph of each candidate, together with temporary messing and rooming assignments.
The girl handed out the sheets and told them to wait next door. She abruptly turned away.
“I wish she hadn’t been so brisk,” complained Tex, as they went out. “I wanted to get her telephone code. Say,” he went on, studying his sheet, “there’s no time left on here for a siesta.”
“Did you expect it?” asked Matt.
“Nope-but I can hope, can’t I?” –
The room next door was filled with benches but the benches were filled with boys. Jarman stopped at a bench which was crowded by three large cases, an ornate portable refresher kit, and a banjo case. A pink-faced youth sat next to this. “Your stuff?” Tex asked him.
The young man grudgingly admitted it. “You won’t mind if we move it and sit down,” Tex went on. He started putting the items on the floor. The owner looked sulky but said nothing.
There was room for three. Tex insisted that the others sit down, then sat down on his bag and leaned against Mart’s knees, with his legs stretched out. His footwear, thus displayed, were seen to be fine western boots, high- heeled and fancy.
A candidate across from them stared at the boots, then spoke to the boy next to him. “Pipe the cowboy!”
Tex snorted and started to get up. Matt put a hand on his shoulder,
shoving him back. “It’s not worth it, Tex. We’ve got a busy day ahead.”
Oscar nodded agreement. “Take it easy, fellow.”
Tex subsided. “Well-all right. Just: the same,” he added, “my Uncle Bodie would stuff a man’s feet in his mouth for less than that.” He glared at the boy across from him.
Pierre Armand leaned over and spoke to Tex. “Excuse me-but are those really shoes for riding on horses?”
^Huh? What do you think they are? Skis?”
“Oh, I’m sorry! But you see, I’ve never seen a horse.”
“What?”
“I have,” announced Oscar, “in the zoo, that is.”
“In a zoo?” repeated Tex.
“In the zoo at New Auckland.”
“Oh-” said Tex. “I get it. You’re a Venus colonial.” Matt then recalled where he had heard Oscar’s vaguely familiar lisp before-in the speech of a visiting lecturer. Tex turned to Pierre. “Pete, are you from Venus, too?”
“No, I’m-” Pete’s voice was drowned out.
“Attention, please! Quiet!” The speaker was dressed in the severely plain, oyster-white uniform of a space cadet. “All of you,” he went on, speaking into a hand amplifier, “who have odd serial numbers come with me. Bring your baggage. Even numbers wait where you are.”
“Odd numbers?” said Tex. “That’s me!” He jumped up.
Matt looked at his instructions. “Me, too!”
The cadet came down the aisle in front of them. Matt and Tex waited for him to pass. The cadet did not hold himself erectly; he crouched the merest trifle, knees relaxed and springy, hands ready to grasp. His feet glided softly over the floor. The effect was catlike, easy grace; Matt felt that if the room were suddenly to turn topsy-turvy the cadet would land on his feet on the ceiling-which was perfectly true.
Matt wanted very much to look like him.
As the cadet was passing, the boy with the plentiful baggage plucked at his sleeve. “Hey, mister!”
The cadet turned suddenly and crouched, then checked himself as
quickly. “Yes?”
“I’ve got an odd number, but I can’t carry all this stuff. Who can I get to help me?”
“You can’t.” The cadet prodded the pile with his toe. “All of this is yours?”
“Yes. What do I do? I can’t leave it here. Somebody’ll steal it.”
“I can’t see why anyone would.” The cadet eyed the pile with distaste. “Lug it back to the station and ship it home. Or throw it away.”
The youngster looked blank. “You’ll have to, eventually,” the cadet went on. “When you make the lift to the school ship, twenty pounds is your total allowance.”
“But- Well, suppose I do, who’s to help me get it to the station?”
“That’s your problem. If you want to be in the Patrol, you’ll have to learn to cope with problems.”
“But-”
“Shut up.” The cadet turned away. Matt and Tex trailed along.
Five minutes later Matt, naked as an egg, was stuffing his bag and clothes into a sack marked with his serial number. As ordered, he filed through a door, clutching his orders and a remnant of dignity. He found himself in a gang refresher which showered him, scrubbed him, rinsed him, and blew
him dry again, assembly-line style. His instruction sheet was waterproof; he shook from it a few clinging drops.
For two hours he was prodded, poked, thumped, photographed, weighed, X-rayed, injected, sampled, and examined until he was bewildered. He saw Tex once, in another queue. Tex waved, slapped his own bare ribs, and shivered. Matt started to speak but his own line started up.
The medicos examined his repaired leg, making him exercise it, inquired the date of the operation, and asked if it hurt him. He found himself admitting that it did. More pictures were taken; more tests were made. Presently he was told, “That’s all. Get back into line.” ,
“Is it all right, sir?” Matt blurted out.
“Probably. You’ll be given some exercises. Get along.”
After a long time he came into a room in which several boys were dressing. His path took him across a weighing platform; his body interrupted electric-eye beams. Relays closed, an automatic sequence took place based on his weight, height, and body dimensions. Presently a package slid down a chute and plunked down in front of him.
It contained an undergarment, a blue coverall, a pair of soft boots, all in his size.
The blue uniform he viewed as a makeshift, since he was anxious to swap it for the equally plain, but oyster white, uniform of a cadet. The shoes delighted him. He zipped them on, relishing their softness and glove-like fit. It seemed as if he could stand on a coin and call it, heads or tails. “Cat feet”-his first space boots! He took a few steps, trying to walk like the cadet he had seen earlier.
“Dodson!”
“Coming.” He hurried out and shortly found himself thrust into a room with an older man in civilian clothes.
“Sit down. I’m Joseph Kelly.” He took Mart’s instruction sheet. “Matthew Dodson . .. nice to know you, Matt.”
“How do you do, Mr. Kelly.”
“Not too badly. Why do you want to join the Patrol, Matt?”
“Why, uh, because-” Matt hesitated. “Well, to tell the truth, sir, I’m so confused right now that I’m darned if I know!”
Kelly chuckled. “That’s the best answer I’ve heard today. Do you have any brothers or sisters, Matt?” The talk wandered along, with Kelly encouraging Matt to talk. The questions were quite personal, but Matt was sophisticated enough to realize that “Mr. Kelly” was probably a psychiatrist; he stammered once or twice but he tried to answer honestly.
“Can you tell me now why you want to be in the Patrol?”
Matt thought about it “I’ve wanted, to go out into space ever since I can remember.”
“Travel around, see strange planets and strange people- that’s understandable, Matt. But why not the merchant service? The Academy is a long, hard grind, and it’s three to one you won’t finish, even if you are sworn in as a cadet- and not more than a quarter of the candidates will pass muster. But you could enter the merchant school-I could have you transferred today- and with your qualifications you’d be a cinch to win your pilot’s ticket before you are twenty. How about it?”
Matt looked stubborn.
“Why not, Matt? Why insist on trying to be an officer of the Patrol? They’ll turn you inside out and break your heart and no one will thank you for your greatest efforts. They’ll make you over into a man your own mother wouldn’t recognize-and you won’t be any happier for it. Believe me, fellow-I know.”
Matt did not say anything.
“You still want to try it, knowing chances are against you?”
“Yes. Yes, I think I do.”
“Why, Matt?”
Matt still hesitated. Finally he answered in a low voice. “Well, people look up to an officer in the Patrol.”
Mr. Kelly looked at him. “That’s enough reason for now, Matt. You’ll find others-or quit.” A clock on the wall suddenly spoke up:
“Thirteen o’clock! Thirteen o’clock!” Then it added thoughtfully, “I’m hungry.”
“Mercy me!” said Kelly. “So am I. Let’s go to lunch, Matt.”
ELIMINATION PROCESS
MATT’S INSTRUCTIONS told him to mess at table 147, East Refectory.
A map on the back of the sheet showed where East Refectory was; unfortunately he did not know where Matt was-he had gotten turned around in the course of the morning’s rat race. He ran into no one at first but august personages in the midnight black of officers of the Patrol and he could not bring himself to stop one of them.
Eventually he got oriented by working back to the rotunda and starting over, but it made him about ten minutes late. He walked down an endless line of tables, searching for number 147 and feeling very conspicuous. He was quite pink by the time he located it.
There was a cadet at the head of the table; the others wore the coveralls of candidates. The cadet looked up and said, “Sit down, mister-over there on the right. Why are you late?”
Matt gulped. “I got lost, sir.”
Someone tittered. The cadet sent a cold glance down the table. “You. You with the silly horse laugh-what’s your name?”
“Uh, Schultz, sir.”
“Mister Schultz, there is nothing funny about an honest answer. Have you never been lost?”
“Why- Well, uh, once or twice, maybe.”
“Hm … I shall be interested in seeing your work in astrogation, if you get that far.” The cadet turned back to Matt. “Aren’t you hungry? What’s your name?”
“Yes, sir. Matthew Dodson, sir.” Matt looked hurriedly at the controls in front of him, decided against soup, and punched the “entree,” “dessert,” and “milk” buttons. The cadet was still watching him as the table served him.
“I am Cadet Sabbatello. Don’t you like soup, Mr. Dodson?”
“Yes, sir, but I was in a hurry.”
“There’s no hurry. Soup is good for you.” Cadet Sabbatello stretched an arm and punched Mart’s “soup” button. “Besides, it gives the chef a chance to clean up the galley.” The cadet turned away, to Mart’s relief. He ate heartily. The soup was excellent, but the rest of the meal seemed dull compared with what he had been used to at home.
He kept his ears open. One remark of the cadet stuck in his memory. “Mr. van Zook, in the Patrol we never ask a man where he is from. It is all right for Mr. Romolus to volunteer that he comes from Manila; it is incorrect for you to ask him.”
The afternoon was jammed with tests; intelligence, muscular control, reflex, reaction time, sensory response. Others required him to do two or more things at once. Some seemed downright silly. Matt did the best he could.
He found himself at one point entering a room containing nothing but a large, fixed chair. A loudspeaker addressed him: “Strap yourself into the chair. The grips on the arms of the chair control a spot of light on the wall. When the lights go out, you will see a lighted circle. Center your spot of light in the circle and keep it centered.”
Matt strapped himself down. A bright spot of light appeared on the wall in front of him. He found that the control in his right hand moved the spot up and down, while the one in his left hand moved it from side to side. “Easy!” Matt told himself. “I wish they would start.”
The lights in the room went out; the lighted target circle bobbed slowly up and down. He found it not too difficult to bring his spot of light into the circle and match the bobbing motion.
Then his chair turned upside down.
When he recovered from his surprise at finding himself hanging head down in the dark, he saw that the spot of light had drifted away from the circle. Frantically he brought them together,
swung past and had to correct.
The chair swung one way, the circle another, and a loud explosion took place at his left ear. The chair bucked and teetered; a jolt of electricity convulsed his hands and he lost j the circle entirely.
Matt began to get sore. He forced his spot back to the circle and nailed it. “Gotcha!” ;
Smoke poured through the room, making him cough, ‘ watering his eyes, and veiling the target. He squinted and; hung on grimly, intent only on hanging onto that pesky circle of light-through more explosions, screaming painful) noise, flashing lights, wind in his eyes, and endless, crazy emotions of his chair. ‘ .
Suddenly the room lights flared up, and the mechanical 1 voice said: “Test completed. Carry out your next assignment.” .;
Once he was given a handful of beans and a small bottle, and was told to sit down and place the bottle at a mark on ;,-the floor and locate in his mind the exact position of the ; bottle. Then he was to close his eyes and drop the beans one at a time into the bottle-if possible.
He could tell from the sound that he was not making many hits, but he was mortified to find, when he opened his eyes, that only one bean rested in the bottle.
He hid the bottom of his bottle in his fist and queued up at the examiner’s desk. Several of those lined up had a goodly number of beans in their bottles, although he noted two with no beans at all. Presently he handed his bottle to the examiner. “Dodson, Matthew, sir. One bean.”
The examiner noted it without comment. Matt blurted out, “Excuse me, sir- but what’s to keep a person from cheating by peeking?”
The examiner smiled. “Nothing at all. Go on to your next test.”
Matt left, grumbling. It did not occur to him that he might not know what was being tested.
Late in the day he was ushered into a cubbyhole containing a chair, a gadget mounted on a desk, pencil and paper, and framed directions. “If any score from a previous test,” Matt read, “appears in the window marked SCORE, return the starting lever to the position marked NEUTRAL to clear the board for your test.”
Matt found the window labeled “SCORE”; it had a score showing in it-“37.” Well, he thought, that gives me a mark to shoot at. He decided not to clear the board until he had read the instructions.
"After the test starts," he read, "a score of T will result each time you press the lefthand button except as otherwise provided here below. Press the lefthand button whenever the red light appears provided the green light is not lighted as well except that no button should be pressed when the righthand gate is open unless all lights are out. If the right-hand gate is open and the lefthand gate is closed, no score will result from pressing any button, but the lefthand button must nevertheless be pressed under these circumstances if all other conditions permit a button to be pressed before any score may be made in succeeding phases of the test. To put out the green light, press the righthand button. If the lefthand gate is not closed, no button may be pressed. If the lefthand gate is closed while the red light is lighted, do not press the lefthand button if the green light is out unless the righthand gate is open. To start the test move the starting lever from neutral all the way to the right. The test runs for two minutes from the time you move the starting lever to the right. Study these instructions, then select your own time for commencing the test. You are not permitted to ask questions of the examiner, so be sure that you understand the instructions. Make as high a score as possible."
“Whew!” said Matt.
Still, the test looked simple-one lever, two pushbuttons, two colored lights, two little gates. Once he mastered the instructions, it would be as easy as flying a kite, and a durn sight simpler than flying a copter!-Matt had had his copter license since he was twelve. He got to work.
First, he told himself, there seems to be just two ways to make a score, one with the red light on and one with both lights out and
one gate open.
Now for the other instructions- Let’s see, if the lefthand gate is not closed- no, if the lefthand gate is closed-he stopped and read them over again.
Some minutes later he had sixteen possible positions of gates and conditions of lights listed. He checked them against the instructions, Seeking scoring combinations. When he was through he stared at the result, then checked everything over again.
After rechecking he stared at the paper, whistled tunelessly, and scratched his head. Then he picked up the paper, left the booth, and went to the examiner.
That official looked up. “No questions, please.”
“I don’t have a question,” Matt said. “I want to report something. There’s something wrong with that test. Maybe the wrong instructions sheet was put in there. In any case, there is no possible way to make a score under the instructions that are in there.”
“Oh, come, now!” the examiner answered. “Are you sure of that?”
Matt hesitated, then answered firmly, “I’m sure of it, Want to see my proof?”
“No. Your name is Dodson?” The examiner glanced at a timer, then wrote on a chart. “That’s all.”
“But- Don’t I get a chance to make a score?”
“No questions, please! I’ve recorded your score. Get along -it’s dinner time.”
There were a large number of vacant places at dinner. Cadet Sabbatello looked down the long table. “I see there have been some casualties,” he remarked. “Congratulations, gentlemen, for having survived thus far.”
“Sir-does that mean we’ve passed all the tests we took today?” one of the candidates asked.
“Or at least won a retest. You haven’t flunked.” Matt sighed with relief. “Don’t get your hopes up. There will be still fewer of you here tomorrow.”
“Does it get worse?” the candidate went on.
Sabbatello grinned wickedly. “Much worse. I advise you all to eat little at breakfast. However,” he went on, “I have good news, too. It is rumored that the Commandant himself is coming down to Terra to honor you “with his presence when you are sworn in-if you are sworn in.”
Most of those present looked blank. The cadet glanced around. “Come, come, gentlemen!” he said sharply. “Surely not all of you are that ignorant. You!” He addressed Matt. “Mister, uh-Dodson. You seem to have some glimmering of what I am talking about. Why should you feel honored at the presence of the Commandant?”
Matt gulped. “Do you mean the Commandant of the Academy, sir?”
“Naturally. What do you know about him?”
“Well, sir, he’s Commodore Arkwright.” Matt stopped, as if the name were explanation.
“And what distinguishes Commodore Arkwright?”
“Uh, he’s blind, sir.”
“Not blind, Mr. Dodson, not blind! It simply happens that he had his eyes burned out. How did he lose his eyesight?” The cadet stopped him. “No-don’t tell them. Let them find out for themselves.”
The cadet resumed eating and Matt did likewise, while thinking about Commodore Arkwright. He himself had been too young to pay attention to the news, but his father had read an account of the event to him-a spectacular, single-handed rescue of a private yacht in distress, inside the orbit of Mercury. He had forgotten just how the Patrol officer had exposed his eyes to the Sun-something to do with transferring the yacht’s personnel-but he could still hear his father reading the end of the report:
"-these actions are deemed to be in accordance with the tradition of the Patrol."
He wondered if any action of his would ever receive that superlative distinction. Unlikely, he decided; “duty satisfactorily performed” was about the best an ordinary man could hope for.
Matt ran into Tex Jarman as he left the mess hall. Tex pounded him on the back. “Glad to see you, kid. Where are you rooming?”
“I haven’t had time to look up my room yet.”
“Let’s see your sheet.” Jarman took it. “We’re in the same corridor-swell. Let’s go up.”
They found the room and walked in. Sprawled on the lower of two bunks, reading and smoking a cigarette, was another candidate. He looked up.
“Enter, comrades,” he said, “Don’t bother to knock.”
“We didn’t,” said Tex.
“So I see.” The boy sat up. Matt recognized the boy who had made the crack about Tex’s boots. He decided to say nothing-perhaps they would not recognize each other. The lad continued, “Looking for someone?”
“No,” Matt answered, “this is the room I’m assigned to.”
“My roommate, eh? Welcome to the palace. Don’t trip over the dancing girls. I put your stuff on your bed.”
The sack containing Matt’s bag and civilian clothes rested on the upper bunk. He dragged it down.
“What do you mean, his bed?” demanded Tex. “You ought to match for the lower bunk.”
Matt’s roommate shrugged. “First come, first served.”
Tex clouded up. “Forget it, Tex,” Matt told him. “I prefer the upper. By the way,” he went on, to the other boy, “I’m Matt Dodson.”
“Girard Burke, at your service.”
The room was adequate but austere. Matt slept in a hydraulic bed at home, but he had used mattress beds in summer camp. The adjoining refresher was severely functional but very modern. Matt noted with pleasure that the shower was installed with robot massage. There was no shave mask, but shaving was not yet much of a chore.
In his wardrobe he found a package, marked with his serial number, containing two sets of clothing and a second pair of space boots. He stowed them and his other belongings; then turned to Tex. “Well, what¡¯ll we do now?”
“Let’s look around the joint.”
. “Fine. Maybe we can go through the Kilroy.” Burke chucked his cigarette toward the oubliette. “Wait a sec. I’ll go with you.” He disappeared into the ‘fresher.
Tex said in a low voice. “Tell him to go fly a kite, Matt.”
“It’ud be a pleasure. But I’d rather get along with him, Tex.”
“Well, maybe they’ll eliminate him tomorrow.”
“Or me.” Matt smiled wryly.
“Or me. Shucks, no, Matt-we’ll get by. Have you thought about a permanent roomie? Want to team up?”
“It’s a deal.” They shook hands.
“I’m glad that’s settled,” Tex went on. “My cellmate is a nice little guy, but he’s got a blood brother, or some such, he wants to room with. Came to see him before dinner. They chattered away in Hindustani, I guess it was. Made me nervous. Then they shifted to Basic out of politeness, and that made me more nervous.”
“You don’t look like the nervous type.”
“Oh, all us Jarmans are high strung. Take my Uncle Bodie. Got so excited at the county fair he -jumped between the shafts of a sulky and won two heats before they could catch him and throw him.”
“Is that so?”
“My solemn word. Didn’t pay off, though. They disqualified him because he wasn’t a two-year-old.”
Burke joined them and they sauntered down to the rotunda. Several hundred other candidates had had the same idea but the administration had anticipated the rush. A cadet stationed at the stairway into the pit was permitting visitors in parties of ten only, each party supervised by a cadet. Burke eyed the queue. “Simple arithmetic tells me there’s no point in waiting.”
Matt hesitated. Tex said, “Come on, Matt. Some will get tired and drop out.”
Burke shrugged, said, “So long, suckers,” and wandered away.
Matt said doubtfully, “I think he’s right, Tex.”
“Sure-but I got rid of him, didn’t I?”
The entire rotunda was a museum and memorial hall of the Patrol. The boys found display after display arranged around the walls-the original log of the first ship to visit Mars, a photo of the take-off of the disastrous first Venus expedition, a model of the German rockets used in the Second Global War, a hand-sketched map of the far side of the Moon, found in the wrecked Kilroy.
They came to an alcove the back wall of which was filled by a stereo picture of an outdoor scene. They entered and found themselves gazing, in convincing illusion, out across a hot and dazzling lunar plain, with black sky, stars, and Mother Terra herself in the background.
In the foreground, life size, was a young man dressed in an old-fashioned pressure suit. His features could be seen clearly through his helmet, big mouth, merry eyes, and ; thick sandy hair cut in the style of the previous century.
Under the picture was a line of lettering: Lieutenant Ezra. . Dahlquist, Who Helped Create the Tradition of the Patrol-1969-1996. ‘\
Matt whispered, “There ought to be a notice posted somewhere to tell us what he did.”
“I don’t see any,” Tex whispered back. “Why are you whispering?”
“I’m not-yes, I guess I was. After all, lie can’t hear us, can he? Oh-there’s a vocal!”
“Well, punch it.”
Matt pressed the button; the alcove filled with the first bars of Beethoven's Fifth. The music gave way to a voice: "The Patrol was originally made up of officers sent to it by each of the nations then in the Western Federation. Some were trustworthy, some were not. In 1996 came a day shameful and glorious in the history of the Patrol, an attempted coup d'etat, the so-called Revolt of the Colonels. A cabal of high-ranking officers, acting from Moon Base, tried to seize power over the entire world. The plot would have been successful had not Lieutenant Dahlquist disabled every atom-bomb rocket at Moon Base by removing the fissionable material from each and wrecking the triggering mechanisms. In so doing he received so much radiation that he died of his burns." The voice stopped and was followed by the Valhalla theme from G.tterdammerung.
Tex let out a long sigh; Matt realized that he had been holding his own breath. He let it go, then took another; it seemed to relieve the ache in his chest.
They heard a chuckle behind them. Girard Burke was leaning against the frame of the alcove. “They go to a lot of trouble to sell it around here,” he remarked. “Better watch it, me lads, or you will find yourselves buying it.”
“What do you mean by that? Sell what?”
Burke gestured toward the picture. “That. And the plug that goes with it. If you care for that sort of thing, there are three more, one at each cardinal point of the compass.”
Matt stared at him. “What’s the matter with you, Burke? Don’t you want to be in the Patrol?”
Burke laughed. “Sure I do. But I’m a practical man; I don’t have to bamboozled into it by a lot of emotional propaganda.” He pointed to the picture of Ezra Dahlquist. “Take him. They don’t tell you he disobeyed orders of his superior officer-if things had fallen the other way, he’d be called a traitor. Besides that, they don’t mention that it was sheer clumsiness that got him burned. Do you expect me to think he was a superman?”
Matt turned red. “No, I wouldn’t expect it.” He took a step forward. “But, since you are a practical man, how would you like a nice, practical punch in the snoot?”
Burke was no larger than Matt and a shade shorter, but he leaned forward, balanced on the balls of his feet, and said softly, “I’d love it. You and who else?”
Tex stepped forward. “I’m the ‘who else.’ ”
“Stay out of this, Tex!” Matt snapped.
“I will not! I don’t believe in wasting fair fighting on my social inferiors.”
“Stay out, I tell you!”
“Nope, I want a piece of this. You slug him and I’ll kick him in the stomach as he goes down.”
Burke looked at Jarman, and relaxed, as if he knew that the fighting moment was past. “Tut, tut, Gentlemen! You’re squabbling among yourselves.” He turned away. “Goodnight, Dodson. Don’t wake me coming in.”
Tex was still fuming. “We should have let him have it. He’ll make your life miserable until you slap him down. My Uncle Bodie says the way to deal with that sort of pimple is to belt him around until he apologizes.”
“And get kicked out of the Patrol before we’re in it? I let him get me mad, so that puts him one up. Come on- let’s see what else there is to see.”
But Call-to-Quarters sounded before they worked .around to the next of the four alcoves. Matt said good night to Tex at his door and went inside. Burke was asleep or shamming. .Matt peeled off his clothes, shinnied up into his bunk, looked for the light switch, spotted it, and ordered it to switch off.
The unfriendly presence under him made him restless, but he was almost asleep when he recalled that he had not called his father back. The thought awakened him. Presently he became aware of a vague ache somewhere inside him. Was he coming down with something?
Could it be that he was homesick? At his age? The longer he considered it the more likely it seemed, much as he hated to admit it. He was still pondering it when he fell asleep.
OVER THE BUMPS
THE NEXT MORNING Burke ignored the trouble they had had; he made no mention of it. He was even moderately cooperative about sharing the ‘fresher. But Matt was glad to hear the call to breakfast.
Table 147 was not where it should be. Puzzled, Matt moved down the line until he found a table marked “147-149,” with Cadet Sabbatello in charge. He found a place and sat down, to find himself sitting next to Pierre Armand. “Well! Pete!” he greeted him. “How are things going?”
“Glad to see you, Matt. Well enough, I guess.” His tone seemed doubtful.
Matt looked him over. Pete seemed-“dragged through a knothole” was the phrase Matt settled on. He was about to ask what was wrong when Cadet Sabbatello rapped on the table. “Apparently,” said the cadet, “some of you gentlemen have forgotten my advice last night, to eat sparingly this morning. You are about to go over the bumps today-and ground-hogs have been known to lose their breakfasts as well as their dignity.”
Matt looked startled. He had intended to order his usual lavish breakfast; he settled for milk toast and tea. He noticed that Pete had ignored the cadet’s advice; he was working on a steak, potatoes, and fried eggs-whatever ailed Pete, Matt decided, it had not affected his appetite.
Cadet Sabbatello had also noticed it. He leaned toward Pete. “Mister, uh-”
“Armand, sir,” Pete answered between bites.
“Mr. Armand, either you have the digestion of a Martian sandworm, or you thought I was joking. Don’t you expect to be dropsick?”
“No, sir.”
“No?”
“You see, sir, I was born on Ganymede.”
“Oh! I beg your pardon. Have another steak. How are you doing?”
“Pretty well, on the whole, sir.”
“Don’t be afraid to ask for dispensations. You’ll find that everyone around here understands your situation.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I mean it. Don’t play ‘iron man.’ There’s no sense in it.”
After breakfast, Matt fell in step with Armand. “Say, Pete, I see why Oscar carried your bag yesterday. Excuse me for being a stupe.”
Pete looked self-conscious. “Not at all. Oscar has been looking out for me-I met him on the trip down from Terra Station.”
Matt nodded. “I see.” He had no expert knowledge of interplanetary schedules, but he realized that Oscar, coming from Venus, and Pete, coming from one of Jupiter’s moons, would-have to change ships at the artificial satellite of Earth called Terra Station, before taking the shuttle rocket down.
It accounted for the two boys being well acquainted despite cosmically different backgrounds. “How do you feel?” he went on.
Pete hesitated. “As a matter of fact, I feel as if I were wading in quicksand up to my neck. Every move is an effort.”
“Gee, that’s too bad! Just what is the surface gravity on Ganymede?
About one-third V isn’t it?”
“Thirty-two per cent. Or from my point of view, everything here weighs three times as much as it ought to. Including me.”
Matt nodded. “As if two other guys were riding on you, one on your shoulders, and one on your back.”
“That’s about it. The worst of it is, my feet hurt all the time. I’ll get over it-”
“Sure you will!
“-since. I’m of Earth ancestry and potentially just as strong as my grandfather was. Back home, I’d been working out in the centrifuge the last couple of earth-years. I’m a lot stronger than I used to be. There’s Oscar.”
Matt greeted Oscar, then hurried to his room to phone his father in private.
A copter transport hopped Matt and some fifty other candidates to the site of the variable acceleration test-in cadet slang, the “Bumps.” It was west of the base, in the mountains, in order to have a sheer cliff for free fall. They landed on a loading platform at the edge of this cliff and joined a throng of other candidates. It was a crisp Colorado morning. They were near the timberline; gaunt evergreens, twisted by the winds, surrounded the clearing.
From a building just beyond the platform two steel skeletons ran vertically down the face of the two-thousand-foot cliff. They looked like open frames for elevators, which one of them was. The other was a guide for the testing car during the drop down the cliff.
Matt crowded up to the rail and leaned over. The lower ends of the skeleton frameworks disappeared, a dizzy distance below, in the roof of a building notched into the sloping floor of the canyon. He was telling himself that he hoped the engineer who had designed the thing knew what he was doing when he felt a dig in the ribs. It was Tex. “Some roller coaster, eh,
Matt?”
“Hi, Tex. That’s an understatement if I ever heard one.”
The candidate on Matt’s left spoke up. “Do you mean to say we ride down that thing?”
“No less,” Tex answered. “Then they gather the pieces up in a basket and haul ’em up the other one.”
“How fast does it go?”
“You’ll see in a mom- Hey! Thar she blows!”
A silvery, windowless car appeared inside one guide frame, at its top. It poised for a split second, then dropped. It dropped and dropped and dropped, gathering speed, until it disappeared with what seemed incredible velocity- actually about two hundred and fifty miles per hour-into the building below. Matt braced himself for the crash. None came, and he caught his breath.
Seconds later the car reappeared at the foot of the other framework. It seemed to crawl; actually it was accelerating rapidly during the first half of the climb. It passed from view into the building at the top of the cliff.
“Squad nine!” a loudspeaker bawled behind them.
Tex let out a sigh “Here I go, Matt,” he said. “Tell mother my last words were of her. You can have my stamp collection.” He shook hands and walked away.
The candidate who had spoken before gulped; Matt saw that he was quite pale. Suddenly he took off in the same direction but did not line up with the squad; instead he went up to the cadet mustering the squad and spoke to him, briefly and urgently. The cadet shrugged and motioned him away from the group.
Matt found himself feeling sympathetic rather than contemptuous.
His own test group was mustered next. He and his fellows were conducted into the upper building, where a cadet explained the test: “This test examines your tolerance for high acceleration, for free fall or weightlessness, and for violent changes in acceleration. You start with centrifugal
force of three gravities, then all weight is removed from you as the car goes over the cliff. At the bottom the car enters a spiraling track which reduces its speed at deceleration of three gravities. When the car comes to rest, it enters the ascending tower; you make the climb at two gravities, dropping to one gravity, and momentarily to no weight, as the car reaches the top. Then the cycle is repeated, at higher accelerations, until each of you has reacted. Any questions?”
Matt asked, “How long is the free fall, sir?”
“About eleven seconds. We would increase it, but to double it would take four times as high a cliff. However, you will find this one high enough.” He smiled grimly.
A timid voice asked, “Sir, what do you mean by ‘react’?”
“Any of several things-hemorrhage, loss of consciousness.”
“It’s dangerous?”
The cadet shrugged. “What isn’t? There has never been any mechanical failures. Your pulse, respiration, blood pressure, and other data are telemetered to the control room. We’ll try not to let you die under test.”
Presently he led them out of the room, down a passage and through a door into the test car. It had pendulum seats, not unlike any high-speed vehicle, but semi-reclining and heavily padded. They strapped down and medical technicians wired them for telemetering their responses. The cadet inspected, stepped out and returned with an officer, who repeated the inspection. The cadet then distributed “sick kits”-cloth bags of double thickness to be tied and taped to the mouth, so that a person might retch without inundating his companions. This done, he asked, “Are you all ready?” Getting no response, he went out and closed the door.
Matt wished that he had stopped him before it was too late.
For a long moment nothing happened. Then the car seemed to incline; actually, the seats inclined as the car started to move and picked up speed.
The seats swung back to the at-rest position but Matt felt himself getting steadily heavier and knew thereby that they were being centrifuged. He pressed against the pads, arms leaden, legs too heavy to move.
The feeling of extra weight left him, he felt his normal weight again, when suddenly that, too, was taken from him. He surged against the safety belts.
His stomach seemed to drop out of him. He gulped and swallowed; his breakfast stayed down. Somebody yelled, “We’re falling!” It seemed to Matt the most unnecessary statement he had ever heard.
He set his jaw and braced himself for the bump. It did not come-and still his stomach seemed trying to squirm its way out of his body. Eleven seconds? Why, he had been falling more than eleven seconds already. What had gone wrong?
And still they fell, endlessly.
And fell.
Then he was forced back against the pads. The pressure increased smoothly until he was as heavy as he had been just before the drop. His abused stomach tried to retch but the pressure was too much for it.
The pressure eased off to normal weight. A short while later the car seemed to bounce and momentarily he was weightless, while his insides grabbed frantically for anchorage. The feeling of no weight lasted only an instant; he sagged into the cushions.
The door was flung open; the cadet strode in, followed by two medical technicians. Someone yelled, “Let me out of here! Let me out of here!” The cadet paid no attention but went to the seat in front of Matt. He unstrapped the occupant and the two medical assistants carried him out. His head lolled loosely as they did so. The cadet then went to the candidate who was kicking up the fuss, unstrapped him, and stepped back. The boy got up, staggered, and shuffled out.
“Anyone need a fresh sick kit?” There were muffled responses. Working swiftly, the cadet helped those who needed it. Matt felt weakly triumphant that his own kit was still clean.
“Stand by for five gravities,” commanded the cadet. He made them answer to their names, one by one. While he was doing so another boy started clawing at his straps. Still calling the roll, the cadet helped him free and let him leave. He followed the lad out the door and shut it.
Matt felt himself tensing unbearably. He was relieved when the pressure took hold-but only momentarily, for he found that five gravities were much worse than three. His chest seemed paralyzed, he fought for air.
The giant pressure lifted-they were over the edge again, falling. His mistreated stomach revenged itself at once; he was sorry that he had eaten any breakfast at all.
They were still falling. The lights went out-and someone screamed. Falling and still retching, Matt was sure that the blackness meant some sort of accident; this time they would crash-but it did not seem to matter.
He was well into the black whirlpool of force that marked the deceleration at the bottom before he realized that he had come through without being killed. The thought brought no particular emotion; breathing at five gravities fully occupied him. The ride up the cliff, at double weight dropping off to normal weight, seemed like a vacation-except that his stomach protested when they bounced to a stop.
The lights came on and the cadet re-entered the room. His gaze stopped at the boy on Matt’s right. The lad was bleeding at his nose and ears. The candidate waved him away feebly. “I can take it,” he protested. “Go on with the test.”
“Maybe you can,” the cadet answered, “but you are through for today.” He added, “Don’t feel bad about it. It’s not necessarily a down check.”
He inspected the others, then called in the officer. The two held a whispered consultation over one boy, who was then half led, half carried from the test chamber. “Fresh sick kits?” asked the cadet.
“Here,” Matt answered feebly. The change was made, while Matt vowed to himself never to touch milk toast again.
“Seven gravities,” announced the cadet. “Speak up, or stand by.” He called the roll again. Matt was ready to give up, but he heard himself answer “ready” and the cadet was gone before he could make up his mind. There were only six of them left now.
It seemed to him that the lights were going out again, gradually, as the weight of his body built up to nearly a thousand pounds. But the lights “came on” again as the car dropped over the cliff; he realized dully that he had blacked out.
He had intended to count seconds on this fall to escape the feeling of endless time, but he was too dazed. Even the disquiet in his middle section seemed remote. Falling-falling-
Again the giant squeezed his chest, drained the blood from his brain, and shut the light from his eyes. The part that was Matt squeezed out entirely. …
“How do you feel?” He opened his eyes, saw a double image, and realized dimly that the cadet was leaning over him. He tried to answer. The cadet passed from view; he felt someone grasping him; he was being lifted and carried.
Someone wiped his face with a wet, cold towel. He sat up and found himself facing a nurse. “You’re all right now,” she said cheerfully. “Keep this until your nose stops bleeding.” She handed him the towel. “Want to get up?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Take my arm. We’ll go out into the air.”
Out on the loading platform Matt sat in the sunshine, dabbling at his nose and regaining his strength. He could hear sounds of excitement from the rail behind each time the car dropped. He sat there, soaking in the sun and wondering whether or not he really wanted to be a spaceman.
“Hey, Matt.” It was Tex, looking pale and not too sure of himself. There was a blood stain down the front of his coverall.
“Hello, Tex. I see you’ve had it.”
“Yeah.”
“How many g’s?”
“Seven.”
“Same here. What do you think of it?”
“Well-” Tex seemed at a loss. “I wish my Uncle Bodie could have tried it. He wouldn’t talk so much about the time he rassled the grizzly.”
There were many vacant seats at lunch. Matt thought about those who had gone-did they mind being “bumped out,” or were they relieved?
He was hungry but ate little, for he knew what was ahead that afternoon- rocket indoctrination. He had looked forward to this part of the schedule most eagerly. Space flight! Just a test jump, but the real thing nevertheless. He had been telling himself that, even if he failed, it would be worth it to get this first flight.
Now he was not sure; the “bumps” had changed his viewpoint. He had a new, grim respect for acceleration and he no longer thought drop-sickness funny; instead he was wondering whether or not he would ever get adjusted to free fall. Some never did, he knew.
His test group was due in Santa Barbara Field at fourteen-thirty. He had a long hour to kill with nothing to do but fret. Finally it was time to go underground, muster, and slidewalk out to the field.
The cadet in charge led them up to the surface into a concrete trench about four feet deep. Matt blinked at the sunlight. His depression was gone; he was anxious to start. On each side and about two hundred yards away were training rockets, lined up like giant birthday candles, poised on their fins with sharp snouts thrusting against the sky.
“If anything goes wrong,” the cadet said, “throw yourself flat in the trench. Don’t let that get your goat-I’m required to warn you.
“The jump lasts nine minutes, with the first minute and a half under power. You’ll feel three gravities, but the acceleration is only two gravities, because you are still close to the Earth.
“After ninety seconds you’ll be travelling a little faster than a mile a second and you will coast on up for the next three minutes for another hundred miles to an altitude of about one hundred fifty miles. You fall back toward the earth another three minutes, brake your fall with the jet and ground at the end of the ninth minute.
“A wingless landing on an atmosphere planet with gravity as strong as that of Earth is rather tricky. The landing will be radar-robot controlled, but a human pilot will stand by and check the approach against the flight plan. He can take over if necessary. Any questions?”
Someone asked, “Are these atomic-powered ships?”
The cadet snorted. “These jeeps? These are chemically powered, as you can see from the design. Monatomic hydrogen. They are much like the first big rockets ever built, except that they have variable thrust, so that the pilot and the passengers won’t” be squashed into strawberry jam as the mass- ratio drops off.”
A green signal flare arched up from the control tower. “Keep your eyes on the second rocket from the end, on the north,” advised the cadet.
There was a splash of orange flame, sun bright, at the base of the ship. “There she goes!”
The ship lifted majestically, and poised for an instant, motionless as a hovering helicopter. The noise reached Matt, seemed to press against his chest. It was the roar of an impossibly huge blowtorch. A searchlight in the tower blinked, and the ship mounted, up and up, higher and faster, its speed increasing with such smoothness that it was hard to realize how fast it was going-except that the roar was gone. Matt found himself staring straight at the zenith, watching a dwindling artificial sun, almost as dazzling as Sol himself.
Then it was gone. Matt closed his mouth and started to look away, when his attention was seized by the ice trail left as the rocket sliced its way through the outer atmosphere. White and strange, it writhed like a snake with a broken back. Under the driving force of the many-hundred-miles-an-hour winds of that far altitude it twisted visibly as he watched.
“That’s all!” the cadet shouted. “We can’t wait for the landing.”
They went underground, down a corridor, and entered an elevator. It went up right out of the ground and into the air, supported by a hydraulic piston. It mounted close by the side of a rocket ship; Matt was amazed to see how large it was close up.
The elevator stopped and its door let down drawbridge fashion into the open hatch in the rocket’s side. They trooped across; the cadet raised the bridge and went down again.
They were in a conical room. Above them the pilot lay in his acceleration rest. Beside them, feet in and head out, were acceleration couches for passengers. “Get in the bunks!” shouted the pilot. “Strap down.”
Ten boys jostled one another to reach the couches. One hesitated. “Uh, oh, Mister!” he called out.
“Yes? Get in your couch.”
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going.”
The pilot used language decidedly not officerlike and turned to his control board. ‘Tower! Remove passenger from number nineteen.” He listened, then said, “Too late to change the flight plan. Send up mass.” He shouted to the waiting boy, “What do you weigh?”
“Uh, a hundred thirty-two pounds, sir.”
“One hundred and thirty-two pounds and make it fast!” He turned back to the youngster. “You better get off this base fast, for if I have to skip my takeoff I’ll wring your neck.”
The elevator climbed into place presently and three cadets poured across. Two were carrying sandbags, one had five lead weights. They strapped the sandbags to the’ vacant couch, and clamped the weights to its sides. “One thirty-two mass,” announced one of the cadets.
“Get going,” snapped the pilot and turned back to the board.
“Don’t blow your tubes, Harry,” advised the cadet addressed. Matt was amazed, then decided the pilot must be a cadet, too. The three left, taking with them the boy; the hatch door shut with a whish.
“Stand by to raise!” the pilot called out, then looked down to check his passengers. “Passengers secure, nineteen,” he called to the
tower. “Is that confounded elevator clear?”
There was silence as the seconds trickled away.
The ship shivered. A low roar, muffled almost below audibility, throbbed in Mart’s head. For a moment he felt slightly heavy, the feeling passed, then he was pressed strongly against the pads.
Matt was delighted to find that three gravities were not bad, flat on his back as he was. The minute and a half under power stretched out; there was nothing to hear but the muted blast of the reactor, nothing to see but the sky through the pilot’s port above.
But the sky was growing darker. Already it was purple; as he watched it turned black. Fascinated, he watched the stars come out.
“Stand by for free fall!” the pilot called out, using an amplifier. “You’ll find sick kits under each pillow. If you need ’em, put ’em on. I don’t want to have to scrape it off the port.”
Matt fumbled with heavy fingers under his head, found the kit. The sound of the jet died away, and with it the thrust that had kept them pinned down. The pilot swung out of his rest and floated, facing them. “Now look, sports we’ve got six minutes. You can unstrap, two at a time and come up for a look-see. But get this: Hang oh tight. Any man who starts floating free, or skylarking, gets a down check.” He pointed to a boy. “You-and the next guy.”
The “next guy” was Matt. His stomach was complaining and he felt so wretched that he did not really want the privilege offered-but his face was at stake; he clamped his jaws, swallowed the saliva pouring into his mouth, and unstrapped.
Free, he clung to one strap, floating loosely, and tried to get his bearings. It was curiously upsetting to have no up-and-down; it made everything swim- he had trouble focusing his eyes. “Hurry up there!” he heard the pilot shout, “or you’ll miss your turn.”
“Coming, sir.”
“Hang on-I’m going to turn the ship.” The pilot un-clutched his gyros and cut in his processing flywheels. The ship turned end over end. By the time Matt worked his way to the control station, moving like a cautious and elderly monkey, the rocket was pointed toward Earth.
Matt stared out at the surface, nearly a hundred miles below and still receding. The greens and browns seemed dark by contrast with the white dazzle of clouds. Off to the left and right he could see the inky sky, stabbed with stars. “That’s the Base, just below,” the pilot was saying. “Look sharp and you can make out Hayworth Hall, maybe, by its shadow.”
It did not seem “just below” to Matt; it seemed “out”- or no direction at all. It was disquieting. “Over there-see? -is the crater where Denver used to be. Now look south-that brown stretch is Texas; you can see the Gulf beyond it.”
“Sir,” asked Matt, “can we see Des Moines from here?”
“Hard to pick out. Over that way-let your eye slide down the Kaw River till it strikes the Missouri, then up river. That dark patch-that’s Omaha and Council Bluffs. Des Moines is between there and the horizon.” Matt strained his eyes, trying to pick out his home. He could not be sure- but he did see that he was staring over the bulge of the Earth at a curved horizon; he was seeing the Earth as round. “That’s all,” ordered the pilot. “Back to your bunks. Next pair!”
He was glad to strap a belt across his middle. The remaining four minutes or so stretched endlessly; he resigned himself to never getting over space sickness. Finally the pilot chased the last pair back, swung ship jet toward Earth, and shouted, “Stand by for thrust-we’re about to ride her down on her tail!”
Blessed weight pressed down on him and his stomach stopped complaining. The ninety seconds of deceleration seemed longer; it made him jumpy to know that the Earth was rushing up at them and not be able to see it. But at last there came a slight bump and his weight dropped suddenly to normal. “Grounded,” announced the pilot, “and all in one piece. You can unstrap, sports.”
Presently a truck arrived, swung a telescoping ladder up to the hatch, and “they climbed down. On the way back they passed a great unwieldy tractor, crawling out to retrieve the rocket. Someone stuck his head out of the tractor. “Hey! Harry-why didn’t you land it in Kansas?”
Their pilot waved at the speaker. “Be grateful I didn’t!”
Matt was free until mess; he decided to return to the observation trench; he still wanted to see a ship land on its jet. He had seen winged landings of commercial stratosphere rockets, but never a jet landing.
Matt had just found a vacant spot at the trench when a shout went up-a ship was coming in. It was a ball of flame, growing in the sky, and then a pillar of flame, streaking down in front of him. The streamer of fire brushed the ground, poised like a ballet dancer, and died out. The ship was down.
He turned to a candidate near him. “How long till the next one?”
“They’ve come in about every five minutes. Stick around.”
Presently a green flare went up from the control tower and he looked around, trying to spot the ship about to take off, when another shout caused him to turn back. There again was a ball of fire in the sky, growing.
Unbelievably, it went out. He stood there, stupefied- to hear a cry of “Down! Down, everybody! Flat on your faces!” Before he could shake off his stupor, someone tackled him and threw him.
He was rocked by a sharp shock, on top of it came the roar of an
explosion. Something snatched at his breath.
He sat up and looked around. A cadet near him was peering cautiously over the parapet. “Allah the Merciful,” he heard him say softly.
“What happened?”
“Crashed in. Dead, all dead.” The cadet seemed to see him for the first time. “Get back to your quarters,” he said sharply.
“But how did it happen?”
“Never mind-this is no time for sightseeing.” The cadet moved down the line, clearing out spectators.
FIRST MUSTER
MATT’S BOOM WAS EMPTY, which was a relief. He did not want to see Burke, nor anyone. He sat down and thought about it.
Eleven people-just like that. All happy and excited and then-crrumpl-not enough left to cremate. Suddenly he himself was back up .in the sky- He broke off the thought, trembling.
-At the end of an hour he had made up his mind that the Patrol was not for him. He had thought of it, he realized, through a kid’s bright illusions- Captain Jenks of the Space Patrol, The Young Rocketeers, stuff like that. Well, those books were all right-for kids-but he wasn’t hero material, he had to admit.
Anyhow, his stomach would never get used to free fall. Right now it tightened up when he thought about it.
By the time Burke returned he was calm and, if not happy, at least he was not unhappy, for his mind was at rest.
Burke came in whistling. He stopped when he saw Matt. “Well, junior, still here? I thought the bumps would send you home.” .
“No.”
“Didn’t you get dropsick?”
“Yes.” Matt waited and tried to control his temper. “Didn’t you?” Burke chuckled. “Not likely. I’m no groundhog, junior.
“Call me ‘Matt.'”
. “Okay, Matthew. I was going out into space before I could walk. My old man builds ’em, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Sure. ‘Reactors, Limited’-he’s chairman of the board. Say, did you see the fireworks out at the field?”
“You mean the ship that crashed?”
“What else? Quite a show, wasn’t it?”
Matt could feel himself coining to a slow boil. “Do you mean to stand there and tell me,” he said quietly, “that you regard the deaths of eleven human beings as ‘quite a show’?”
Burke stared at him. Then he laughed. “I’m sorry, old fellow. I apologize. But it actually didn’t occur to me that you. didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“But you weren’t supposed to know, of course. Relax, son-no one was killed. You were framed.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
Burke sat down and laughed until he had tears. Matt grabbed him by the shoulder. “Cut that out and talk.”
The other candidate stopped and looked up. “Honest, I rather like you, Dodson-you’re such a perfect country cousin. How do you feel about Santa Claus and the Stork?^
Talk!”
“Haven’t you caught on to what they’ve been doing to you ever since you checked in?”
“Doing what?”
“War of nerves, man. Haven’t you noticed some tests were too easy-too easy to cheat in, that is? When you went over the bumps, didn’t you notice that they let you take a good look at the drop before you made it? When they could just as easily have kept you inside where it wouldn’t worry you?”
Matt thought about it. It was an enticing notion-he could see how some of the things he had not understood would fit in to such a theory. “Go on.”
“Oh, it’s a good gag-it cleans out the weak sisters and it cleans out the stupes, too, the guys so dumb that they can’t resist an invitation to cheat, never dreaming that it might be booby-trapped. It’s efficient-a Patrol officer has to be smart and fast on his feet and cool-headed. It keeps from wasting money on second- raters.”
“You just called me dumb and yet I got by.”
“Of course you did, junior, because your heart is pure.” He laughed again. “And I got by. But you’ll never make a Patrolman, Matt. They’ve got other ways to get rid of the good, dumb boys. You’ll see.”
“Okay, so I’m dumb. But don’t call me junior again. What’s this got to do with the ship that crashed?”
“Why, it’s simple. They want to eliminate all the dead-wood before swearing us in. There are candidates with cast-iron stomachs who don’t get upset by the bumps, or anything. So they send up a ship under robot control- no pilot, no passengers and crash it, just to scare off those who can be scared. It’s a darn sight cheaper than training just one cadet, if he doesn’t pay off in the long run.”
“How do you know? Have you got inside information on it?”
“In a way, yes. It’s a logical necessity-those ships cant crash, unless you crash ’em on purpose. I know-my old man makes them.”
“Well-maybe you’re right.” Matt dropped the matter, unsatisfied but lacking basis for further argument. It did convince him of one thing, however space sickness or not, come what may, he resolved to hang on as long as Girard Burke did, and at least twenty-four hours longer!
His table at dinner that night was numbered “147, 149, 151 & 153.” There was room enough to seat the survivors.
Cadet Sabbatello looked them over pleasantly. “Congratulations, gentlemen, on having lasted it out. Since you will be sworn in tonight, when next we meet it will be in a different status.” He grinned. “So relax and enjoy your last meal of freedom.”
In spite of no effective breakfast and little lunch, Matt found himself unable to eat much. Girard Burke’s interpretation of the tests and what they meant troubled him. He still intended to take the oath, but he had an uneasy feeling that he was about to take it without knowing what it signified-what the Patrol really was.
When the meal broke up, on sudden impulse he followed the cadet in charge of the table out. “Excuse me-Mr. Sabbatello, could I speak to you privately, sir?”
“Eh? I suppose so-come along.” He led Matt to his own room; it was exactly like Matt’s. “Now what is it?”
“Uh-Mr. Sabbatello, that crash today: was anybody hurt?”
“Hurt? It killed eleven people. Don’t you call that hurt’?”
“Are you sure? Is it possible that it was a drone and nobody was inside?”
“It’s possible, but it’s not the case. I wish it were the pilot was a friend of mine.”
“Oh-I’m sorry. But I had to know, for sure. You see, it’s very important to me.”
‘”Why?”
Matt sketched out Burke’s version of what had happened, without giving Burke’s name. As he talked, Sabbatello showed more and more annoyance. “I see,” he said, when Matt was done. “It is true that some of the tests are psychological rather than overt. But this matter of the crash -who fed you that nonsense?”
Matt did not say anything.
“Never mind. You can protect your informant-it won’t matter in the least in the long run. But about the crash-” He considered. “I’d give my word of honor to you-in fact I do-but if you accept the hypothesis your friend holds, then you won’t pay any attention to my sworn word.” He thought a moment. “Are you a Catholic?”
“Uh, no sir.” Matt was startled.
“It doesn’t matter. Do you know who Saint Barbara is?”
“Not exactly, sir. The field-”
“Yes, the field. She was a third-century martyr. The point is that she is the patron saint of all who deal with high explosives, rocket men among others.” He paused.
“If you go over to the chapel, you will find that a mass is scheduled during which Saint Barbara will be asked to intercede for the souls of the men who were lost this afternoon. I think you realize that no priest would lend his office to any such chicanery as your friend suggests?”
Matt nodded solemnly. “I see your point, sir. I don’t need to go to the chapel-I’ve found out what I needed to know.”
“Fine. You had better hightail it and get ready. It would be embarrassing to be late to your own swearing in.”
First Muster was scheduled for twenty-one o’clock in the auditorium. Matt was one of the first to arrive, scrubbed and neat and wearing a fresh coverall. A cadet took his name and told him to wait inside. The floor of the hall had been cleared of seats. Above the stage at the far end were the three closed circles of the Federation-Freedom, Peace, and Law, so intertwined that, ‘if any one were removed, the other two would fall apart. Under them was the Patrol’s own sign, a star blazing in the night.
Tex was one of the last to show up. He was greeting Matt, breathlessly, when a cadet, speaking from the rostrum, called out, “Attention!
“Gather on the left side of the hall,” he went on. The candidates milled and shuffled into a compact group. “Remain where you are until muster. When your name is called, answer ‘Here!’, then walk across to the other side. You will find white guide lines on the deck there. Toe the lines to form ranks.”
Another cadet came down from the rostrum and moved toward the mass of boys. He stopped, picked a slip of paper from four such slips he held, and fixed Tex with his eye. “You, mister,” he said. “Take this.”
Jarman took it, but looked puzzled. “What for?”
“As well as answering to your own name, when you hear this name, speak up. Step out in front and sing out, ‘I answer for him!'”
Tex looked at the slip. Matt saw that it read: “John Martin.”
“But why?” demanded Tex.
The cadet looked at him. “You really don’t know?”
“Nary a notion.”
“Hmmph! Well, since the name doesn’t ring a bell, just take it that he is a classmate of yours who can’t be here tonight, in person. So you answer for him to make the muster complete. Get it?”
“Yes, sir. Can do.”
The cadet moved on down the line. Tex turned to Matt. “What gives, d’you s’pose?”
“It beats me.”
“Me, too. Well, we’ll probably find out.”
The cadet on the rostrum moved to stage .left. “Silence!” he commanded. “The Commandant!”
From the rear entered two men dressed in the midnight black. The younger of them walked so that his sleeve brushed the elbow of his senior. They moved to the center of the platform; the younger man stopped. The elder halted immediately, whereupon the aide withdrew. The Commandant of the Academy stood facing the new class.
Or, rather, facing down the centre of the hall. He stood still for a long moment; someone coughed and shuffled, at which he turned toward the group and faced them thereafter. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
Seeing him, Matt was reminded strongly of Cadet Sabbatello’s protest: “Not blind, Mr. Dodson!” Commodore Arkwright’s eyes looked strange-the sockets were deep set and the eyelids drooped like a man in thought. Yet, as that sightless gaze rested on him, it seemed to Matt that the Commandant could not only see him but could peer inside his head.
“I welcome you to our fellowship. You come from many lands, some from other planets. You are of various colors and creeds. Yet you must and shall become a band of brothers.
“Some of you are homesick. You need not be. From this day on every part of this family of planets is your home, each place equally. Each living, thinking creature in this system is your neighbor-and your responsibility.
“You are about to take an oath, by your own choice, as a member of the Patrol of this our System. In time, you expect to become an officer of that Patrol. It is necessary that you understand the burden you assume. You expect to spend long hours studying your new profession, acquiring the skills of the spaceman and the arts of the professional soldier. These skills and arts you must have, but they will not make you an officer of the Patrol.”
He paused, then went on, “An officer in command of a ship of the Patrol, away from base, is the last of the absolute monarchs, for there is none but himself to restrain him. Many places where he must go no other authority reaches. He himself must embody law, and the rule of reason, justice and mercy.
“More than that, to the members of the Patrol singly and together is entrusted such awful force as may compel or destroy, all other force we know of-and with this trust is laid on them the charge to keep the peace of the System and to protect the liberties of its peoples. They are soldiers of freedom.
“It is not enough that you be skillful, clever, brave- The trustees of this awful power must each possess a meticulous sense of honor, self-discipline beyond all ambition, conceit, or avarice, respect for the liberties and dignity of all creatures, and an unyielding will to do justice and give mercy. He must be a true and gentle knight.”
He stopped and there was no sound at all in the huge room. Then he said, “Let those who are prepared to take the oath be mustered.”
The cadet who had been acting as adjutant stepped forward briskly. “Adams!”
“Uh-here, sir!” A candidate trotted across the room.
“Akbar.”
“Here!”
“Alvarado-”
“Anderson, Peter-”
“Anderson, John-”
“Angelico-”
Then, presently, it was, “Dana-Delacroix-DeWitt-Diaz -Dobbs,” and
“Dodson!”
“Here!” .shouted Matt. His voice squeaked but no one laughed. He hurried over to the other side, found a place and waited, panting. The muster went on:
“Eddy-Eisenhower-Ericsson-” Boys trickled across the room until few were left. “Sforza, Stanley, Suliman,” and then, finally: “Zahm!” The last candidate joined his fellows.
But the cadet did not stop. “Dahlquistl” he called out.
There was no answer.
“Dahlquist!” he repeated. “Ezra Dahlquist!”
Matt felt cold prickles around his scalp. He recognized the name now-but Dahlquist would not be here, not Ezra Dahlquist. Matt was sure of that, for he remembered an alcove in the rotunda, a young man in a picture, and the hot, bright sand of the Moon.
There was a stir in the rank behind him. A candidate pushed his way through and stepped forward. “I answer for Ezra Dahlquist!”
“Martin!”
This time there was no hesitation. He heard Tex’s voice, his tone shrill: “I answer for him.”
“Rivera.”
A strong baritone: “Answering for Rivera!” . “Wheeler!”
“I answer for Wheeler.”
The cadet turned toward the Commandant and saluted:
“All present, sir. Class of 2075, First Muster complete.”
The man in black returned the salute. “Very well, sir. We will proceed with the oath.” He stepped forward to the very edge of the platform, the cadet at his elbow. “Raise your right hands.”
The Commandant raised his own hand. “Repeat after me: Of my own free will, without reservation-”
” ‘Of my own free will, without reservation-‘ ”
“I swear to uphold the peace of the Solar System-”
In chorus they followed him.
“-to protect the lawful liberties of its inhabitants-
“-to defend the constitution of the Solar Federation-
“-to carry out the duties of the position to which I am now appointed-
“-and to obey the lawful orders of my superior officers,
“To these ends I subordinate all other loyalties and renounce utterly any that may conflict with them.
“This I solemnly affirm in the Name I hold most sacred.”
“So help me, God,” concluded the Commandant. Matt repeated his words, but the response around him took a dozen different forms, in nearly as many languages.
The Commandant turned his head to the cadet by his side. “Dismiss them, sir.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The cadet raised his voice. “On being dismissed, face to the right and file out. Maintain your formation until clear of the door. Dismissed!”
At the cue of his command, music swelled out and filled the hall; the newly created cadets marched away to the strains of the Patrol’s own air, The Long Watch. It persisted until the last of them were gone, then faded out.
The Commandant waited until the youngster cadets had left, then faced around. His aide joined him at once, whereupon the acting cadet adjutant moved quickly from his side. Commodore Arkwright turned toward the departing cadet. “Mr. Barnes.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Are you ready to be commissioned?”
“Er- I don’t think so, sir. Not quite.”
“So? Well, come see me soon.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
The Commodore turned away and headed rapidly for the stage exit, with his aide’s sleeve brushing his. “Well, John,” asked the senior, “What did you think of them?”
“A fine bunch of boys, sir.”
“That was my impression. All youth and eagerness and young expectation. But how many of them will we have to eliminate? It’s a sorry thing, John, to take a boy and change him so that he is no longer a civilian, then kick him out. It’s the crudest duty we have to perform.”
“I don’t see a way to avoid it.”
“There is no way. If we had some magic touchstone- Tell the field that I want to raise ship in thirty minutes.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
INTO SPACE
The PATROL ACADEMY may lack ivy-covered buildings and tree-shaded walks; it does not lack room. There are cadets in every reach of the Federation, from ships circling Venus, or mapping the scorched earth of Mercury, to ships patrolling the Jovian moons.
Even on years-long exploration flights to the frozen fringes of the Solar System cadets go along-and are brevetted as officers when their captains think them ready, without waiting to return.
The public thinks of the Academy as the school ship P.R.S. James Randolph, but every cadet mess in every ship of the Patrol is part of the Academy. A youngster cadet is ordered to the Randolph as soon as he is sworn in and he remains attached to that ship until he is ready to go to a regular Patrol vessel as a passed cadet. His schooling continues; in time he is ordered back to where he started, Hayworth Hall, to receive Ms final polish.
An oldster, attached to Hayworth Hall, will not necessarily be there. He may be at the radiation laboratories of Oxford University, or studying interplanetary law at the Sorbonne, or he may even be as far away as Venus, at the Institute for System Studies. Whatever his route-and no two cadets pursue exactly the same course of training-the Academy is still in charge of him, until, and if, he is commissioned.
How long it takes depends on the cadet. Brilliant young Hartstone, who died on the first expedition to Pluto, was brevetted less than a year after he reported to Hayworth Hall as a groundhog candidate. But it is not unusual to find oldsters at Terra Base who have been cadets for five years or more.
Cadet Matthew Dodson admired himself in the mirror of the ‘fresher. The oyster-white uniform he had found waiting when he returned from First Muster the evening before, and with it a small book of regulations embossed with his name and clipped to a new assignment schedule. The schedule had started out: “1.. Your first duty as a cadet is to read the regulation book herewith, at once. Hereafter you are responsible for the contents.”
He had read it before taps, until his mind was a jumble of undigested rules: “A cadet is an officer in a limited sense-” “-behave with decorum and sobriety appropriate to the occasion-” “-in accordance with local custom rather than Patrol custom unless in conflict with an invariant law of the Federation or regulation of the Patrol.” “-but the responsibility of determining the legality of the order rests on the person ordered as well as on the person giving the order.” “-circumstances not covered by law or regulation must be decided by the individual in the light of the living tradition of the Patrol.” “Cadets will at all times be smooth-shaven and will not wear their hair longer than two inches.”
He felt that he understood the last mentioned.
He got up before reveille the next morning and dived into the ‘fresher, shaved hastily and rather unnecessarily and got into uniform.
It fit him well enough, but to his eye the fit was perfect, the styling superb. As a matter of fact, the uniform lacked style, decoration, trim, insignia, or flattering cut.
But Matt thought he looked wonderful.
Burke pounded on the ‘fresher door. “Have you died in there?” He stuck his head in. “Oh-all right, so you look sweet. Now how about getting out?”
“Coming.” Matt stalled around the room for a few minutes, then overcome by impatience, tucked his regulation book in his tunic (regulation #383), and went to the refectory. He walked in feeling self-conscious, proud, and about seven feet tall. He sat down at his table, one of the first to arrive. Cadets trickled in; Cadet Sabbatello was one of the last.
The oldster looked grimly down the table. “Attention,” he snapped. “All of you-stand up.”
Matt jumped to his feet with the rest. Sabbatello sat down. “From now on, gentlemen, make it a rule to wait until your seniors are seated. Be seated.”
The oldster studied the studs in front of him, punched his order, and looked up. The youngsters had resumed eating. He rapped the table sharply. “Quiet, please. Gentlemen, you have many readjustments to make. The sooner you make them, the happier you will be. Mr. Dodson-stop dunking your toast; you are dripping it on your uniform. Which brings me,” he went on, “to the subject of table manners-”
Matt returned to his quarters considerably subdued.
He stopped by Tex’s room and found him thumbing through the book of regulations. “Hello, Matt. Say, tell me something-is there anything in this bible that says Mr. Dynkowski has the right to tell me not to blow on my coffee?”
“I see you’ve had it, too. What happened?”
Jarman’s friendly face wrinkled. “Well, I’d begun to think of Ski as an all- right guy, helpful and considerate. But this morning at breakfast he starts out by asking me how I manage to carry around ~all that penalty-weight.” Tex glanced at his waist line; Matt noted with surprise that Tex looked quite chubby in cadet uniform.
“All us Jarmans are portly,” Tex went on defensively. “He should see my Uncle Bodie. Then he-”
“Skip it,” said Matt. “I know the rest of it-now.”
“Well, I guess I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
“Probably not.” Matt looked through the book. “Maybe this will help. It says here that, in case of doubt, you may insist that the officer giving the order put it in writing and stamp his thumb print, or use other means to provide a permanent record.”
“Does it, really?” Tex grabbed the book. “That’s for me!- ’cause I sure am in doubt. Boy! Just wait and see his face when I pull this one.”
“I’d like to,” agreed Matt. “Which way do you take the lift, Tex?” The Patrol Rocket Ship Simon Bolivar, transport, was at Santa Barbara Field, having discharged a battalion of Space Marines, but P.R.S. Bolivar could take but about half the new class. The rest were to take the public shuttle rocket from Pike’s Peak, launching catapult to Terra Space Station, there to be transferred to the Randolph.
“Transport,” Tex answered. “How about you?”
“Me, too. I’d like to see Terra Station, but I’m glad we’re going in a Patrol ship. What are you taking with you?”
Tex hauled out his luggage and hefted it. “It’s a problem. I’ve got about fifty pounds here. Do you suppose if I rolled it up real small I could get it down to twenty pounds?”
“An interesting theory,” Matt said. “Let’s have a look at it-you’ve got to eliminate thirty pounds of penalty-weight.”
Jarman spread his stuff out on the floor. “Well,” Matt said at once, “you don’t need all those photographs.” He pointed to a dozen large stereos, each weighing a pound or more.
Tex looked horrified. “Leave my harem behind?” He picked up one. “There is the sweetest redhead in the entire Rio Grande Valley.” He picked up another. “And Smitty-I couldn’t get along without Smitty. She thinks I’m wonderful.”
“Wouldn’t she still think so if you left her pic behind?”
“Oh, of course. But it wouldn’t be gallant.” He considered. “I’ll
compromise-I’ll leave behind my club.”
“Your club?” Matt asked, failing to see anything of that description.
“The one I use to beat off the little darlings when they get too persistent.”
“Oh. Maybe someday you’ll teach me your secret. Yes, leave your club behind; there aren’t any girls in the Randolph.”
“Is that good?” demanded Tex.
“I refuse to commit myself.” Matt studied the pile. “You know what I’d suggest? Keep that harmonica-I like harmonica music. Have those photos copied in micro. Feed the rest to the cat.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“I’ve got the same problem.” He went to his room. The class had the day free, for the purpose of getting ready to leave Earth. Matt spread his possessions out to look them over. His civilian clothes he would ship home, of course, and his telephone as well, since it was limited by its short range to the neighborhood of an earth-side relay office.
He made a note to telephone home before he packed the instrument. Might as well make one other call, too, he decided; even though he was resolved not to waste time on girls in his new life, it would be polite to phone and say good-by. He did so.
He put the instrument down a few minutes later, baffled to find that he had apparently promised to write regularly.
He called home, spoke with his parents and kid brother, -and then put the telephone with things to be shipped. He was scratching his head over what remained when Burke came in. He grinned. “Trying to swallow your penalty-weight?”
Till figure it out.”
“You don’t have to leave that junk behind, you know.”
“Huh?”
“Ship it up to Terra Station, rent a locker, and store it. Then, when you go on liberty to the Station, you can bring back what you want. Sneak it aboard, if it’s that sort of thing.” Matt made no comment; Burke went on, “What’s the matter, Galahad? Shocked at the notion of running contraband?”
“No. But I don’t have a locker at Terra Station.”
“Well, if you’re too cheap to rent one, you can ship the stuff to mine. You scratch me and I’ll scratch you.”
“No, thanks.” He thought about expressing some things to the Terra Station post office, then discarded the idea- the rates were too high. He went’ on sorting. He would keep his camera, but his micro kit would have to go, and his chessmen. Presently he had cut the list to what he hoped was twenty pounds; he took the stuff away to weigh it.
Reveille and breakfast were an hour early the next day. Shortly after breakfast the call-to-muster ran through Hay-worth Hall, to be followed by heart-quickening strains of “Raise Ship!” Matt slung his jump bag over his shoulder and hurried down to the lower corridors. He pushed his way through a throng of excited youngster cadets and found his assigned area.
Muster was by squads and Matt was a temporary squad leader, as his name came first, alphabetically, in his squad. He had been, given a list; he reached into his pouch and had an agonizing moment of thinking he had left it up in his room before his fingers closed on it. “Dodsworth!”
“Here.”
“Dunstan,”
“Here.”
He was still working through Frankel, Freund, and Funston when the oldster mustering the entire corridor shouted for him to report. He hurried to a conclusion, faced around, and saluted. “Squad nineteen-all present!”
Someone tittered and Matt realized suddenly that he had used the scout salute, rather than the relaxed, open-palmed gesture of the Patrol. His cheeks burned.
A brassy amplified voice called out, “All deck parties report.” In turn, the oldster in Mart’s corridor called out, “Third deck party, all present.” When all reports were in there was a momentary silence, long enough for Matt to have a spine-tingling anticipation of what was to come. Would they? But they were doing so; the voice over the speaker called out: “Dahlquist?”
Another voice-heard only through the speaker-replied, “I answer for him.”
It went on, until the Four were mustered, whereupon the first voice stated, “All present, sir.”
“Man the ship.”
They mounted a slidewalk, to step off in a large underground room, far out under Santa Barbara Field. There were eight large elevators arranged in a wide circle around the room. Matt and his squad were crowded into one of them and mounted to the surface. Up it went, much higher than had been necessary to enter the test-flight rocket, up and up, close by the huge bulk of the Bolivar.
It stopped and they trotted across the drawbridge into the ship. Inside the airlock stood a space-marines sergeant, gaudy and splendid who kept repeating, “Seventh deck! Down the hatch to your own deck-step lively!” He pointed to the hatch, down which disappeared a narrow, vertical steel ladder.
Matt hitched his jump bag out of his way and lowered himself into the hatch, moving fast to avoid getting his fingers stepped on by the cadet who followed him. He lost track of the decks, but there was a sergeant master-at-arms on each. He got off when he heard, “Third deck!”
He was in a wide, low cylindrical compartment, the deck of which was covered with plastic-foam padding. It ,was marked off in sections, each about seven feet by three and fitted with safety belts.
Matt found an unoccupied section, sat down, and waited. Presently cadets stopped dribbling in, the room was crowded. The master-at-arms called out, “Down, everybody-one to a section.” He then counted them by noting that all sections were filled.
A loudspeaker warned, “All hands, prepare for acceleration!” The sergeant told them to strap down and remained standing until all had done so. He then lay down, grasped two handholds, and reported the third deck ready.
“All hands, stand by to raise!” called out the speaker.
There was a long and breathless wait.
“Up ship!” shouted the speaker. >
Matt felt himself pressed into the padding.
Terra Space Station and the school ship Randolph He in a circular orbit 22,300 miles above the surface of the Earth, where they circle the Earth in exactly twenty-four hours, the natural period of a body at that distance.
Since the Earth’s rotation exactly matches their period, they face always one side of the Earth-the ninetieth western meridian, to be exact. Their orbit lies in the ecliptic, the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, rather than in the plane of the Earth’s equator. This results in them swinging north and south each day as seen from the earth. When it is noon in the Middle West, Terra Station and the Randolph lie over the Gulf of Mexico; at midnight they lie over the South Pacific.
The state of Colorado moves eastward about 830 miles per hour. Terra Station and the Randolph also move eastward nearly 7000 miles per hour1.93 miles per second, to be finicky. The pilot of the Bolivar had to arrive at the Randolph precisely matched in course and speed. To do this he must break his ship away from our heavy planet, throw her into an elliptical orbit just tangent to the circular orbit of the Randolph and with that tangency so exactly placed that, when he matched speeds, the two ships would lie relatively motionless although plunging ahead at two miles per second. This last maneuver was no easy matter like jockeying a copter over a landing platform, as the two speeds, unadjusted, would differ by 3000 miles an hour.
Getting the Bolivar from Colorado to the Randolph, and all other problems of journeying between the planets, are subject to precise and elegant mathematical solution under four laws formulated by the saintly, absentminded Sir Isaac Newton nearly four centuries earlier than this flight of the Bolivar-the three Laws of Motion and the Law of Gravitation. These laws are simple; their application in space to get from where you are to where you want to be, at the correct time with the correct course and speed, is a nightmare of complicated, fussy computation.
The “weight” pressing Matt into the padding was four gravities-Matt weighed nearly six hundred pounds. He lay there, breathing with difficulty, while the ship punched its way through the thick soup of air and out into free space. The heavy weight bound down the cadets while the Bolivar attained a speed of some six miles per second and climbed to an altitude of 900 miles.
At the end of five minutes and a few odd seconds the drive stopped.
Matt raised his head, while the sudden silence rang in his ears. The master-at-arms detected Mart’s movement and others. He shouted, “Stay where you are-don’t move.”
Matt relaxed. They were in free fall, weightless, even though the Bolivar was speeding away from the Earth at more than 20,000 miles an hour. Each body-ship, planet, meteor, atom-in space falls continually. It moves also with whatever other motion it has inherited from its past experience.
Matt was acutely aware of his weightlessness, for his stomach told him about it, complainingly. To be on the safe side, he removed a sick kit from his jump bag, but he did not put it on. He was feeling queasy; it was not as bad as it had been on his test flight, not half as bad as the “bumps.” He hoped to get by without losing his breakfast.
The loudspeaker sang out, “End of acceleration. Four hours of free fall.” The master-at-arms sat up. “You can unstrap now,” he said.
In a matter of seconds the compartment took on the look of a particularly crowded aquarium. One hundred boys were floating, swimming, squirming in every attitude and position between the deck and the overhead. These two barriers no longer seemed like floor and ceiling since up-and-down was gone; they were simply walls which rotated slowly and erratically for each observer as his own body turned past them.
“Hey, you guys!” yelled the sergeant. “Grab on to something and listen to me.” Matt looked around, found himself near the overhead, spotted a handhold, and grasped it. “It’s time you kids learned some traffic rules for free flight. You got to learn to zig when the other guy zags. If you happen to meet the Captain and you zig when you should ‘a’ zagged and bump him, he ain’t going to like it. See?”
He stuck out a scarred thumb. “Rule one: all groundhogs -that’s you and don’t try to tell me anything different-are required to hold on with at least one hand at all times. That applies until you pass your free-fall acrobatics test. Rule two.- give way to officers and don’t make them have to shout ‘Gangway!’ Besides that, give way to anybody on duty, or busy, or with his hands full.
“If you’re moving aft, pass inboard of the man you meet, and contrariwise if you’re moving forward. If you’re moving clockwise, figuring ‘clockwise’ from the bow end of the ship, you pass the man you meet outboard and let him pass inboard- contrariwise for counterclockwise. No matter what direction you’re going, if you overtake a man you pass inboard of him. Is that all clear?”
Matt thought it was, though he doubted if he could remember it. But a remaining possibility occurred to him. “Sergeant,” he asked innocently, “suppose you’re moving directly in or out from the center of the ship-what do you do?”
The sergeant looked disgusted, which gave his face an odd appearance to Matt, as their two faces were upside down with respect to each other. “You get what usually happens to jaywalkers-okay, so you’re moving across the traffic: just stay out of everybody’s way. It’s your lookout. Any more questions?”
No one answered; he went on: “All right, go out and look around the ship- but try to behave yourselves and not bump into anybody so you’ll be a credit to deck three.”
The third deck had no ports of any sort, but the Bolivar was a long-jump transport; she possessed recreation rooms and viewports. Matt started forward, seeking a place from which to get a glimpse of the Earth.
He remembered to pass outboard as he pulled himself along, but apparently some passengers had not been indoctrinated. Each hatchway was a traffic jam of youngsters, each trying to leave his own deck to sight-see in some other deck, any deck.
The sixth deck, he found, was a recreation room. It contained the ship’s library-locked-and games equipment, also locked. But it did have six large viewports.
The recreation deck had carried a full load of passengers. Now, in free fall, cadets from all other decks gradually ‘ found their way to the recreation deck, just as Matt had, seeking a view of outside; at the same time the original roster of that deck showed no tendency to want to leave their favored billet.
It was crowded.
Crowded as a basket full of kittens-Matt removed someone’s space boot from his left eye and tried to worm his way toward one of the ports. Judicious work with his knees and elbows and a total disregard of the rules of the road got him to the second or third layer near one port. He placed a hand on a shoulder in front of him. The cadet twisted around. “Hey! Who do you think you’re shoving? Oh-hello, Matt.”
“Hi, Tex. How’s it going?”
“All right. Say, you should have been here a few minutes ago. We passed one of the television relay stations, close by. Boy, oh, boy, are we traveling!”
“We did, huh? What did it look like?”
“Couldn’t see much of it, must have been ten miles away, maybe. But, with the time we’re making it was just there she comes and there she goes.”
“Can you see the Earth?” Matt squirmed toward the port.
“Natch.” Tex gave way and let Matt slide into his place. The frame of the port cut across the eastern Atlantic. Matt could see an arc extending almost from the North Pole to the Equator.
It was high noon over the Atlantic. Beyond it, bright in the afternoon sunlight, he could make out the British Isles, Spain, and the brassy Sahara. The browns and greens of land were in sharp contrast to the deep purple of the ocean. In still greater contrast stood the white dazzle of cloud. As his eye approached the distant, rounded horizon the details softened, giving a strong effect of stereo, of depth, of three-dimensional globularness-the world indeed was round!
Our beautiful earth on a nice dark background. What a wonderful and special place to live.
Round and green and beautiful! He discovered presently that he had been holding his breath. His nausea was quite gone.
Someone tugged at his leg. “Don’t stay there all day. Do you want to hog it?”
Regretfully Matt gave way to another cadet. He turned and shoved himself away from the port and in so doing became disoriented. He could not find Tex in the helter-skelter mass of floating bodies.
He felt a grip on his right ankle. “Let’s get out of here, Matt.”
“Right.” They worked their way to the hatch and moved to the next deck. Being without ports it was not heavily populated. They propelled themselves toward the center of the room, away from the traffic, and steadied themselves on handholds. “Well,” said Matt, “so this is it-space, I mean. How do you like it?”
“Makes me feel like a goldfish. And I’m getting cross-eyed trying to figure out which side is up. How’s your gizzard? Been dropsick?”
“No.” Matt swallowed cautiously. “Let’s not talk about it. Where were you last night, Tex? I looked for you a couple of times, but your roommate said he hadn’t seen you since dinner.”
“Oh, that-” Tex looked pained. “I was in Mr. Dynkowski’s room. Say, Matt, that was a bum steer you gave me.”
“Huh? What steer?”
“You know-when you advised me to ask Mr. Dynkowski to put an order in writing if I was in doubt about it. Man, oh man, did you get me in a jam!” .
“Wait a minute-I didn’t advise you to do that; I just pointed out that the regs let you do it if you wanted to.”
“Just the same, you were egging me on.”
“The deuce I was! My interest was purely theoretical. You were a free agent.”
“Oh, well-skip it. Skip it.”
“What happened?”
“Well, last night at dinner I ordered pie for dessert. I picked it up, just like I always have ever since I got too big for Ma to slap my hands for it, and started shoveling it in my face, happy as a pup in a pansy bed. Ski ordered me to cease and desist-told me to use my fork.”
“Yeah? Go on.”
“I said to put it in writing, please, sir, polite as a preacher.”
“It stopped him?”
“Like fun it did! He said, Very well, Mr. Jarman,’ cool as could be, took out his notebook, wrote it out, stamped his thumb print on it, tore out the page and handed it to me.”
“So you used your fork. Or didn’t you?”
“I sure did. But that’s only the beginning. Immediately he wrote out another order and handed it to me. He told me to read it aloud. Which I did.”
“What did it say?”
“Wait a minute … I’ve got it here somewhere.” Tex poked around in his pouch. “Here-read it.”
Matt read, ” ‘Cadet Jarman-immediately after this meal you will report to the officer-of-the-watch, taking with you the first written order I gave you. Explain to him the events leading up to the first order and get an opinion from him as to the legality of orders of this type-S. Dynkowski, psd. cdt.'”
Matt whistled. “Oh, oh. … What did you do?”
“I finished my pie, the way he told me to, though I didn’t want it very much by then. Ski was nice about it. He grinned at me and said, ‘No hard feelings, Mr. Jarman. All according to protocol and all that sort of thing.’ Then he wanted to know where in the world I had gotten the idea.”
Matt felt his neck grow warm. “You told him it was my idea?”
“Do I look stupid? I just told him somebody had pointed out regulation number nine-oh-seven to me.”
Matt relaxed. “Thanks, Tex. I’ll remember that.”
“Forget it. But he sent you a message.”
“Me?’
“It was just one word: ‘Don’t,'”
“Don’t what?”
“Just ‘Don’t.’ He added that amateur space lawyers frequently talked themselves out of the Patrol.”
“Oh.” Matt tucked this away and started trying to digest it. “What
happened afterwards? When you saw the duty officer?”
“I reported to the duty office and the cadet on watch sent me on in. I saluted and announced my name, like a good little boy, and showed him the two orders.” Tex paused and stared into the distance.
“Yes? Go on, man-don’t stop like that”
“Then he most scientifically ate my ears off. My Uncle Bodie couldn’t have done a better job.” Tex paused again, as if the memory were too painfully sharp. “Then he quieted own a little bit and explained to me in words of one syllable that reg nine- oh-seven was for emergencies only and that youngster cadets were under the orders of oldster cadets at all times and in all matters, unless the regulations specifically say otherwise.” . . __ ‘
“He did? Say, that covers an awful lot of ground. Why, that means a senior cadet can order us to do almost anything. You mean it’s covered by law that an oldster can tell me how to part my hair?”
“Just precisely that-you happened to pick the very words Lieutenant von Ritter used. An oldster can’t tell you to violate a regulation-he can’t tell you to take a poke at the captain and he can’t order you to hold still while he takes a poke at you. But that’s about all that limits him. Mr. von Ritter says that it’s left up to the good judgment and discretion of the senior, and table manners were very definitely Mr. Dynowski’s business and not to forget it! Then he told me to report back to Ski.”
“Did he crow over you?”
“Not a bit.” Tex’s brow wrinkled. “That’s the funny part about it. Ski treated the whole affair just as if he had been giving me a lesson in geometry. He said that now that I was assured that his orders were according to regulation he wanted me to know why he had told me how to eat my pie. He even said he could see that I would regard it as improper interference with my private life. I said I guessed I didn’t have any private life any more. He said no, I had one all right, but it would feel pretty microscopic for a while.
“Then he explained the matter. A patrol officer is supposed to be able to move in all society-if your hostess eats with her knife, then you eat with your knife.”
“Everybody knows that.”
“Okay. He pointed out that candidates come from everywhere. Some of them even come from families and societies where it’s good manners for everybody to eat out of one dish, with their fingers”. . . some .of the* Moslem boys. But there is an over-all way to behave that is acceptable anywhere among the top crust.”
“Nuts,” said Matt. “I’ve seen the Governor of Iowa with a hot dog in one hand and a piece of pie in the other.”
“I’ll bet it wasn’t at a state dinner,” Tex countered. “No, Matt, it made sense the way he told it. He said pie wasn’t important, but it was part of a larger pattern-for instance that you must never mention death on Mars or to a Martian.”
“Is that a fact?”
“I guess so. He said that in time I would learn how to ‘eat pie with a fork’ as he put it, under any possible circumstances on any planet. He let it go at that.”
“I should think he would. I take it he lectured you all evening?”
“Oh, my, no. Ten minutes, maybe.”
“Then where were you? You still hadn’t come back to your room, just before taps.”
“Oh, I was still in Ski’s room, but I was busy.”
“Doing what? Stroking his brow?”
“No.” Tex looked mildly embarrassed. “I was writing- ‘I will always eat my pie with my fork,’ two thousand times.”
Tex and Matt attempted to explore the ship and did in fact visit every deck that was open to them. But the power-room door was locked and a space- marine guard kept them from entering the passageway leading to the pilot room. They tried to get another view from the ports in the recreation room but found that a degree of order had been instituted; the master-at-arms of that deck was requiring each cadet that entered to state that he had not yet had a chance to look out before the cadet was allowed to tarry.
As for the other passenger decks, they found that when they had seen one, they had seen all. Shipboard refreshers interested them for a while, as the curious and clever modifications necessary to make a refresher function properly in space were new to both of them. But four hours is too long to spend inspecting showers and fixtures; after a while they found another fairly quiet spot to loaf and experienced for the first time the outstanding characteristic of all space travel-its monotony.
Much later the ship’s speaker blared, “Prepare for acceleration. Ten minute warning.”
Strapped down again, each in his place, the boys felt short blasts of power at rather long intervals, then a very considerable wait, after which there was the softest and gentlest of bumps. “That’s the drag line,” remarked the sergeant in Matt’s compartment. “They’ll warp us in. It won’t be long now.”
Ten minutes later the speaker announced, “By decks, in succession- discharge passengers.”
“Unstrap,” said the sergeant. He left his midships position and posted himself at the hatch ladder. Transferring passengers was a lengthy process, as the two ships were linked by only one air lock each. Matt’s party waited while four decks forward of them were emptied, then they pulled themselves along the ladder to the seventh deck. There a passenger port was open but beyond it, instead of empty space, was the inside of a corrugated tube, six feet in diameter. A line ran down the center of it and was made fast to a padeye in the ship. Along this line swarmed a steady stream of cadets, monkey fashion.
In his turn, Matt grabbed the line and pulled himself along. Fifty feet beyond the air lock, the tube suddenly opened out into another compartment, and Matt found himself inside his new home, the P.R.S. Randolph.
“READING, AND ‘RITING, AND ‘RITHMETIC-”
THE P.R.S. Randolph had been a powerful and modern cruiser of her day. Her length was 900 feet, her diameter 200, making her of moderate size, but her mass, as a school ship, was only 60,000 tons, more or less.
She was kept ten miles astern of Terra Station in their common orbit. Left to the influence of their mutual gravitations, she would have pursued a most leisurely orbit around the ten-times-more-massive Terra Station, but, for the safety of traffic at Terra Station, it was better to keep in a fixed position.
This was easy to accomplish. The mass of Earth is six billion trillion tons; the mass of Terra Station is one hundred-million-billionth of that, a mere 600,000 tons. At ten miles the “weight” of the Randolph with respect to Terra Station was roughly one thirtieth of an ounce, about the weight on Earth of enough butter for one half slice of bread.
On entering the Randolph Matt found himself in a large, well-lighted compartment of odd shape, somewhat like a wedge of cake. Clumps of youngster cadets were being herded out exits by other cadets who wore black armbands. One such cadet headed toward him, moving through the air with the easy grace of a pollywog. “Squad nineteen-where’s the squad leader of squad nineteen?”
Matt held out his arm. “Here, sir! I’m squad leader of nineteen.”
The upperclassman checked himself with one hand on the guide line to which Matt still clung. “I relieve you, sir. But stick close to me and help me round up these yahoos. I suppose you know them by sight?”
“Uh, I think so, sir.”
“You should-you’ve had time.” Matt was chagrined to find, in the next few moments that the new squad leader-Cadet Lopez-knew the squad muster roll by heart, whereas Matt had to refer to his copy to assist him in locating the members. He was not really aware of the implications of order and efficient preparation; it did impress him as “style.” With Matt to spot and Lopez to dive, hawk like, all the way across the compartment if necessary, to round up stragglers, squad nineteen was soon assembled near one exit, where they clung like a colony of bats.
“Follow me,” Lopez told them, “and hang on. No free maneuvers. Dodson- bring up the rear.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
They snaked their way through endless passages, by guide line across compartment after compartment, through hatches, around corners. Matt was quite lost. Presently the man just head of him stopped. Matt closed in and found the squad gathered just inside another compartment. “Soup’s on,” announced Lopez. “This is your mess room. Lunch in a few minutes.”
Behind Lopez, secured firmly to the far wall, were mess tables and benches. The table tops faced Matt-under him, over him, or across from him- what you will. It seemed an impractical arrangement. “I’m not very hungry,” one youngster said faintly.
“You ought to be,” Lopez answered reasonably. “It’s been five hours or more since you had breakfast. We’re on the same time schedule here as Hayworth Hall, zone plus eight, Terra. Why aren’t you hungry?”
“Uh, I don’t know, sir. I’m just not.”
Lopez grinned and suddenly looked as young as his charges. “I was just pulling your leg, kiddo. The chief engineer will have some spin on us in no time, as soon as we break loose from the Bolivar. Then you can sit down on your soft, round fanny and console your tender stomach in peace. You’ll have an appetite. In the meantime, take it easy.”
Two more squads filtered in. While they waited Matt said to Lopez, “How fast will the ship spin, sir?”
“We’ll build up to one gravity at the outer skin. Takes about two hours to do it, but we’ll eat as soon as we’re heavy enough for you groundhogs to swallow your soup without choking.”
“But how fast is that, sir?”
“Can you do simple arithmetic?”
“Why, yes, sir.”
“Then do it. The Randolph is two hundred feet through and we spin on her main axis. The square of the rim speed divided by her radius-what’s the rpm?”
Matt got a faraway look on his face. Lopez said, “Come, now, Mr. Dodson- pretend you’re heading for the surface and about to crash. What’s the answer?”
“Uh-I’m afraid I can’t do it in my head, sir.”
Lopez looked around. “All right-who’s got the answer?” No one spoke up. Lopez shook his head mournfully. “And you laddies expect to learn to astrogate! Better by far you should have gone to cow colleges. Never mind-it works out to about five and four-tenths revolutions per minute. That gives one full gravity for the benefit of the women and children. Then it’s cut down day by day, until a month from now we’re in free fall again. That gives you time to get used to it-or else.”
Someone said, “Gee, it must take a lot of power.”
Lopez answered, “Are you kidding? It’s done by electric-braking the main axis flywheels. The shaft has field coils wound on it; you cut it in as a generator and let the reaction between the wheel and the ship put a spin on the ship. You store the juice. Then when you want to take the spin off, you use the juice to drive it as a motor and you are back where you started, free for nothing, except for minor losses. Savvy?”
“Er, I guess so, sir.”
“Look it up in the ship’s library, sketch the hook-up, and show it to me after supper.” The junior cadet said nothing; Lopez snapped. “What’s the matter, Mister? Didn’t you hear me?”
“Yes, sir-aye aye, sir.”
“That’s better.”
Very slowly they drifted against a side wall, bumped against it, and started sliding slowly toward the outboard wall, the one to which the mess tables were fastened. By the time they reached it there was enough spin on the ship to enable them to stand up and the mess tables now assumed their proper relationship, upright on the floor, while the hatch through which they had lately floated was a hole in the ceiling above.
Matt found that there was no sensation of dizziness; the effect was purely one of increasing weight. He still felt light, but he weighed enough to sit down at a mess table and stay in contact with his seat; minute by minute, imperceptibly, he grew heavier.
He looked over his place at the table, seeking controls that would permit him to order his meal. There were clips and locking holes, which he guessed, were intended for use in free flight, but nothing else. He looked up as Lopez banged on the table.
“And now, gentlemen, this is not a resort hotel. Count off, around the table.” He waited until the youngsters had done so, then said, “Remember your order. Numbers one and two will rustle up the calories today, and all of you in rotation thereafter.”
“Where, sir?”
“Use your eyes. Over there.”
“Over there” was a door which concealed a delivery conveyor. Cadets from other tables were gathering around it. The two cadets designated as waiters went over and returned shortly with a large metal rack containing twenty rations, each packed in its service platter and still steaming hot. Clipped to each were knife, fork, and spoons-and sipping tubes.
Matt found that the solid foods were covered by lids that snapped back over the food unless clipped up out of the way, while the liquids were in covered containers fitted with valves through which sipping tubes might be slipped. He had never before seen table utensils adapted for free-fall conditions in space. They delighted him, even though Earth-side equipment would have served as long as the ship was under spin.
Lunch was hot roast beef sandwiches with potatoes, green salad, lime sherbert, and tea. Lopez kept up a steady fire of questions throughout the meal, but Matt did not come into his range. Twenty minutes later the metal tray in front of Matt was polished almost as well as the sterilizer would achieve. He sat back, feeling that the Patrol was a good outfit and the Randolph a fine place to be.
Before turning his charges loose Lopez gave them each their schedule of assignments. Mart’s room number was A-5197. All living quarters were on A- deck which was the insulated outer skin of the ship. Lopez gave them a brief, condescending lecture on the system of numbering the spaces in the ship and dismissed them. His manner gave no hint that he himself had been lost for one full day shortly after his own arrival a year earlier.
Matt got lost, of course.
He attempted to take a short cut straight through the ship on the advice of a passing marine and got completely twisted when he found himself at the no-weight center of the Randolph. When he had worked his way back down levels of increasing weight until he found himself at one gravity and could go no further he stopped the first cadet with a black arm band whom he could find and threw himself on his mercy. A few minutes later he was led to corridor five and found his own room.
Tex was already there. “Hello, Matt,” he greeted him. “What do you think of our little cabin in the sky?”
Matt put down his jump bag. “Looks all right, but the first time I have to leave it I’m going to unroll a ball of string. Is there a viewport?”
“Not likely! What did you expect? A balcony?”
“I don’t know. I sort of hoped that we’d be able to look out and see Earth.” He started poking around, opening doors. “Where’s the ‘fresher?”
“Better start unrolling your ball of string. It’s way down the passage.”
“Oh. Kind of primitive. Well, I guess we can stand it.” He went on exploring. There was a common room about fifteen feet square. It had doors, two on each side, leading into smaller cubicles. “Say, Tex,” he announced when he had opened them all, “this place is fitted up for four people.”
“Go to the head of the class.”
“I wonder who we’ll draw.”
“So do I.” Tex took out his assignment sheet. “It says here that we can reshuffle roommates until supper time tomorrow. Got any ideas, Matt?”
“No, I can’t say I really know anybody but you. It doesn’t matter as long as they don’t snore-and as long as it isn’t Burke.”
They were interrupted by a rap on the door. Tex called out, “Come in!” and Oscar Jensen stuck his blond head inside.
“Busy?”
“Not at all.”
“I’ve got a problem. Pete and I found ourselves assigned to one of these four-way rooms and the two roommates we landed with want us to make room for two other fellows. Are you guys tied down as yet?”
Tex looked at Matt, who nodded. Tex turned back to Oscar. “You can kiss me, Oscar-we’re practically married.”
An hour later the four had settled down to domesticity. Pete was in high spirits. “The Randolph is just what the doctor ordered,” he announced. “I’m going to like it here. Any time my legs start to ache all I have to do is go up to G-deck and it’s just like being back home-I weigh my proper weight again.”
“Yep,” agreed Tex, “if the joint were co-educational it would be perfect.”
Oscar shook his head. “Not for me. I’m a woman-hater.”
Tex clucked sorrowfully. “You poor, poor boy. Now take my Uncle Bodie he thought he was a woman-hater, too. . . .”
Matt never found out how Uncle Bodie got over his disability. An announcer, mounted in the common room, summoned him to report to compartment B-121. He got there, after a few wrong turns, and found another youngster cadet just coming out. “What’s it for?” he asked.
“Go on in,” the other told him. “Orientation.”
Matt went in and found an officer seated at a desk. “Cadet Dodson, sir, reporting as ordered.”
The officer looked up and smiled. “Sit down, Dodson, Lieutenant Wong is my name. I’m your coach.”
“My coach, sir?”
“Your tutor, your supervisor, anything you care to call it. It’s my business to see that you and a dozen more like you study what you need to study. Think of me as standing behind you with a black snake whip.” He grinned.
Matt grinned back. He began to like Mr. Wong.
Wong picked up a sheaf of papers. “I’ve got your record here-let’s lay out a course of study. I see you type, use a slide rule and differential calculator, and can take shorthand-those are all good. Do you know any outer languages? By the way, don’t bother to talk Basic; I speak north American English fairly well. How long have you spoken Basic?”
“Er, I don’t know any outer languages, sir. I had Basic in high school, but I don’t really think in it. I have to watch what I’m saying.”
“I’ll put you down for Venerian, Martian, and Venus trade talk. Your voice writer-you’ve looked over the equipment in your room?”
“Just glanced at it, sir. I saw there was a study desk and a projector.”
“You’ll find a spool of instructions in the upper righthand drawer of the desk. Play them over when you go back. The voice writer built into your desk is a good model. It can hear and transcribe not only the Basic vocabulary, but the Patrol’s special vocabulary of technical words. If you will stick to its vocabulary, you can even write love letters on it-” Dodson glanced sharply at Lieutenant Wong, but Wong’s face was impassive; Matt decided not to laugh.
“-so it’s worth your while to perfect your knowledge of Basic even for social purposes. However, if you speak a word the machine can’t find on its list, it will just ‘beep’ complainingly until you come to its rescue. Now about math-I see you have a condition in tensor calculus.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt admitted. “My high school didn’t offer it.”
Wong shook his head sadly. “I sometimes think that modern education is deliberately designed to handicap a boy. If cadets arrived here having already been taught the sort of things the young human animal can learn, and should learn, there would be fewer casualties in the Patrol. Never mind- we’ll start you on tensors at once. You can’t study nuclear engineering until you’ve learned the language of it. Your school was the usual sort, Dodson? Classroom recitations, daily assignments, and so forth?”
“More or less. We were split into three” groups.”
“Which group were you in?”
“I was in the fast one, sir, in most subjects.”
“That’s some help, but not much. You’re in for a shock, son. We don’t have classrooms and fixed courses. Except for laboratory work and group drills, you study alone. It’s pleasant to sit in a class daydreaming while the teacher questions somebody else, but we haven’t got time for that. There is too much ground to cover. Take the outer languages alone-have you ever studied under hypnosis?”
“Why, no, sir.”
“We’ll start you on it at once. When you leave here, go to the Psycho Instruction Department and ask for a first hypno in Beginning Venerian. What’s the matter?”
“Well. . . . Sir, is it absolutely necessary to study under hypnosis?”
“Definitely. Everything that can possibly be studied under hypno you will have to learn that way in order to leave time for the really important subjects.”
Matt nodded. “I see. Like astrogation.”
“No, no, no! Not astrogation. A ten-year-old child could learn to pilot a spaceship if he had the talent for mathematics. That is kindergarten stuff, Dodson. The arts of space and warfare are the least part of your education. I know, from your tests, that you can soak up the math and physical sciences and technologies. Much more important is the world around you, the planets and their inhabitants-extraterrestrial biology, history, cultures, psychology, law and institutions, treaties and conventions, planetary ecologies, system ecology, interplanetary economics, applications of extraterritorialism, comparative religious customs, law of space, to mention a few.”
Matt was looking bug-eyed. “My gosh! How long does it take to learn all those things?”
“You’ll still be studying the day you retire. But even those subjects are not your education; they are simply raw materials. Your real job is to learn how to think-and that means you must study several other subjects: epistemology, scientific methodology, semantics, structures of languages, patterns of ethics and morals, varieties of logics, motivational psychology, and so on. This school is based on the idea that a man who can think correctly will automatically behave morally-or what we call ‘morally. What is moral behavior for a Patrolman, Matt? You are called Matt, aren’t you? By your friends?”
“Yes, sir. Moral behavior for a Patrolman ,. .”
“Yes, yes. Go on.”
“Well, I guess it means to do your duty, live up to your oath, that sort of thing.”
“Why should you?”
Matt kept quiet and looked stubborn.
“Why should you, when it may get you some messy way of dying? Never mind. Our prime purpose here is to see to it that you learn how your own mind works. If the result is a man who fits into the purposes of the Patrol because his own mind, when he knows how to use it, works that way-then fine! He is commissioned. If not, then we have to let him go.”
Matt remained silent until Wong finally said, “What’s eating on you, kid? Spill it.”
“Well-look here, sir. I’m perfectly willing to work hard to get my commission. But you make it sound like something beyond my control. First I have to study a lot of things I’ve never heard “of. Then, when it’s all over, somebody decides my mind doesn’t work right. It seems to me that what this job calls for is a superman.”
“Like me.” Wong chuckled and flexed his arms. “Maybe so, Matt, but there aren’t any supermen, so well have to do the best we can with young squirts like you. Come, now, let’s make up the list of spools you’ll need.”
It was a long list. Matt was surprised and pleased to find that some story spools had been included. He pointed to an item that puzzled him-An Introduction to Lunar Archeology. “I don’t see why I should study that-the Patrol doesn’t deal with Selenites; they’ve been dead for millions of years.”
“Keeps your mind loosened up. I might just as well have stuck in modern French music. A Patrol officer shouldn’t limit his horizons to just the things he is sure to need. I’m marking the items I want you to study first, then you beat it around to the library and draw out those spools, then over to Psycho for your first hypno. In about a week, when you’ve absorbed this first group, come back and see me.”
“You mean you expect me to study all the spools I’m taking out today in one week?” Matt looked at the list in amazement.
“That’s right. In your off hours, that is-you’ll be busy with drills and lab a lot. Come back next week and we’ll boost the dose. Now get going.”
“But- Aye aye, sir!”
Matt located the Psycho Instruction Department and was presently ushered into a small room by a bored hypno technician wearing the uniform of the staff services of the Space Marines. “Stretch out in that chair,” he was told. “Rest your head back. This is your first treatment?” Matt admitted that it was.
“You’ll like it. Some guys come in here just for the rest- they already know more than they ought to. What course was it you said you wanted?”
“Beginning Venerian.”
The technician spoke briefly to a pick-up located on his desk. “Funny thing-about a month ago an oldster was in here for a brush up in electronics. The library thought I said ‘colonies’ and now he’s loaded up with a lot of medical knowledge he’ll never use. Lemme have your left arm.” The technician irradiated a patch on his forearm and injected the drug. “Now just lay back and follow the bouncing light. Take it easy . . . relax . . . relax . . . and . . . close . . . your … eyes … and … relax … you’re … getting-”
Someone was standing in front of him, holding a hypodermic pressure injector “That’s all. You’ve had the antidote.”
“Huh?” said Matt. “Wazzat?”
“Sit still a couple of minutes and then you can go.”
“Didn’t it take?”
“Didn’t what take? I don’t know what you were being exposed to; I just came on duty.”
Matt went back to his room feeling rather depressed. He had been a little afraid of hypnosis, but to find that he apparently did not react to the method was worse yet. He wondered whether or not he could ever keep up with his studies if he were forced to study everything, outer languages as well, by conventional methods.
Nothing to do but to go back and see Lieutenant Wong about it-tomorrow, he decided.
Oscar was alone in the suite and was busy trying to place a hook in the wall of a common room. A framed picture was leaning against the chair on which he stood. “Hello, Oscar.”
“Howdy, Matt.” Oscar turned his head as he spoke; the drill he was using slipped and he skinned a knuckle. He started to curse in strange, lisping speech. “May maledictions pursue this nameless thing to the uttermost depths of world slime!”
Matt clucked disapprovingly. “Curb thy voice, thou impious fish.”
Oscar looked up in amazement. “Matt-I didn’t know you knew any
Venerian.”
Matt’s mouth sagged open. He closed it, then opened it to speak “Well, I’ll be a- Neither did I”
TO MAKE A SPACEMAN
THE SERGEANT CROUCHED in the air, his feet drawn up. “At the count of one,” he was saying, “take the ready position, with your feet about six inches from the steel. At the count of two, place your feet firmly against the steel and push off.” He shoved against the steel wall and shot into the air, still talking, “Hold the count of four, turn on the count of five-” His body drew up into a ball and turned over a half turn, “-check your rotation-” His body extended again, “-and make contact on the count of seven-” His toes touched the far wall, “-letting your legs collapse softly so that your momentum will be soaked up without rebound.” He collapsed loosely, like an empty sack, and remained floating near the spot where he had landed.
The room was a cylinder fifty feet in diameter in the center of the ship. The entire room was mounted in rollers and was turned steadily in the direction opposite to the spin of the ship and with the same angular speed: thus it had no net spin. It could be entered only from the end, at the center of rotation.
It was a little island of “free fall”-the free-fall gymnasium. A dozen youngster cadets clung to a grab line running fore-and-aft along the wall of the gym and watched the sergeant. Matt was one of the group.
“And now, gentlemen, let’s try it again. By the numbers-One! Two! Three!” bythe count of five, at which time they all should have turned in the air, neatly and together, all semblance of order was gone. There were collisions, one cadet had even failed to get away from the grab line, and two cadets, refugees from a midair skirmish, were floating aimlessly toward the far end of the room. Their faces had the bewildered look of a dog trying to get traction on smooth ice as they threshed their arms and legs in an effort to stay their progress.
“No! No! No!” said the sergeant and covered his face with his hands. “I can’t bear to look. Gentlemen-please! A little coordination. Don’t throw yourself at the far wall like an Airedale heading into a fight. A steady, firm shove- like this.”
He took off sideways, using the traction given him by his space boots, and intercepted the two deserters, gathering one in each arm and letting his momentum carry the three bodies slowly toward the far end of the grab line, “Grab on,” he told them, “and back to your places. Now, gentlemen-once more. Places! By the numbers-normal push off, with arrested contact-one!”
A few moments later he was assuring them that he would much rather teach a cat to swim.
Matt did not mind. He had managed to reach the far wall and stay there. Without grace, proper timing, nor at the spot he had aimed for, but he had managed it, after a dozen failures. For die moment he classed himself as a spaceman.
When the class was dismissed he hurried to his room and into his own cubicle, selected a spool on Martian history, inserted it in his projector, and began to study. He had been tempted to remain in the free-fall gymnasium to practice; he wanted very badly to pass the “space legs” test-free-fall acrobatics-as those who had passed it and qualified in the use of basic space suits as well were allowed one liberty a month at Terra Station.
But he had had an extra interview with Lieutenant Wong a few days before. It had been brief, biting, and had been concerned with the efficient use of his time.
Matt did not want another such-nor the five demerits that went with it. He settled his head in the neck rest of his study chair and concentrated on the recorded words of the lecturer while scenes in color-stereo passed in front of him, portraying in chill beauty the rich past of the ancient planet.
The projector was much like the study box he had used at home, except that it was more gadgeted, it could project in three dimensions, and was hooked in with the voice writer. Matt found this a great time-saver. He could stop the lecture, dictate a summary, then cause the projector to throw his printed notes on the screen.
Stereo-projection was a time-saver for manual subjects as well. “You are now entering the control room of a type A-6 utility rocket,” the unseen lecturer would say, “and will practice an airless landing on Luna”-while the camera moved through the door of the rocket’s pilot room and panned down to a position corresponding to the pilot’s head. From there on a pictured flight could be made very realistic.
Or it might be a spool on space suits. “This is a four-hour suit,” the voice would say, “type M, and may be worn anywhere outside the orbit of Venus. It has a low-capacity rocket unit capable of producing a total change of speed in a 300-lb. mass of fifty foot-seconds. The built-in radio has a suit-to-suit range of fifty miles. Internal heating and cooling is-” By the time Matt’s turn came for space-suit drill he knew as much about it as could be learned without practice.
His turn came when he passed the basic free-fall test. He was not finished with free-fall drill-there remained group precision drill, hand-to-hand combat, use of personal weapons, and other refinements-but he was judged able to handle himself well enough. He was free, too, to go out for free-fall sports, wrestling, bank tennis, jaijilai, and several others -up to now he had been eligible only for the chess club. He picked space polo, a game combining water polo and assault with intent to maim, and joined the local league, in the lowest or “bloody nose” group.
He missed his first chance at space-suit drill because a battered nose had turned him into a mouth breather-the respirator for a type-M suit calls for inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. But he was ready and anxious the following week. The instructor ordered his group to “Suit up!” without preliminary, as it was assumed that they had studied the instruction spool.
The last of the ship’s spin had been removed some days before. Matt curled himself into a ball, floating free, and spread open the front of his suit. It was an unhandy process; he found shortly that he was trying to get both legs down one leg of the suit. He backed out and tried again. This time the big fishbowl flopped forward into the opening.
Most of the section were already in their suits. The instructor swam over to Matt and looked at him sharply. “You’ve passed your free-fall basic?”
“Yes,” Matt answered miserably.
“It’s hard to believe. You handle yourself like a turtle on its back. Here.” The instructor helped Matt to tuck in, much as if he were dressing a baby in a snow suit. Matt blushed.
The instructor ran through the check-off list-tank pressure, suit pressure, rocket fuel charge, suit oxygen, blood oxygen (measured by a photoelectric gadget clipped to the earlobe) and finally each suit’s walky-talky unit. Then he herded them into the airlock.
Matt felt his suit swell up as the pressure died away in the lock. It was becoming slightly harder to move his arms and legs. “Hook up your static lines,” called out the instructor. Matt uncoiled his from his belt and waited. Reports came in: “Number one hooked.” “Number two hooked.”
“Number three hooked,” Matt sang out into the mike in his helmet as he snapped his line to the belt of cadet number four. When they were all linked like mountain climbers the instructor hooked himself to the chain and opened the outer door of the lock. They looked out into the star-flecked void.
“Click on,” directed the instructor, and placed his boots gently against the side of the lock. Matt did likewise and felt the magnetic soles of his boots click against the steel. “Follow me and stay closed up.” Their teacher walked along the wall to the open door and performed an awkward little squatting spread-eagle step. One boot was still inside the door, flat to the wall, with the toe pointing inboard; with the other he reached around the corner, bent his knees, and felt for the outer surface of the ship. He withdrew the foot still in the lock and straightened his body-with which he almost disappeared, for he now stuck straight out from the ship, his feet flat to her side.
Following in order, Matt went out through the door. The ninety degree turn to get outside the lock and “standing” on the outer skin of the ship he found to be tricky; he was forced to use his hands to steady himself on the door frame. But he got outside and “standing up.” There was no true up-and-down; they were still weightless, but the steel side was a floor “under” them; they stuck to it as a fly sticks to a ceiling.
Matt took a couple of trial steps. It was like walking in mud; his feet would cling stickily to the ship, then pull away suddenly. It took getting used to.
They had gone out on the dark side of the ship. Sun, Moon and Earth lay behind its bulk, underfoot. Not even Terra Station could be seen.
“We’ll take a walk,” announced the instructor, his voice hollow in their helmets. “Stick together.” He started around the curving side of the ship. A cadet near the end of the chain tried to break both magnetized boots free from the ship at the same time. He accomplished it, by jumping-and then had no way’ to get back. He moved out until his static line tugged at the two boys on each side of him.
One of them, caught with one foot free of the ship in walking, was broken loose also, though he reached wildly for the steel and
missed. The cadet next to him, last in line, came loose in turn.
No more separated, as the successive tugs on the line had used .up the energy of the first cadet’s not-so-violent jump. But three cadets now dangled on the line, floating and twisting grotesquely.
The instructor caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and squatted down. He found what he sought, a steel ring recessed in the ship’s side, and snapped his static line to it. When he was certain that the entire party was not going to be dragged loose, he ordered, “Number nine-haul them in, gently-very gently. Don’t pull yourself loose doing it.”
A few moments later the vagrants were back and sticking to the ship. “Now,” said the instructor, “who was responsible for that piece of groundhog stupidity?”
No one answered. “Speak up,” he said sharply. “It wasn’t an accident; it’s impossible to get both feet off unless you hop. Speak up, confound it, or I’ll haul every last one of you up in front of the Commandant.”
At the mention of that awful word a small, meek voice answered, “I did it, sergeant.”
“Hold out your hand, so I’ll know who’s talking. I’m not a mind reader.”
“Vargas-number ten.” The cadet held out his arm.
“Okay. Back to the airlock, everybody. Stick together.” When they were there, the instructor said, “Inside, Mr. Vargas. Unhook your line, snap to the lock and wait for us. You’ll take this drill over-about a month from now.”
“But sergeant-”
“Don’t give me any lip, or so help me, I’ll report you” for AWOL-jumping ship.”
Silently the cadet did as ordered. The instructor leaned inside to see that Vargas actually anchored himself, then straightened out. “Come, gentlemen- we’ll start again-and no monkey-shines. This is a drill, not a tea party.”
Presently Matt said, “Sergeant Hanako-”
“Yes? Who is it?”
“Dodson. Number three. Suppose we had all pulled loose?”
“We’d ‘ave had to work our way back on our rocket units.”
Matt thought about it. “Suppose we didn’t have reaction, units?”
“Nothing much-under these circumstances. The officer of the watch knows we’re outside; the radio watch is guarding our frequency. They would just have tracked us by radar until they could man a scooter and come get us. Just the same-listen, all of “you-just because they’ve got you wrapped in cotton batting is no reason to behave like a bunch of school girls. I don’t know of any nastier, or lonelier, way to die than all by yourself in a space suit, with your oxygen running out.” He paused. “I saw one once, after they found him and fetched him back.”
They were rounding the side of the ship, and the bulging sphere of the Earth had been rising over their metal horizon.
Suddenly the Sun burst into view.
“Mind the glare!” Sergeant Hanako called out. Hastily Matt set his visor for maximum interference and adjusted it to shade his face and eyes. He did not attempt to look at the Sun; he had dazzled his eyes often enough from the viewports of the ship’s recreation rooms, trying to blank out the disc of the Sun exactly, with a coin, so that he might see the prominences and the ghostly aurora. It was an unsatisfactory business; the usual result was a headache and spots before his eyes.
But he never grew tired of looking at Earth. *
She hung before him, great and fat and beautiful, and seeming more real than when seen through a port. She swelled across Aquarius, so huge that had she been in Orion she would have concealed the giant hunter from Betelgeuse to Rigel.
Facing them was the Gulf of Mexico. Above it sprawled North America wearing the polar cap like a chef’s hat. The pole was still bright under the failing light of late northern summer. The sunrise line had cleared North America except for the tip of Alaska; only the central Pacific was dark.
Someone said, “What’s that bright dot in the Pacific, over near the edge? Honolulu?”
Honolulu did not interest Matt; he searched, as usual, for Des Moines-but the Mississippi Valley was cloudy; he could not ‘find it. Sometimes he could pick it out with his naked eyes, when the day was clear in Iowa. When it was night in North America he could always tell which jewel of light was home-or thought he could.
They were facing Earth so that the North Pole seemed “up” to them. Far off to the right, almost a ship’s width from the Earth, nearly occulting Regulus in Leo, was the Sun, and about half way between the Sun and Earth, in Virgo, was a crescent Moon. Like the Sun, the Moon appeared no larger than she did from Earth surface. The gleaming metal sides of Terra Station, in the sky between Sun and Moon and ninety degrees from Earth, outshone the Moon. The Station, a mere ten miles away, appeared half a dozen times as wide as the Moon.
That’s enough rubbernecking,” announced Hanako. “Let’s .move around.” They walked forward, looking the ship over and getting the feel of her size, until the sergeant stopped them. “Any further and we’d be slapping our feet over the Commandant’s head. He might be asleep.” They sauntered aft and Hanako let them work around the edge of the stern until they looked across the openings of her mighty tubes. He called them back promptly. “Even though she ain’t blasted in years, this area is a little bit hot-and you’re not shielded from the pile abaft frame ninety-three anyhow. Forward, now!”
By hot he did not mean warm to the touch, but radioactive.
He led them amidships, unhooked himself from the cadet next to him and hooked the lad’s line to the ship. “Number twelve-hook to steel,” he added.
“The trick to jetting yourself in space,”-he went on, ‘lies in balancing your body on the jet-the thrust has to pass through your center of gravity. If you miss and don’t correct it quickly, you start to spin, waste your fuel, and have the devil’s own time stopping your spin.
“It’s no harder than balancing a walking stick on your finger-but the first time you try it, it seems hard.
“Rig out your sight.” He touched a stud at his belt; a light metal gadget snapped up in front of his helmet so that a small metal ring was about a yard in front of his face. “Pick out a bright star, or a target of any sort, lined up in the direction you want to go. Then take the ready position- no, no! Not yet-I’ll take it.”
He squatted down, lifted himself on his hands, and very cautiously broke his boots loose from the side, then steadied himself on a cadet within reach. He turned and stretched out, so that he floated with his back to the ship, arms and legs extended. His rocket jet stuck straight back at the ship from the small of his back; his sight stuck out from his helmet in the opposite direction.
He went on, “Have the firing switch ready in your right hand. Now, have you fellows ever seen a pair of adagio dancers? You know what I mean-a man wears a piece of leopard skin and a girl wearing less than that and they go leaping around the stage, with him catching her?”
Several voices answered yes. Hanako continued, “Then you know what I’m talking about. There’s one stunt they always do-the girl jumps and the man pushes her up and balances her overhead on one hand. He has his hand at the small of her back and she lays there, artistic-like.
“That’s exactly the way you got to ride a jet. The push comes at the small of your back and you balance on it. Only you have to do the balancing-if the push doesn’t pass exactly through your center of gravity, you’ll start to turn. You can see yourself starting to turn by watching through your sight.
“You have to correct it before it gets away from you. You do this by shifting your center of gravity. Drag in the arm or leg on the side toward which you’ve started to turn. The trick is-”
“Just a second, Sarge,” someone cut in, “you said that just backwards. You mean; haul in the arm or leg on the other side, don’t you?”
“Who’s talking?”
“Lathrop, number six. Sorry.”
“I meant what I said, Mr. Lathrop.”
“But-”
“Go ahead, do it your way. The rest of the class will do it my way. Let’s not waste time. Any questions? Okay, stand clear of my jet.”
The half circle backed away until stopped by the anchored static lines. A bright orange flame burst from the sergeant’s back and he moved straight out or “up,” slowly at first, then with increasing speed. His microphone was open; Matt could hear, by radio only, the muted rush of his jet-and could hear the sergeant counting seconds: “And . . . one! . . . and . . . two! . . . and . . . three!” With the count of ten, the jet and the counting stopped.
Their instructor was fifty feet “above” them and moving away, back toward them. He continued to lecture. “No matter how perfectly you’ve balanced you’ll end up with a small amount of spin. When you want to change direction, double up in a ball-” He did so. “-to spin faster-and snap out of it when you’ve turned as far as you want.” He suddenly flattened out and was facing them. “Cut in your jet and balance on it to straighten out on your new course-before you drift past the direction you want.”
He did not cut in his jet, but continued to talk, while moving away from them and slowly turning. “There is always some way to squirm around on your axis of rotation so that you can face the way you need to face for a split second at least. For example, if I wanted to head toward the Station-” Terra Station was almost a right angle away from his course; he went through contortions appropriate to a monkey dying in convulsions and again snapped out in starfish spread, facing the Station-but turning slow cartwheels now, his axis of rotation unchanged.
“But I don’t want to go to the Station; I want to come back to the ship.” The monkey died again; when the convulsions ceased, the sergeant was facing them. He cut in his jet and again counted ten seconds. He hung in space, motionless with respect to the ship and his class and about a quarter mile away. “I’m coming in on a jet landing, to save time.” The jet blasted for twenty seconds and died; he moved toward them rapidly.
When he was still a couple of hundred feet away, he flipped over and blasted away from the ship for ten seconds. The sum of his maneuvers was to leave him fifty feet away and approaching at ten feet per second. He curled up in a ball again and came out of it feet toward the ship.
Five seconds later his boots clicked to steel and he let himself collapse without rebound. “But that is not the way you’ll do it,” he went on. “My tanks hold more juice than yours do-you’ve got fifty seconds of power, with each second good for a change of speed on one foot-second-that’s for three hundred pounds of mass; some of you skinny guys will go a little faster.
“Here’s your flight plan: ten seconds out, counted. Turn as quick as you can and blast fifteen seconds back. That means you’ll click on with five foot- seconds. Even your crippled grandmother ought to be able to do that without bouncing off. Lathrop! Unhook-you’re first.”
As the cadet came up, Hanako anchored himself to the ship with two short lines and took from his belt a very long line. He snapped one end to a hook in the front of the cadet’s belt and the other to his own suit. The student looked at it with distaste. “Is the sky hook necessary?”
Sergeant Hanako stared at him. “Sorry, Commodore-regulations. And shut up. Take the ready position.”
Silently the cadet crouched, then he was moving away, a fiery brush growing out of his back. He moved fairly straight at first, then started to turn.
He pulled in a leg-and turned completely over.
“Lathrop-cut off your jet!” snapped Hanako. The flame died out, but the figure in the suit continued to turn and to recede. Hanako paid out his safety line. “Got a big fish here, boys,” he said cheerfully. “What do you think he’ll weigh?” He tugged on the line, which caused Lathrop to spin the other way, as the line had wound itself around him. When the line was free he hauled the cadet in.
Lathrop clicked on. “You were right, sergeant. I want to try it again-your way.”
“Sorry. The book says a hundred per cent reserve fuel for this drill; you’d have to recharge.” Hanako hesitated. “Sign up for tomorrow morning-I’ll take you as an extra.”
“Oh-thanks, Sarge!”
“Don’t mention it. Number one!”
The next cadet moved out smoothly, but returned on an angle and had to be snubbed with the safety line before he could click on. The next cadet had trouble orienting himself at all. He receded, his back to the -ship, and seemed to be about to continue in the direction of Draco till the end of time. Hanako tugged gently on the safety line while letting it run through his gloves and turned him around toward the ship. “Ten seconds on the jet, while I keep a strain on the line,” he ordered. The safety line kept the cadet straightened out until he got back. “Number three!” called out Hanako.
Matt stepped forward with a feeling of tight excitement. The instructor hooked the safety line and said, “Any questions? Go ahead when ready.”
“Okay.” Matt crouched, broke his boots free, and stretched out. He steadied himself against the sergeant’s knee. In front of him lay the northern constellations. He picked out the Pole Star as a target, then loosened the safety catch of the firing switch in his glove.
“And . . . one!” He felt a soft, steady pressure across his saddle, a shove of not quite ten pounds. Polaris seemed to vibrate to the blasting of the tiny jet. Then the star swung to the left, beyond the ring of the sight.
He pulled in his right arm and right leg. The star swung faster, checked and started back. Cautiously he extended his right-side limbs again-and almost forgot to cut the jet on the count of ten.
He could not see the ship. Earth swam in the velvety darkness off to the right. The silence and aloneness were more intense, more complete, than he had ever experienced.
“Time to turn,” said Hanako in his ear.
“Oh-” said Matt, and grabbed his knees.
The heavens wheeled around him. He saw the ship swinging into sight, too late. He checked by starfishing, but it had moved on past. “Take it easy,” advised the sergeant. “Don’t curl up quite so tight, and catch it on the next time around. There’s no hurry.”
He drew himself in again, but not so much. The ship came around again, though twice as far away as it had been before. This time he checked before it swung past. The figures crawling on her side were about three hundred feet away and still backing away from him. He got someone’s helmet centered in his sight, pressed the switch and began to count.
For a few worried seconds he thought that something had gone wrong. The figures on the ship did not seem- to be getting nearer and now they were swinging slowly past him. He was tempted to blast again-but Hanako’s orders had been specific; he decided not to.
The ship swung out of sight; he doubled up in a ball to bring it around more quickly. When it showed up it was distinctly nearer and he felt relieved. Actually the two bodies, ship and man, had been closing at five feet per second-but five feet per second is a slow walk.
A little more than a minute after cutting his jet, he jack-knifed to bring his boots in front of him and clicked on, about ten feet from the instructor.
Hanako came over and placed his helmet against Mart’s so he could speak to him privately, with the radio shut off. “A good job, kid, the way you kept your nerve when you swung past. Okay-I’ll post you for advanced training.”
Matt remembered to cut out his walky-talky. “Gee, thanks!”
“You did it, not me.” Hanako cut back in the voice circuit. “Okay, there- number four.”
Matt wanted to chase back to his room, find Tex, and do some boasting. But there were seven more to go. Some did well, some had to be fished out of difficulty.
The last man outdid himself. He failed to cut off his power in spite of Hanako’s shouts for him to do so. He moved away from the ship in a wide curve and commenced to spin, while the sergeant whipped at the safety line to try to stop the spin and head him back. At the end of a long fifty seconds his power gave out; he was nearly a thousand feet away and still receding rapidly.
The sergeant played him like a fisherman fighting a barracuda, then brought him in very, very slowly, for there was no way to check whatever speed the tension on the line placed on him.
When at last he was in, clicked down, and anchored by static line, Hanako sighed. “Whew!” he said. “I thought I was going to have to go get him.” He went to the cadet and touched helmets, radio off.
The cadet did not shut off his instrument. “I don’t know,” they heard him reply. “The switch didn’t go bad-I just couldn’t seem to move a muscle. I could hear you shouting but I couldn’t move.”
Matt went back to the airlock with the group, feeling considerably sobered. He suspected that there would be a vacant place at supper. It was the Commandant’s policy to get a cadet who was to be dropped away from the ship without delay. Matt did not question the practice, but it jarred him when he saw it happening-it brought the cold breath of disaster en his own neck.
But he cheered up as soon as he was dismissed. Once he was out of his suit and had inspected it and stowed it as the rules required, he zipped to his room, bouncing his turns in a fashion not approved for in-ship progress.
He banged on the door of Tex’s cubicle. “Hey, Tex! Wake up! I’ve got news for you.”
No answer-he opened the door, but Tex was not there. Nor, as it happened, were Pete or Oscar. Disconsolately he went into his own sanctum and picked out a study spool.
Nearly two hours later Tex came bouncing in as Matt was getting ready for lunch and shouted, “Hey! Matt! Mitt me, big boy-shake hands with a spaceman!”
“Huh?”
“I just passed “basic space suit’-sergeant said it was the best first test he had ever seen.”
“He did? Oh-”
“He sure did. Oh boy-Terra Station, here I come!”
TERRA STATION
“LIBERTY PARTY-man the scooter!”
Matt zipped up the front of his space suit and hurriedly ran through the routine check. Oscar and Tex urged him along, as the liberty party was already filing through the door of the lock. The cadet officer-of-the-watch checked Matt in and sealed the door of the lock behind him.
The lock was a long corridor, sealed at each end, leading to a hangar pocket in the side of the Randolph in which the scooter rockets were stowed. The pressure died away and the far end of the lock opened; Matt pulled himself along, last in line, and found the scooter loaded. He could not find a place; the passenger racks were filled with space-suited cadets, busy strapping down.
The cadet pilot beckoned to him. Matt picked his way forward and touched helmets. “Mister,” said the oldster, “can you read instruments?”
Guessing that he referred only to the simple instrument panel of a scooter, Matt answered, “Yes, sir.”
“Then get in the co-pilot’s chair. What’s your mass?”
“Two eighty-seven, sir,” Matt answered, giving the combined mass, in pounds, of himself and his suit with all its equipment. Matt strapped down, then looked around, trying to locate Tex and Oscar. He was feeling very important, even though a scooter requires a co-pilot about as much as a hog needs a spare tail.
The oldster entered Mart’s mass on his center-of-gravity and moment-of-inertia chart, stared at it thoughtfully and said to Matt, “Tell Gee-three to swap places with Bee-two.”
Matt switched on his walky-talky and gave the order. There was a scramble while a heavy-set youngster changed seats } with a smaller cadet. The pilot gave a high sign to the cadet manning the hangar pocket; the scooter and its launching cradle swung out of the pocket, pushed by power- driven lazy tongs.
A scooter is a passenger rocket reduced to its simplest terms and has been described as a hat rack with an outboard motor. It operates only in empty space and does not have to be streamlined.
The rocket motor is unenclosed. Around it is a tier of light metal supports, the passenger rack. There is no “ship” in the sense of a hull, airtight compartments, etc. The passengers just belt themselves to the rack and let the rocket motor scoot them along.
When the scooter was clear of the ship the cadet in the hangar pocket turned the launching cradle, by power, until the scooter pointed at Terra Station. The pilot slapped the keys in front of him; the scooter took off.
The cadet pilot watched his radarscope. When the distance to the Station was closing at eighty-eight feet per second he cut his jet. “Latch on to the Station,” he told Matt.
Matt plugged in and called the station. “Scooter number three, Randolph- scheduled trip. Arriving nine minutes, plus or minus,” Matt sent, and congratulated himself on having studied the spool on small-craft procedures.
“Roger,” a feminine voice answered, then added, “Use out-orbit contact platform Bee-for-Busy.”
Matt reported to his pilot. “No traffic,” repeated the oldster. “Mister, I’m going to catch forty winks. Wake me when we’ve closed to a mile and a half.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Think you could bring her in?”
Matt gulped. “I¡¯ll try, sir.”
“Figure it out while I’m asleep.” The cadet promptly closed his eyes, floating as comfortably in free fall as if he had been in his own cubicle. Matt concentrated on the instrument dials.
Seven minutes later he shook the oldster, who opened his eyes and said, “What’s your flight plan, Mister?”
“Well, uh-if we keep going as is, well just slide past on the out-orbit side. I don’t think I’d change it at all. When we close to four thousand feet I’d blast until our relative speed is down to about ten foot-seconds, then forget the radar and brake by eye as we pass along the side.”
“You’ve been studying too hard.”
“Is that wrong?” Matt asked anxiously.
“Nope. Go ahead. Do it.” The oldster bent over the tracking ‘scope to assure himself that the scooter would miss the Station. Matt watched the closing range, while excitement built up inside him. Once he glanced ahead at ‘the shining cylindrical bulk of the Station, but looked back quickly. A few seconds later he punched his firing key and a plume of flame shot out in front of them.
A scooter has jets at both ends, served by the same interconnected tanks, fuel pumps and piping. Scooters are conned “by the seat of your pants” rather than by complex mathematics. As such they are invaluable in letting student pilots get the feel of rocket ships.
As the distance decreased Matt felt for the first time the old nightmare of rocket pilots: is the calculated maneuver enough to avoid a crash? He felt this, even though he knew his course would slide him past the corner of the mammoth structure. It was a relief to release the firing key.
The oldster said, “Can you spot Bee-for-Busy when you see it?”
Matt shook his head. “No, sir. This is my first trip to Terra Station.”
“It is? And I let you pilot! Well, there it is, ahead-third platform down. Better start braking.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The scooter was passing along the side of the Station and about a hundred yards out, at the speed of a brisk walk. Matt let Bee-for-Busy approach for a few moments more, then gave a short, experimental blast. It did not seem to slow them much; he gave a somewhat longer blast.
A few minutes later he had the scooter almost dead in space and practically abreast their contact point. He looked inquiringly at the pilot. “I’ve seen worse,” the oldster grunted. “Tell them to bring us in.”
“Randolph number three-ready for contact,” Matt reported, via radio.
“We see you,” the girl’s voice answered. “Stand by for a line.”
A line, shot by a gun, came sailing out in perfectly flat trajectory and passed through a metal loop sticking out from the scooter. “I relieve you, sir,” the pilot told Matt. “Shinny out there and make that line fast.”
A few minutes later the scooter was secured to platform Bee-for-Busy and the cadets were filing into the platform’s airlock. Matt located Oscar and Tex in the suiting room and they undressed together. “What did you think of that contact?” Matt said to them, with studied casualness.
“All right, I guess,” answered Tex. “What about it?” .
“I made it.”
Oscar raised his eyebrows. “You did? Nice going, kid.”
Tex looked amazed. “The pilot let you jockey it? On your first trip?”
“Well, why not? You think I’m kidding?”
“No, I’m just impressed. May I touch you? How about an autograph?”
“Oh, come off it!”
They were, of course, in the free-fall part of the Station. As soon as they had stowed their suits, they hurried to the centrifuged belt frequented by the traveling public. Oscar knew his way around somewhat, having changed ships at the Station when he was a candidate, and led them to the door at the axis of rotation-the only possible place to pass from the free-fall zone to the weight zone.
From the axis they went down several levels, past offices and private quarters to the first of the public levels. It was, in effect, a wide, brightly lighted street, with a high ceiling and with slideways down the middle. Shops and restaurants lined it. The slideways curved up and away in the distance,
for the corridor curved completely around the Station. “This,” Oscar told them, “is Paradise Walk.”
“I see why,” agreed Tex, and gave a low whistle. The others followed his gaze. A tall, willowy blonde, dressed in some blue wisps of nothing much, was looking in the display window of a jewelry shop.
“Take it easy, Tex,” advised Oscar. “She’s taller than you are.”
“I like them tall,” Tex answered. “Watch me.”
He sauntered over to the young woman. Matt and Oscar could not hear his opening remark, but it did not offend her, for she laughed. Then she looked him up and down with cool amusement and spoke. Her voice carried quite clearly. “I am married and at least ten years older than you are. I never pick up cadets.”
Tex appeared to tuck his tail between his legs and slunk back toward his friends. He started to say, fiercely, “Well, you can’t rule a guy out for try-,” when the woman called out:
“Wait a moment! All three of you.” She came up to them and looked from Matt to Oscar, “You are youngsters, aren’t you?”
“Youngster cadets, yes, ma’am,” answered Oscar.
She fumbled in her jewelled pouch. “If you want to have some fun and meet some younger girls, you might try this address.” She handed Oscar a card.
He looked startled and said, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Not at all.” She moved away and managed to lose herself in the crowd at once.
“What does it say?” demanded Matt.
Oscar looked at it, then held it out. “Read it.”
Terra Station First Baptist Church
Ralph Smiley, D.D.,
Pastor SOCIAL HALL
2437, Level "C"
Tex grinned. “Well, you can’t say I scored a clean miss.”
There ensued an argument. Matt and Tex wanted to go at once to the social hall; Oscar insisted that he was hungry and wanted some civilized food. The longer they argued the more reasonable seemed Oscar’s case. Finally Tex switched sides and Matt gave in to the majority.
He regretted it a few minutes later, when he saw the prices on the menu. The restaurant they selected was a tourist trap, a fancy dining room with an adjoining bar. It had human waiters instead of automatic tables and items were priced accordingly.
Tex saw the expression on his face. “Relax, Matt,” he told him. “This is on me-Pop sent- me a check.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that.”
“Want to fight?”
Matt grinned. “Okay, thanks.”
Oscar said, “How hard shall we punish you, Tex? Tea and toast?”
“Anything you want. Let’s really celebrate. Which reminds me-I think we ought to have a drink.”
“Huh?” said Oscar. “And have an M.P. catch us? No, thank you.”
Matt started to protest but Tex stood up. “Just leave this to Father Jarman. It’s high time you two poor, underprivileged outlanders tasted a real old Southern mint julep.” He started for the bar. Oscar shrugged.
Tex scouted out the bar before entering. There were no cadets, of course; more important there were no officers and no marine M.P.’s. The hour was early and the bar almost deserted. He went up to the bartender. “Can you make a mint julep?” he asked.
The bartender looked up and answered, “Beat it. I’m not supposed to serve you liquor. This is off limits to cadets.”
“I didn’t ask you if this was off limits-I asked you if you could make a mint julep.” Tex slid a bill across the counter. “Three mint juleps, in fact.”
The barman eyed the bill. Finally he caused it to disappear. “Go on back into the dining room.”
“Right!” said Tex.
A few minutes later a waiter placed a complete tea service In front of them, but the teapot did not contain tea. Tex poured out the drink, splitting it carefully three ways, in teacups. “Here’s to you, chums-drink up.”
Matt took a sip. “It tastes like medicine,” he announced.
“Like medicine?” Tex protested. “This noble potion? I’ll meet you at dawn, -coffee and pistols for two.”
“I still say it tastes like medicine. What do you think of It, Oscar?”
“It’s not bad.”
Matt pushed his aside. “Aren’t you going to drink it?” asked Tex.
“No. Thanks, Tex, really-but I think it would make me sick. I guess I’m a sissy.”
“Well, we won’t waste it.” He picked up Mart’s cup and poured some into his own. “Split it with me, Oscar?”
“No. You go ahead.”
“Okay, if you say so.” He poured the rest into his cup.
When the food they ordered was served, Tex was no longer interested. While Matt and Oscar were busily chewing he kept urging them to sing. “Come on, Oscar! You can learn it.”
“I can’t sing.”
“Sure you can. I’ve heard you sing, with the Hog Alley band. Ill sing the verse, we’ll all clap, then hit the chorus together: ‘Deep in … the heart of … Texas!’ Like that.”
“Shut up,” said Oscar, “or you’ll be deep in the heart of trouble.”
“Kill-joy! Come on, Matt.”
“I can’t sing with my mouth full.”
“Look,” said Oscar to Matt, in a tense, low voice. “Do you see what I see?”
Matt looked and saw Lieutenant Wong entering the far end of the dining room. He went to a table, sat down, looked around, spotted the table of cadets, nodded, and started studying a menu. “Oh, mother!” Matt breathed softly.
“Then we’ll sing ‘loway,’ ” announced Tex. “I’m broad-minded.”
“We won’t sing anything. For the love of Mike, Tex- shut up! An officer just came into the joint.”
“Where?” demanded Tex. “Invite him over. I don’t hold any grudges. They’re good boys, all of ’em, the stinkers. Matt shot a quick glance at Lieutenant Wong and was dismayed to see the officer crooking a finger at him, beckoning. He got up and walked stiffly toward the officer.
“Dodson-”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go back and tell Jarman to quiet down before I have to come over there and ask him what his name is.”
“Uh-aye aye, sir!”
When he got back to the table, Tex was already quiet and appeared sobered but very much puzzled. Oscar’s usually pleasant face was dark with anger. “What’s the verdict?”
Matt reported. “I see. Wong’s all right. Well, we got to get him out of here.” Oscar flagged the waiter, then opened Tex’s pouch and paid the bill.
He stood up. “Let’s go. Pull yourself together, Tex, or I’ll break your neck.”
“Where to?” asked Matt.
“Into the ‘fresher.”
Fortunately it turned out that they had that room to themselves. Oscar marched Tex to a-washbasin and told him to stick his finger down his throat. “Why?” objected Tex.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll do it for you. Look, Matt-can you take care of him? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
It was nearly twenty minutes before Oscar returned, bearing a carton of hot, black coffee and a tube of pills. He forced the coffee and half a dozen of the pills on the patient. “What are the pills?” Matt wanted to know.-
“Thiamine chloride.”
“You seem to know your way around?”
“Well . . .” Oscar wrinkled his brow. “Venus isn’t like Earth, you know. Still sort of wild and woolly. You see a lot of things go on. Drink the rest of the coffee, Tex.”
“Yes sir.”
“The front of his uniform is all messed up,” said Matt
“So I see. I guess we should have undressed him.”
“What’ll we do? If he goes back like that, there will be questions asked- bad ones.”
“Let me think.” Presently he said to Tex, “Go in there-” Oscar indicated one of a row of ‘fresher booths, “-and take off your uniform. Hand it out and lock yourself in. We’ll be back after a while.” Tex seemed to feel that he was being consigned to the salt mines, but there was no real opposition left in him. He went. Shortly thereafter Matt and Oscar left, Oscar with a tightly rolled bundle of a cadet uniform under one arm.
They took the slideway half around the Station, through crowds of gorgeously dressed and hurrying people, past rich and beckoning shops. Matt enjoyed it thoroughly.
“They say,” said Oscar, “that this is what the big cities used to be like, back before the Disorders.” ^
“It certainly doesn’t look like Des Moines.”
“Nor like Venus.” Oscar found what he was looking for, an automatic laundry service, in a passageway off the waiting room of the emigrant zone. After a considerable wait the uniform came back to them, clean, pressed, and neatly packaged. It being Terra Station, the cost was sky high. Matt looked at what remained of his funds.
“Might as well be broke,” he said and invested the remainder in a pound of chocolate-coated cherries. They hurried back. Tex looked so woe-begone and so glad to see them that Matt had a sudden burst of generosity and handed the box to Tex. “Present to you, you poor, miserable, worthless critter.”
Tex seemed touched by the gesture-it was no more than a gesture, since candy and such are, by ancient right, community property among roommates.
“Hurry up and get dressed, Tex. The scooter shoves off in just thirty-two minutes.” Twenty-five minutes later, suited up, they were filing into the airlock, Tex with the chocolates under his arm.
The trip back was without incident, except for one thing: Matt had not thought to specify a pressure container for the candy. Before Tex could strap down the box had bulged.
By the time they reached the Randolph the front and left side of his space suit was covered with a bubbly, sticky mess compounded of cherry juice, sugar syrup, and brown stains of chocolate as the semi-liquid confection boiled and expanded in the vacuum. He would have thrown the package away had not the oldster, strapped next to him in the rack, reminded him of the severe penalties for jettisoning anything in a traffic lane.
The cadet in charge of the hangar pocket in the Randolph looked Tex over in disgust. “Why didn’t you pack it inside your suit?”
“Uh, I just didn’t think of it, sir.”
“Hummph! Next time you will, no doubt. Go on inside and” place yourself on the report for ‘gross untidiness in uniform.’ And clean up that suit.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Pete was in their suite when they got back. He came out of his cubicle. “Have fun? Gee, I wish I hadn’t had the duty.”
“You didn’t miss much,” said Oscar.
Tex looked from one to the other. “Gee, fellows, I’m sorry I ruined your liberty.”
“Forget it,” said Oscar. “Terra Station will still be there next month.”
“That’s right,” agreed Matt, “but see here, Tex-tell us the truth. That was the first drink you ever had-wasn’t it?”
Tex looked shame-faced. “Yes . . . my folks are all temperance-except my Uncle Bodie.”
“Never mind your Uncle Bodie. If I catch you taking another, I’ll beat you to death with the bottle.”
“Aw, shucks, Matt!”
Oscar looked at Matt quizzically. “Easy on that holier-than-thou stuff, kid. Maybe it could happen to you.”
“Maybe it could. Maybe some day I’ll get you to chapter-one me and find out what happens. But not in public.”
“It’s a date.”
“Say,” demanded Pete, “what goes on here? What’s it all about?”
LONG HAUL
LIFE IN THE Randolph had a curious aspect of timelessness -or, rather, datelessness. There was no weather, there were no seasons. The very divisions into “night” and “day” were arbitrary and were continually being upset by night watches and by laboratory periods at any hour, in order to make maximum use of limited facilities. Meals were served every six hours around the clock and the meal at one in the “morning” was almost as well attended as breakfast at seven hundred.
Matt got used to sleeping when he could find time-and the “days” tumbled past. It seemed to him that there was never time enough for all that he was expected to do. Mathematics and the mathematical subjects, astrogation and atomic physics in particular, began to be a bugaboo; he was finding himself being rushed into practical applications of mathematics before he was solidly grounded.
He had fancied himself, before becoming a cadet, as rather bright in mathematics, and so he was-by ordinary standards. He had not anticipated what it would be like to be part of a group of which every member was unusually talented in the language of science. He signed up for personal coaching in mathematics and studied harder than ever. The additional effort kept him from failing, but that was all. 1 It is not possible to work all the time without cracking up, but the environment would have kept Matt from overworking even if he had been so disposed. Corridor number five of “A” deck, where Matt and his roommates lived, was known as “Hog Alley” and had acquired a ripe reputation for carefree conduct even before Tex Jarman added his talents.
The current “Mayor of Hog Alley” was an oldster named Bill Arensa. He was a brilliant scholar and seemed able to absorb the most difficult study spool in a single playing, but he had been in the Randolph an unusually long time-a matter of accumulated demerits.
One evening after supper, soon after arrival, Matt and Tex were attempting to produce a little harmony. Matt was armed with a comb and a piece of tissue paper; Tex had his harmonica. A bellow from across the hallway stopped them. “Open up in there! You youngsters-come busting out!”
Tex and Matt appeared as ordered. The Mayor looked them over. “No blood,” he remarked. “I’d swear I heard someone being killed. Go back and get your noisemakers.”
Arensa ushered them into his own room, which was crowded. He waved a hand around at the occupants. “Meet the Hog Alley People’s Forum-Senator Mushmouth, Senator Filibuster, Senator Hidebound, Doctor Dogoodly, and the Marquis de Sade. Gentlemen, meet Commissioner Wretched and Professor Farflung.” The oldster went into his study cubicle.
“What’s your name, Mister?” said one of the cadets, addressing Tex.
“Jarman, sir.”
“And yours?”
“We’ve got no time for those details,” announced Arensa, returning bearing a guitar. “That number you gentlemen were working on-let’s try it again. Brace yourself for the down beat. . . and a one, and a two!”
Thus was born the Hog Alley band. It grew to seven pieces and started working on a repertoire to be presented at a ship’s entertainment. Matt dropped out when he became eligible for the space polo league, as he could not spare time for both-his meager, talent was no loss to the band.
Nevertheless he remained in the orbit of the oldster. Arensa adopted all four of them, required them to report to his room from time to time, and supervised their lives. However, he never placed them on the report. By comparing notes with other youngster cadets on this point, Matt discovered that he and his friends were well off. They attended umerous sessions of the “Forum,” first by direction, later from choice. The staple recreation in the Randolph, as it is in all boarding schools, was the bull session. The talk ranged through every possible subject and was kept spiced by Arensa’s original and usually radical ideas.
However, no matter what was discussed, the subject usually worked around to girls and then broke up with the un-startling conclusion: “There’s no sense in talking about it-there aren’t any girls in the Randolph. Let’s turn in.”
Almost as entertaining was the required seminar in “Doubt.” The course had been instituted by the present commandant and resulted from his own observation that every military organization-with the Patrol no exception-suffered from an inherent vice. A military hierarchy automatically places a premium on conservative behavior and dull conformance with precedent; it tends to penalize original and imaginative thinking. Commodore Arkwright realized that these tendencies are inherent and inescapable; he hoped to offset them a bit by setting up a course that could not be passed without original thinking.
The method was the discussion group, made up of youngsters, oldsters, and officers. The seminar leader would chuck out some proposition that attacked a value usually regarded as axiomatic. From there on anything could be said.
It took Matt a while to get the hang of it. At his first session the leader offered: “Resolved: that the Patrol is a detriment and should be abolished.” Matt could hardly believe his ears.
In rapid succession he heard it suggested that the past hundred years of Patrol-enforced peace had damaged the race, that the storm of mutations that followed atomic warfare were necessarily of net benefit under the inexorable laws of evolution, that neither the human race nor any of the other races of the system could expect to survive permanently in the universe if they deliberately forsook war, and that, in any case, the Patrol was made up of a bunch of self-righteous fatheads who mistook their own trained-in prejudices for the laws of nature.
Matt contributed nothing to the first discussion he attended.
The following week he heard both mother love and love of mother questioned. He wanted to reply, but, for the life of him, could think of no other answer than “Because!” Thereafter came attacks on monotheism as a desirable religious form, the usefulness of the scientific method, and the rule of the majority, in reaching decisions. He discovered that it was permissible to express opinions that were orthodox as well as ones that were unorthodox and began to join the debate by defending some of his own pet ideas.
At once he found his own unconscious assumptions that lay behind his opinions subjected to savage attack and found himself again reduced to a stubborn and unvoiced “Because!”
He began to catch on to the method and found that he could ask an innocent question that would undermine someone else’s line of argument. From then on he had a good time.
He particularly enjoyed it after Girard Burke was assigned to his seminar. Matt would lie in wait until Girard would express some definite opinion, then jump him-always with a question; never with a statement. For some reason not clear to Matt, Burke’s opinions were always orthodox; to attack them Matt was forced to do some original thinking.
But he asked Burke about it after class one day. “See here, Burke-I
thought you were the bird with a new slant on everything?”
“Well, maybe I am. What about it?”
“You don’t sound like it in ‘Doubt.’ ”
Burke looked wise. “You don’t catch me sticking my neck out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you think our dear superiors are really interested in your bright ideas? Won’t you ever learn to recognize a booby trap, son?”
Matt thought about it. “I think you’re crazy.” Nevertheless he chewed it over.
The days rolled past. The pace was so hard that there as little time to be bored. Matt shared the herd credo of all cadets that the Randolph was a madhouse, unfit for human habitation, sky junk, etc., etc.-but in fact he had no opinion of his own about the school ship; he was too busy. At first he had had some acute twinges of homesickness; thereafter it seemed to recede. There was nothing but the treadmill of study, drill, more study, laboratory, sleep, eat, and study again.
He was returning from the communications office, coming off watch late one night, when he heard sounds from Pete’s cubicle. At first he thought Pete must be running his projector, studying late. He was about to bang on his door and suggest going up to the galley to wheedle a cup of cocoa when he became convinced that the sound was not a projector.
Cautiously he opened the door a crack. The sound was sobbing. He closed the door noiselessly and knocked on it. After a short silence Pete said, “Come in.”
Matt went in. “Got anything to eat?”
“Some cookies in my desk.”
Matt got them out. “You look sick, Pete. Anything wrong?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Don’t give me the space drift. Out with it.”
Pete hesitated. “It’s nothing. Nothing anybody can do anything about.”
“Maybe so, maybe not. Tell me.”
“There’s nothing you can do. I’m homesick, that’s all!”
“Oh-” Matt had a sudden vision of the rolling hills and broad farms of Iowa. He suppressed it. ‘That’s bad, kid. I know how you feel.”
“No, you don’t. Why, you’re practically at home-you can just step to a port and see it.”
“That’s no help.”
“And it hasn’t been so terribly long since you’ve been home. Me-it took me two years just to make the trip to Terra; there’s no way of telling when I’ll ever see home again.” Pete’s eyes got a faraway look; his voice became almost lyrical. “You don’t know what it’s like, Matt. You’ve never seen it. You know what they say: ‘Every civilized man has two planets, his own and Ganymede.’ ”
“Huh?”
Pete did not even hear him. “Jupiter hanging overhead, filling half the sky” He stopped. “It’s beautiful, Matt. There’s no place like it.”
Matt found himself thinking about Des Moines in a late summer evening . . . with fireflies winking and the cicadas singing in the trees, and the air so thick and heavy you could cup it in your hand. Suddenly he hated the steel shell around him, with its eternal free-fall and its filtered air and its artificial lights. “Why did we ever sign up, Pete?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!”
“Are you going to resign?”
“I can’t. My father had to put up a bond to cover my passage both ways-if I leave voluntarily he’s stuck for it.”
Tex came in, yawning and scratching. “What’s the matter with you guys? Can’t you sleep? Don’t you want anybody else to sleep?”
“Sorry, Tex.”
Jarman looked them over. “You both look like your pet dog had died. What’s the trouble?”
Matt bit his lip. “Nothing much. I’m homesick, that’s all.”
Pete spoke up at once. “That’s not quite straight. I was the one that was pulling the baby act-Matt was trying to cheer me up.”
Tex looked puzzled. “I don’t get it. What difference does it make where you are so long as you aren’t in Texas?”
“Oh, Tex, for heaven’s sake!” Matt exploded.
“What’s the matter? Did I say something wrong?” Tex looked from Matt to Pete. “Pete, you certainly are a mighty far piece away from your folks, I’ve got to admit. Tell you what-comes time we get some leave, you come home with me. I’ll let you count the legs on a horse.”
Pete grinned feebly. “And meet your Uncle Bodie?”
“Sho’, sho’! Uncle Bodie’ll tell you about the time he rode the twister, bareback. Is it a deal?”
“If you’ll come to visit at my home someday. You, too, Matt.”
“It’s a deal.” They shook hands all around.
The effects of the nostalgic binge with Pete might have worn off if another incident had not happened soon after. Matt went across the passage to Arensa’s room, intending to ask the oldster for some help in a tricky problem in astrogation. He found the oldster packing. “Come in, Senator,” said Arensa. “Don’t clutter up the doorway. What’s on your mind, son?”
“Uh, nothing, I guess. You got your ship, sir?” Arensa had been passed for outer duty the month before; he was now technically a “passed cadet” as well as an “oldster.”
“No.” He picked up a sheaf of papers, glanced at them, and tore them across. “But I’m leaving.”
“Oh.”
“No need to be delicate about it-I wasn’t fired. I’ve resigned.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t stare at me and say ‘oh’! What’s so odd about resigning?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You were wondering why, weren’t you? Well, 111 tell you. I’ve had it, that’s why. I’ve had it and I’m sick of it. Because, sonny, I have no wish to be a superman. My halo is too tight and I’m chucking it. Can you-understand that?”
“Oh, I wasn’t criticizing!”
“No, but you were thinking it. You stick with it, Senator. You’re just the sort of serious-minded young squirt they want and need. But not for me-I’m not going to be an archangel, charging around the sky and brandishing a flaming sword. Did you ever stop to think what it would feel like to atom bomb a city? Have you ever really thought about it?”
“Why, I don’t know. It hasn’t been necessary for the Patrol actually to use a bomb since they got it rolling right. I don’t suppose it ever will be.”
“But that’s what you signed up for, just the same. It’s your reason for being, my boy.” He stopped and picked up his guitar. “Forget it. Now what can I do with this? I’ll sell it to you cheap, Earth-side price.”
“I couldn’t even pay Earth-side prices right now.”
“Take it as a gift.” Arensa chucked it at him. “The Hog Alley band ought to have a gitter and I can get another. In thirty minutes I shall be in Terra Station, Senator, and six hours later I shall be back with the ground crawlers, the little people who don’t know how to play God-and wouldn’t want to!”
Matt couldn’t think of anything to say.
It seemed odd thereafter not to have Arensa’s bellowing voice across the passageway, but Matt did not have time to think about it. Matt’s drill section in piloting was ordered to the Moon for airless-landing.
The section had progressed from scooters to drill in an A-6 utility rocket rigged for instruction. The cargo space of this ship-P.R.S. Shakysides to the cadets; drill craft #106 on the rolls of the Randolph-had been fitted as a dozen duplicate control rooms, similar in every visible detail to the real control rooms, to the last switch, dial, scope and key. The instruments in the duplicate rooms showed the same data as their twins in the master room but when a cadet touched a control in one of the instruction rooms, it had no effect on the ship; instead the operation was recorded on tape.
The pilot’s operations were recorded, too, so that each student pilot could compare what he did with what he should have done, after having practiced under conditions identical with those experienced by the actual pilot.
The section had completed all it could learn from practice contacts at the Randolph and at Terra Station. They needed the hazard of a planet. The two- day trip to Moon Base was made in the Shakysides herself, under conditions only a little worse than those encountered by an emigrant.
Matt and his companions saw nothing of the Lunar colonies. There was no liberty; they lived for two weeks in pressurized underground barracks at the Base and went up to the field each day for landing drill, first in the dummy control rooms of the Shakysides, then in dual-controlled A-6 rockets for actual piloting.
Matt soloed at the end of the first week. He had the “feel” for piloting; given a pre-calculated flight plan he could make his craft respond. It was as natural to him as mathematical astrogation was difficult.
Soloing left him with time on his hands. He explored the Base and took a space-suited walk on the burned and airless Lunar plain. The student pilots were quartered in a corner of the marine barracks. Matt killed time by watching the space marines and chinning with the non-coms.
He liked the spit-and-polish style with which the space marines did “things, the strutting self-confidence with which they handled themselves. There is no more resplendent sight in the solar system than an old space- marine sergeant in full dress, covered with stripes, hash marks, and ribbons, the silver at his temples matching the blazing sunburst on his chest. Matt began to feel dowdy in the one plain, insignia-less uniform he had thought in his jump bag.
He enjoyed their frequent ceremonials. At first it startled him to hear a unit mustered without the ghostly repetition of the names of the Four-“Dahlquist! Martin! Rivera! Wheeler!”-but the marines had traditional rites of their own and more of them.
Faithful to his intention of swotting astrogation as hard as possible, Matt had brought some typical problems along. Reluctantly he tackled them one day.
"Given: Departure from the orbit of Deimos, Mars, not earlier than 1200 Greenwich, 15 May 2087; chemical fuel, exhaust velocity 10,000 meters per second; destination, suprastratospheric orbit around Venus. Required: Most economical orbit to destination and quickest orbit, mass-ratios and times of departure and arrival for each. Prepare flight plan and designate checkpoints, with pre-calculation for each point, using stars of 2nd magnitude or brighter.
Questions: Is it possible to save time or fuel by tacking on the Terra-Luna pair? What known meteor drifts will be encountered and what evasive plans, if any, should be made? All answers must conform to space regulations as well as to ballistic principles."
The problem could not be solved in any reasonable length of time without machine calculation. However, Matt could set it up and then, with luck, sweet- talk the officer in charge of the Base’s computation room into letting him use a ballistic integrator. He got to work.
The sweet voice of a bugle reached him, first call for changing the guard. He ignored it.
He was sweating over his preliminary standard approximation when the bugle again interrupted him with call-to-muster. It completely disrupted his chain of reasoning. Confounded problem-why would they assign such a silly problem anyhow? The Patrol didn’t fiddle around with chemical fuels and most economical orbits-that was merchant service stuff.
Two minutes later he was watching guard mount, down in the main HQ under the barracks. When the band sounded off with “Till the Suns are cold and the heavens dark-” Matt found himself choking up.
He stopped by the guard office, reluctant to get back to the fussy complexities of mathematics. The new sergeant of the guard was an acquaintance, Master Sergeant Macleod. “Come in, young fellow, and rest yourself. Did you see the guard mount?”
“Thanks. Yes, I did. It’s pretty wonderful to see.”
“Know what you mean. Been doing it twenty years and I get more of a bang out of it than I did when I was a recruit. How’s tricks? They keeping you busy?”
Matt grinned sheepishly. “I’m playing hooky. I should be studying
astrogation, but I get so darned sick of it.”
“Don’t blame you a bit. Figures make my head ache.”
Matt found himself telling the older man his troubles. Sergeant Macleod eyed him with sympathetic interest. “See here, Mr. Dodson-you don’t like that long-haired stuff. Why don’t you chuck it?”
“Huh?”
“You like the space marines, don’t you?”
“Why, yes.”
“Why not switch over and join a man’s outfit? You’re a likely lad and educated-in a year I’d be saluting you. Ever thought about it?”
“Why, no, I can’t say that I have.”
“Then do so. You don’t belong with the Professors-you didn’t know that was what we call the Patrol, did you?- the ‘Professors.’ ”
“I’d heard it.”
“You had? Well, we work for the Professors, but we aren’t of them. We’re . . . well, you’ve seen. Think it over.”
Matt did think it over, so much so that he took the Mars-to-Venus problem back with him, still unsolved.
It was no easier to solve for the delay, nor were other and more complicated problems made any simpler by virtue of the idea, buzzing in the back of his mind, that he need not belabour himself with higher mathematics in order to be a spaceman. He began to see himself decked out in the gaudy, cock-pheasant colors of the space marines.
At last he took it up with Lieutenant Wong. “You want to transfer to the marines?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Why?”
Matt explained his increasing feeling of frustration in dealing with both atomic physics and astrogation.
Wong nodded. “I thought so. But we knew that you would have tough sledding since you came here insufficiently prepared. I don’t like the sloppy work you’ve been doing since you came back from Luna.”
“I’ve done the best I could, sir.”
“No, you haven’t. But you can master-these two subjects and I will see to it that you do.”
Matt explained, almost inaudibly, that he was not sure he wanted to. Wong, for the first time, looked vexed.
“Still on that? If you turn in a request for transfer, I won’t okay it and I can tell you ahead of time that the Commandant will turn it down.”
Matt’s jaw muscles twitched. “That’s your privilege, sir.”
“Damn it, Dodson, it’s not my privilege; it’s my duty. You would never make a marine and I say so because I know you, your record, and your capabilities. You have a good chance of making a Patrol officer.”
Matt looked startled. “Why couldn’t I become a marine?”
“Because it’s too easy for you-so easy that you would fail.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t say “huh.” The spread in I.Q. between leader and follower should not be more than thirty points. You are considerably more than thirty points ahead of those old sergeants-don’t get me wrong; they are fine men. But your mind doesn’t work like theirs.” Wong went on, “Have you ever wondered why the Patrol consists of nothing but officers-and student officers, cadets?”
“Mmm, no, sir.”
“Naturally you wouldn’t. We never wonder at what we grow up with. Strictly speaking, the Patrol is not a military organization at all.”
“Sir?”
“I know, I know-you are trained to use weapons, you are under orders, you wear a uniform. But your purpose is not to fight, but to prevent fighting, by every possible means. The Patrol is not a fighting organization; it is the repository of weapons too dangerous to entrust to military men.
“With the development last century of mass-destruction weapons, warfare became all offense and no defense, speaking broadly. A nation could launch a horrific attack but it could not even protect its own rocket bases. Then space travel came along.
“The spaceship is the perfect answer in a military sense to the atom bomb, and to germ warfare and weather warfare. It can deliver an attack that can’t be stopped-and it is utterly impossible to attack that spaceship from the surface of a planet.”
Matt nodded. “The gravity gauge.”
“Yes, the gravity gauge. Men on the surface of a planet are as helpless against men in spaceships as a man would be trying to conduct a rock- throwing fight from the bottom of a well. The man at the top of the well has gravity working for him.
“We might have ended up with the tightest, most nearly unbreakable tyranny the world has ever seen. But the human race got a couple of lucky breaks and it didn’t work out that way. It’s the business of the Patrol to see that it stays lucky.
“But the Patrol can’t drop an atom bomb simply because some pipsqueak Hitler has made a power grab and might some day, when he has time enough, build spaceships and mass-destruction weapons. The power is too great, too awkward-it’s like trying to keep order in a nursery with a loaded gun instead of a switch.
“The space marines are the Patrol’s switch. They are the finest-”
“Excuse me, sir-”
“Yes?”
“I know how the marines work. They do the active policing in the System-but that’s why I want to transfer. They’re a more active outfit. They are-”
“-more daring, more adventurous, more colorful, more glamorous-and they don’t have to study things that Matthew Dodson is tired of studying. Now shut up and listen; there is a lot you don’t know about the set-up, or you wouldn’t be trying to transfer.”
Matt shut up.
“People tend to fall into three psychological types, all differently motivated. There is the type, motivated by economic factors, money . . . and there is the type motivated by ‘face,’ or pride. This type is a spender, fighter, boaster, lover, sportsman, gambler; he has a will to power and an itch for glory.
And there is the professional type, which claims to follow a code of ethics rather than simply seeking money or glory-priests and ministers, teachers, scientists, medical men, some artists and writers. The idea is that such a man believes that he is devoting his life to some purpose more important than his individual self. You follow me?”
“I… think so.”
“Mind you this is terrifically over-simplified. And don’t try to apply these rules to non-terrestrials; they won’t fit. The Martian is another sort of a cat, and so is the Venerian.”
Wong continued, “Now we get to the point: The Patrol is meant to be made up exclusively of the professional type. In the space marines, every single man jack, from the generals to the privates, is or should be the sort who lives by pride and glory.”
“Oh…”
Wong waited for it to sink in. “You can see it in the very uniforms; the Patrol wears the plainest of uniforms, the marines wear the gaudiest possible. In the Patrol all the emphasis is on the oath, the responsibility to humanity. In the space marines the emphasis is on pride in their corps and its glorious history, loyalty to comrades, the ancient virtues of the soldier. I am not disparaging the marine when I say that he does not care a tinker’s damn for the political institutions of the Solar System; he cares only for his organization.
“But it’s not your style, Matt. I know more about you than you do yourself, because I have studied the results of your psychological tests. You will never make a marine.”
Wong paused so long that Matt said diffidently, “Is that all, sir?”
“Almost. You’ve got to learn astrogation. If deep-sea diving were the key to the Patrol’s responsibility, it would be that that you would have to learn. But the key happens to be space travel. So-I’ll lay out a course of sprouts for you. For a few weeks you’ll do nothing but astrogate. Does that appeal to you?”
“No, sir.”
“I didn’t think it would. But when I get through with you, you’ll be able to find your way around the System blindfolded. Now let me see-”
The next few weeks were deadly monotony but Matt made progress. He had plenty of time to think-when he was not bending over a calculator. Oscar and Tex went to the Moon together; Pete was on night shift in the power room. Matt kept sullenly and stubbornly at work-and brooded. He promised himself to stick it out until Wong let up on him. After that – well, he would have a leave coming up one of these days. If he decided to chuck it, why, lots of cadets never came back from their first leave.
In the meantime his work began to get the grudging approval of Lieutenant Wong. At last Wong let up on him and he went back to a normal routine. He was settling into it when he found himself posted for an extra duty. Pursuant thereto, he reported one morning to the officer of the watch, received a briefing, memorized a list ‘of names, and was issued a black armband. Then he went to the main airlock and waited.
Presently a group of scared and greenish boys began erupting from the lock. When his turn came, he moved forward and called out, “Squad seven! Where is the squad leader of squad seven?”
He got his charges rounded up at last and told the acting squad leader to follow along in the rear, then led them slowly and carefully down to “A” deck. He was glad to find when he got there that none of them had gotten lost. “This is your mess room,” he told them. “We’ll have lunch before long.”
Something about the expression of one of them amused him. “What’s the matter, Mister?” he asked the boy. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Uh, no, sir.”
“Well, cheer up-you will be.”
GUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES?
INTERPLANETARY PATROL Cadet Matthew Dodson sat in the waiting room of Pikes Peak Catapult Station and watched the clock. He had an hour to wait before boarding the New Moon for Terra Station; meanwhile he was expecting his roommates.
It had been a good leave, he supposed; he had done everything he had planned to do-except joining the others at the Jarman ranch at the end; his mother had kicked up such a fuss at the idea.
Still, it had been a good leave. His space-burned face, lean and beginning to be lined, looked slightly puzzled. He had confided to no one his tentative intention of resigning while on leave. Now he was trying to remember just when and why it had ceased to be his intention. *
He had been sent on temporary duty to the P.R.S Nobel, as assistant to the astrogator during a routine patrol of cir-cum-Terra bomb-rockets. Matt had joined his ship at Moon Base and, at the conclusion of the patrol when the Nobel had grounded at Terra Base for overhaul, was detached with permission to take leave before reporting back to the Randolph. He had gone straight home.
The entire family met him at the station and copied him home. His mother had cried a little and his father had shaken hands very vigorously. It seemed to Matt that his kid brother had grown almost incredibly. It was good to see them, good to be back in the old family bus. Matt would have piloted the copter himself had not Billie, his brother, gone straight to the controls.
The house had been redecorated throughout. His mother obviously expected favorable comment and Matt had given it-but he hadn’t really liked the change. It had not been what he had pictured. Besides that, the rooms seemed smaller. He decided that it must be the effect of redecorating; the house couldn’t have shrunk!
His own room was filled with Bill’s things, although Bill had been temporarily evicted to his old room, now turned into a hobby room for his mother. The new arrangements were sensible, reasonable-and annoying.
In thinking it over Matt knew that the changes at home had had nothing to do with his decision. Certainly not! Nor his father’s remarks about posture, even though they had stuck in his craw-He and his father had been alone in the living room, just before dinner, and Matt had been pacing up and down, giving an animated and, he believed, interesting account of the first time he had soloed. His father had taken advantage of a pause to say, “Stand up, son.”
Matt stopped. “Sir?”
“You are all crouched over and seem to be limping. Does your leg still bother you?”
“No, my leg is fine.”
“Then straighten up and “square your shoulders. Look proud. Don’t they pay any attention to your posture at school?”
“What’s wrong with the way I was walking?”
Bill had appeared in the door just as the subject had come up. “I’ll show you, Mattie,” he had interrupted, and proceeded to slouch across the room in a grotesque exaggeration of a spaceman’s relaxed and boneless glide. The boy made it look like the amble of a chimpanzee. “You walk like that.”
“The devil I do!”
“The devil you don’t.”
“Bill!” said his father. “Go wash up and get ready for dinner. And don’t talk that way. Go on, now!” When the younger son had left his father turned again to Matt and said, “I thought I was speaking privately, Matt. Honestly, it’s not as bad as Bill makes out; it’s only about half that bad.”
“But- Look, Dad, I walk just like everybody else-among spacemen, I mean. It comes of getting used to free-fall. You carry yourself sort of pulled in, for days on end, ready to bounce a foot off a bulkhead, or grab with your hands. When you’re back under weight, after days and weeks of that, you walk the way I do. ‘Cat feet’ we call it.”
“I suppose it would have that effect,” his father had answered reasonably, “but wouldn’t it be a good idea to practice walking a little every day, just to keep in form?”
“In free-fall? But-” Matt had stopped, suddenly aware that there was no way to bridge the gap.
“Never mind. Let’s go in to dinner.”
There had been the usual round of family dinners with aunts and uncles. Everyone asked him to tell about school, about what it felt like to go out into space. But, somehow, they had not actually seemed very interested. Take Aunt Dora.
Great-aunt Dora was the current family matriarch. She had been a very active woman, busy with church and social work. Now she was bedfast and had been for three years. Matt called on her because his family obviously expected it. “She often complains to me that you don’t write to her, Matt, and”
“But, Mother, I don’t have time to write to everyone!”
“Yes, yes. But she’s proud of you, Matt. Shell want to ask you a thousand questions about everything. Be sure to wear your uniform-she’ll expect it.”
Aunt Dora had not asked a thousand questions; she had asked just one- why had he waited so long to come to see her? Thereafter Matt found himself being informed, in detail, on the shortcomings of the new pastor, the marriage chances of several female relatives and connections, and the states of health of several older women, many of them unknown to him, including details of operations and postoperative developments.
He was a bit dizzy when he escaped, pleading a previous date.
Yes, maybe that was it-it might have been the visit to Aunt Dora that convinced him that he was not ready to resign and remain in Des Moines. It could not have been Marianne.
Marianne was the girl who had made him promise to write regularly-and, in fact, he had, more regularly than had she. But he had let her know that he was coming home and she had organized a picnic to welcome him back. It had been jolly. Matt had renewed old acquaintances and had enjoyed a certain amount of hero worship from the girls present. There had been a young man there, three or four years older than Matt, who seemed unattached. Gradually it dawned on Matt that Marianne treated the newcomer as her property.
It had not worried him. Marianne was the sort of girl who never would get clearly fixed in her mind the distinction between a planet and a star. He had not noticed this before, but it and similar matters had come up on the one date he had had alone with her.
And she had referred to his uniform as “cute.”
He began to understand, from Marianne, why most Patrol officers do not marry until their mid-thirties, after retirement.
The clock in Pikes Peak Station showed thirty minutes until up-ship. Matt began to worry that Tex’s casual way might have caused the other three to miss connections, when he spotted them in the crowd. He grabbed his jump bag and went toward them.
They had their backs toward him and had not seen him as yet. He sneaked up behind Tex and said in a hoarse voice, “Mister-report to the Commandant’s office.”
Tex jumped into the air and turned completely around. “Matt! You horse- thief, don’t scare me like that!”
“Your guilty conscience. Hi, Pete. Hello, Oscar.”
“How’s the boy, Matt? Good leave?”
“Swell.”
“Here, too.” They shook hands all around.
“Let’s get aboard.”
“Suits.” They weighed in, had their passes stamped, and were allowed to proceed on up to where the New Moon stood upright and ready in the catapult cradle, her mighty wings outstretched. A stewardess showed them to their seats.
At the ten-minute warning Matt announced, “I’m going up for some makee-learnee. Anybody with me?”
Oscar decided to come along. They climbed up to the control room and spoke to the captain. “Cadets Dodson and Jensen, sir-request permission to observe.”
“I suppose so,” the captain grunted. “Strap down.” The pilot room of any licensed ship was open to all members of the Patrol, but the skippers on the Terra-to-Station run were understandably bored with the practice.
Oscar took the inspector’s chair; Matt had to use deck pads and straps. His position gave him an excellent view of the co-pilot and mate, waiting at the airplane-type controls. If the rocket motor failed to fire, after catapulting, it would be the mate’s business to fight the ship into level flight and bring her down to a deadstick landing on the Colorado prairie.
The captain manned the rocket-type controls. He spoke to the catapult control room, then sounded the siren. Shortly thereafter the ship mounted up the face of the mountain, at a bone-clamping six gravities. The acceleration lasted only ten seconds; then the ship was flung straight up at the sky, leaving the catapult at 1300 miles per hour.
They were in free-fall and climbing. The captain appeared to be taking his time about cutting in the jet; for a moment Matt held to the excited hope that an emergency landing was going to be necessary. But the jet roared on time.
When they had settled in their orbit and the jet was again silent, Matt and Oscar thanked the captain and went back to their proper seats. Tex and Pete were both asleep; Oscar followed suit at once. Matt decided that he must have missed quite a bit in letting himself be talked out of finishing his leave in Texas.
His thoughts went back-to the problem he had been considering. Certainly he had not decided to stick simply because his own leave had been fairly quiet; he had never thought of home as being a nightclub, or a fair ground.
One night at dinner his father had asked him to describe just what it was that the Nobel did in circum-Terra patrol. He had tried to oblige. “After we lift from Moon Base we head for Terra on an elliptical orbit. As we approach the Earth we brake gradually and throw her into a tight circular orbit from pole to pole-”
“Why pole to pole? Why not around the equator?”
“Because, you see, the atom-bomb rockets are in pole-to-pole orbits. That’s the only way they can cover the whole globe. If they were circling around the equator-”
“I understand that,” his father had interrupted, “but your purpose, as I understand it, is to inspect the bomb rockets. If you-your ship-circled around the equator, you could just wait for the bomb rockets to come past.”
Tow may understand it,” his mother had said to his father, “but Z don’t.”
Matt looked from one to the other, wondering which one to answer-and how. “One at a time . . . please,” he protested. “Dad, we can’t just intercept the bombs; we have to sneak up on them, match orbits until you are right alongside it and making exactly the same course and speed. Then you bring the bomb inside and ship and inspect it.”
“And of what does that inspection consist?”
“Just a sec, Dad. Mother, look here for a moment.” Matt took an orange from the table’s centerpiece. “The rocket bombs go round and round, like this, from pole-to-pole, every two hours. In the meantime the Earth is turning on its axis, once every twenty-four hours.” Matt turned the orange slowly in his left hand while moving a finger of his right hand rapidly around it from top to bottom to simulate a pole-to-pole bomb. “That means that if a bomb passes over Des Moines on this trip, it will just about pass over the Pacific Coast on its next trip. In twenty-four hours it covers the globe.”
“Goodness! Matthew, I wish you wouldn’t talk about an atom bomb being over Des Moines, even in fun.”
“In fun?” Matt had been puzzled. “As a matter of fact … let me think; we’re about forty-two north and ninety-four west-” He glanced at his watch finger and studied for a few moments. “Jay-three ought to be along in about seven minutes-yes, it will be almost exactly overhead by the time you finish your coffee.” Long weeks in the Nobel, plotting, calculating,, and staring in radarscopes had gotten Matt so that he knew the orbits of circum-Terra prowler rockets a bit better than a fanner’s wife knows her own chickens; Jay- three was an individual to him, one with fixed habits.
His mother was looking horrified. She spoke directly to her husband as if she expected him to do something about it. “John. … I don’t like this. I don’t like it, do you hear me? What if it should fall?”
“Nonsense, Catherine-it can’t fall.”
Mart’s younger brother chortled. “Mom doesn’t even know what holds the Moon up!”
Matt turned to his brother. “Who pushed your button squirt? Do you know what holds the Moon up?”
“Sure-gravity.”
“Not exactly. Suppose you give me a quick tell, with diagrams.”
The boy tried; his effort was hardly successful. Matt shut him off. “You know somewhat less about astronomy than the ancient Egyptians. Don’t make fun of your elders. Now, look, Mother-don’t get upset. Jay-three can’t fall on us. It’s in a free orbit that does not intersect the Earth-like smarty-pants here says, it can’t fall down any more than the Moon can fall. Anyhow, if the Patrol was to bomb Des Moines tonight, at this time, it wouldn’t use Jay-three for the very reason that it is overhead. To bomb a city you start with a rocket heading for your target and a couple of thousand miles away, because you have to signal its robot to start the jet and seek the target. You have to slow it down and bend it down. So it wouldn’t be Jay-three; it would be-” He thought again. “-Eye-two, or maybe Ache-one.” He smiled wryly. “I got bawled out over Eye-two.”
“Why?” demanded his brother.
“Matt, I don’t think you have picked the right tack to quiet your mother’s fears,” his father said dryly. “I suggest we not talk about bombing cities.”
“But I didn’t- Sorry, Father.”
“Catherine, there really is nothing to get worked up over -you might just as well be afraid of the local policeman. Matt, you were going to tell me about inspection. Why do the rockets have to be inspected?”
“I want to know why Mattie got bawled out!”
Matt cocked an eyebrow at his brother. “I might as well start by telling him, Dad-it has to do with inspection. Okay, Bill-I made a poor dive when we started to pick it up and had to come back on my suit jet and try again.”
“What do you mean, Matthew?”
“He means-”
“Pipe down, Billie. Dad, you send a man out in a suit to insert the trigger guard and attach a line to the rocket so you can bring her inboard of the ship and work on her. I was the man. I made a bad push-off and missed the rocket entirely. She was about a hundred yards away and I guess I misjudged the distance. I turned over and found I was floating on past her. I had to jet back and try again.”
His mother still seemed confused, but did not like what she heard. “Matthew! That sounds dangerous to me.”
“Safe as houses, Mother. You can’t fall, any more than the rocket can, or the ship. But it’s embarrassing. Anyhow, I finally got a line on her and rode her back into the ship.”
“You mean you were riding an atom bomb?”
“Shucks, Mother, it’s safe-the tamper around the fission material stops most of the radioactivity. Anyhow, the exposure is short.”
“But suppose it went off?”
“It can’t go off. To go off it has to either crash into the ground with a speed great enough to slap the sub-critical masses together as fast as its trigger- gun could do it, or you have to fire the trigger-gun by radio. Besides that, I had inserted the trigger guard-that’s nothing more nor less than a little crowbar, but when it’s in place not even a miracle could set it off, because you can’t bring the sub-critical masses together.”
“Maybe we had better drop this subject, Matt. It seems to make your mother nervous.”
“But, Dad, she asked me.”
“I know. But you still haven’t told me what you inspect for.”
“Well, in the first place, you inspect the bomb itself, but there’s never anything wrong with the bomb. Anyhow, I haven’t had the course for bomb- officer yet-he has to be a nucleonics engineer. You inspect the rocket motor, especially the fuel tanks. Sometimes you have to replace a little that has escaped through relief valves. But mostly you give her a ballistic check and check her control circuits.”
“Ballistic check?”
“Of course, theoretically you ought to be able to predict where a prowler bomb would be every instant for the next thousand years. But it doesn’t work out that way. Little things, the effect of the tidal bulges and the fact that the Earth is not a perfect uniform sphere and such, cause them to gradually wander a little away from the predicted orbits. After you find one and service it-they’re never very far from where they ought to be-you correct the orbit by putting the whole ship in just precisely the proper trajectory and then put the rocket outside the ship again. Then you go after the next one.”
“Clear enough. And these corrections have to be made often enough that a ship is kept busy just inspecting them?”
“Well, no, Dad, we inspect oftener than we really have to-but it keeps the ship and the crew busy. Keeps it from getting monotonous. Anyhow, frequent inspections keep you on the safe side.”
“Sounds like a waste of taxpayers’ money to inspect too often.”
“But you don’t understand-we’re not there to inspect; we’re there to patrol. The inspection ship is the ship that would deliver an attack in case anybody started acting up. We have to stay on patrol until the next ship relieves us, so we might as well inspect. Granted that you can bomb a city from Moon Base, you can do a better, more accurate job, with less chance of hitting the wrong people, from close by.”
His mother was looking very upset. His father raised his eyebrows and said, “We’ve wandered back to the subject of bombing, Matt.”
“I was simply answering your questions, sir.”
“I’m afraid I asked the wrong question. Your mother is not able to take the answers impersonally. Catherine, there isn’t the slightest chance of the North American Union being bombed. Tell her that, Matt-I think she’ll believe you.”
Matt had remained silent. His father had insisted, “Go ahead, Matt. Catherine, after all, it’s our Patrol. For all practical purposes the other nations don’t count. A majority of the Patrol officers are from North America, That’s true, Matt, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never thought about it I guess so.”
“Very well. Now, Catherine, you can’t imagine Matt bombing Des Moines, now can you? And that is what it amounts to. Tell, her, Matt.”
“But- Dad, you don’t know what you are saying!”
“What? What’s that, young man!”
“I-” Matt had looked around him, then had gotten up very suddenly and left the room.
His father came into his room some time later. “Matt?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Look, Matt, I let the conversation get out of hand tonight. I’m sorry and I don’t blame you for getting upset. Your mother, you know. I try to protect her. Women get worked up so easily.”
“It’s all right, Dad. I’m sorry I walked out”
“No matter. Let’s forget it. There’s just one thing I feel we ought to get straight on. I know that you feel loyal to the Patrol and its ideals and it’s good that you should, but-well, you are a little young still to see the political realities involved, but you must know that the Patrol could not bomb the North American Union.”
“It would in a show down!”
“But there won’t be any show down. Even if there were, you couldn’t bomb your own people and neither could your shipmates.”
Matt thought about it, fiercely. He remembered Commander Rivera-one of the Four, of the proud Tradition-how Rivera, sent down to reason with the official in his own capital, his very native city, had kept the trust. Suspecting that he might be held as hostage, he had left orders to go ahead with the attack unless he returned in person to cancel the orders. Rivera, whose body was decaying radioactive dust but whose name was mustered whenever a unit of the Patrol called the roll.
His father was still talking. “Of course, the Patrol has to patrol this continent just as it patrols all through the System. It would look bad, otherwise this is no reason to frighten women with an impossibility.”
“I’d rather not talk about it, Dad.”
Matt glanced at his watch and figured how long it would be until the New Moon reached Terra Station. He wished he could sleep, like the others. He was sure now what it was that had changed his mind about resigning and remaining in Des Moines. It was not a desire to emulate Rivera. No, it was an accumulation of things-all of them adding up to just one idea, that little Mattie didn’t live there any more!
For the first few weeks after leave, Matt was too busy to fret. He .had to get back into the treadmill, with more studying to do and less time to do it in. He was on the watch list for cadet officer of the watch now, and had more laboratory periods in electronics and nucleonics as well. Besides this he shared with other oldsters the responsibility for bringing up the youngster cadets. Before; leave his evenings had usually been free for study, now he coached youngsters in astrogation three nights a week.
He was beginning to think that he would have to give up space polo, when he found himself elected captain of the Hog Alley team. Then he was busier than ever. He hardly thought about abstract problems until his next session; with Lieutenant Wong.
“Good afternoon,” his coach greeted him. “How’s your class in astrogation?”
“Oh, that – It seems funny to be teaching it instead of flunking it.” ;
“That’s why you’re stuck with it-you still remember what it was that used to stump you and why. How about atomics?”
“Well … I suppose I’ll get by, but I’ll never be an Einstein.”
“I’d be amazed if you were. How are you getting along otherwise?” Wong waited.
“All right, I. guess. Do you know, Mr. Wong-when I went on leave I didn’t intend to come back.”
“I rather thought so. That space-marines notion was just your way of dodging around, trying to avoid your real problem.”
“Oh. Say, Mr. Wong-tell me straight. Are you a regular Patrol officer, or a psychiatrist?”
Wong almost grinned. “I’m a regular Patrol officer, Matt, but I’ve had the special training required for this job.”
“Uh, I see. What was it I was running away from?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Tell me about your leave, then. We’ve got all afternoon.”
“Yes, sir.” Matt meandered along, telling as much as he could remember. “So you see,” he concluded, “it was a lot of little things. I was home-but I was a stranger. We didn’t talk the same language.”
Wong chuckled. “I’m not laughing at you,” he apologized. “It isn’t funny. We all go through it-the discovery that there’s no way to go back. It’s part of growing up- but with spacemen it’s an especially acute and savage process.”
Matt nodded. “I’d already gotten that through my thick head. Whatever happens I won’t go back-not to stay. I might go into the merchant service, but I’ll stay in space.”
“You’re not likely to flunk out at this stage, Matt.”
“Maybe not, but I don’t know yet that the Patrol is the place for me. That’s what bothers me.”
“Well… can you tell me about it?”
Matt tried. He related the conversation with his father and his mother that had gotten them all upset. “It’s this: if it comes to a show down, I’m expected to bomb my own home town. I’m not sure it’s in me to do it. Maybe I don’t belong here.”
“Not likely to come up, Matt. Your father was right there.”
“That’s not the point. If a Patrol officer is loyal to his oath only when, it’s no skin off his own nose, then the whole system breaks down.”
Wong waited before replying. “If the prospect of bombing your own town, your own family, didn’t worry you, I’d have you out of this ship within the hour-you’d be an utterly dangerous man. The Patrol doesn’t expect a man to have godlike perfection. Since men are imperfect, the Patrol works on the principle of calculated risk. The chance of a threat to the System coming from your hometown in your lifetime is slight; the chance that you might be called on to carry out the attack is equally slight-you might be away on Mars. Taking the two chances together you have something close to zero.
“But if you did hit the jackpot, your commanding officer would probably lock you up in your room rather than take a chance on you.”
Matt still looked troubled. “Not satisfied?” Wong went on. “Matt, you are suffering from a disease of youth-you expect moral problems to have nice, neat, black-and-white answers. Suppose you relax and let me worry about whether or not you have what it takes. Oh, some day you’ll be caught in a squeeze and no one around to tell you the right answer. But I have to decide whether or not you can get the right answer when the problem comes along- and I don’t, even know what your problem will be how would you like to be in my boots?”
Matt grinned sheepishly. “I wouldn’t like it.”
P.R.S. AES TRIPLEX
OSCAH, MATT, AND TEX were gathered in their common room just before lunch when Pete bounced in. Literally so-he caromed off the door frame and zipped into the room, shouting, “Hey, fellows!”
Oscar grabbed his arms as he rebounded from the inner wall. “Cut your jet and ground-what’s the excitement?”
Peter turned in the air and faced them. “The new ‘Passed’ list is posted!”
“Who’s on it?”
“Don’t know-just heard about it. Come on!”
They streamed after him. Tex came abreast of Matt and said, “I don’t know why I should be getting in a sweat-I won’t be on it.”
“Pessimist!” They turned out of Hog Alley, went inboard three decks, and forward. There was a clot of cadets gathered around the bulletin board outside the watch office. They crowded in.
Pete spotted his own name at once. “Look!” The paragraph read:
“Look!” he repeated. “I’m going home-‘delay and await orders.’”
Oscar patted his shoulder. “Congratulations, Pete-that’s swell. Now if you will kindly get your carcass out of the way-”
Matt spoke up. “I’m on it!”
“What ship?” asked Tex.
“The Aes Triplex.”
Oscar turned at this. “What ship?”
“Aes Triplex.”
“Matt-that’s my ship. We’re shipmates, boy!”
Tex turned disconsolately away. “Just as I said-no ‘jai-man.’ I’ll be here five years, ten years, fifteen years old and grizzled. Promise to write on my birthday.”
“Gee, Tex, I’m sorry!” Matt tried to swallow his own elation.
“Tex, did you look on the other half of the list?” Pete wanted to know. “What other half? Huh?” Pete pointed. Tex dove back into the swarm; presently he reappeared.
“What do you know? They passed me!”
“Probably didn’t want to expose another class of youngsters to you. What ship?”
“P.R.S. Oak Ridge. Say, you and Oscar got the same ship?”
“Yep-the Aes Triplex.”
“Rank discrimination, that’s what it is. Well, come on, we’ll be late to lunch.”
They ran into Girard Burke in the passageway. Tex stopped him. “No use bothering to look, Stinky. Your name’s not on the list.” “What list? Oh, you mean the ‘Passed’ list. Don’t bother me, children-you’re talking to a free man.”
“So they finally bounced you?”
“Like fun! Resignation accepted, effective today. I’m going in business with my father.”
“Going to build sky junk, eh? I don’t envy you.”
“No, we’re starting an export line, with our own ships. The next time you see me, just remember to address me as ‘Captain.’ ” He moved away.
“I’ll ‘captain’ him,” Tex muttered. “I’ll bet he resigned by request.”
“Maybe not,” conceded Matt. “Girard is a smooth character. Well, we’ve seen the last of him.”
“And a good thing, too.”
Tex was missing after lunch. He showed up after nearly two hours. “I worked it. Shake hands with your new shipmate.”
“Huh? No fooling!”
“Fact. First I located Dvorak and convinced him that he would rather have a ship in the circum-Terra patrol than the Aes Triplex-so he could see his girl oftener. Then I went to see the Commandant and pointed out to him that you guys were used to having the benefit of my advice and would be lost without it. That’s all there was to it. The Commandant saw the wisdom of my words and approved the swap with Dvorak.”
“Not for that reason, I’ll bet,” Matt answered. “Probably he wanted me to continue to look out for you.”
Tex took on an odd look. “Do you know, Matt, you aren’t so far wrong.”
“Really? I was just kidding.”
“What he did say was that he thought Cadet Jensen would be a good influence on me. What do you think of that, Oscar?”
Oscar snorted. “If I’ve reached the place where I’m a good influence on anybody, it’s time I cultivated some new vices.”
“I’d be glad to help.”
“I don’t want you, I want your Uncle Bodie-there’s a man of the world.”
Three weeks later, at Moon Base, Oscar and Matt were settling into their stateroom in the Aes Triplex. Matt was not feeling his best; the previous evening at Tycho Colony had been late and noisy. They had taken the last possible shuttle to Moon Base.
The ship’s phone in their room sounded; Matt answered it to get the squeal out of his ears. “Yes? Cadet Dodson speaking-”
“Officer of the watch. Is Jensen there too?”
“Yes, sir.” ,
“Both of you report to the Captain.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Matt turned a troubled face to Oscar. “What’ll I do, Oz? The rest of my uniforms are over at the base tailor shop-and this one I’ve got on looks as if I had slept in it.”
“You did. Wear one of mine.”
“Thanks, but it would fit me like socks on a rooster. Do you suppose I have time to run over and pick up my clean ones?”
“Hardly!”
Matt rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I ought to shave, anyhow.”
“Look,” said Oscar, “if I’m any judge of skippers, you’ll do better to show up naked as an oyster and with a beard down to here, than to keep him waiting. Let’s get going.”
The door opened and Tex stuck his head in. “Say-did you guys get a call to report to the Old Man?”
“Yes-Tex, can you lend me a clean uniform?”
Tex could. Matt crossed the passageway to Tex’s tiny room and changed. He belted in tightly at the waist, distributed the wrinkles in back, and hoped for the best. The three headed for the cabin.
“I’m glad I don’t have to report by myself,” Tex announced. “I’m nervous.”
“Relax,” Oscar advised. “Captain McAndrews is supposed to be a very human sort of a guy.”
“Hadn’t, you heard? McAndrews is detached-busted his ankle. At the last minute the Department ordered Captain Yajicey to command the expedition.”
“Yancey!” Oscar let out a low whistle. “Oh, my sore feet!”
“What’s the matter, Oscar?” Matt demanded. “You know him?”
“My father knew him. Father had the fresh-foods contract for the port at New Auckland when Yancey-Lieu- . tenant Yancey, then-was portmaster.”
They stopped out- ‘ side the commanding officer’s cabin.
“That ought to give you an inside track.”
“Not likely! They didn’t get along.”
“I wonder if I did right,” Tex mused darkly, “when I wangled the swap from the Oak Ridge?”
“Too late to fret. Well, I guess we might-” Oscar stopped! speaking, for the door in front of them suddenly opened! and they found themselves facing the commanding officer. He was tall, wide-shouldered, and flat-hipped, and so handsome that he looked like a television star playing a; Patrol officer.
“Well?” he snapped. “Don’t stand chatting outside my; door. Come in!” ;
They filed in silently. Captain Yancey sat down, facing them, and looked them over, one after the other. “What’s the trouble, gentlemen?” he said presently. “Are you all struck dumb?”
Tex found his voice. “Cadet Jarman, sir, reporting to the Captain.” Yancey’s eyes flicked over to Matt.
Matt wet his lips. _”Cadet Dodson, sir.”
“Cadet Jensen, sir, reporting as ordered.” The officer looked at Oscar sharply, then spoke to him in Venerian.
“Do these ears detect some echo of the speech of the Fair Planet?
“It is true, thou old and wise one.”
“Never could stand that silly talk,” Yancey commented, relapsing into Basic. “I won’t ask you where you are from, but-is your father in the provisions racket?”
“My father is a food wholesaler, sir.”
“I thought so.” The Captain continued to look at him for a moment, then turned to Matt. “Now, Mister, what is the idea of the masquerade? You look like a refugee from an emigrant ship.”
Matt tried to explain; Yancey cut him short. “I’m not interested in excuses. I keep a taut ship. Remember that.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The Captain settled back and struck a cigarette. “Now, gentlemen, you are no doubt wondering as to why I sent for you. I must admit to a slight curiosity as to the sort of product the old school is turning out. In my day, it was a real course of sprouts and no nonsense about it. But now I understand that the psychologists have taken over and the old rules are all changed.”
He leaned forward and fixed Matt with his eyes. “They aren’t changed here, gentlemen. In my ship, the old rules still obtain.”
No one answered. Yancey waited, then went on, “The regulations state that you shall pay a social call on your commanding officer within twenty-four hours after reporting to a new ship or station. Please consider that the social call has commenced. Sit down, gentlemen. Mr. Dodson, you will find coffee over there on your left. Will you please favour me by pouring it?”
Forty minutes later they left, feeling quite confused. Yanny had demonstrated that he could put them most charmingly at their ease and had displayed a dry, warm wit and a gift for telling anecdotes. Matt decided that he liked him.
But just as they left Yancey glanced at his clock and laid, “I’ll see you later, Mr. Dodson-in fifteen minutes.”
Once they were outside Tex demanded, “What’s he want to see you for, Matt?”
“Can’t you guess?” answered Oscar. “Look, Matt, I’ll tear over to the tailor shop for you-you can’t do that and shave, too, not in fifteen minutes.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Oz!”
P.R.S. Aes Triplex blasted from Moon Base thirteen hours later in a trajectory intended to produce an elliptical orbit with its far end in the asteroid belt. Her orders were to search for the missing P.R.S. Pathfinder. The Pathfinder had been engaged in radar-charting a sector of the asteroid belt for the Uranographic Office of the Patrol. Her mission had taken her beyond the range of ship-type radio; nevertheless she should have reported in by radio nearly six months earlier, at which time she should have been approaching conjunction with Mars. But Deimos Station, around Mars, had been unable to raise the Pathfinder; she was presumed lost.
The possible locations of the Pathfinder were a moving zone in space, defined by using geometry, ballistics, the characteristics of the ship, her mission, and her last reported location, course, and speed. This zone was divided into four sectors and the Aes Triplex was to search one sector while three other Patrol vessels covered the other sectors. The joint task was designated “Operation Samaritan” but each ship was independent as they necessarily would be too far apart to be commanded as a task force.
While searching, the rescue vessels would continue the Pathfinder’s mission of charting the space drift that clutters the asteroid belt.
In addition to the commanding officer and the three cadets, the company of the Aes Triplex included Commander Hartley Miller, executive officer and astrogator, Lieutenant Novak, Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Thurlow, Bomb Officer, Lieutenant Brunn, Communications Officer, Sublieutenants Peters, Gomez, and Cleary, assistant engineer and communications watch officers respectively, and Or. Pickering, ship’s surgeon, along to care for survivors-if my were found.
The ship contained no marines, unless one chooses to count Dr. Pickering, who was technically a staff corps member of the marines rather than a member of the Patrol. this very task in the ship would be performed by the officers or cadets. Time was when the lowliest subaltern in an infantry regiment had his personal servant, but servants are too expensive a luxury in terms of fuel and space and food in lift through millions of miles of space. Besides that, Mime few manual tasks are a welcome relief from boredom in the endless monotony of space; even the undesirable duty of cleaning the refresher was taken in turn by the entire ship’s company, in accordance with custom, except for the Captain, the Executive Officer, and the Surgeon.
Captain Yancey assigned Lieutenant Thurlow as training officer who in turn set up the jobs of assistant astrogator, junior communication watch officer, junior assistant engineer, and assistant bomb officer and arranged a schedule of rotation among these-quite unnecessary-positions. It was also Mr. Thurlow’s job to see to it that Matt, Oscar, and Tex made intensive use of the one study projector available to the cadets.
The Executive Officer assigned other tasks not directly concerned with formal training. Matt was appointed the ship’s “farmer.” As the hydroponics tanks supply both fresh air and green vegetables to a ship he was responsible for the ship’s air-conditioning and shared with Lieutenant Brunn the tasks of the ship’s mess.
Theoretically every ration taken aboard a Patrol vessel is pre-cooked and ready for eating as soon as it is taken out of freeze and subjected to the number of seconds, plainly marked on the package, of high-frequency heating required. Actually many Patrol officers fancy themselves chefs. Mr. Brunn was-one and his results justified his conceit – the Aes Triplex set a good table.
Matt found that Mr. Brunn expected more of the “farm” than that the green plants should scavenge carbon dioxide horn the air and replace it with oxygen; the mess officer wanted tiny green scallions, fragrant fresh mint, cherry tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, new potatoes. Matt began to wonder whether it wouldn’t have been simpler to have stayed in Iowa and grown tall corn.
When he started in as air-conditioning officer Matt was not even sure how to take a carbon-dioxide count, but shortly he was testing his growing solutions and adding capsules of salts with the confidence and speed of a veteran, thanks to Brann and to spool #62A8134 from the ship’s files” Simplified Hydroponics for Spaceships, with Growth Charts and Additives Formulae.” He began to enjoy tending his “farm.”
Until human beings give up the habit of eating, spaceships on long cruises must carry about seven hundred pounds of food per man per year. The green plants grown in a ship’s air-conditioner enable the stores officer to get around this limitation to some extent, as the growing plants will cycle the same raw materials-air, carbon dioxide, and water-over and over again with only the addition of quite small quantities of such salts as potassium nitrate, iron sulphate, and calcium phosphate.
The balanced economy of a spaceship is much like that of a planet; energy is used to make the cycles work but the same raw materials are used over and over again. Since beefsteak and many other foods can’t be grown conveniently aboard ship some foods have to be carried and the ship tends to’ collect garbage, waste paper, and other trash. Theoretically this could be processed back into the cycles of balanced biological economy, but in practice this is too complicated.
However, all mass in an atomic powered ship can be used, if desired, as reaction mass, mass for the rocket jet. The radioactive materials in the power pile of an atom-powered ship are not themselves used up to any great extent; instead they heat other materials to extreme temperatures and expel them out the rocket tube at very high speeds, as a sort of “steam” jet.
Even though turnip greens and such can be used in the jet, the primary purpose of the “farm” is to take the carbon dioxide out of the air. For this purpose each man in the ship must be balanced by about ten square feet of green plant leaf. Lieutenant Brunn, with his steady demands for variety in fresh foods, usually caused Matt to have too much growing at one time; the air in the ship would get too fresh and the plants would start to fail for lack of carbon dioxide to feed on. Matt had to watch his CO2 count and sometimes build it up by burning waste paper or plant cuttings.
Brunn kept a file of seeds in his room; Matt went there one “day” (ship’s time) to draw out Persian melon seeds and set a crop. Bran told him to help himself. Matt rummaged away, then said, “For the love of Pete! Look at this, Mr. Brunn.”
“Huh?” The officer looked at the package Matt held. The outside was marked,
Brunn shook his head. “Let that be a lesson, Dodson- never trust a stock clerk-or you’ll wind up half way to Pluto with a gross of brass spittoons when you ordered blank spacecharts.”
“What’ll I substitute? Cantaloupe?”
“Let’s grow some watermelon-the Old Man likes watermelon.”
Matt left with watermelon he took along the truant pansy seeds.
Eight weeks later he devised help of sorts by covering a bowl from the galley with the sponge-cellulose sheet, which was used to restrain the solutions used in his farming, thereby to keep said solutions from floating around the “farm” compartment during free fall. He filled his vase with water, arranged his latest crop therein, and clipped the whole to the mess table as a centerpiece.
Captain Yancey smiled broadly when he appeared for dinner and saw the gay display of pansies. “Well, gentlemen,” he applauded, “this is most delightful. All the comforts of home!” He looked along the table at Matt. “I suppose we have you to thank for this, Mr. Dodson?”
“Yes, sir.” Matt’s ears turned pink.
“A lovely idea. Gentlemen, I move that we divest Mr. Dodson of the plebeian title of ‘farmer’ and designate him Horticulturalist extraordinary.’ Do I hear a second?” There were nine “ayes” and a loud “no” from Commander Miller. A second ballot, proposed by the Chief Engineer, required the Executive Officer to finish his meal in the galley.
Lieutenant Brunn explained the mishap that resulted in the flower garden. Captain Yancey frowned. “You’ve checked the rest of your supply of seeds, of course, Mr. Brunn?”
“Uh, no, sir.”
“Then do so.” Lieutenant Brunn immediately started to leave the table, “after dinner,” added the Captain. Brunn resumed his place.
“That puts me in mind of something that happened to me when I was ‘farmer’ in the old Percival Lowell-the one before the present one,” Yancey went on. “We had touched at Venus South Pole and had managed somehow to get a virus infection, a sort of rust, into the ‘farm’-don’t look so superior, Mr. Jensen; someday you’ll come a cropper with a planet that is new to you!”
“Me, sir? I wasn’t looking superior.”
“No? Smiling at the pansies, no doubt?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmmph! As I was saying, we got this rust infection and about ten days out I didn’t have any more farm than an Eskimo. I cleaned the place out, sterilized, and reseeded. Same story. The infection was all through the ship and I couldn’t chase it down. We finished that trip on preserved foods and short rations and I wasn’t allowed to eat at the table the rest of the trip.” He smiled to himself, then’ shouted at the galley door, “How you getting along in there, Red?”
The Executive Officer appeared in the doorway, a spoon in one hand, covered dish in the other. “Fine,” he answered in a muffled voice, “I just ate your dessert, Captain.”
Lieutenant Brunn shouted, “Hey! Commander! Stop! Don’t! Those berries are for breakfast.”
“Too late.” Commander Miller wiped his mouth.
“Captain?”
“Yes, Dodson?”
“What did you do about air-conditioning?”
“Well. Mister, what would you have done?”
Matt studied it. “Well, sir, I would have jury-rigged something to take the Cee-Oh-Two out of the air.”
“Precisely. I exhausted the air from an empty compartment, suited up, and drilled a couple of holes to the outside. Then I did a piping job to carry foul air out of the dark side of the ship in a fractional still arrangement-freeze” out the water first, then freeze out the carbon dioxide. Pesky thing was always freezing up solid and forcing me to tinker with it. But it worked well enough to get us home.” Yancey backed away from the table. “Hartley, if you’re through making a pig of yourself, let’s run over that meteor-layout. I’ve got an idea.”
The ship was approaching the orbit of Mars and soon would be in the comparatively hazardous zone of the asteroids and their company of space drift. Matt was rotated, in turn, to assistant astrogator, but continued as ship’s farmer. Tex looked him up one day in the hydroponics compartment. “Hey! Hayseed-”
“Hey yourself, Tex.”
“Got the south forty plowed yet? Looks like rain.” Tex pretended to study the blinking lights used to stimulate plant growth, then looked away.’ never mind-I’m here on business. The Old Man wants to see you.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, why didn’t you say so, instead of banging your choppers?” Matt stopped what he was doing and hurriedly started climbing into his uniform. Because of the heat and the humidity in the “farm” Matt habitually worked there bare naked, both for comfort and to save his clothes.
“Well, I did tell you, didn’t I ?”
The Captain was in his cabin. “Cadet Dodson, sir.”
“So I see.” Yancey held up a sheet of paper. “Dodson, I’ve just written a letter to the Department, to be transmitted as soon as we are in radio contact, recommending that fresh flowers be grown in all ships, as a means of stimulating morale. You are credited therein as the originator of the idea.”
“Er . .. thank you, sir.”
“Not at all. Anything that relieves the tedium, the boredom, the barrenness of life in deep space is in the interest of the Patrol. We have enough people going space-happy as it is. Flowers are -considered good for psychotics on Earth; perhaps they will help to keep spacemen from going wacky. Enough of that-I’ve a question to ask you.” “Yes, sir?”
“I want to know why in the devil you were spending your time growing pansies when you are behind in your study schedule?”
Matt did not have anything to say.
“I’ve been looking over the reports Mr. Thurlow sends me and I find that both Mr. Jensen and Mr. Jarman are covering more ground than you are. In the past few weeks they have pulled ‘way ahead of you. It’s a fine thing to have hobbies but your duty is to study.” “Yes, sir.”
“I’ve marked your performance unsatisfactory for this quarter; you have the next quarter in which to make up the deficiency. By the way, have you made up your mind about your next move?”
Matt did a double take, then realized that the Captain had changed the subject to chess; he and Matt were fighting it out for first place in the ship’s tournament. “Uh, yes, sir-I’ve decided to take your pawn.”
“I thought so.” Yancey reached behind him; Matt heard the pieces click into their sockets as the Captain made the move on his own board. “Wait till you see what’s going to happen to your queen!”
The speeds of the asteroids, flying boulders, rocks, sand, and space drift that infest the area between Mars and Jupiter vary from about fifteen miles per second near Mars to about eight miles per second near Jupiter. The orbits of this flying junkyard are erratically inclined to the plane of the ecliptic an average of about nine degrees and some of the orbits are quite eccentric as well.
All this means that a ship on a circular orbit, headed “east,” or with the traffic, may expect the possibility of side-swiping collisions at relative speeds averaging two miles per second, with crashes remotely possible at double that speed.
Two miles per second is only about twice the muzzle velocity of a good sporting rifle. With respect to small stuff, sand and gravel, the Aes Triplex was built to take it. Before the ship reached the danger zone, an all-hands chore in space suits took place; armor-plate segments, as thick as the skin of the ship, were bolted over the ship’s quartz ports, leaving only the eyes of the astrogational instruments and the radar antennae exposed.
To guard against larger stuff Captain Yancey set up a meteor-watch much tighter than is usual in most parts of space. Eight radars scanned all space through a global 360 degrees. The only condition necessary for collision is that the other object hold a steady bearing-no fancy calculation is involved. The only action necessary then to avoid collision is to change your own speed, any direction, any amount. This is perhaps the only case where theory of piloting is simple.
Commander Miller put the cadets and the sublieutenants on a continuous heel-and-toe watch, scanning the meteor-guard ‘scopes. Even if the human being failed to note a steady bearing the radars would “see” it, for they were so rigged that, if a “blip” burned in at one spot on die screen, thereby showing a steady bearing, an alarm would sound- and the watch officer would cut in the jet, fast!
However, even the asteroid belt is very empty space indeed; the chances were strongly against collision with anything larger than a grain of sand. The only difference in the Aes Triplex, aside from the increased work for the junior officers, was a ship’s order directing all hands to strap down when sleeping, instead of floating loosely and comfortably about, so that the sleeper would not break his neck in case of sudden acceleration.
P.R.S. Aes Triplex was equipped with two jeeps, nestled in hangar pockets-quite ordinary short-range, chemically-powered rockets except that they were equipped with search radar as powerful as the ship’s. When they reached their search area a pilot and co-pilot were assigned to each jeep and a second crew also, as each rocket was to remain away from the ship a week at a time, then swap crews and go out again.
Lieutenants Brunn, Thurlow, and Novak, and Sublieutenant Peters were designated pilots. A cadet was assigned to each senior lieutenant and Sublieutenant Gomez was teamed with Sublieutenant Peters. Matt drew Lieutenant Thurlow.
Dr. Pickering took over the mess. That left Sublieutenant Cleary as “George,” the man who does everything-an impossibility, since meteor-guard and search watches would have to be kept up. Consequently the two jeep crews riot actually in space had to help out even during their week of rest.
Each Monday the ship placed the jeep rockets on station so that the three vessels would sweep the largest possible volume of space, with their search fields barely overlapping. The placement was made by the mother ship, so that the jeep would be left with full tanks in the unhappy event that she was not picked up-and thereby have enough fuel to shape an orbit toward the inner planets, if need be.
P.R.S. PATHFINDER
MATT TOOK ALONG a supply of study spools on his first week of search intending to play them on the jeep’s tiny, earphones-type viewer. He did not get much chance; four hours out of eight he had to keep his eyes glued to the search scopes. During the four hours off watch he had to sleep, eat, attend to chores, and study, if possible.
Besides that, Lieutenant Thurlow liked to talk.
The bomb officer was expecting Earth-side duty in postgraduate study at the end of the cruise. “And then I’ll have to make up my mind, Matt. Do I stay in and make physics a part-time specialty, or resign and go in for research?”
“It depends on what you want to do.”
“Trite but true. I think I want to be a scientist, full time-but after a few years the Patrol becomes a father and a mother to you. I don’t know. That pile of rock is creeping up on us-I can see it through the port now.”
“It is, eh?” Matt moved forward until he, too, could see the undersized boulder that Thurlow had been watching by radar. It was of irregular shape, a pattern of sunlight and sharp, dark shadow.
“Mister Thurlow,” said Matt, “look-about the middle. Doesn’t that look like striation to you?”
“Could be. Some specimens have been picked up that were definitely sedimentary rock. That was the first proof that the asteroids used to be a planet, you know.”
“I thought that Goodman’s integrations were the first proof?”
“Nope, you’re switched around. Goodman wasn’t ‘able to run his checks until the big ballistic computer at Terra Station was built.”
“I knew that-I just had it backwards, I guess.” The theory that the asteroids had once been a planet, between Mars and Jupiter, was denied for many years because their orbits showed no interrelation, i.e., if a planet had blown to bits the orbits should intersect at the point of the explosion. Professor Goodman, using the giant, strain-free computer, had shown that the lack of relationship was caused by the perturbations through the ages of the other planets acting on the asteroids.
He had assigned a date to the disaster, nearly half a billion years ago, and had calculated as well that most of the ruined planet had escaped from the System entirely. The debris around them represented about one per cent of the lost planet.
Lieutenant Thurlow measured the angular width of the fragment, noted its distance by radar, and recorded the result as gross size. The rock, large as it was, was too small to merit investigation of its orbit; it was simply included in the space-drift survey. Smaller objects were merely listed while collisions with minute particles were counted by an electronic circuit hooked to the hull of the jeep.
“The thing that bothers me,” went on Thurlow, “about getting out is this- Matt, have you noticed the difference between people in the Patrol and people not in the Patrol?”
“Haven’t I, though!”
“What is the difference?”
“The difference? Uh, why, we’re spacemen and they’re not. I guess it’s a matter of how big your world is.”
“Partly. But don’t get carried away by mere size. A hundred million miles of empty space isn’t significant-if it’s empty. No, Matt, the split goes deeper. We’ve given the human race a hundred years of peace, and now there is no one left who remembers war. They’ve come to accept peace and comfort as the normal way of life. But it isn’t. The human animal has millions of years of danger and starving and death behind him; the past century is just a flicker of an eyelash in his history. But only the Patrol seems aware of it.”
“Would you abolish the Patrol?”
“Oh, my, no, Matt! But I wish there were some way to make people realize by how thin a barrier the jungle has been shut out. And another thing, too-” Thurlow grinned sheepishly. “-I wish they had some understanding of what we are. The taxpayer’s hired man, that’s what they think of us.”
Matt nodded. “They think we’re some sort of traffic cop. There is a man back home who sells used copters-asked me why Patrolmen should be pensioned when they retire. He said that he hadn’t been able to sit back and take it easy at thirty-five and he didn’t see why he should have to support somebody else who did.” Matt looked puzzled. “At the same time he sort of glamorized the Patrol-wants his son to be a cadet. I don’t understand it.”
“That’s it. To them we are a kind of expensive, useless prize pet-their property. They don’t understand that were not for hire. The sort of guardian you can hire is worth about as much as the sort of wife you can buy.”
The following week Matt found time to look up what the ship’s library afforded on the subject of the exploded planet. There was not much-dry statistics on sizes of asteroids, fragments, and particles, distributional and orbital data, Goodman’s calculations summarized. Nothing at all about what he wanted to know-how it happened-nothing but some fine-spun theories.
He took it up with Thurlow the next time they were out on Patrol. The lieutenant shrugged. “What do you expect, Matt?”
“I don’t know, but more than I found.”
“Our time scale is all wrong for us to learn much. Suppose you pick out one of the spools you’ve been studying- here, this one.” The officer held out one-marked “Social structures of the Martian aborigines.” “Now suppose you examine a couple of frames in the middle. Can you reconstruct the thousands and thousands of frames that come before it, just by logic?”
“Naturally not.”
“That’s the situation. If the race manages to keep from blowing its top for a few million years, maybe we’ll begin to find out some things. So far, we don’t even know what questions to ask,”
Matt was dissatisfied, but had no answer ready. Thurlow knit his brows. “Maybe we aren’t built to ask the right questions. You know the Martian ‘double-world’ idea-”
“Certainly, but I don’t understand it.”
“Who does? Let’s forget the usual assumption that a Martian is talking in religious symbols when he says that we live just on ‘one side’ while he lives on both sides.’ Suppose that what he means is as real as butter and eggs, that lie really does live in two worlds at the same time and that we are in the one he regards as unimportant. If you! accept that, then it accounts for the Martian being un-willing to waste time talking with us, or trying to explain things to us. He isn’t being stuffy, he’s being reasonable. Would you waste time trying to explain rainbows to an earthworm?”
“The cases aren’t parallel.”
“Maybe they are to a Martian. An earthworm can’t even see, much less have a color sense. If you accept the ‘double world’ as real, then to a Martian we just don’t have the proper senses to be able to ask the right questions. Why bother with us?”
The radio squealed for attention. Thurlow glanced toward it and said, “Someone calling, Matt. See who it is and tell ’em we don’t want any.”
“Okay.” Matt flipped the switch and answered, “Jeep One, Triplex-go ahead.”
“Triplex calling,” came Sublieutenant deary’s familiar voice. “Stand by to be picked up.”
“Huh? Cut the comedy-we’re only three days out.”
“Stand by to be picked up-official. Jeep Two has found the Pathfinder.”
“The deuce you say! Did you hear that, Mr. Thurlow? Did you hear that?”
It was true; Peters and Gomez, in the other jeep, had discovered the missing ship, almost by accident. The Pathfinder was found anchored to a smallish asteroid about a mile in greatest dimension. Since it was a listed body, 1987-CD, the crew of the jeep had paid little attention to it, until its rotation brought the Pathfinder into view.
With fine consideration Captain Yancey had elected to pick up Thurlow and Dodson before rendezvousing with the second jeep. Once they were inside, the Aes Triplex moved toward 1987-CD and matched orbits. Sublieutenant Peters had elected to expend some of his get-away fuel and had matched orbits also.
Matt fidgeted while the second jeep was brought into the ship. He could see nothing, since the ports were covered, and for the moment had no assigned duties. With maddening deliberation Captain Yancey secured his ship to the Pathfinder, sending a line over by Sublieutenant Gomez. The rest of the ship’s company was crowded into the control room. Tex and Matt took the opportunity to question Sublieutenant Peters.
“Couldn’t tell much,” he informed them. “Off hand, she looks undamaged, but the door of the lock was standing open.”
“Any chance anyone is alive inside?” asked Tex.
“Possible. Hardly likely.”
Captain Yancey looked around. “Pipe down,” he ordered. “This is a control room, not a sewing circle.” When he had finished he ordered Peters and Gomez to come with him; the three suited up and left the ship.
They were gone about an hour. When they returned the Captain called them all into the mess room. “I am sorry to tell you, gentlemen, that none of our comrades is alive.”
He went on heavily, “There is not much doubt as to what happened. The outer armored door of the lock was open and undamaged. The inner door had been punched through by a missile about the’ size of my fist, producing explosive decompression in the connecting compartments. Apparently they had had the enormous bad luck to have a meteor enter the ship through the door just as it was opened.”
“Wait a minute, Skipper,” objected Miller. “Was every airtight door in the ship wide open? One rock shouldn’t have done the trick.”
“We couldn’t get into the after part of the ship; it still holds pressure. But we could reconstruct what happened, because we could count the bodies- seven of them, the entire ship’s company. They were all near the lock and not in spacesuits, except for one man in the lock-his suit was pierced by a fragment apparently. The others seem to have been gathered at the lock, waiting for him to come in.” Yancey looked grave. “Red, I think we are going to have to put in a recommended technical order over this- something to require personnel to spread out while suit operations are going on, so that an accident to the lock won’t affect the entire ship’s company.”
Miller frowned. “I suppose so, Captain. Might be awkward to comply with, sometimes, in a small ship.”
“It’s awkward to lose your breath, too. Now about the investigation-you’ll be the president, Red, and Novak and Brunn will be your other two members. The rest of us will remain in the ship until the board has completed its work. When they have finished and have removed from the Pathfinder anything needed as evidence I will allow sufficient time for each of you to satisfy his curiosity.”
“How about the surgeon, Captain? I want him for an expert witness.”
“Okay, Red. Dr. Pickering, you go with the board.”
The cadets crowded into the stateroom shared by Matt and Oscar. “Can you beat it?” said Tex. “Of all the cheap tricks! We have to sit in here, a week or ten days, maybe, while a board measures how big a hole there is in the door.”
“Forget it, Tex,” advised Oscar. “I figure the Old Man didn’t want you carving your initials in things, or maybe snagging the busted door for a souvenir, before they found out what the score was.”
“Oh, nuts!”
“Quit crabbing. He promised you that you could snoop around and take pictures and satisfy your ghoulish appeties as soon as the board is finished. In the meantime, enjoy . the luxury of eight hours of sleep for a change. No watches, none of any sort.”
, “Say, that’s right!” agreed Matt. “I hadn’t thought about it, but there’s no point in watching for rocks when you’re tied down and can’t duck.”
“As the crew of the Pathfinder know only too well.”
Last Muster was held for the Pathfinder on the following day. The bodies themselves had been sealed into a compartment of the dead ship; muster took place in the wardroom of the Aes Triplex. It was rather lengthy, as it was necessary to read the services of three different faiths before the Captain concluded with the Patrol’s own all-inclusive farewell: “Now we shape our orbit home-”
It so happened that there were just enough persons present to answer the roll. The Aes Triplex’s company was a captain and eleven others. For the Pathfinder there were exactly eleven-six patrol officers, one civilian planetologist, and the Four who are present at every muster. Captain Yancey called off the Pathfinder’s roll and the others answered, one after the other, from Commander Miller down to Tex-while The Long Watch, muted down to a requiem, played softly over the ship’s speaker system.
Matt found his throat almost too dry to answer. Tex’s chubby cheeks ran with tears and he made no effort to wipe them.
Lieutenant Brunn was a source of information for the first couple of days of the investigation. He described the Pathfinder as in good shape, except for the damaged door. On the third day he suddenly shut up. “The Captain doesn’t want the board’s findings discussed until he has had time to study them.”
Matt passed the word on to the others. “What’s cooking?” demanded Tex. “What can there possibly be to be secret about?”
“How should I know?”
“I’ve got a theory,” said Oscar.
“Huh? What? Spill it.”
“The Captain wants to prove a man can’t die of curiosity. He figures .that you are a perfect test case.”
“Oh, go soak your head.”
Captain Yancey called them all together again the following day. “Gentlemen, I appreciate your patience. I have not wanted to discuss what was found in the Pathfinder until I had time to decide what should be done about it. It comes to this: the planetologist with the Pathfinder, Professor Thorwald, came to the unmistakable conclusion that the disrupted planet was inhabited.”
The room started to buzz. “Quiet, please! There are samples of fossil- bearing rock in the Pathfinder, but there are other exhibits as well, which Professor Thorwald concluded -Dr. Pickering and Commander Miller and I concur-concluded to be artefacts, items worked by intelligent hands.
“That fact alone would be enough ,to send a dozen ships scurrying into the asteroid belt,” he went on. “It is probably the most important discovery in System-study since they opened the diggings in Luna. But Professor Thorwald formed another conclusion even more startling. With the aid of the ship’s bomb officer, using the rate-of-radioactive-decay method, he formed a tentative hypothesis that the planet-he calls it Planet Lucifer-was disrupted by artificial nuclear explosion. In other words, they did’ it themselves.”
The silence was broken only by the soft sighing of the room’s ventilators. Then Thurlow exploded, “But Captain, that’s impossible!”
Captain Yancey looked at him. “Do you know all the answers, young man? I’m sure I don’t.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“In this case I wouldn’t even venture to have an opinion. I’m not competent. However, gentlemen, if it be true, as Professor Thorwald certainly thought it was, then I hardly need point out to you that we have more reason than ever to be proud of our Patrol-and our responsibility is even heavier than we had thought.
“Now to business-I am very reluctant to leave the Pathfinder where she is. Aside from sentimental reasons she is a ship of the Patrol and she is worth a good many millions. I think we can repair her and take her back.”
LONG WAY HOME .!
MATT TOOK PART in the rebuilding of the inner door of the Pathfinder’s airlock and the checks for airtightness, all under the careful eye of the chief engineer. There was little other damage inside the ship. The rock, or meteor, that had punched the gaping hole in the inner door had expended most of its force in so doing; an inner bulkhead had to be patched and a few dents smoothed. The outer, armored door was quite untouched; it was clear that the invader, by bad chance, had come in while the outer door was standing open.
The plants in the air-conditioner had died for lack of attention and carbon dioxide. Matt took over the job while the others helped in the almost endless chores of checking every circuit, every instrument, every gadget necessary to the ship’s functioning. It was a job which should have been done at a repair base and could not have been accomplished if there had actually been much wrong.
Oscar and Matt squeezed an hour out of sleep to explore 1987-CD, a job that mixed mountain climbing with suit-jet work. The asteroid had a gravitational field, of course, but even a mass the size of a small .mountain is negligible compared with that of a-planet. They simply could not feel it; muscles used to opposing the tenacious pull of robust Terra made nothing of the frail pull of 1987-CD. ‘ At last the Pathfinder was cast loose and her drive tested by a scratch crew consisting of Captain Yancey at the controls and Lieutenant Novak in the power room. The Aes Triplex lay off a few miles, waited until she blasted her jet for a few seconds, then joined her. The two ships tied together and Captain Yancey and the chief engineer came back into the Aes Triplex.
“She’s all yours, Hartley,” he announced. “Test her yourself, then take over when you are ready.”
“If she suits you she suits me. With your permission, sir, I’ll transfer my crew now.”
“So? Very well, Captain-take command and carry out your orders. Log it, Mister,” Captain Yancey added, over his shoulder to the officer of the watch.
Thirty minutes later the split crew passed out through the airlock of the Aes Triplex and into the airlock of the other. P.R.S. Pathfinder was back in ommission.
Remaining with the Aes Triplex was Captain Yancey, Lieutenant Thurlow, now executive officer and astrogator, Sublieutenant Peters, now chief engineer, Cadet Jensen, chief communications officer, and Cadets Jarman and Dodson, watch officers, all departments-and Dr. Picketing, ship’s surgeon.
Commander Miller, captain of the Pathfinder, had one less officer than Captain Yancey, but all of his officers were experienced; Captain Yancey had elected to burden himself with the cadets. He would have assumed command of the derelict himself and taken his chances with her, except for one point- the law did not permit it. He could place a master aboard her and put her back in commission, but there was no one present with authority to relieve him of his own ship-he was prisoner of his own unique status, commanding officer operating alone.
In her original flight plan it had been intended that the Pathfinder should make port at Deimos, Mars, when Mars overtook her and was in a favorable position. The” delay caused by the disaster made the planned orbit quite out of the question; Mars would not be at the rendezvous. Furthermore Captain Yancey wanted to get the astounding evidence contained in the Pathfinder to Terra Base as quickly as possible; there was little point in sending it to the outpost on Mars’ outer satellite.
Accordingly reaction mass was pumped from the Aes Triplex to the smaller ship until her tanks were full and a fast, fairly direct, though uneconomical, orbit to Earth was plotted for her.
The Aes Triplex, using an economical “Hoh-mann”-type, much longer orbit, would mosey in past the orbit of Mars, past the orbit of Earth (Earth would not . be anywhere close at the time), in still further, swinging! around the Sun and out again, catching up with Earth nearly a year later than the Pathfinder.
She had mass to accomplish this, even after replenishing the Pathfinder, but she was limited to time-wasting, but fuel-saving, orbits more usual to merchant vessels than to ships of the Patrol.
Matt, in one of his multiple roles as assistant astrogator, noticed a peculiarity of the orbit and called it to Oscar’s attention. “Say, Oz, come and look at this-when we get to perihelion point, the other side of the Sun, we almost clip a cloud off your home town. See?”
Oscar looked over the charted positions. “Well, darn if we don’t! What’s the nearest approach?”
“Less than a hundred thousand miles. Well tack on her a bit-the Old Man is a eller for efficient orbits, I find. Want to jump ship?”
“We’d be going a trifle fast for that,” Oscar commented dryly.
“Oh, where’s the old pioneer spirit? You could swipe one of the jeeps and be gone before you’re missed.”
“Gosh, I’d like to. It would be nice to have some leave.” Oscar shook his head sadly and stared at the chart.
“I know what’s eating on you-since you’ve been made the head of a department you’ve acquired a sense of responsibility. How does it feel to be one of the mighty?”
Tex had come into the chartroom while they were talking. He chipped in with, “Yeah, come on, Oz-tell your public.”
Oscar’s fair skin turned pink. “Quit riding me, you guys. It’s not my fault.”
“Okay, you can get up now. Seriously,” Matt went on, “this is quite a break for all of us-acting ship’s officers on what was supposed to be a training tour. You know what I think?”
“Do you think?” inquired Tex.
“Shut up. If we keep our noses clean and get any chance to show some stuff, it might mean brevet commissions for all of us.”
“Captain Yancey give me a brevet?” said Tex. “A fat chance!”
“Well, Oscar almost certainly. After all, he is chief com officer.”
“I tell you that doesn’t mean a thing,” protested Oscar. “Sure, I’ve got the tag-with nobody to communicate with, j We’re out of range, except for the Pathfinder, and she’s ; pulling away fast.”
“We won’t always be out of range.”
“It won’t make any difference. Can you see the Old Man letting me-or any of us-do anything without staring down the backs of our necks? Anyhow, I don’t want a brevet. Suppose we got back and it wasn’t confirmed? Embarrassing!”
“I’d jump at the chance,” announced Tex. “It may be the only way I’ll ever get one.”
“Drop the orphan-child act,- Tex. Suppose your Uncle Bodie heard you talking like that.”
In fact, the atmosphere in the ship was very different,] even though the Captain, or Lieutenant Thurlow, or both, supervised them very carefully. Captain Yancey took toil calling them by their first names at mess and dropped the use of “cadet” entirely. He sometimes referred to the “ship’s officers,” using the term so that it plainly included the three cadets. But there was no suggestion of brevet rank made.
Out of the asteroid belt, out of radio range, and in interminable free fall, the ship’s duties were light. The cadets had plenty of time to study, enough time for card games and bull sessions. Matt caught up with his assignments and reached the point where he was digging into the ship’s library for advanced work, for the courses outlined for them when they left the Randolph had been intended for a short cruise.
The Captain set up a seminar series, partly to pass his own time and partly as a supplement to their education. It was supposed to illustrate various problems faced by a Patrol officer as a spaceman, or in his more serious role as a diplomatic representative. Yancey lectured well; the cadets found, too, that he could be drawn into reminiscence. It was both enjoyable and instructive and helped! to pass the weary weeks.
At long, long last they were within radio range of Venus -and there was mail for all of them, messages that had been chasing them half around the Solar System. An official despatch from the Department congratulated the Commanding Officer on the recovery of the Pathfinder and commended the ship’s company-this was entered, in due course, in the record of each. A private message from Hartley Miller told Captain Yancey that the trip home had been okay and that the longhairs were tearing same over the contents of the ship. Yancey read this aloud to them.
In addition to letters from home, Matt received a wedding announcement from Marianne. He wondered if she had married the young man he had met at the picnic, but he could not be sure of the name-the whole thing seemed very remote. There was a letter, too, to all three cadets date-marked “Leda, Ganymede” from Pete, of the having-a-won-derful-time-wish-you-were-here sort. “Lucky stiff!” said Tex.
” Touring the world’-phooey!”
Other messages poured in-ships’ movements, technical orders, personnel changes, the accumulated minutiae of a large military organization-and a detailed resume of the news of four planets from the time they had lost contact to the present.
Oscar found that Captain Yancey did not breathe on his neck in his duties as communications chief-but by then it did not surprise him. Oscar simply was the com chief and had almost forgotten that he had ever been anything else.
He felt, however, that he was really confirmed in his office the day a message came in top cipher, the first not in “clear.” He was forced to ask the Captain for the top-cipher machine, kept in the Captain’s safe. It was turned over to him without comment.
Oscar was bug-eyed when he took the translated message to Yancey. It read:
TRIPLEX-CAN YOU INVESTIGATE TROUBLE EQUATORIAL REGION VENUS-OPERATIONS.
Yancey glanced at it. “Tell the Executive Officer I want to see him, please. And don’t discuss this.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Thurlow came in somewhat mystified. “What’s up, Captain?” Yancey handed him the flimsy. The lieutenant read it and whistled.
“Can you see any way to comply?”
“You know how much reaction potential we have, Captain. We could manage a circular orbit. We can’t land.”
“That’s the way I see it. I suppose well have to refuse-dammit, I’d rather take a whipping than send in a negate. Why did they pick on us? There must be half a dozen other ships better located.”
“I don’t think so, Captain. I think we are the only available ship. Have you studied the movements file?”
“Not especially. Why?”
“Well, the Thomas Paine should be the ship-but she’s grounded at New Aukland for emergency repairs.”
“I see. There ought to be a standing circum-Venus patrol -there’ll have to be, some day.” Yancey scratched his chin and looked unhappy.
“How about this, Captain-”
“Yes?”
“If we change course right now we could do it cheaply. Then we could bring her in for atmospheric braking with no further expenditure. Then ease her down with the jet.”
“Hmmm-how much margin?” ,
Lieutenant Thurlow got a far-away look in his eyes, while he approximated a fourth-order solution in his head. Captain Yancey joined him in the trance, his lips moving soundlessly.
“Practically none, Captain. After you’ve steadied in circum, you’d have to dive in and accept atmospheric terminal speed, or close to it, before you blasted.”
Yancey shook his head. “Into Venus? I’d as soon fly a broom on Walpurgis night. No, Mr. Thurlow, we’ll just have to call them up and confess.”
“Just a minute, Captain-they know we don’t have marines.”
“Of course.”
“Then they don’t expect us to deliver police action. What we can do is to send a jeep down.”
“I’ve been wondering when you would work around to that. All right, Mr. Thurlow-it’s yours. I hand it over reluctantly, but I can’t seem to help it. Never had a mission of your own, have you?” “No, sir.”
“You’re getting one young. Well, I¡¯ll ask Operations for the details while you’re preparing the course change.”
“Fine, sir! Does the Captain care to designate the cadet to go with me, or shall I pick him?”
“You’re not going with just one, Lieutenant-you’ll take all three. I want you to leave the jeep manned at all times and I want you to have an armed man at your elbow. The equatorial region of Venus-there is no telling what you’ll run into.”
“But that leaves you with no one but Peters, sir-not counting the surgeon, of course.”
“Mr. Peters and I will make out all right. Peters plays a very good hand of cribbage.”
Details from Operations were slight The M.R.S. Gary had radioed for help claiming to be imperilled by a native ‘uprising. She had given her position, then radio contact had I “en lost.
Yancey elected to use atmospheric braking in any case to save his reaction mass for future use-otherwise the Aes Triplex might have circled Venus until she could be scored. The ship’s company spent a crowded, tiring fifty-ix hours shut up in the control room while the ship dipped to the clouds of Venus and out again, a bit deeper and bit slower on each round trip. The ship grew painfully and the time spent in free space on each lap was hard enough to let her radiate what she picked up. Most of 10 ship was intolerably hot, for the control room and the alarm” were refrigerated at the expense of the other spaces. In space, there is no way to get rid of unwanted heat, permanently, except by radiation-and the kinetic energy difference between the original orbit and the circum-Venus orbit the Captain wanted had to be absorbed as heat, a piece at a time, then radiated into space.
But at the end of that time three hot, tired, but very excited, young men, with one a little older, were ready to climb into jeep no. 2.
Matt suddenly remembered something. “Oh, Doctor-Doctor Pickering!” The surgeon had spent a medically uneventful voyage writing a monograph entitled “Some Notes on Comparative Pathologies of the Inhabited Planets” and was now at loose ends. He had relieved Matt as “farmer.”
“Yes, Matt?”
“Those new tomato plants-they have to be cross-pollinated three days from now. You’ll do it for me? You won’t forget?”
“Can do!” ;
Captain Yancey guffawed. “Get your feet out of this furrows, Dodson. Forget the farm-we’ll look out for it. Now, gentlemen-” He looked around and caught their eyes. “Try to stay alive. I doubt very much if this mission warrants expending four Patrol officers.”
As they filed in Tex dug Matt in the ribs. “Did you hear ] that, kid-‘four Patrol officers.’ ”
“Yeah, but look what else he said.” :
Thurlow tucked his orders in his pouch. They were simple: proceed to latitude north two degrees seven, longitude two hundred twelve degrees zero; locate the Gary and investigate reported native uprising. Keep the peace.
The lieutenant settled himself and looked around at his crew. “Hold your hats, boys. Here we go!”
“THE NATIVES ARE FRIENDLY …”
WITH THUHLOW at the controls and Matt in the co-pilot’s seat the jeep started down. It started with an orbital speed of better than four miles per second, the speed of the AeS Triplex in her tight circular orbit around the equator of Venus. The lieutenant’s purpose was to kill this speed exactly over his destination, then balance the jeep down on its tail. A jet landing was necessary, as the jeep had no wings.
He needed to do this precisely, with the least use of fuel. He was helped somewhat by riding “with the current” from west to east; the 940-mile-per hour rotational speed of Venus at her equator was profit rather than loss. However, exact placement was another matter. A departure time was selected so that the entire descending curve would be on the day side of the planet in order to use the Sun as a reckoning point for placement in longitude; placement in latitude would have to depend on dead reckoning by careful choice of course.
The Sun is the only possible celestial body to use in air navigation at Venus, and even Sol is lost to the naked eye :is soon as one is inside the planet-wide blanket of cloud. Matt “shot the Sun” by keeping one eye glued on the eyepiece of an infra-red adapter which had been fitted to the ship’s octant, and was enabled thereby to coach his skipper from a prepared flight plan. It had not been considered practical to cut a cam for the automatic robot; too little was known about the atmospheric conditions to be expected.
When Matt informed his pilot that they were about thirty miles up, by radar, and approaching the proper longitude, is given by the infra-red image of the Sun, Thurlow brought I lie jeep down toward their target, ever lower and slower, and finally braked her with the jet to let her drop in a parabola distorted by air resistance.
They were enveloped in the ever-present Venerian clouds. The pilot’s port was utterly useless to them. Matt now larded watching the surface under them, using an infrared-sensitive “cloud piercer.”
Thurlow watched his radar altimeter, checking it against 1110 height-time plan for grounding.
“If we are going to dodge around any, it’s got to be now,” he said quietly to Matt. “What do you see?”
“Looks fairly smooth. Can’t tell much.”
Thurlow sneaked a look. “It’s not water, anyway-and it’s not forest. I guess we’ll chance it.”
Down they dropped, with Matt watching the ghostly infra-red-produced picture narrowly at the end, ready to tell Thurlow to give her full power if it were a meadow.
Thurlow eased off his jet-and cut it. There was a bump as if they had fallen a couple of feet. They were down, landed on Venus.
“Whew!” said the pilot and wiped sweat from his forehead. “I don’t want to have to try that every day.”
“Nice landing, Skipper!” called out Oscar.
“Yea boy!” agreed Tex.
“Thanks, fellows. Well, let’s get the stilts down.” He punched a stud on the control board. Like most rockets built for jet landings, the jeep was fitted with three stabilizing jacks, which came telescoping out of the craft’s sides and slanting downward. Hydraulic pressure forced them down until they touched something solid enough to hold them, whereupon the thrusting force was automatically cut off and they locked in place, propping the rocket on three sides, tripod fashion, and holding it erect.
Thurlow waited until three little green lights appeared under the stud controlling the stilts, then unclutched the jeep’s stabilizing gyros. The jeep held steady, he unstrapped. “All right, men. Let’s take a look. Matt and Tex, stay inside. Oscar, if you don’t mind my mentioning it, since it’s your home town, you should do the honors.”
“Right!” Oscar unstrapped and hurried to the lock. There was no need to check the air, since Venus is man-inhabited, and all of them, as members of the Patrol, had been immunized to the virulent Venerian fungi.
Thurlow crowded close behind him. Matt unstrapped and came down to sit by Tex in the passenger rest Oscar had left. The space around the lock was too limited in the little craft to make it worthwhile to do anything but wait.
Oscar stared out into the mist. “Well, how does it feel to be home?” asked Thurlow.
“Swell! What a beautiful, beautiful day!”
Thurlow smiled at Oscar’s back and said, “Let’s get the ladder down and see where we are.” The access door was more than fifty feet above the jeep’s fins, with no convenient loading elevator.
“Okay.” Oscar turned and squeezed past Thurlow. The jeep settled suddenly on the side away from the door, seemed to catch itself, then started to fall over with increasing speed.
“The gyros!” yelled Thurlow. “Matt, clutch the gyros!” He tried to scramble past Oscar; they fouled each other, then the two fell sprawling backwards as the jeep toppled over.
At the pilot’s yell Matt tried to comply-but he had been sprawled out, relaxing. He grabbed the sides of the rest, trying to force himself up and back to the control station, but the rest tilted backwards; he found himself “skinning the cat” out of it, and then was resting on the side of the craft, which was now horizontal.
Oscar and Thurlow were the first things he saw as he untangled himself. They were piled up on the inner wall of the ship, with Oscar mostly on top. Oscar started to get up-and stopped. “Eeeyowp!”
“You hurt, Oz?”
“My arm.”
“What’s the trouble?” This was Tex, who appeared from behind Matt, apparently untouched by the tumble.
Oscar helped himself up with his right arm, then tenderly felt his left forearm. “I don’t know. A sprain-or a break, maybe. Eeee-ah! It’s a break.”
“Are you sure?” Matt stepped forward. “Let me see it.”
“What’s the matter with the skipper?” asked Tex.
“Huh?” said Matt and Oscar together. Thurlow had not moved. Tex went to him and knelt over him.
“Looks like he’s knocked out cold.”
“Throw some water over him.”
“No, don’t do that Do-” The craft settled again. Oscar looked startled and said, “I think we had better get out of here.”
“Huh? We can’t,” protested Matt. “We’ve got to bring Mr. Thurlow to.”
Oscar did not answer him but started climbing up toward the open lock, now ten feet over their heads, swearing in Venerian as he struggled painfully and awkwardly, using one hand, from strut to brace. ” ‘S’matter with old Oz?” asked Tex. “Acts like he’s blown his top.”
“Let him go. We’ve got to take care of the skipper.” They knelt over Thurlow and gave him a quick, gentle’ examination. He seemed unhurt, but remained unconscious.; “Maybe he’s just had the breath knocked out of him,” suggested Matt. “His heart beat is strong and steady.”
“Look at this, Matt.” It was a lump on the back of the; lieutenant’s head. Matt felt it gently.
“Didn’t bash in his skull. He’s just had a wallop on his! noggin. He’ll be all right-I think.” I “I wish Doc Pickering was here.” ‘
“Yeah, and if fish had feet, they’d be mice. Quit worrying, Tex. Stop messing with him and give him a chance to come out of it naturally.”
Oscar stuck his head down into the open door. “Hey, you guys! Come up out of there-and fast!”
“What for?” asked Matt. “Anyhow, we can’t-we got to stay with the boss, and he’s still out cold.”
“Then carry him!”
“How? Piggy-back?”
“Any way-but do it! The ship is sinking!”
Tex opened his mouth, closed it again, and dived toward a small locker. Matt yelled. “Tex-get a line!”
“What do you think I’m doing? Ice-skating?” Tex reappeared with a coil of thin, strong line used in warping the little craft in to her mother ship. “Easy now-lift him as I slip it under his chest.”
“We ought to make a proper sling. We might hurt him.”
“No time for that!” urged Oscar from above them. “Hurry!”
Matt swarmed up to the door with the end of the line while Tex was still fastening the loop under the armpits of the unconscious man. A quick look around was enough to confirm Oscar’s prediction; the jeep lay on her side with her fins barely touching solid ground. The nose was lower than the tail and sinking in thin, yellow mud. The mud stretched away into the mist, like a flat field, its surface carpeted with a greenish-yellow fungus except for a small space adjacent to the ship where the ship, in failing, had splashed a gap in the surface.
Matt had no time to take the scene in; the mud was almost up to the door. “Ready down there?”
“Ready. Ill be right up.”
“Stay where you are and steady him. I think I can handle him.” Thurlow weighed one hundred forty pounds, Earth-side; his Venus weight was about one hundred and seventeen. Matt straddled the door and took a strain on the line.
“I can give you one hand, Matt,” Oscar said anxiously.
“Just stay out of my way.” With Matt pulling and Tex pushing and steadying from below, they got the limp lieutenant over the lip of the door and laid out on the rocket.
The craft lurched again as a tail fin slid off the bank. “Let’s get going, troops,” Matt urged. “Oz, can you get up. on that bank by yourself?”
“Sure.”
“Then do so. Well leave the line on the skipper and chuck the end to you and you can hang onto it with your good hand. That way, if he goes in the mud, we can haul him out.”
“Quit talking and get busy.” Oscar trotted the length of the craft, taking the end of the line with him. He made it to the bank by stepping from a tail fin.
Matt and Tex had no trouble carrying Thurlow as far as the fins, but the last few feet, from fins to bank, were awkward. They had to work close to the jet tube, still sizzling hot, and balance themselves in a trough formed by a fin and the converging side of the ship. They finally made it by letting Oscar take most of the lieutenant’s weight by hauling from the bank with his one good arm,
When they had gotten Thurlow laid out on the turf Matt jumped back aboard the jeep. Oscar shouted at him. “Hey, Matt-where do you think you’re going?”
“Back inside.”
“Don’t do it. Come back here.” Matt hesitated, Oscar added, “That’s an order, Matt.”
Matt answered, “I’ll only be a minute. We’ve got no weapons and no survival kits. Ill duck in and toss them out.”
“Don’t try it.” Matt stood still a moment, balanced between Oscar’s unquestioned seniority and the novelty of taking direct orders from his roommate. “Look at the door, Matt,” Oscar added. “You’d be trapped.”
Matt looked. The far end of the door was already in the mud and a steady stream was slopping into the ship, like molasses. As he looked the jeep rolled about a quarter turn, seeking a new stability. Matt made it to the bank in one flying leap.
He looked back and saw that the door was out of sight; a big bubble formed and plopped!-and then another. “Thanks, Oz!”
They stood and watched as the tail slid away from the bank. A cloud of steam came up and joined the mist as the jet tube hit the wetness; then the tail lifted and the jeep was almost vertical, upside down, for a few moments, with only her after end showing above the slime.
She sank slowly. Presently there was nothing but bubbles in the mud and a ragged break in the false lawn to show where it had been.
Mart’s chin was trembling. “I should have stayed at the controls. I could have caught her on her gyros.”
“Nonsense,” said Oscar. “He didn’t tell you to stay put.”
“I should have known better.”
“Quit beating yourself with it. The procedures say it’s the pilot’s business. If there was any doubt in his mind he should have left her stabilized on gyro until he inspected. Right now we got to take care of him, so cut out the postmortem.”
“Okay.” Matt knelt down and tried Thurlow’s pulse. It was still steady. “Nothing we can do for him at the moment but let him rest. Let’s see your arm.”
“Okay, but take it easy. Ouch!” j
“Sorry. I’m afraid I’ll have to hurt you; I’ve never actually set a bone before.”
“I have,” said Tex, “out on the range. Here you go, Oz old boy-lie down on your back. And relax-it’s going to hurt.”
“Okay. Only I thought that down in Texas you just shot “me.” Oscar managed to smile.
“Just for broken legs. Broken arms we usually save. Matt, you whip up a couple of splints. Got a knife?”
“Yep.”
“Good thing-I don’t have. Better take your blouse off first, Oscar.” With help Jensen complied; Tex placed a foot in Oscar’s left armpit, grasped his left hand in both of his, and gave a steady tug.
Oscar yelped. “I think that did it,” said Tex. “Matt, hurry up with those splints.”
“Coming.” Matt had found a clump of grass, twelve to fifteen feet tall and superficially similar to Earth-side bamboo. He cut about a dozen lengths as thick as his little finger and around fifteen inches long, brought them back and gave them to Tex. “Will these do?”
“I guess so. Here goes your blouse, Oscar.” Tex attempted to tear strips from the garment, then gave up. “Golly, that stuff is tough. Gimme your knife, Matt.”
Ten minutes later Oscar was adequately splinted and bandaged, with what remained of his blouse rigged as a sling. Tex took off his own blouse and sat down on it, for the turf was damp and the day was hot and muggy as only Venus can be. “That’s done,” he said, “and the skipper hasn’t blinked an eye. That leaves you holding the sack, Oz-when do we have lunch?”
“A fine question, that.” Oscar wrinkled his brows. “First, let’s see what we’ve got to work with. Turn out your pouches.”
Matt had his knife. Oscar’s pouch contained nothing of significance. Tex contributed his harmonica. Oscar looked worried. “Fellows, do you suppose I’m justified in looking through Mr. Thurlow’s pouch?”
“I think you ought to,” said Tex. “I’ve never seen anybody stay out so long.”
“I agree,” added Matt. “I think we had better admit he s got a concussion and assume that he’s going to be out of the running for a while. Go ahead, Oscar.”
Thurlow’s pouch contained some personal items that they skipped over quickly, the orders to the expedition, and a second knife-which had set in its handle a small, ornamental, magnetic compass. “Golly, I’m glad to find that item. I’ve been wondering how we would ever find our way back to this spot without natives to guide us.”
“Who wants to?” asked Tex. “It doesn’t seem to have any attractions for me.”
“The jeep is here.”
“And the Triplex is somewhere over your head. One is about as close as the other-to a pedestrian, meaning me.”
“Look, Tex-somehow we’ve got to get that firecracker out of the mud and put her back into commission. Otherwise we stay here for life.”
“Huh? I’d been depending on you, the old Venerian hand, to lead us back to civilization.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. Maybe you can walk five or six thousand miles through swamps, and sink holes, and cane brake; I can’t. Just remember that there isn’t a permanent settlement, not even a plantation, more than five hundred miles from either one of the poles. You know Venus isn’t really explored-I know about as much about this neck of the woods as you know about Tibet.”
“I wonder what in the world the Gary was doing here?” Matt commented.
“Search me.”
“Say!” said Tex. “Maybe we can get home in the Gary.”
“Maybe we can, but we haven’t even found the Gary yet. Consequently if we find we can’t, just as soon as we carry out these orders-” Oscar held up the paper he had taken from Thurlow’s pouch, “-we’ve got to find some way to haul the jeep out of the sinkhole.”
“With our own, little pink patty-paws?” inquired Tex. “And what’s that about our orders? We don’t seem to be
in very good shape to go around quelling riots, putting down insurrection, and generally throwing our weight about. We haven’t even got a bean shooter, much less a bean* Come to think about it, if I had a bean, I’d eat it.”
“Oscar’s right,” agreed Matt, “We’re here; we’ve got a mission to perform; we’ve got to carry it out. That’s what Mr. Thurlow would say. After that comes trying to figure out a way to get back.”
Tex stood up. “I should have gone into the cattle business. Okay, Oscar- what next?”
“The first thing is for you and Matt to build a litter to carry the boss. We’ve got to find open water and I don’t want to split up the party.”
The same clump of cane grass that furnished splints provided material for a litter frame. Using both knives Matt and Tex cut two seven-foot lengths as thick as their upper arms. The stuff was light and, in that thickness, satisfactorily stiff. They slipped the poles through the sleeves of their blouses, then notched in cross pieces near each end. There was a wide gap in the middle which they wound about with the line salvaged from the jeep.
The result was a sloppy piece of work, but serviceable. Thurlow was still unconscious. His breathing was shallow but his pulse was still steady. They lifted him onto the stretcher and set out, with Oscar in the lead, compass in hand.
For about an hour they tramped through swampy land, splashing through mud, getting welts from the undergrowth, and pursued by clouds of insects. At last Matt called out, “Oz! We’ve just got to have some rest.”
Jensen turned around. “Okay-this is the end of the line, anyhow. Open water.”
They crowded forward and joined him. Beyond the cane brake, perfectly flat and calm under the fog, was a pond or lake. Its size was uncertain as the far shore was lost in the mist.
They tramped out a spot to put the litter down, then Oscar bent over the water and slapped it-Slap!-Slap!-Slap, slap, slap-Slap, slap!
“What do we do now?”
“We wait-and pray. Thank goodness the natives are usually friendly.”
“Do you think they can help us?”
“If they want to help I’ll lay you even money that they can snake the jeep out of that muck and polish it clean in three days.”
“You really think so? I knew the Venerians were friend but a job like that-”
“Don’t underrate the Little People. They don’t look like us but don’t let that throw you.”
Matt squatted down and started fanning the insects away ‘ from the unconscious officer. Presently Oscar slapped the | water again, in the same pattern.
“Looks like nobody’s home, Oz.”
“I hope you’re wrong, Tex. Most of Venus is supposed to be inhabited, but this might be a tabu spot.”
A triangular head, large as a collie’s, broke water about-ten feet from them. Tex jumped. The Venerian regarded ; him with shiny, curious eyes. Oscar stood up. “Greetings, thou whose mother was my mothers friend.” The Venerian turned her attention to Oscar. “May thy’ mother rest happily.” She surface-dived and disappeared al- I most without a ripple.
“That’s a relief,” said Oscar. “Of course they say this I planet has only one language but this is the first time I’ve put it to a test.”
“Why did it leave?”
“Gone back to report, probably. And don’t say ‘it,” Matt; say ‘she.’”
“It’s a difference that could only matter to another Venerian.”
“Well, it’s a bad habit, anyway.” Oscar squatted down and waited.
After a time made longer by insects, heat, and sultriness the water was broken in a dozen places at once. One of the amphibians climbed gracefully up on the bank and stood up. She came about to Mart’s shoulder. Oscar repeated the formal greeting. She looked him over. “My mother tells me that she knows thee not.”
“Doubtless being busy with important thoughts she has forgotten.”
“Perhaps. Let us go to my mother and let her smell thee.”
“Thou art gracious. Canst thou carry my sibling?” Oscar pointed to Thurlow. Being Ul, ‘she’ cannot close ‘her’ mouth to the waters.”
The Venerian agreed. She called one of her followers to her side and Oscar joined the consultation, illustrating how Thurlow’s mouth must be covered and his nose pinched together “-lest the waters return ‘her to ‘her’ mother’s mother’s mother.” The second native argued but agreed.
Tex was getting more and more round-eyed. “See here, Matt,” he said urgently in Basic, “surely you’re not figuring on going under water?”
“Unless you want to stay here until the insects eat you up, you’ve got to. Just take it easy, let them tow you, and try to keep your lungs full. When they dive you may have to stay under several minutes.”
“I don’t like it either,” said Matt.
“Shucks, I visited my first Venerian home when I was nine. They know you can’t swim the way they do. At least the ones around the colonies know it,” he admitted doubtfully.
“Maybe you had better impress them with it.”
“I’ll try.”
The leader cut him short with assurances. She gave a sharp command and six of her party placed themselves by the cadets, two to each man. Three others took over Thurlow, lifting him and sliding him into the water. One of them was the one who had been instructed.
Oscar called out, “Take it easy, fellows!” Matt felt little hands urging him into the lake. He took a deep breath and stepped off into the water.
The water closed over his head. It was blood warm and fresh. He opened his eyes, saw the surface, then his head broke water again. The little hands grasped his sides and
propelled him along, swimming strongly. He told himself to relax and stop fighting it.
After a while it even began to seem pleasant, once he was sure that the little creatures did not intend to pull him under. But he remembered Oscar’s advice and tried to watch out for a dive. Luckily, he saw the trio of which ‘ Tex was the middle go under; he gulped air just in time.
They went down and down, until his eardrums hurt, then forward. By the time they started up the pains in his chest were almost unbearable. He was fighting a reflex to open his mouth and breathe anything, even water, when they broke surface again.
There were three more of the lung-searing passages under water; when they broke water for the last time Mai saw that they were no longer outdoors.
The cave-if it was a cave-was about a hundred feet long and less than half as wide. In the center of it was the water entrance through which they had come.. It was lighted from above, rather dimly, from some sort of glowing, orange clusters.
Most of this he noticed after he pulled himself up the bank. His first impression was a crowd of Venerians surrounding the pool. They were obviously curious about their guests and chattered among themselves. Matt picked up a few words of it and heard a reference to “-slime spawn-” which annoyed him.
The three with Thurlow broke water. Matt pulled away from his custodians and helped drag him onto dry land. He was frantic for a moment when he could not find the lieutenant’s pulse; then he located it. It was fast and fluttery.
Thurlow opened his eyes and looked at him. “Matt-the ; gyros…” !
“It’s all right, Lieutenant. Just take it easy.”
Oscar was standing over him. “How is he Matt?”
“Coming out of it, it looks like.”
“Maybe the immersion did him good.”
“It didn’t do me any good,” asserted Tex. “I swallowed about a gallon of water on that last one. Those little frogs are careless.”
“They’re more like scab,” said Matt
“They’re neither one,” Oscar cut in sharply. They’re people. Now,” he went on, “to try to set up some friendly relations.” He turned around, looking for the leader of the group.
The crowd separated, leaving an aisle to the pool. An amphibian, walking alone, but followed by three others, came slowly down this aisle toward them. Oscar faced her. “Greetings, most worthy mother of many.”
She looked him slowly up and down, then spoke, but not to him. “As I thought. Take them away.”
“No!” Oscar called back. “Don’t resist.”
Three minutes later they were herded into a small room that was almost completely dark, the gloom being broken only by a single sphere of the orange light. After depositing Thurlow on the floor the little people went away, closing the door after them by drawing across it a curtain. Tex looked around him, trying to adjust his eyes to the dim light, and said, “About as cozy as a grave. Oz, you should have let us put up a scrap. I’ll bet we could have licked the whole caboodle of ’em.”
“Don’t be silly, Tex. Suppose we had managed it-a possibility which I doubt, but suppose we had: how would you like to try to swim your way out of here?”
“I wouldn’t try it. We’d dig a tunnel up to the surface- we’ve got two knives.”
“Maybe you would; I wouldn’t attempt it. The Little People generally built their cities underneath lakes.”
“I hadn’t thought of that angle-say, that’s bad.” Tex studied the ceiling as if wondering when it would give way. “Look, Oz, I don’t, think we’re under the lake, or the walls of this dungeon would be damp.”
“Huh uh, they’re good at this sort of thing.”
“Well-okay, so they’ve got us. I’m not beefing, Oz-your intentions were good-but it sure looks like we should ‘a’ taken our chances in the jungle.”
“For Pete’s sake, Text-haven’t I got enough to worry about without you second-guessing me? If you’re not beefing, then stop beefing.”
There was a short silence, then Tex said, “Excuse me, Oscar. My big mouth.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. My arm hurts.”
“Oh. How’s it doing? Didn’t I set it right?”
“I think you did a good job on it, but it aches. And it’s beginning to itch, under the wrappings-makes me edgy. What are you doing, Matt?”
After checking on Thurlow’s condition-unchanged-Matt : had gone to the door and was investigating the closure. The curtain he found to be a thick, firm fabric of some ; sort, fastened around the edges. He was trying his knife on it when Oscar spoke to him.
“Nothing,” he answered. “This stuff won’t cut.”
“Then quit trying to and relax. We don’t want to get out of here-not yet, anyway.”
” ‘Speak for yourself, John.’ Why don’t we?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Tex. I won’t say this is a pleasure resort but we are about eight hundred per cent better off than we were a couple of hours ago, in every way.”
“How?”
“Have you got any idea of what it means to spend a night in the jungle here, with nothing at all to shut it out? When it gets dark and the slime worms come up and start : nibbling at your toes? Maybe we could live through a night of it, or even two nights, by being active and very, very lucky-but how about him?” Oscar gestured at Thurlow’s still form. “That’s why I made it our first business to find natives. We’re safe, even if we are locked up.”
Matt shivered. The slime worms have no teeth; instead they excrete an acid that dissolves what they wish to sample. They average about seven feet long. “You’ve sold me.”
Tex said, “I wish my Uncle Bodie was here.”
“So do I-he’d keep you shut up. I’m not anxious to get out of here until we’ve had something to eat and some sleep. Then maybe the boss will be back on his feet and will know what to do next.”
“What makes you think they’ll feed us?”
“I don’t know that they will, but I think they will. If they are anything like the same breed of cat as the natives around the polar colonies, they’ll feed us. To keep another creature shut up without feeding it is a degree of orneriness they just wouldn’t think of.” Oscar groped for words. “You have to know them to understand what I mean, but the Little People don’t have the cussedness in them that humans have.” , v .
Matt nodded. “I know that they are described as being a gentle, unwarlike race. I can’t imagine becoming really fond of them, but the spools I studied showed them as friendly.”
“That’s just race prejudice. A Venerian is easier to like than a man.”
“Oz, that’s not fair,” Tex protested. “Matt hasn’t got any race prejudice and neither have I. Take Lieutenant Peters-did it make any difference to us that he’s as black as the ace of spades?”
“That’s not the same thing-a Venerian is really different. I guess you have to be brought up with them, like I have, to take them for granted. But everything about them is different-for instance, like the fact that you never lay eyes on anything but females.”
“Say, how about that, Oz? Are there really male Venerians, or is it just a superstition?”
“Sure there are-the Little People are unquestionably bisexual. But I doubt if we’ll ever get a picture of one or a chance to examine one. The guys who claim to have seen one are mostly liars,” he added, “because their stories never add up.”
“Why do you suppose they are so touchy about it?”
“Why won’t a Hindu eat beef? There doesn’t have to be any reason for it. I go for the standard theory; the males are little and helpless and have to be protected.”
“I’m glad I’m not a Venerian,” Matt commented.
“Might not be such a bad life,” Tex asserted. “Me-I could use a little coddling right now.”
“Don’t go taking me for an authority on Venerians,” warned Oscar. “I was born here, but I wasn’t born here.” He patted the floor. “I know the polar region natives, the sort around my own home town-and that’s just about the only sort anybody knows.”
“You think that makes such a difference?” Matt wanted to know.
“I think we’re lucky to be able to talk with them at all-even if the accent does drive me wild. As for other differences-look, if the only humans you had ever met were Eskimos, how far would that get you in dealing with the mayor of a Mexican town? The local customs would all be different.”
“Then maybe they won’t feed us, after all,” Tex said mournfully.
But they were fed, and shortly. The curtain was thrust back, something was deposited on the floor, and the door was closed again.
There was a platter of some lumpish substance, color and texture indeterminate in the dim light, and an object about the size and shape of an ostrich egg. Oscar took the platter and sniffed at it, then took a small piece and tasted it. “It’s all right,” he announced. “Go ahead and eat.”
“What is it?” inquired Tex.
“It’s . . . well, never mind. Eat it. It won’t hurt you and it will keep you alive.”
“But what is it? I want to know what I’m eating.”
“Permit me to point out that you eat this or go hungry. I don’t care which. If I told you, your local prejudices would get in your way. Just pretend it’s garbage and learn to love it.”
“Aw, quit horsing around, Oz.”
But Oscar refused to be drawn into any further discussion. He ate rapidly until he had finished his share, glanced at Thurlow and said reluctantly, “I suppose we ought to leave some for him.”
Matt tried the stuff. “What’s it like?” asked Tex.
“Not bad. Reminds me of mashed soybeans. Salty-it makes me thirsty.”
“Help yourself,” suggested Oscar.
“Huh? Where? How?”
“The drinking bladder, of course.” Oscar handed him the “ostrich egg.” It was soft to Mart’s touch, despite its appearance. He held it, looking puzzled.
“Don’t know how to use it? Here-” Oscar took it, looked at the ends, and selected one, which he placed to his lips.
“There!” he said, wiping his lips. “Try it. Don’t squeeze too hard, or you’ll get it all over you.” Matt tried it and got a drink of water. It was a bit like using a nursing bottle.
“It’s a sort of a fish’s gizzard,” explained Oscar, “and spongy inside. Oh, don’t look squeamish, Tex! It’s sterile.”
Tex tried it gingerly, then gave in and tackled the food. After a while they all sat back, feeling considerably better. “Not bad,” admitted Tex, “but do you know what I’d like? A stack of steaming hotcakes, tender and golden brown-”
“Oh, shut up!” said Matt.
“-with melted butter and just swimming in maple syrup. Okay, I’ll shut up.” He unzipped his pouch and took out his harmonica.. “Well, what d’yuh know! Still dry.” He tried a couple of notes, then broke into a brilliant execution of The Cross-Eyed Pilot.
“Hey, stop that,” said Oscar. “This is a sort of a sick room, you know.”
Tex turned a troubled glance, at the patient. “You think he can hear it?”
Thurlow turned ‘and muttered in his sleep. Matt bent over him. “fai soif,” the lieutenant mumbled, then repeated distinctly, “fai soif.”
“What did he say?”
“1 don’t know.”
“It sounded like French to me. Either of you guys savvy French?” .
“Not me.”
“Nor me,” Matt concurred. “Why would he talk French?
I always thought he was North American; he spoke Basic like one.”
“Maybe he was French-Canadian.” Tex knelt beside hiifi and felt his forehead. “He seems sort of feverish. Maybe; we should give him some water.”
“Okay.” Oscar took the bladder and put it to Thuflow’s Korps; he squeezed gently so that a little welled out. The injured man worked his lips and then began to suck on it, without appearing to wake up. Presently he let it fall from his mouth. “There,” said Oscar, “maybe he’ll feel better now;
“Are we going to save that for him?” asked Tex, eyeing the remainder of the food.
“Go ahead and eat it, if you want it. It turns a few hours after it’s . . . well, it turns rancid.”
“I don’t believe I want any more,” Tex decided.
They had been sleeping an undetermined length of time when a noise awakened them-a voice, unquestionably human. “Hey!” it demanded, “where art thou taking me? I insist that thou take me to see thy mother!”
The noise was right at their door. “Quell thy tongue!” answered a native accent; the curtain was shoved aside and someone was pushed into the room before the door was again closed.
“Hello there!” called out Oscar.
The figure spun around. “Men …” he said, as if he could not believe it. “Men!” He began to sob.
“Hello, Stinky,” said Tex. “What are you doing here?”
It was Girard Burke.
There was considerable confusion for the next several moments. Burke alternated between tears and uncontrollable shaking. Matt, who had awakened last, had trouble sorting out what was going on from the fantasy he had been dreaming, and everybody talked at once, all asking questions and none of them answering.
“Quiet!” commanded Oscar. “Let’s get this straight. Burke as I understand it, you were in the Gary?”
“I’m skipper of the Gary.”
“Huh? Well, I’ll be switched. Come to think of it, we knew the captain of the Gary was named Burke, but it never occurred to anybody that it could be Stinky Burke. Who would be crazy enough to trust you with a crate, Stinky?”
“It’s my own ship-or, anyhow, my father’s. And I’ll thank you to call me Captain Burke, not ‘Stinky.’ ”
“Okay, Captain Stinky.”
“But how did he get here?” Matt wanted to know, still trying to catch up.
“He’s just explained that,” said Tex. “He’s the guy that yelled for help. But what beats me is that it should happen to be us-it’s like dealing out a bridge hand and getting thirteen spades.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” objected Oscar. “It’s a coincidence, but not a very startling one. He’s a spaceman, he hollers for help, and naturally the Patrol responds. It happened to be us. It’s about as likely, or as unlikely, as running across your piano teacher on the downtown streets of your home town.”
“I don’t have a piano teacher,” objected Tex.
“Skip it. Neither do I. Now I think-”
“Wait a minute,” broke in Burke, “do I gather that you were sent here, in answer to my message?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, thank heaven for that-even if you guys were stupid enough to stumble right into it. Now tell me-how many are there in the expedition and how are they equipped? This is going to be a tough nut to crack.”
“Huh? What are you talking about, Stinky? This is the expedition, right in front of you.”
“What? This is no time to joke. I sent for a regiment of marines, equipped for amphibious operations.”
“Maybe you did, but this is what you got-total. Lieutenant Thurlow is in command, but he got a crack on the skull so I’m temporarily filling in for him. You can talk to me-what’s the situation?”
Burke seemed dazed by the knowledge. He stared without speaking. Oscar went on, “Snap out of it, Stinky. Give us the data, so we can work out an operation plan.”
“Huh? Oh, it’s no use. It’s utterly hopeless.” “What’s so hopeless? The natives seem friendly, on the whole. Tell us what the difficulty was, so we can work it out with them.”
“Friendly!” Burke gave a bitter laugh. “They killed all of my men. They’re going to kill me. And they’ll kill you.”
PIE WITH A FORK
“OKAY,” agreed Oscar. “Now that that’s settled, I still want to know the score. Suppose you pull yourself together, -Burke, and tell us what happened?”
The merchant rocketship Gary, built by “Reactors Ltd.” and transferred to the family corporation “System Enterprises,” was a winged rocket especially fitted for point-to-point operations on Venus. The elder Mr. Burke had placed his son in command, backing him up with an experienced crew; the purpose of the trip was to investigate a tip concerning ores of the trans-uranic elements.
The tip had been good; the ores were present in abundance. Young Burke had then undertaken to negotiate exploitation rights with the local Venerian authorities in order to hold the valuable claim against other exploiters who were sure to follow.
He had not been able to interest the local “mother of many” in his wishes; the swamp he wanted, she gave Burke to understand, was tabu. However, he was able to intrigue her into visiting the Gary. Once aboard the ship he again! tried to get her to change her mind. When she turned him’ down again he had refused to allow her to leave the rocket ship.
“You mean you kidnapped her,” said Matt.
“Nothing of the sort. She came aboard of her own free will. I just didn’t get up and open the door for her and went on arguing.”
“Oh, yeah?” commented Oscar. “How long did this go on?”
“Not very long.”
“Exactly how long? You might as well tell me; I’ll find out from the natives.”
“Oh, well! Overnight-what’s so criminal about that?”
“I don’t know just how criminal it is here. On Mars, as I learned in school and as I’m sure you did too, the punishment would be to stake you out on the desert, unprotected, for exactly the same length of time.”
“Hell’s hells-I didn’t hurt her. I’m not that silly. I wanted her co-operation.”
“So you twisted her arm to get it. You held her prisoner, in effect kidnapped her by enticement and held her for ransom. Okay-you kept her overnight. What happened when you let her go?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I never got a chance to turn her loose. I was going to, of course, but-”
“Sez you!”
“Don’t get sarcastic. The next morning they attacked the ship. There must have been thousands of the beasts.”
“So you turned her loose?”
“I was afraid to. I figured as long as we held her nothing much could happen to us. But I was wrong-they poured something on the door that ate it right away and they were in the ship before we could stop them. They killed my crew, just overran them-but we must have gotten at least twice as many of them, the brutes!”
“How come you’re still breathing?”
“I locked myself in the com room and sent out the call for help that got you here. They didn’t find me there until they went through the ship, compartment by compartment. I must have passed out from the fumes when they melted their way in-anyhow I woke up while they were bringing me here.”
“I see.” Oscar sat a while and thought, his knees pulled up under his chin. “This is your first time on Venus, Stinky?”
“Well, yes.”
“I thought so. It’s apparent that you didn’t know just how stubborn and difficult the Little People can be if you start pushing them around.”
Burke looked wry. “I know now. That’s why I distinctly called for a regiment of marines. I can’t imagine what the Department was thinking about, to send three cadets and a watch officer. Of all the brass-hatted stupidity! My old man will raise plenty of Cain about it when I get back.”
Tex gave a snort of disgust. “Did you think the Patrol was invented to keep a jughead like you from having to pay for his fun?”
“Why, you-”
“Quiet, Burke. And never mind the side remarks, Tex. This is an investigation, not a debate. You know the Patrol never sends marines until they’ve tried negotiation, Burke.”
“Sure, that’s why I specified marines. I wanted them to cut the red tape and get some action.”
“You were kidding yourself. And there’s no point in talking about what you’ll do when you get back. We don’t know yet that we can get back.”
“That’s true.” Burke chewed his lip and thought about it. “Look here, Jensen, you and I were never very chummy in school, but that’s unimportant now; we’re in the same boat and we’ve got to stick together. I’ve got a proposition. You know these frogs better than I do-”
“People, not ‘frogs.’”
“Okay, you know the natives. If you can manage to square this and get me out of here, I can cut you in on-”
“Careful there, Burke!”
“Don’t get on your high horse. Just hear me out, will you? Just listen. Do I have free speech or don’t I?”
“Let him talk, Oz,” advised Tex. “I like to watch his tonsils.” :
Oscar held his tongue, Burke went on, “I wasn’t going to suggest anything that would smirch your alabaster character. After all, you’re here to get me out of this; it’s my business if I want to offer a reward. Now this swamp we staked out is loaded with the stuff-trans-uranics, all the way from element 97 through 104. I don’t have to tell you what that means-101 and 103 for jet-lining alloys; 100 for cancer therapy-not to mention the catalyzing uses. Why, there’s millions in catalysts alone. I’m no hog; I’ll cut you all in … say for ten per cent apiece.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Not quite. If you can work it so that they’ll let us go and leave us alone while we jury-rig some repairs on the Gary so that we can get away with a load this trip, I’ll make it twenty per cent. You’ll like the Gary; she’s the sweetest job in the System. But if that won’t work and you can get me back in your ship it’s still worth ten per cent.”
“Are you through?”
“Yes.”
“I can answer for all of us. If I didn’t consider the source, I’d be insulted.”
“Fifteen per cent. There’s no need to get shirty; after all, it’s absolutely free just for doing what you were ordered down here to do anyhow.”
“Oz,” said Matt, “do we have to listen to this tripe?”
“Not any more of it,” decided Jensen. “He’s had his say. Burke, I’ll keep this factual and leave my personal opinions out of it. You can’t hire the Patrol, you know that. In-”
“I wasn’t offering to hire you, I was just trying to do you a favor, show my appreciation.”
“I’ve got the floor. In the second place, we haven’t got a ship, not at present.”
“Huh? What’s that?” Burke seemed startled. . Oscar gave him a quick resume of the fate of the jeep. Burke looked both amazed and terribly, bitterly disappointed. “Well, of all the gang of stupes! Just forget that offer; you haven’t got anything to sell,”
“I’ve already forgotten it and you had better be glad I have. Let me point out that we wouldn’t have been making a jet landing in a jungle if you hadn’t made an ass of yourself and then called for help. However, we hope to recover the jeep if I can manage to smooth out the trouble you’ve caused- and that’s no small job.”
“Well, of course if you can square things and get your ship back, the offer stands.”
“Stop talking about that clumsy piece of bribery! We can’t possibly promise you anything, even if we wanted to. We’ve got our mission to carry out.”
“Okay-your mission is to get me out of here. It comes to the same thing; I was just being generous.”
“Our mission isn’t anything of the sort. Our prime mission is what the prime mission of the Patrol always is: to keep the peace. Our orders read to investigate a reported native uprising-there isn’t any-and keep the peace.’ There’s not a word about springing Girard Burke from the local jail and giving him a free ride home.”
“But-”
“I’m not through. You know how the Patrol works as well as I do. It acts in remote places and a Patrol officer has to use his own judgment, being guided by the Tradition-”
“Well, if it’s precedent you’re looking for, you’ve got to-”
“Shut up! Precedent is merely the assumption that somebody else, in the past with less information, nevertheless knows better than die man on the spot. If you had gotten any use out of the time you spent as a cadet, you’d know that the Tradition is something very different. To follow a tradition means to do things in the same grand style as your predecessors; it does not mean to do the same things.”
“Okay, okay-you can skip the lecture.”
“I need some information from you. Had the Little People here ever seen a man before you came along?”
“Uh . . . why, they knew about men, a little anyhow. Of course there was Stevens.”
“Who was Stevens?”
“Mineralogist, working for my old man. He did the quickie survey that caused us to bring the Gary in. Oh, there was his pilot, too.”
“And those are the only men these natives have encountered, aside from the crew of the Gary?”
“So far as I know, yes.”
“Have they ever heard of the Patrol?”
“I doubt it-yes, they have, too. At least the boss mother seemed to know the native word for it.”
“Hmm . . . that rather surprises me. So far as I know the Patrol has never had any occasion to land this near the equator-and if it had I think Captain Yancey would have briefed us about it.” .
Burke shrugged. Oscar went on, “It affects what we’re to do. You’ve stirred up a mess, Burke. With the discovery of valuable minerals here, there will be more men coming along. The way you’ve started things off there could be more and more trouble, until there was nothing but guerrilla warfare between the natives and the men, everywhere you looked. It might even spread to the poles. It’s the Patrol’s business to stamp out such things before they get started and that’s what I construe our mission here to be. I’ve got to apologize and smooth it over and do my darnedest to correct a first bad impression. Can you give me any more information, anything at all, that might help me when I try it?”
“I don’t think so. But go ahead, soft-soap the old girl any way you can. You can even pretend to take me away from here under arrest if it will do any good. Say, that might be a good idea! I’ll be agreeable to it just as long as I get out.”
Oscar shook his head. “I might take you out under arrest, if she wants it that way. But as far as I can see you are a perfectly legal prisoner here for a crime under the local customs.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“I might point oat that what you’ve admitted doing is a crime anywhere. You can be tried for it on Terra if she wants it that way. But it really doesn’t matter to me, one-way or the other. It’s no business of the Patrol.”
“But you can’t leave me here!”
Oscar shrugged. “That’s the way I see it. Lieutenant Thurlow might snap out of it at any time, then you could take it up with him. As long as I’m in charge I’m not going to jeopardize the Patrol’s mission to try to help you get away with murder-and I do mean murder!”
“But-” Burke looked wildly around him. “Tex! Matt! Are you going to let him side up with those frog-people against a man?”
Matt gave him a stony-eyed stare. Tex said, “Button your lip, Stinky.”
Oscar added, “Yes, do. -And go to sleep. My arm hurts and I don’t want to be bothered any more with you tonight.”
The room quieted .down at once, even though none of them got to sleep quickly. Matt lay awake a long time, worrying out their predicament, wondering whether or not Oscar could convince the frog mother-he thought of her as such-of the innocence of their intentions, and repeatedly blaming himself for the disaster to the jeep. Presently! he fell into an exhausted sleep.
He was awakened by a moaning sound. It brought him wide-awake at once and to the lieutenant’s side. He found Tex already awake with him. “What is it?” he asked. “Is he worse?”
“He keeps trying to say something,” Tex answered.
Thurlow’s eyes came open and he looked up at Matt. ! “Maman,” he said querulously. “Maman-pourquoi fait-il nuit j ainsi?” ‘
Oscar joined them. “What’s he saying?”
“Sounds like he’s calling for his momma,” said Tex. “The rest is just gibberish.”
“Where did that bladder get to? We could give him a. drink.” It was found and again the patient drank, then seemed to drop at once to sleep. “You guys go back to sleep,” said Oscar. “I want to snag a word with the guard that brings us our next meal and try to get to see the big mother. He’s got to have some medical attention, somehow.”
“I’ll take the watch, Oz,” Matt offered.
“No, I can’t sleep very well anyhow. This darn thing! itches.” He held up his damaged arm.
“Well-all right.”
Matt was still awake when the curtain opened. Oscar had been sitting cross-legged at the door, waiting; as the native shoved inside a platter of food, he thrust his arm into the opening.
“Remove thy arm,” said the native emphatically.
“Attend thou me,” insisted Oscar. “I must have speech with thy mother.”
“Remove thy arm.”
“Thou wilt carry my message?”
“Remove thy arm!”
Oscar did so and the curtain was hurriedly secured. Matt said, “Doesn’t look as if they intended to powwow with us, does it, Oz?”
“Keep your shirt on,” Oscar answered. “Breakfast. Wake up the others.”
It was the same dull fodder as before. “Split it five ways, Tex,” Oscar directed. “The lieutenant may snap out of it and be hungry.”
Burke looked at it and sniffed. “I’m sick of that stuff. I don’t want any.”
“Okay, split it four ways.” Tex nodded and did so.
They ate; presently Matt sat back, burped reflectively, and said, “You know, while I could use some orange juice and coffee, that stuffs not bad.”
“Did I ever tell you,” asked Tex, “about the time my Uncle Bodie got incarcerated in the jail at Juarez?-by mistake, of course.”
“Of course,” agreed Oscar. “What happened?”
“Well, they fed him nothing but Mexican jumping beans. He-”
“Didn’t they upset him?”
“Not a bit. He ate as many as he could and a week later he jumped over a twelve foot wall and bounced home.”
“Having met your Uncle Bodie, I can well believe it. What do you suppose he would do under these circumstances?”
“Obvious. He’d make love to the old girl and inside of three days he’d be head man around here.”
“I think I’ll have some breakfast after all^” announced Burke.
“You’ll leave that chow for the lieutenant,” Oscar said firmly. “You had your chance.”
“You’ve got no authority over me.”
“There are two reasons why you are wrong.”
“So? What are they?”
“Matt and Tex.”
Tex stood up. “Shall I clip him, boss?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh, shucks!”
“Anyhow,” objected Matt. “I get first crack-I’m senior to you, Tex.”
“Pulling rank on me, eh? Why you unspeakable rat!’
“Mister Rat, if you please, Yep, in this instance I claim rank.”
“But this is a social occasion.”
“Shut up, you guys,” instructed Oscar. “Neither of you is to clip him unless he gets to sniffing around that food dish.”
There was a noise “at the door, the curtain was pushed back and a native announced, “My mother will see thee. Come.”
“Myself alone, or me and my sisters?”
“All of you. Come.”
However, when Burke attempted to pass through the door two of the little creatures pushed him back inside. They continued, to restrain him while four others picked up Lieutenant Thurlow and carried him outside. The numerous party set out down the passageway.
“I wish they would light these rabbit nests,” Tex complained, after stumbling.
“It’s light enough to their eyes,” Oscar answered.
“Natch,” agreed Tex, “but a fat lot of good that does me. My eyes don’t see infra-red.” ;
“Then pick up your big feet.”
They were taken to another large room, not the entrance hall, for it contained no pool of water. An amphibian, the same who had viewed them and ordered them taken away on their arrival, sat on a raised platform at the far end of the room. Only Oscar recognized her as such; to the others she looked like the rest.
Oscar quickened his pace and drew ahead of his escort “Greetings, thou old and wise mother of many.”
She sat up and looked at him steadily. The room was very quiet. On every side the little folk waited, looking first from the earthlings to their chief executive, then back again. Matt felt that somehow the nature of her answer would show them their fate.
“Greetings.” She had chucked the ball back to Oscar by refusing to assign him any title at all, good or bad. “Thou sought speech with me. Thou may speak.”
“What manner of city is thine? Have I, perhaps, journeyed so far that manners are no longer observed?” The Venerian word meant much more than “manners”; it referred to the entire obligatory code of custom by which the older and stronger looked out for the weaker and younger.
The entire audience stirred. Matt wondered if Oscar had overplayed his hand. The expression of the leader changed but Matt had no way of reading it. “My city and my daughters live ever by custom-” She used a more inclusive term, embracing tabus and other required acts, as well as the law of assistance, “-and I have never before heard it suggested that we fail in performance.”
“I hear thee, gracious mother of many, but thy words confuse me. We come, my ‘sisters’ and I, seeking shelter and help for ourselves and our ‘mother’ who is gravely ill. I myself am injured and am unable to protect my younger ‘sisters.’ What have we received in thy house? Thou hast deprived us of our freedom; our ‘mother’ lies unattended and failing. Indeed we have not even been granted the common decency of personal rooms in which to eat.”
A noise rose from the spectators which Matt correctly interpreted as the equivalent of a shocked gasp. Oscar had deliberately used the offensive word “eat,” instead of talking around it. Matt was sure now that Oscar had lost his judgment.
If so, Oscar went on to confirm it. “Are we fish, that such should be done to us? Or are the customs such among thy daughters?”
“We follow the customs,” she said shortly, and even Matt and Tex could interpret the anger in her voice. “It was my understanding that thy breed had no decencies. It will be corrected.” She spoke sharply in an aside to one of her staff; the little creature trotted away. “As to thy freedom, what I had done was lawful for it was to protect my daughters.”
“To protect thy daughters? From what? From my ailing ‘mother? Or from my injured arm?”
“Thy sister who knows no customs has forfeited thy freedom.”
“I hear thy words, wise mother, but I understand them not.”
The amphibian seemed nonpleased. She inquired specifically about Burke, naming him by his terrestrial tag, calling it “Captain-Burke,” as one word. Oscar assured her that ; Burke was no “daughter” of Oscar’s “mother,” nor of Oscar’s “mother’s mother.” :
The matriarch considered this. “If we return you to the upper waters will you leave us?”
“What of my ‘mother’?” asked Oscar. “Wouldst thou, cast ‘her’ forth thus ailing, to die and to be destroyed by ‘ the creatures of the slime?” On this occasion he carefully avoided the Venerian expression for “to be eaten.”
The mother-of-many had Thurlow carried up to the dais? on which she sat. Several of the little folk gathered around; him and examined him, speaking to each other in high,| lisping whispers. Presently the matriarch herself joined the consultation, then spoke again. “Thy mother sleeps.”
“It is a sickly sleep. ‘Her head was injured by a blow.” Oscar joined the group and showed them the lump on the back of Thurlow’s head. They compared it with Oscar’s own head, running gentle, inquisitive little hands through his blond hair. There was more lisping chatter; Matt found himself unable to follow even what he could hear; most of the words were strange.
“My learned sisters tell me that they dare not take thy mother’s head apart for fear that they could not get it back together,” announced the mother-of-many.
“Well, that’s a relief Tex said out of the corner of his mouth.
“Old Oz wouldn’t let them anyhow,” Matt whispered.
The leader gave instructions and four of her “daughters” picked up the unconscious officer and started carrying him out of the room. Tex called out, “Hey, Oz-do you think that’s safe?”
“It’s all right,” Oscar called back, then explained to the matriarch, “My ‘sister’ feared for the safety of our ‘mother.’ ”
The creature made a gesture that reminded Matt suddenly of his great-aunt Dora-she positively sniffed. “Tell her that her nose need not twitch!”
“She says not to get in an uproar, Tex.”
“I heard her. Okay, you’re the boss,” Tex answered, and then muttered, “My nose, indeed!”
When Thurlow had been removed the leader turned toward them again. “May thy dreams be of daughters.”
“May thy dreams be as pleasant, gracious mother.”
“We will speak again.” She gathered herself up to a lordly four feet and left the chamber. When she was gone the group of escorts conducted the cadets out of the council hall but by a different passageway than that from which they had come. The group stopped presently at another doorway. The guide in charge wished them farewell with the same formula as the matriarch. A curtain was drawn but it was not fastened, a point that Matt immediately checked. He turned to Oscar.
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Oz. Anytime you get tired of the Patrol and don’t want to run for prime minister of the System, I can book you for a swell job, selling snow to Eskimos. For you it would be a cinch.”
“Mart’s not just fanning the air,” agreed Tex. “Oscar, you were wonderful. Uncle Bodie couldn’t have handled the old gal any slicker.”
“That’s high praise, Tex. I’ll admit to being relieved. If the Little People weren’t so downright decent it wouldn’t have worked.”
The living room of their apartment-there were two rooms -was about the size of the room they had been in, but was more comfortable. There was a softly padded, wide couch running around the wall. In the center of the room was a pool of water, black under the dim light. “Oz, do you suppose that bathtub connects with the outside?” Tex wanted to know.
“They almost always do.”
Matt became interested. “Maybe we could swim out.”
“Go ahead and try it. Don’t get lost in the dark and remember not to swim under water more than half the distance you can hold your breath.” Oscar smiled cynically.
“I see your point.”
“Anyhow, we want to stay until we’ve gotten over the last hurdle.”
Tex wandered on into the second room. “Hey, Oz-come look at this.”
Matt and Oscar joined him. There were rows of little closets down each side, ten in all, each with its own curtain. “Oh, yes, our eating booths.”
“That reminds me,” said Matt. “I thought you had wrecked everything, Oz, when you started talking about eating. But you pulled out of it beautifully.”
“I didn’t pull out of it; I did it on purpose.”
“Why?”
“It was a squeeze play. I had to shock them with the idea that they were indecent, or looked that way to us. It established us as ‘people,’ from their point of view. After that it was easy.” Oscar went on. “Now that we are accepted as people, we’ve got to be awfully careful not to undo it. I don’t like to eat in one of these dark little cubbyholes any better than you do, but we don’t dare take a chance of being seen eating-you don’t dare even fail to draw the curtain, as one of them might come popping in. Remember, eating is the only sort of privacy they observe.”
“I get you,” agreed Tex. “Pie with a fork.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind-it’s a painful memory. But Matt and I won’t slip.”
P.R.S. ASTARTE
OSCAB WAS SUMMONED again the next day into the presence of the city’s chief magistrate and started laying the foundation, in a leisurely, indirect fashion, for formal diplomatic relations in the future. He began by getting her story of the trouble with the Gary and its skipper. It was much as Burke had admitted it to be, although from a different viewpoint.
Oscar had inquired casually as to why the swamp Burke wanted was tabu. He was worried that he might be invading religious matters but he felt that he needed to know -it was a dead certainty that others would be along, in due course, to attempt to exploit the trans-uranic” ores; if the Patrol was to prevent further breaches of the peace the matter must be investigated.
The matriarch answered without hesitation; the swamp was tabu because the ore muds were poisonous.
Oscar felt the relief of a man who has just been told that it will not be necessary to lose a leg, after all. The ores were understandably poisonous; it was a matter that the Patrol could undoubtedly negotiate-conditional or practical tabus had been overcome many times with natives. He tabled the matter, as something to be taken up at a later time by the appropriate experts.
In a later interview he sounded her out on the. subject of the Patrol. She had heard of it, in a fashion, apparently -she used the native word given by the polar-region natives to all colonial government, a word meaning “guardians of the customs” or “keepers of the law.”
The native meaning was quite useful to Oscar, for he found it impossible to get over to her the idea that the , Patrol was intended to prevent war-“war” was a concept she had never heard of!
But her conservative mind was naturally prejudiced in favor of any organization tagged as “guardians of the customs.” Oscar approached it from that viewpoint. He explained to her that more of his own kind would be arriving; therefore the “great mother of many” of his own people had sent them as messengers to propose that a “mother” from Oscar’s people be sent to aid her in avoiding friction.
She was receptive to the idea as it fitted her own experience and concepts. The groups of natives near the polar colonies were in the habit of handling their foreign affairs by exchanging “mothers”-actually judges-who ruled on matters arising out of differences in custom; Oscar had presented the matter in the same terms.
He had thus laid the groundwork for a consulate, extraterritorial courts, and an Earthman police force; the mission, as he saw it, was complete- provided he could get back to base and report before other prospectors, mining engineers, and boomers of all sorts started showing up.
Only then had he spoken to her of getting back-to have her suggest that he remain permanently as “mother” for his people. (The root word translated as “mother” is used for every position of authority in the Venerian speech; the modifiers and the context give the word its current meaning-)
The proposal left Oscar temporarily speechless. “I didn’t know what to say next,” he confessed later. “From her point of view she was honoring me. If I turned it down, it might offend her and crab the whole deal.”
“Well, how did you talk your way out of it?” Tex wanted to know. “Or did you?” |
“I think so. I explained as diplomatically as possible that I was too young for the honor and that I was acting as ‘mother only because Thurlow was laid up and that, in any case, my ‘great mother of many had other work which I was obliged, by custom, to carry out.”
“I guess that held her.”
“I think she just filed it away as a point to negotiate. The Little People are great negotiators; you’ll have to come to New Auckland some time and listen to the proceedings of a mixed court.”
“Keep to the point,” suggested Matt
“That is to the point-they don’t fight; they just argue until somebody gives in. Anyhow, I told her that we had to get Thurlow back where he could get surgical attention. She understood that all right and expressed regret for the tenth time that her own little girls couldn’t do the trick. But she had a suggestion for curing the boss.”
“Yes?” demanded Matt. “What was it?” Matt had appointed himself Thurlow’s caretaker, working with the amphibian healers who now had him as a professional responsibility. He had taught them to take his pulse and to watch his respiration; now there was always one of the gentle creatures x squatting on the end of Thurlow’s couch, watching him with grave eyes. They seemed genuinely distressed at not being able to help him; the lieutenant had remained in a semi-coma, coming out of it enough occasionally that it had been possible to feed him and give him water, but never saying anything that the cadets could understand. Matt found that the little nurses were quite unsqueamish about feeding a helpless person; they accepted offensive necessities with the same gallantry as a human nurse.
But Thurlow, while he did not die, did not get any better.
“The old girl’s suggestion was sort of radical, but logical. She suggested that her healers take Burke’s head apart first, to see how it was made. Then they could operate on the boss and fix him.”
“What?” said Matt.
Tex was having trouble controlling himself. He laughed so hard he strangled, then got hiccoughs and had to be pounded on the back. “Oh, boy!” he finally exploded, tears streaming down his cheeks, “this is wonderful. I can’t wait to see Stinky’s face. You haven’t told him, have you?”
“No.”
“Then let me. Dibs on the job.”
“I don’t think we ought to tell him,” objected Oscar. “Why kick him when he’s down?”
“Oh, don’t be so noble! It won’t hurt any to let him know that his social rating is ‘guinea pig.’ ”
“She really hates him, doesn’t she?” Matt commented.
“Why shouldn’t she?” Tex answered. “A dozen or more of her people dead-do you expect her to regard it as a schoolboy prank?”
“You’ve both got her wrong,” Oscar objected. “She doesn’t hate him.”
“Huh?”
“Could you hate a dog? Or a cat-”
“Sure could,” said Tex. “There was an old tomcat we had once-”
“Pipe down and let me finish. Conceding your, point, you can hate, a cat only by placing it on your own social level. She doesn’t regard Burke as … well, as people at all, because he doesn’t follow the customs. We’re ‘people* to her, because we do, even though we look like him. But Burke in her mind is just a dangerous animal, like a wolf or a shark, to be penned up or destroyed-but not hated or punished.
“Anyhow,” he went on, “I told her it wouldn’t do, because we had an esoteric and unexplainable but unbreakable religious tabu that interfered-that blocked her off from pressing the point. But I told her we’d like to use Burke’s ship to get the lieutenant back. She gave it to me. We go out tomorrow to look at it.”
“Well, for crying out loud-why didn’t you say so, instead of giving all this build-up?”
They had made much the same underwater trip as on entering the city, to be followed by a longish swim and a short trip overland. The city mother herself honored them with her company.
The Gary was everything Burke had claimed for her, modern, atomic- powered, expensively outfitted and beautiful, with sharp wings as graceful as a swallow’s.
She was also a hopeless wreck.
Her hull was intact except the ruined door, which appeared to have been subjected to great heat, or an incredible corrosive, or both. Matt wondered how it had been done and noted it as still another indication that the Venerians were not the frog-seal-beaver creatures his Earth-side prejudices had led him to think.,
The inside of the ship had looked fairly well, too, until they started checking over the controls. In searching the ship the amphibians, to whom even a common door latch was a puzzle, had simply burned their way through impediments-including the access hatch to the ship’s autopilot and gyro compartment. The circuits of the ship’s nervous system were a mass of fused and melted junk.
Nevertheless they spent three hours convincing themselves that it would take the resources of a dockyard to make the ship fly again.. They gave up reluctantly at last and started back, their spirits drooping.
Oscar had at once taken up with the city mother the project of recovering the jeep. He had not mentioned it before as the Gary seemed the better bet. Language difficulties would have hampered him considerably-their hostesses had no word for “vehicle,” much less a word for “rocket ship”-but the Gary gave him something to point to wherewith to explain.
When she understood what he was driving at she gave orders which caused the party to swim to the point where the cadets had first been picked up. The cadets made sure of the spot by locating the abandoned litter and from there Oscar had led them back to the sinkhole that was the grave of the jeep. There he acted out what had happened, showing her the scar in the bank where the jeep had balanced and pacing off on the bank the dimensions of the ship.
The mother-of-many discussed the problem with her immediate staff while the cadets waited, ignored rather than excluded. Then she abruptly gave the order to leave; it was getting on in the late afternoon and even the Venerians do not voluntarily remain out in the jungle overnight.
That had ended the matter for several days. Oscar’s attempts to find out what, if anything, was being done about the jeep were brushed off as one might snub a persistent brat. It left them with nothing to do. Tex played his harmonica until threatened with a ducking in the room’s center pool. Oscar sat around, nursing his arm and brooding. Matt spent much of his time watching over Thurlow and became well acquainted with the nurses who never left him, especially one bright-eyed cheerful little thing who called herself Th’wing.”
Th’wing changed his viewpoint about Venerians. At first he regarded her much as he might a good and faithful, and unusually intelligent dog. By degrees he began to think of her as a friend, an interesting companion-and as “people.” He had tried to tell her about himself and his own kind and his own world. She had listened with alert interest, but without ever taking her eyes off Thurlow.
Matt was forced willy-nilly into the concepts of astronomy-and came up against a complete block. To Th’wing there was the world of water and swamp and occasional dry land; above that was the endless cloud. She knew the Sun, for her eyes, perceptive to infrared, could see it, even though Matt could not, but she thought of it as a disc , of light and warmth, not as a star.
As for other stars, none of her people had ever seen them and the idea did not exist. The notion of another planet was not ridiculous; it was simply incomprehensible- Matt got nowhere.
He told Oscar about it. “Well, what did you expect?” Oscar had wanted to know. “All the natives are like that. They’re polite but they think you are talking about your religion.”
“The natives around the colonies, too?”
“Same deal.”
“But they’ve seen rocket ships, some of ’em, anyhow. Where do they think we come from? They must know we haven’t been here always.”
“Sure they know that-but the ones at South Pole think we came originally from North Pole and the ones around:
P.R.S. ASTARTE
North Pole are sure we came from South Pole-and it’s no use trying to tell them anything different.”
The difficulty was not one-sided. Th’wing was continually using words and concepts which Matt could not understand and which could not be straightened out even with Oscar’s help. He began to get hazily the idea that Th’wing was the sophisticated one and that he, Matt, was the ignorant outlander. “Sometimes I think,” he told Tex, “that Th’wing thinks that I am an idiot studying hard to become a moron-but flunking the course.”
“Well, don’t let it throw you, kid. You’ll be a moron, yet, if you just keep trying.”
On the morning fifteen Venus days after their arrival the mother of the city sent for them and had them taken to the site of the jeep. They stood on the same bank where they had climbed ashore from the sinking ship, but the scene had hanged. A great hole stretched out at their feet; in it the jeep lay, three-quarters exposed. A swarm of Venerians crawled over it and around it like workmen in a dockyard.
The amphibians had begun by adding something to the thin yellow mud of the sinkhole. Oscar had tried to get the formula for the additive, but even his command of the language was useless-the words were strange. Whatever it was, the effect was to turn the almost-liquid mud into a thick gel which became more and more stiff the longer it was exposed to air. The little folk had carved it away from the top as fast as it consolidated;, the jeep was now surrounded by the sheer walls of a caisson-like pit. A ramp led up on the shoreward side and a stream of the apparently tireless little creatures trotted up it, bearing more jelled blocks of mud.
The cadets had climbed down into the pit to watch, talking in high spirits about the prospects of putting the jeep back into commission and jetting out again, until the Venerian in charge of the work had urged them emphatically to go up out of the pit and stay out of the way. They joined the city mother and waited.
“Ask her how she expects to get it up out of there, Oz,” Tex suggested. Oscar did so.
“Tell thy impatient daughter to chase her fish and I will chase mine.”
“No need for her to be rude about it,” Tex complained. “What did she say?” inquired the mother-of-many.
” ‘She’ thanks thee for the lesson,” Oscar prevaricated. The Little People worked rapidly. It was evident that the ship would be entirely free before the day was far advanced-and clean as well; the outside shone now and a steady procession of them had been pouring in and out of the door of the ship, bearing cakes of jellied mud. In the last hour the routine had changed; the little workers came out bearing distended bladders. The clean-up squad was at work.
Oscar watched them approvingly. “I told you they would lick it clean.” :’
Matt looked thoughtful. “I’m worried, Oz, about the possibility that they will mess with something on the control board and get into trouble.”
“Why? The leads are all sealed away. They can’t hurt anything. You locked the board when you left it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”‘
“Anyhow, they can’t fire the jet when she’s in that attitude even if you hadn’t.”
“That’s true. Still, I’m worried.”
“Well, let’s take a look, then. I want to talk to the fore- ‘. man in any case. I’ve got an idea.”
“What idea?” asked Tex.
“Maybe they can get her upright in the pit. It seems to me we could take off from there and never have to drag j her out. Might save several days.” They went down th ramp and located the Venerian in charge, then Matt and Tex went inside the ship while Oscar stayed to talk over his idea.
It was hard to believe that the pilot room had lately; been choked with filthy, yellow mud. A few amphibians’ were still working in the after end of the room; elsewhere the compartment was clean.
Matt climbed to the pilot’s seat and started inspecting. He noticed first that the sponge-rubber eyeguards for the infrared viewer were missing. This was not important, but he wondered what had happened to them-did the little folk have the vice of souvenir snitching? He filed away the suspicion, and attempted a dry run on the controls, without firing the jet.
Nothing operated-nothing at all.
He looked the board over more carefully. To a casual inspection it was clean, right, in perfect order, but he now perceived many little pits and specks. He dug at one with a fingernail, something came away. He worked at it a bit more and produced a tiny hole into the interior of the control board. It gave him a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. “Say, Tex-come here a minute. I’ve got something.”
“You think you’ve got something,” Tex answered in muffled tones. “Wait till you’ve seen this.”
He found Tex with a wrench in his hand and a cover plate off the gyro compartment. “After what happened to the Gary I decided to check this first. Did you ever see such a mess?” ~~
The mud had gotten in. The gyros, although shut down, were of course still spinning when the ship had gone into the sink-hole and normally would have coasted for days; they should still have been spinning when Tex removed the cover. Instead they had ground to a stop against the mud- burned to a stop.
“We had better call Oscar,” Matt said dully.
With Oscar’s help they surveyed the mess. Every instrument, every piece of electronic equipment had been invaded. Non-metallic materials were missing completely; thin metal sheets such as instrument cases were riddled with pinholes. “I can’t understand what did it,” Oscar protested, almost in tears.
Matt asked the Venerian in charge of the work. She did not understand him at first; he pointed out the pinholes, whereupon she- took a lump of the jelled mud and mash< it flat. With a slender finger she carefully separated o what seemed to be a piece of white string, a couple inches long. “This is the source of thy troubles.”
“Know what it is, Oz?”
“Some sort of worm. I don’t recognize it. But I wouldn’t expect to; the Polar Regions are nothing like this, thank goodness.” ”
“I suppose we might as well call off the working party.
“Let’s don’t jump the gun. There might be some way to salvage the mess. We’ve got to.”
“Not a chance. The gyros alone are enough. You can’t raise ship in a wingless job without gyros. It’s impossible.”
“Maybe we could clean them up and get them to working.”
“Maybe you could-I can’t. The mud got to the bearings, Oz.”
Jensen agreed regretfully. The gyros, the finest precision equipment in a ship, were no better than their bearings. Even an instrument maker in a properly equipped shop would have thrown up his hands at gyros abused as these had been.
“We’ve at least got to salvage some electronic equipment and jury-rig some sort .of a sending set. We’ve got to get a. message through.”
“You’ve seen it. What do you think?”
“Well-we’ll pick out the stuff that seems in the best shape and take it back with us. They’ll help us with the stuff.”
“What sort of shape will it be in after an hour or so in the water? No, Oz, the thing to do is to lock up the door, once the last of the filth is out and come back and work here.”
“Okay, well do that.” Oscar called to Tex, who was still snooping around. He arrived swearing.
“What now, Tex?” Oscar asked wearily.
“I thought maybe we could at least take some civilized food back with us, but those confounded worms bored into the cans. Every ration in the ship is spoiled.”
“Is that all?”
” ‘Is that all? Is that all the man says! What do you want? Flood, pestilence, and earthquakes?”
But it was not all-further inspection showed another thing which would have dismayed them had they not already been as low in spirit as they could get. The jeep’s jet ran on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The fuel tanks, insulated and protected from direct radiation, could retain fuel for long periods, but the warm mud had reached them and heated them; the expanding gases had bled out through relief valves. The jeep was out of fuel.
Oscar looked this situation over stonily. “I wish the Gary had been chemically powered,” he finally commented.
“What of it?” Matt answered. “We couldn’t raise ship if we had all the juice this side of Jupiter.”
The mother-of-many had to be shown before she was convinced that there was anything wrong with the ship. Even then, she seemed only half convinced and somehow vexed with the- cadets for being unsatisfied with the gift of their ship back. Oscar spent much of the return journey trying to repair his political fences with her.
Oscar ate no dinner that night. Even Tex only picked at his food and did not touch his harmonica afterwards. Matt spent the evening silently sitting out a watch in Thurlow’s room.
The mother-of-many sent for all three of them the next morning. After formal exchange of greetings she commenced, “Little mother, is it true that thy Gary is indeed dead, like the other Gary?”
“It is true, gracious mother.”
“Is it true that without a Gary thou canst not find thy way back to thine own people?”
“It is true, wise mother of many; the jungle would destroy us.”
She stopped and gestured to one of her court. The “daughter” trotted to her with a bundle half as big as the bearer. The city mother took it and invited, or commanded, the cadets to- join her on the dais. She commenced unwrapping. The object inside seemed to have more bandages than a mummy. At long last she had it uncovered and held out to them. “Is this thine?”
It was a large book. On the cover, in large ornate letters,
was:
LOG
of the
Astarte
Tex looked at it and said, “Great leaping balk of fire! It can’t be.”
Matt stared and whispered, “It must be. The lost first expedition. They didn’t fad-they got here.”
Oscar stared and said nothing at all until the city mother repeated her question impatiently. “Is this thine?”
“Huh? What? Oh, sure! Wise and gracious mother, this thing belonged to my ‘mother’s mother’s mother.’ We are her ‘daughters’”
“Then it is thine.”
Oscar took it from, her and gingerly opened the brittle pages. They stared at the original entry for “raise ship”-but most especially at the year entry in the date column-“1971.” “Holy Moses!” breathed Tex. “Look at that-just look at it. More than a hundred years ago.”
They thumbed through it. There was page after page of one line entries of “free fall, position according to plan” which they skipped over rapidly, except for one: “Christmas day. Carols were sung after the mid-day meal.”
It was the entries after grounding they were after. They were forced to skim them as the mother-of-many was beginning to show impatience: “climate no worse than the most extreme terrestrial tropics in the rainy season, the dominant life form seems to be a large amphibian. This planet is definitely possible of colonization.”
“-the amphibians have considerable intelligence and seem to talk with each other. They are friendly and an attempt is being made to bridge the semantic gap.”
“Margraves has contracted an infection, apparently fungoid, which is unpleasantly reminiscent of leprosy. The surgeon is treating it experimentally.”
“-after the funeral muster Hargraves’ room was sterilized at 0-400.”
The handwriting changed shortly thereafter. The city mother was growing so obviously discontented that they glanced only at the last two entries: “Johnson continues to fail, but the natives are very helpful-”
“-my left hand is now useless. I have made up my mind to decommission the ship and take my chances in the hands of the natives. I shall take this log with me and add to it, if possible.”
The handwriting was firm and clear; it was their own eyes that blurred it.
The mother-of-many immediately ordered up the party used to ferry the humans in and out of the city. She was not disposed to stop to talk and, once the journey began, there was no opportunity to until they reached dry land.
“Look here, Oz,” Tex started in, as soon as he had shaken off the water, “do you really think she’s taking us to the Astarte?”
“Could be. Probably is.”
“Do you think there is a chance that we will find the ship intact?” asked Matt.
“Not a chance. Not a chance in this world. On one point alone, she couldn’t possibly have any fuel left in her tanks. You saw what happened to the jeep. What do you think a century has done to the Astarte?” He paused and looked thoughtful. “Anyhow, I’m not going to get my hopes up, not again. I couldn’t stand it, three times. That’s too many.”
“I guess you’re right,” agreed Matt. “It won’t do to get excited. She’s probably a mound of rust under a covering of vines.”
“Who said anything about not getting excited?” Oscar answered. “I’m so excited I can hardly talk. But don’t think of the Astarte as a possible way to get back; think of her historically.”
“Yow think of it that way,” said Tex. “I’m a believer and a hoper. I want to get out of this dump.”
“Oh, you’ll get out! They’ll come find us some day-and then they’ll finish the mission we flubbed.”
“Look,” answered Tex, “couldn’t we go off duty and not think about the mission just for the next quarter of a mile? These insects are something fierce-you think about Oscar and I’ll think about Mother Jarman’s favorite son. I wish I was back in the good old Triplex.”
“You were the guy that was always beefing that the Triplex was a madhouse.”
“So I was wrong. I can be big about it.”
They came to one of the rare rises in the level of the ground, all of ten feet above water level. The natives started to whisper and lisp excitedly among themselves. Matt caught the Venerian word for “tabu.” “Did you get that, Oz?” he said in Basic. “Tabu.”
“Yes. I don’t think she told them where she was taking, them.”
The column stopped and spread out; the three cadets moved forward, pushing rank growth aside and stepped in a clearing.
In front of them, her rakish wings festooned in vines and her entire hull sheathed in some translucent substance, was the Patrol Rocket Ship Astarte.
HOTCAKES FOR BREAKFAST
THE CITY MOTHER was standing near the door of the Astarte, underneath the starboard wing. Two of her people: were working at the door, using bladders to squirt some liquid around the edges. The translucent layer over the hull melted away wherever the liquid touched it. They grasped a free edge of the skin stuff and began to peel it away. “Look at that,” said Tex. “Do you see what they’ve done? The ship is Venusized.”
His use of the term was loose; an item that has been “planetized” is one that has been rendered stable against certain typical conditions of the planet concerned, as defined by tests of the Bureau of Standards-for example, an item listed in the colonial edition of the Sears & Montgomery catalog as “Venusized” is thereby warranted to resist the excessive humidity, the exotic fungi, and certain of the planet’s pests. The Astarte was merely encased in a sheath. ‘
“Looks like it,” agreed Oscar, his voice carefully restrained. “Sort of a spray-gun job.”
“Five gets you ten it never saw a spray gun. The Venerians did it” Tex slapped at an insect. “You know what this means, Oz?”
“I’m way ahead of you. Don’t get your hopes up. And don’t try to get mine up, either. A hundred years is a long tune.” . “Oz, you don’t get any fun out of life.”
The little workers were having difficulties. The top of the door was much higher than they could reach; they were now trying to form two-high pyramids, but, having no shoulders to speak of, they were hardly built for the job. Matt said to Oscar, “Couldn’t we give them a hand with that?”
“I’ll see.” Oscar went forward and suggested that the cadets take over the job of squirting on the solvent. The mother person looked at him,
“Canst thou grow a new hand, if needed?”
Oscar admitted that he could not.
“Then do not tamper with that which thou dost not understand.”
Using their own methods the natives soon had the door cleared. It was latched but not locked; the door refused to open for a moment, then gave suddenly. They scrambled up into the airlock. “Wait a minute,” Matt whispered. “Hadn’t we better go easy? We don’t know that the infection that got them is necessarily dead.”
“Don’t be silly,” Tex whispered back. If your immunizations hadn’t worked, you’d have been a sick chicken long ago.”
“Tex is right, Matt. And .there’s no need to whisper. Ghosts can’t hear.”
“How do you know?” objected Tex. “Are you a doctor of ghostology?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“I do. Once my Uncle Bodie stayed overnight-”
“Let’s get on inside,” Matt insisted.
The passageway beyond the inner door was dark, save for the light that filtered in through the lock. The air had a strange odor, not precisely foul but lifeless-old.
The control room beyond was dimly but adequately lighted; the light from outside filtered softly through the sheathing that still covered the quartz pilot’s port. The room was very cramped. The cadets were used to roomy modern ships; the Astartes wings gave her a false impression of great size. Inside she was smaller than the jeep.
Tex began humming something about “-stout-hearted men-,” then broke off suddenly. “Look at the darned thing!” he said. “Just look at it. To think they actually made an interplanetary jump in it. Look at that control board. Why, she’s as primitive as a rowboat. And yet they took the chance. Puts you in mind of Columbus and the Santo Maria”
“Or the Viking ships,” suggested Matt.
“There were men in those days,” agreed Oscar, not very originally but with great sincerity.
“You can say that louder,” commented Tex. “There’s no getting around it, fellows; we were born too late for the age of adventure. Why, they weren’t even heading for a listed port; they just blasted off into the dark and trusted to luck that they could get back.”
“They didn’t get back,” Oscar said softly.
“Let’s talk about something else,” Matt requested. “I’m covered with goose pimples as it is.”
“Okay,” Oscar concurred, “I’d better get back and see what her royal nibs is doing anyway.” He left, to return almost at once, accompanied by the city mother. “She was just waiting to be invited,” he called out ahead of them, in Basic, “and huffy at being forgotten. Help me butter her up.”
The native official turned out to be helpful; except for the control room the other spaces were dark, even to her. She stepped to the door, made known her wants, and returned with one of the glowing orange spheres they used for lighting. It was a poor excuse for a flashlight, but about as effective as a candle.
Everywhere the ship was orderly and clean, save for a faint film of dust. “Say what you like, Oscar,” commented Matt, “I’m beginning to get my hopes up. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with her. It looks as if the crew had just gone out for a walk. We may be able to put her in commission.”
“I’m ready to throw in with Oscar,” Tex objected. “I’ve lost my enthusiasm- I’d rather go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.”
“They flew her,” Matt pointed out
“Sure they did-and my hat’s off to them. But it takes heroes to fly a box as primitive as this and I’m not the hero type.”
The mother-of-many lost interest presently and went outside. Tex borrowed the orange sphere and continued to look around while Matt and Oscar gave the control room a careful going over. Tex found a locker containing small, sealed packages marked “Personal effects of Roland Hargraves,” “Personal effects of Rupert H. Schreiber,” and other names. He put them back carefully.
Oscar shouted for him presently. “I think we had better get going. Her nibs hinted that when she left.”
“Come see what I’ve found. Food!”
Matt and Oscar came to the door of the galley storeroom. “Do you suppose any of it is any good?” asked Matt.
“Why not? It’s all canned. Jigger for me and we’ll find out.” Tex operated with a can opener. “Phewey!” he said presently. “Anybody want to sample some embalmed corned beef hash? Throw it outside, Matt, before it stinks up the place.”
“It already has.”
“But look at this!” Tex held up a can marked: Old Plantation Hotcake Flour. “This won’t be spoiled-hotcakes for breakfast, troops. I can hardly wait.”
“What good are flapjacks without syrup?”
“All the comforts of home-half a dozen cans of it.” He produced one marked: Genuine Vermont Maple Syrup, unadulterated.
Tex wanted to take some back with them. Oscar vetoed it, on both practical and diplomatic grounds. Tex suggested that they remain in the ship, not go back. “Presently, Tex,; presently,” Oscar agreed. “You forgot about Lieutenant Thurlow.” –
“So I did. Close my big mouth.”
“Speaking of Mr. Thurlow,” put in Matt, “you’ve given me an idea. He won’t touch much of that native hash, even when he seems to come pretty far out of it. How about that sugar syrup? I could feed it to him from a drinking bladder.”
“It can’t hurt him and it might help,” decided Oscar. “We’ll take half the syrup back with us.” Tex picked the cans up, Matt tucked a can opener in his pouch, and they went outside.
Matt was pleased to find Th’wing on watch in Thurlow’s room when they got back; she would be easier to deal with than the other nurses. He explained to her what he had in mind, in polite circumlocutions. She accepted a can Matt had opened and tasted, beforehand, and turned her back apologetically while she tasted it.
She spat it out. “Art thou sure that this will not harm thy ailing mother?”
Matt understood her hesitation, since Venerian diet runs to starch and protein, not to sugar. -He assured her that Thurlow would be helped thereby. They transferred the contents to a bladder.
The cadets talked over what they should do about the Astarte after dinner that night. Matt insisted that she could be made to fly; Tex remained of the opinion that they would be silly to attempt it. “She might get high enough to crash-no higher.”
Oscar listened, then said, “Matt, did you check the tanks?” Matt admitted that he had. “Then you know there isn’t any fuel.”
“Then why are you arguing?” Tex interrupted. “The matter is settled.”
“No, it’s not, announced Oscar. “Well try to fly her.”
“Huh?”
“She can’t fly and well try anyhow,” Oscar went on.
“But why?”
“Okay-here’s why. If we just sit here long enough, the Patrol will come along and find us, won’t they?”
“Probably,” agreed Matt.
“Absolute certainty. That’s the way the Patrol works. They won’t let us down. Look at the search for the Pathfinder -four ships, month after month. If their mishap hadn’t killed them, the Patrol would have brought them back alive. We’re still alive and we are somewhere near our original destination. They’ll find us-the delay simply means they aren’t sure we are lost yet; we haven’t been out of touch so very long. Anyhow, we knew there wasn’t a ship ready at either North Pole or South Pole to attempt an equatorial search, or we wouldn’t have gotten the mission in the first place, so it may take a while before they can come for us. But they’ll come.”
“Then why not wait?” insisted Tex.
“Two reasons. The first is the boss-we’ve got to get him to a proper hospital before he just fades away and dies.”
“And kill him in the take off.”
“Maybe. That wouldn’t faze him, is my guess. The second reason is-we are the Patrol.”
“Huh? Come again.”
“It’s agreed that the Patrol wouldn’t give up looking for us. Okay, if that’s the sort of an outfit the Patrol is and we are part of the Patrol, then when they find us, they’ll find us doing our level best to pull out unassisted, not sitting on our fat fannies waiting for a lift.”
“I get you,” said Tex. “I was afraid your busy little brain would figure that out, given time. Very well-mark me down as a reluctant hero. I think I’ll turn in; this hero business is going to be sweaty and wearing.”
It was indeed sweaty. The Venerians continued to be helpful but the actual work of attempting to outfit a ship for space had to be done entirely by the humans. With the permission of the city mother Oscar, transferred their headquarters to the Astarte. Thurlow was not moved, but arrangements were made for one cadet to be ferried each day back to the city, to report on Thurlow and to bring food back. There were few supplies left in the Astarte which were still edible.
However the pancake mix turned out to be usable. Tex had gadgeted together an ail burner of sorts-they had no electrical power as yet-and had charged the contraption with a fish oil obtained from the natives. Over this he baked his hotcakes. They were noticeably inferior to any that any of the three had ever tasted, for the flour had aged and changed flavor. They showed little tendency to rise.
But they were hotcakes and they were drowned in maple syrup. It was a ceremony, at the beginning of each working day, held on the sly behind a locked door, lest one of their puritanical friends be offended.
They embarked on a systematic campaign to vandalize each of the other ships for anything at all that might prove useful in outfitting the Astarte. In this, too, they were dependent on the natives; Matt or Tex could pick out what was wanted, but it took the little folk to move anything several miles through swamp and water and unmarked jungle.
They talked of the flight as if they really expected to make it. “You give me radar,” Matt told Oscar, “any sort of approach radar, so that I’ve got a chance to land, and I’ll set her down somewhere at South Pole. You can forget about the astrogational junk; it’ll be dead reckoning.”
They had settled on New Auckland, South Pole, as their nominal destination. North Pole would have been equally reasonable, but Oscar was a southern colonial, which decided it.
Oscar had promised the radar, not knowing quite how he could manage it. The Gary was the only hope; her communications room had been wrecked but Oscar had hopes of salvaging her belly radar. He set about doing it, while swearing at the impossibility of doing delicate work with one arm in a sling.
Little from the jeep was worth salvaging and none of it was entirely intact. Oscar had tried at first to use the radar equipment of the Astarte, but had given up-a century of difference in technology baffled him. Not only were the electronic circuits of the Astarte vastly more complicated and equally less efficient than the gear he had been brought up. with but the nomenclature was different-the markings, for example, on a simple resistor were Greek to him.
As for radio circuits the only sending installation actually fit to operate was a suit walky-talky from the Gary.
Nevertheless there came a morning when they had done what they could do. Tex was dealing out hotcakes. “It looks to me,” he said, “as if we were ready to go, if we had some ‘go’ juice.”
“How do you figure that,” asked Matt. “The control board isn’t even hooked to the jet.”
“What of it? I’m going to have to throttle by hand anyhow. I’m going to take that big piece of tubing we pulled out of the Gary and string it from you back to me, at the jet throttle. You can shout down it and if I like it I’ll do it.”
“And if you don’t like it?”
“Then I’ll do something else. Easy on that syrup, Oz; it’s the very last.”
Oscar stopped himself, syrup can in midair. “Oh, I’m sorry, Tex. Here-let me slop some from my plate onto yours.”
“Don’t bother. It was just a reflex remark. To tell the truth, I’m sick of hotcakes. We’ve had them every day now for more than two weeks, with nothing to break the monotony but hash a la native.” ,
“I’m sick of them, too, but it didn’t seem polite to say so, with you doing the cooking.” Oscar pushed back his plate. “I don’t mind the syrup running out”
“But it hasn’t” Matt stopped.
“Something bite you, Matt?”
“No, I-nothing.” He continued to look thoughtful.
“Close your mouth, then. Say, Oz, if we had some ‘go’ juice for the Tart, what would you pick?”
“Monatomic hydrogen.”
“Why pick the one thing she can’t burn? I’d settle for alcohol and oxygen.”
“As long as you haven’t got it, why not wish for the best?”
“Because we agreed to play this game for keeps. Now we’ve got to go through the motions of trying to make some fuel, from now till they find us. That’s why I say alcohol and oxygen. I’ll whomp up some sort of a still and start cooking alky while you and Matt figure out how to produce liquid oxygen with just your bare hands and a ship’s equipment.”
“How long do you figure it will take you to distil several tons of alcohol with what you can rig up?”
“That’s the beauty of it. I’ll still be working away at it, like a good little boy, busy as a moonshiner, when they come to rescue us. Say, did I ever tell you about Uncle Bodie and the moonshiners? It seems-”
“Look here,” interrupted Matt, “how would you go about cooking up some maple syrup-here?”
“Huh? Why fret about it? We’re sick of hotcakes.”
“So am I, but I want to know how you can make maple syrup right here. Or, rather, how the natives can do it?”
“Are you nuts, or is this a riddle?”
“Neither one. I just remembered something I had overlooked. You said there wasn’t any more maple syrup, and I was about to say that there was still plenty in Thurlow’s room.” Two days before, it had been Mart’s turn to go into the city. As usual he had visited Thurlow’s sickroom, His friend Th’wing had been on watch and had left him alone with the lieutenant for twenty minutes or so.
During the interval the patient had roused and Matt had wished to offer him a drink; there were several drinking bladders at hand.
The first one Matt picked up turned out to be charged with maple syrup, and so did the next and the next-the entire row, in fact. Then he found the one he wanted, lying on the couch. “I didn’t think anything about it at the time- I was busy with the lieutenant. But this is what bothers me: He’s been taking quite a lot of the syrup; you might say he’s been living on nothing else. I opened the first can when we first took it to him, and I opened both the other cans myself, as needed-Th’wing couldn’t cope with the can opener. So I know that the syrup was almost gone.
“Where did the rest of the syrup come from?”
“Why, I suppose the natives made it,” answered Oscar. “It wouldn’t be too hard to get sugar from some of the plants around here. There’s a sort of grass somewhat like sugar cane, up near the Poles; they could find something of the sort.”
“But, Oz, this was maple syrup!”
“Huh? It couldn’t be. Your taster has gone haywire.”
“It was maple, I tell you.”
“Well, what if it was-mind you, I don’t concede that you can get the true maple flavor this side of Vermont, but what difference does it make?”
“I think we’ve been overlooking a bet. You were talking about distilling alcohol; I’ll bet the natives can supply alcohol in any quantities.”
“Oh.” Oscar thought about it. “You’re probably right. They are clever about things like that-that gunk they use to jell mud and those solvents they cleaned the Tart with. Kitchen chemists.”
“Maybe they aren’t kitchen chemists. Maybe they are the real thing.”
“Huh?” said Tex. “What do you mean, Matt?”
“Just what I said. We want ‘go’ juice for the Tart-maybe if we just had sense enough to ask the mother-of-many for it, we’d get it.”
Oscar shook his head. “I wish you were right, Matt. No-body has more respect for the Little People than I have, but there isn’t a rocket fuel we can use that doesn’t involve one or more liquefied gases. We might even make them understand what we needed but they wouldn’t have the facilities for it.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Well, shucks, Matt, liquid oxygen-even liquid air-calls for high pressures and plenty of power, and high-pressure containers for the intermediate stages. The Little People make little use of power, they hardly use metal.” |
“They don’t use power, eh? How about those orange lights?”
“Well, yes, but that can’t involve much power.”
“Can you make one? Do you know how they work?” “No, but-”
“What I’m trying to get at is that there may be more 1 ways of doing engineering than the big, muscley, noisy ways we’ve worked out. You’ve said yourself that we don’t really ; know the natives, not even around the poles. Let’s at least ask!”
Oscar was looking very thoughtful. “I’ve realized for some time that our friends here were more civilized than the ones around the colonies, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.”
“What is civilization?”
“Never mind the philosophy-let’s get going.” Oscar unlocked the ship’s outer door and spoke to a figure, waiting in what was to her bright sunlight and busy looking at the pictures in a 1971 Saturday Evening Post. “Hey, girlie! Wouldst thou graciously conduct us to the home of thy mother?”
It was maple syrup. Both Tex and Oscar agreed. Th’wing explained quite readily that, when the supply ran low, they had made more, using the original terrestrial stuff as a sample.
Oscar went to see the city mother, taking with him a bottle of grain alcohol salvaged from the medical supplies of the Gary. Matt and Tex had to sweat it out, for it had been agreed that Oscar did best with her nibs when not accompanied. He returned after more than two hours, looking stunned.
“What gives, Oz? What did you find out?’ Matt demanded.
“It’s bad news,” said Tex. “I can tell from your face.”
“No, it’s not bad news.”
“Then spill it, man, spill it-you mean they can do it?”
Oscar swore softly in Venerian. “They can do anything!”
“Back off and try again,” advised Tex. “They can’t play a harmonica. I know; I let one try. Now tell us.”
“I started in by showing her the ethyl alcohol and tried to explain that we still had a problem and asked her if her people could make the stuff. She seemed to think it was a silly question-just sniffed it and said they could. Then I positively strained myself trying to act out liquid oxygen, first telling her that there were two different things in air, one inert and one active. The -best I could do was to use their words for living’ and ‘dead.’ I told her I wanted the living part to be like water. She cut me off and sent for one of her people. They talked back and forth for several minutes and I swear I could understand only every second or third word and could not even get the gist of it. It was a part of their language totally new to me. Then the other old girl leaves the room.
“We waited. She asked me if we would be leaving soon if we got what we wanted. I said, yes if- then she asked me to do her the favor of taking Burke along; she was apologetic about it but firm. I said we would.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Matt. “I despise Stinky’s insides, but it sticks in my craw to leave him to die here. He ought to have a trial.”
“Keep quiet, Matt,” said Tex. “Who cares about Stinky? Go on, Oscar.”
“After quite a wait, the other old girl came back, with a bladder-just an ordinary bladder by the appearance, but darker than a drinking bladder. Her nibs hands it to me and asks me if this is what I wanted. I said sorry but I did not want water. She squeezed a few drops out on my hand.” Oscar held out his hand. “See that? It burned me.”
“It actually was liquid oxygen?”
“That or liquid air. I didn’t have any way to test, think it was oxygen. But get this-the bladder wasn’t even cold. And it didn’t fume until she squeezed out the drop. The other gal was carrying it around as casually as you carry a hot-water bottle.”
Oscar stared off into space a moment. “It beats me,” he said. “The only thing I can think of is catalyst chemist -they must have catalyst chemistry down to the point where they can do things without fuss that we do with heat and pressure.”
“Why try to figure it out?” asked Tex. “You’ll probably get the wrong answer. Just let it go that they’ve forgotten more about chemistry than we’ll ever learn. And we get the ‘go juice.”
For two days a steady procession of little folk had formed a double line from the water’s edge to the Astarte, bearing full bladders toward the ship and returning with empty ones. Thurlow was already abroad, still attended by his patient little nurses. Burke was brought to the ship under escort and turned loose. The cadets let him alone, which seemed to disconcert him. He looked the ship over-it was the first he had heard of it-and finally sought out Jensen.
“If you think I’m going to ride in that flying coffin you’re greatly mistaken.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing. You can stay in the jungle, or try to persuade the city mother to take you back.”
Burke considered it. “I think I’ll stay with the frogs. If you get through, you can tell them where I am and have them come get me.”
“I’ll tell them where you are all right and all the rest of it, too.”
“You needn’t think you can scare me.” Burke went away.
He returned shortly. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m coming with you.”
“You mean they wouldn’t have you.”
“Well-yes.”
“Very well,” answered Cadet Jensen, “the local authorities having declined jurisdiction, I arrest you under the colonial code titled ‘Relations with Aborigines,’ charges and specifications to be made known to you at your arraignment and not necessarily limited to the code cited. You are warned that anything you say may be used in evidence against you.”
“You can’t do this!”
“Matt! Tex! Take him in and strap him down.”
“With pleasure!” They strapped him to an acceleration rest mounted in the galley, where, they had agreed, he would be the least nuisance. Done, they reported it to Jensen,”
“See here, Oz,” Matt added, “do you think you can make any charges stick against him?”
“I rather doubt it, unless they allow our hearsay under a “best evidence’ rule. Of course he ought to be strung up higher than the Milky Way, but the best I expect is to get his license revoked and his passport lifted. The Patrol will believe our story and that’s enough for those items.”
Less than an hour later Thurlow’s nurses left the ship and the cadets said good-by to the mother-of-many, a flowery, long-winded business in which Oscar let himself be trapped into promising to return some day. But at last he closed the outer door and Tex clamped” it. “Are you sure they understand how to keep clear of our blast?” asked Matt.
“I paced off the safety line with her myself and heard her give the orders. Quit worrying and get to your station.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Matt and Oscar went forward, Oscar with the ancient log tucked in his sling. Tex took station at the hand throttles. Oscar sat down in the co-pilot’s chair and opened the log to the page of the last entry. He took a stub of pencil
that he had found in the galley, wet it in his mouth, entered the date, and wrote in a large hand:
He paused and said to Matt, “I still think we ought to shift the command.”
“Stow it,” said Matt. “If Commodore Arkwright can command the Randolph with his lights gone, you can command the Tart with a busted wing.”
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it.” He continued to write,
O. Jensen, acting captain
M. Dodson, pilot and astrogator
W. Jarman, chief engineer
Lt. R. Thiwlow, passenger (sick list)
G. Burke, passenger, civilian (prisoner)
“Muster the crew, Mister.”
“Aye aye, sir. Call your name, too, Oz?”
“Sure, its a short list as it is.”
“How about Stinky?” “Of course not! I’ve got him billed as cargo.”
Matt took a deep breath and, speaking close to the speaking tube so that Tex could hear, called out: “Lieutenant Thurlow!” Oscar replied, “I answer for him.” He glanced back at the lieutenant, strapped in the inspector’s rest where they could keep an eye on him.
Thurlow opened his eyes with the puzzled, questioning look he always showed on the rare occasions when he seemed to be aware of anything.
“Jensen!”
“Here.”
“Jarman!”
“Here!” Tex called back, his voice muffled and hollow through the tube.
Matt said, “Dodson present,” then wet his lips and hesitated.
“Dahlquiist!”
Oscar was about to reply when Thurlow’s voice came from behind them: “I answer for him.”
“Martin!” Matt went on mechanically, too startled to stop,
“I answer for him,” said Oscar, his eyes on Thurlow.
“Rivera!”
“I answer for him,” came Tex’s voice.
“Wheeler!”
“Wheeler’s here too,” Tex answered again. “They’re all here, Matt. We’re ready.”
“Complement complete, Captain;”
“Very well, sir.”
“How is he, Oz?”
“He’s closed his eyes again. Raise ship when ready.”
“Aye aye, sir. According to plan-raise ship. He grasped the wing controls and waited. The Astarte reared on her belly jets, drove up and forward and into the mists of Venus.
IN THE COMMANDANT’S OFFICE
PASSED CADETS Dodson and Jarman, freshly detached from the P.R.S. Pegasus, at Terra Station out from New Auckland, climbed out of the Randolph’s scooter and into the Randolph herself. Cadet Jensen was not with them; Oscar, on despatch authorization from the Academy, had been granted six months for leave at home, with the understanding that he would be ordered to temporary duty in the course of it, to accompany the first consul to the equatorial regions to his station and assist in establishing liaison. Matt and Tex showed their orders to the officer of the watch and left with him the inevitable copies. He gave them their rooming assignments-in Hog Alley, in a room with a different number but otherwise like the one they had had. “Seems like we never left it,” remarked Tex, as he unpacked his jump bag.
“Except it seems funny not to have Oz and Pete around.”
“Yeah, I keep expecting Oz to stick his head in and ask if we’d like to team up with him and Pete.”
The room phone sounded, Tex answered.
“Cadet Jarman?”
“Speaking.”
“The Commandant’s compliments-you are to report to his office at once.”
“Aye aye, sir.” He switched off and continued to Matt. “They don’t waste much time, do they?” He looked thoughtful and added, “You know what I think?”
“Maybe I can guess.”
“Well, this quick service looks promising. And we did do quite a job, Matt. There’s no getting around to it.”
“I guess so. Bringing in the Astarte, a hundred and eight years overdue, was something-even if we had dragged it in on wheels it still would be something. I won’t start calling you ‘Lieutenant’ just yet, but-he might commission us.”
“Keep your fingers crossed. How do I look?”
“You aren’t pretty, but you look nineteen times better than you did when we grounded at South Pole. Better get moving.”
“Right.” Tex left and Matt waited nervously. Presently the call he expected came in, telling him, too, to report to the Commandant.
He found that Tex was still inside. Rather than fidget under the eyes of others in the Commandant’s outer office, he chose to wait in the passageway. After a while, Tex came out. Matt went up to him eagerly. “How about it?”
Tex gave him an odd look. “Just go on in.”
“You can’t talk?”
“We’ll talk later. Go on in.”
“Cadet Dodson!” someone called from the outer office.
“On deck,” he called back. A couple of moments later he was in the presence of the Commandant.
“Cadet Dodson, reporting as ordered, sir.”
The Commandant turned his face toward him and Matt felt again the eerie feeling that Commodore Arkwright could see him better than could an ordinary, sighted man. “Oh,
yes, Mr. Dodson. At ease.” The elder Patrolman reached unerringly for a clip on his desk. “I’ve been looking over your record. You’ve made up your deficiency in astrogation and supplemented it with a limited amount .of practical work. Captain Yancey seems to approve of you, on the whole, but notes that you are sometimes absent-minded, with a tendency to become pre-occupied with one duty to the expense of others. I don’t find that very serious-in a young man.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It was not a compliment, just an observation. Now tell me, what would you do if-” Forty-five minutes later Matt caught his breath sufficiently to realize that he had been subjected to a very searching examination. He had come into the Commandant’s office feeling nine feet tall, four feet wide, and completely covered with hair. The feeling had passed.
The Commandant paused for a moment as if thinking, then went on, “When will you be ready to be commissioned, Mr. Dodson?”
Matt strangled a bit, then managed to answer, “I don’t know, sir. Three or four years, perhaps.”
“I think a year should suffice, if you apply yourself. I’m sending you down to Hayworth Hall. You can catch the shuttle from the Station this afternoon.
“The usual delay for leave, of course,” he added.
“That’s fine, sir!”
“Enjoy yourself. I have an item here for you-” The blind man hesitated a split second, then reached for another clip, “-a copy of a-letter from Lieutenant Thurlow’s mother. Another copy has been placed in your record.”
“Uh, how is the lieutenant, sir?”
“Completely recovered, they tell me. One more thing before you go-”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me have some notes on what troubles you ran into in recommissioning the Astarte, emphasizing what you had to learn as you went along-especially any mistakes you made.”
“Uh, aye aye, sir.”
“Your notes will be considered in revising the manual on obsolete equipment. No hurry about it-do it when you come back from leave.”
Matt left the Commandant’s presence feeling only a fraction the size he had when he had gone in, yet he felt curiously elated rather than depressed. He hurried to the room he shared with Tex and found him waiting. Tex looked him over. “I see you’ve had it.”
“Check.”
“Hayworth Hall?”
“That’s it.” Matt looked puzzled. “I don’t understand it. I went in there honestly convinced that I was going to be commissioned. But I feel wonderful. Why is that?”
“Don’t look at me. I feel the same way, and yet I can’t remember that he had a kind word to say. The whole business on Venus he just tossed off.”
Matt said, “That’s it!”
“What’s what?”
” ‘He just tossed it off.’ That’s why we feel good. He didn’t make anything of it because he didn’t expect anything less-because we are Patrolmen!”
“Huh? Yes, that’s it-that’s exactly it! Like he was thirty-second degree and we were first degree, but members of the same lodge.” Tex started to whistle.
“I feel better,” said Matt. “I felt good before, but now I feel better, now that I understand why. Say-one other thing.” – .
“What?”
“You didn’t tell him about the fight I had with Burke in New Auckland, did you?”
“Of course not.” Tex was indignant.
“That’s funny. I didn’t tell anybody but you, and I could have sworn that no one saw it. I planned it that way.”
“He knew about it?”
“He sure did.”
“Was he sore?”
“No. He said he realized that Burke was out on bond and that I was on leave and he had no wish to invade my private life-but he wanted to give me a word of advice.”
“Yeah? What was it?”
“Never lead with my left.”
Tex looked amazed, then thoughtful. “I think he was telling you not to lead with your chin, too.”
“Probably.” Matt started repacking his jump bag. “When’s the next scooter for the Station?”
“About thirty minutes. Say, Matt, you’ve got leave of course?”
“Check.”
“How about picking up my invitation to spend a few weeks on the Jarman spread? I want you to meet my folks -and Uncle Bodie.”
“Uncle Bodie, by all means. But Tex?”
“Yeah?”
“Hotcakes for breakfast?”
“No hotcakes.”
“It’s a deal”
“Shake.”
The End
More Fun
If you enjoyed this post, and story, then you might find these few links worthy of a visit. Trust me, you will not be disappointed;
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
Posts about the Changes in America
America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
The BBC’s editors yesterday printed the article (above) — but sprinkled it with links (see picture below) which powerfully proved the critics’ point that the BBC is biased against China.In effect, the BBC said “we’re not anti-China — by the way, here’s a link to an article showing how China is a dystopian hellscape! And another one. And another one. And another one. And . . “.It’s hard not to laugh.
E-Hang’s electric VT-30 travels 300km in 100 minutes. With eight propellers, two fixed wings, and a propeller at the rear, it achieves a balance of hybrid lift and push, so needs no runway. Its tri-redundant, fly-by-wire controls can be flexibly altered for multiple modes, implying a much higher safety level for the aircraft. 
As importantly, PRC air and naval forces have long had existing plans to fight a U.S. force sent to aid Taiwan and have conducted countless 
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