The Nature of Foxes

[blindpig]

Wealth Extraction At Its Finest: The Big Beautiful Bill
Roger Boyd
Jul 26, 2025



“Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”, the more it changes, the more it remains the same. Or “back to the 1880s!” The New Deal era was the exception for the US, not the rule.

All the profiteers eating at the trough of US state corruption will certainly have celebrated the hugely increased budget for the massive trough of corruption known as Homeland Security; from an already monstrous US$65.1 billion to US$107.4 billion. Who will profit from this? People like Canadian billionaire Stephan Cretier, CEO of GardaWorld that is staffing Alligator Alcatraz as he comfortably resides in his offshore tax haven of Dubai. He considers it to be “monumental, the wealth creation that’s being done”, yes wealth creation through the corrupt picking of the government’s pockets while implementing the increasingly authoritarian state. As Maureen Tkacik notes:

Some of the contractors involved in Alligator Alcatraz have their roots in security: Crétier launched GardaWorld with a handful of friends from Montreal law enforcement. Others, like Miami’s CDR Maguire, Toronto’s Access Restoration Services (ARS), and Galveston, Texas’s SLSCO got their starts in disaster response, then moved into more punitive industries. But for most companies in the emergency response business these days, the distinctions between providing emergency assistance and intimidating/terrorizing the victims of said emergency have blurred.

From FEMA to Alligator Alcatraz, is there really that much difference? The CDR group of companies have been at this for many years, and Tkacik shows us how the sausage is made:

CDR group of companies, whose founder Carlos Duart and his wife, both second-generation Cuban Americans affiliated with ardently free-market think tanks, have given nearly $2 million to campaign slush funds supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida Republicans and are regulars at charity balls and society events of that nature. CDR is an outgrowth of Duart’s eponymous Miami construction company that diversified into federal project management after the real estate crash of the early Obama years. During the pandemic, it administered tens of thousands of vaccines, and nowadays its most booming business seems to be disaster relief, but it also has a division that provides health care to prisons in three states, which is the one that nabbed the contract at Alligator Alcatraz.

To say that such companies are run by “shady individuals’ and that they do not excel in competence is but an understatement. GardaWorld was in severe difficulties due to its utter lack of ability to run the armoured cash transport business; which included getting four of its bodyguards killed in Iraq, repeatedly losing customers’ money, and hiring novice drivers who notched up about 100 collisions a month in badly maintained vehicles.



In response, the company moved its headquarters to Florida and ingratiated itself with then Governor Rick Scott and the possible criminal charges “went away” as they say. The Alligator Alcatraz contractors have close links with the current governor, Ron DeSantis.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVKISxNqf8I[/youtube]

It has been predicted that the emergency response and homeland “security” trough of corrupt extraction may be a US$1 trillion sector of the US economy by 2030; all counted toward GDP rather than as the rentier graft that it is. With the profits squirrelled away in offshore and onshore (e.g. Delaware) tax havens, safe and sound from the tax men of which quite a few have been let go.

With respect to Alligator Alcatraz, it looks like Florida state pockets as well as federal level pockets are being extensively picked. US$600 million and counting!



War spending of course leapt to a cool US$1 trillion a year, more “wealth creation” for the big “defence contractors” of Lockheed Martin (aerospace, space), Raytheon (missiles and sensors), Northrop Grumman (aerospace), General Dynamics (combat vehicles, shipbuilding, IT), Boeing (aerospace), L3Harris (communications), HII (shipbuilding), Leidos (IT), Booz Allen Hamilton (consulting) and Amentum (logistics etc.); an incredibly concentrated set of suppliers with Lockheed Martin easily the biggest. There is no real “competitive” bidding in such an arrangement, especially when the defence contractors are legally able to intervene directly in US politics, and there is a revolving door between the state and the contractors. For example, in fighter jets there are exactly two contractors. Lockheed Martin got the F35 boondoggle, so now Boeing gets the F47 boondoggle. In 2001 Lockheed Martin stated that the F35 would be in service by 2008 with a program cost of US$200 million, while “almost a quarter century later, acquisition costs have doubled, the total program price is nudging $2 trillion, and engineers are still struggling to make the thing work properly.” As Cockburn notes:

If and when it finally comes to be written decades from now, an honest history of the F-47 “fighter” recently unveiled by President Trump will doubtless have much to say about the heroic lobbying campaign that garnered the $20 billion development contract for Boeing, the corporation that has become a byword for program disasters (see the KC-46 tanker, the Starliner spacecraft, the 737 MAX airliner, not to mention the T-7 trainer.)

Just like the Homeland Security contractors, the MIC contractors seem immune to repeated failures, cost and time overruns, over billing, and corruption scandals.







As the US never really fights wars against peer competitors, their output is hardly ever properly market tested. In the Russo-Ukraine and India-Pakistan wars, and the repeated attempts to subjugate Ansar Allah in Yemen, their wares have not been shown in a good light to put it mildly. An example of the US MIC incompetence and profiteering:

The US Navy’s next-gen DDG(X) destroyer is designed to outgun China’s rising fleet, but soaring costs, shaky tech and shipyard bottlenecks threaten to derail the program before it leaves the drawing board.

This month, the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report stating that while the US Navy seeks to procure the first DDG(X) in the early 2030s and has requested US$133.5 million for research and development in FY2026, the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates each ship will cost $4.4 billion—33% more than the US Navy’s $3.3 billion projection.

However, a June 2025 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report highlighted that critical technologies—including the Integrated Power System (IPS) and hull form—remain immature and may not be fully tested before the ship enters detailed design.

That’s raising red flags about cost and schedule—further compounded by August 2024 updates to operational requirements made to accommodate faster speeds and higher electrical loads, with no updated timelines or cost estimates provided.

Lawmakers must weigh whether DDG(X)’s ambitious design justifies its cost and whether the US Navy is doing enough to manage risks as it transitions from existing destroyer programs.

Another way-over-budget, way-over-schedule, underperforming boondoggle in the making. The new Chinese Type 055 destroyer, with eight already in service, that the DDG(X) is supposed to combat has been estimated to cost about US$900 million to build. Given the usual history of US defence contracting, the DDG(X) will be well over US$5 billion by the time it arrives. In the interim, the ageing Arleigh Burke class destroyers (1988-2011 and 2013-; 74 active & 4 fitting out/launched) and Ticonderoga (1980-1994; 9 active) class cruisers keep serving way past their scrap by date. The fiasco of the US$9 billion a piece Zumwalt class lead to a restart of Arleigh Burke production in 2013 with the first “Flight III” ship being delivered in 2021.



Ships designed, and in many cases built, in the 1980s being kept in service because of the failure of Zumwalt and the delays in DDG(X); with the latter quite possibly becoming another Zumwalt. A story that is repeated in so many areas of the US Military Industrial Complex, where cost overruns and delays produce more profits rather than consequences.

Apart from small increases in Veteran’s Affairs (which should really be treated as part of the War spending) and Transportation, every other cabinet department was cut; Commerce, Treasury, Justice, Labour, Energy, Agriculture, Interior, Education, Health & Human Services, Housing & Urban Development, and State & International Programs. All so old and new tax cuts for the rich and corporations could be funded, together with the expansion of the War and Homeland Security oligarch rentier extractive troughs. There were even a few juicy details hidden away, such as an extended tax giveaway that allows venture capitalist to avoid colossal amounts of capital gains. And of course the “carried interest” scam so beloved of the private equity crowd survived.



And next up for the oligarch extraction game? Opening up people’s 401(k)s to the private equity vultures. Since that “soiled dress” stopped Clinton and Gingrich from handing over a big chunk of the US Social Security (pension) funds to the banksters from which they could extract colossal amounts in fees, that extraction game has not been attempted again. But I would not put anything beyond a US oligarchy that has become so brazen in sucking up the wealth of the people.



https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/wealth ... finest-the

[blindpig]

Nazi Germany and American Indians
by Robert J. Miller
August 14, 2019

Most Americans would probably be shocked to learn that in the early 1930s Nazi scholars, lawyers, and officials were heavily influenced by United States law when they were developing policies and laws concerning Jewish people. Most Americans would also no doubt be surprised to discover that when Nazis were turning their racist ideas into legislative proposals and laws they were carefully studying federal Indian laws and American state laws that discriminated against American Indians.

A 2017 book by a Yale law professor, James Q. Whitman, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law lays out a convincing argument that Nazis studied in minute detail American federal and state laws that discriminated against African-American, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Puerto Rican, and other racial groups in the United States. Whitman, however, only mentions Native Americans on eleven pages in his book according to the book’s index.

In this article, I am undertaking the first step of what I anticipate will be a much larger study on how, and how extensively, federal and state laws and policies regarding American Indians influenced Nazi scholars, lawyers, and officials in formulating and enacting Nazi laws.

According to Professor Whitman, the Nazi laws that best exemplify its racist goals and tactics versus Jews were the Nuremberg Laws that were enacted and announced in September 1935. These laws established two important principles. First, the Reich Citizenship Law created a distinction between Reich citizens and mere German nationals. Under this law, Jewish people became nationals with restricted political rights and were not German citizens. Second, the Blood Law criminalized marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans.

Whitman proves that for years building up to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws that Nazi lawyers, jurists, scholars, and officials were studying and writing research materials, articles, and books on United States immigration laws from the very first one in 1790, through the 1870s, 1880s, 1917, 1921, and 1924. Nazis also studied U.S. state and federal laws that allowed racial discrimination and limits on the citizenship rights of minorities. The Nazis were especially interested in American anti-miscegenation laws (bans on inter-racial marriage). Such bans existed in North America as early as 1664 in Maryland, in 1691 in Virginia, and right up to the early 1930s when the Nazis were studying them. In fact, Nazi scholars expressly cited the statutes of thirty American states that banned inter-racial marriages in the early 1930s, as well as many other aspects of U.S. race law: Heinrich Krieger, Das Rassenrecht in den Vereigten Staaten, in Verwaltungsarchiv (1934); Heinrich Krieger, Das Rassenrecht in den Vereigten Staaten (Race Law in the United States) (1936); Johann von Leers, Blut und Rasse in der Gesetzgebung. Ein Gang durch die Volkergeschichte (Blood and Race: A Tour through the History of Peoples) (1936); and Herbert Kier, Volk, Rasse und Staat, in Nationalsozialistisches Handbuch fur Recht und Gesetzgebung (1935).

Nazis and Indians

The Nazis’ interest in the United States policies and laws regarding American Indians originated with Adolf Hitler himself. In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler discussed U.S. laws and policies and noted that the United States was a racial model for Europe and that it was “the one state” in the world that was creating the kind of racist society that the Nazi regime wanted to establish. In a 1928 speech, Hitler stated that Americans had “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage …” Other scholars agree that for “generations of German imperialists, and for Hitler himself, the exemplary land empire was the United States of America.”

Interestingly, the German word lebensraum (living space) became a Nazi rallying cry that demanded more land in Eastern Europe for German expansion and Germany’s growing population. This Nazi policy clearly evokes the American motto of Manifest Destiny that led to military actions, massacres, and official federal policies and laws to remove Indians from the path of American expansion. American Manifest Destiny led to attempted extermination of Indians, to Indian nations and Indians being confined to reservations, and to federal policies to allot and confiscate many of those reservations, and to terminate Indian nations political status.

Following Hitler’s lead, Nazi scholars, officials, jurists, and lawyers also delved deeply into United States Indian law when developing the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. The most important meeting in the process of drafting and enacting those Laws was held on June 5, 1934. At this meeting, the seventeen attendees reviewed extensive research materials that analyzed United States law and American states’ laws. Along with other Nazi scholarship, the materials presented at this meeting specifically highlighted and cited the laws of thirty U.S. states that criminalized or civilly nullified inter-racial marriages. Significantly, seven of those thirty state statutes also expressly outlawed white Americans from marrying Indians.

Other Nazi scholarly research also highlighted U.S. and state laws that treated Indians differently than other American citizens. The Nazis were very interested in how the United States had gotten away with discriminating against Indians for several centuries based on race and bloodlines. Consequently, it appears irrefutable that Nazi officials, jurists, and lawyers were influenced when developing the Nuremberg Laws, at least partially, by American Indian laws and policies.

Heinrich Krieger

“Heinrich Krieger … was the single most important figure in the Nazi assimilation of American race law …” James Q. Whitman, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law.

A review of Heinrich Krieger’s career adds significantly to the thesis that Nazi scholars and officials were heavily influenced by United States Indian law.

Krieger was a crucial actor in the process of Nazis studying and adopting American racial policies and Indian laws. Krieger researched and drafted the most important materials that German officials, jurists, attorneys, and scholars used to debate and formalize the legislative proposals and strategies for the Nuremberg Laws. For example, Krieger’s research, written materials, and conclusions were no doubt incorporated into the conference materials distributed to the seventeen attendees, and discussed at length, at the crucial June 5, 1934 meeting. The attendees of this meeting were provided with Krieger’s and other scholars research on American laws that discriminated against minorities and Indians. In fact, Krieger published his research and findings on American racial laws contemporaneously with the June 1934 Nuremberg Laws meeting in his 1934 article, Race Law in the United States. He later developed and expanded his arguments further in his 1936 book of the same name.

Most importantly for my argument, Krieger was intimately familiar with American Indian Law. He published a twenty-nine page law review article on Indian law in March 1935, Principles of Indian Law and the Act of June 18, 1934. He researched and wrote this article during 1933–34 when he was an exchange student at the University of Arkansas Law School and while he was also conducting research at the Library of Congress to publish his dissertation on “American Racial Law.” It is beyond belief that he would not have included his findings on Indian law in the materials he provided to Nazi officials for the June 1934 meeting when they discussed and planned what became the Nuremberg Laws.

In his law review article, Krieger discussed a wide array of issues regarding American Indians’ U.S. citizenship and their rights, the discriminatory treatment of Indians and Indian nations by the United States, and myriad federal Indian laws and policies. After all this research and analysis, he concluded that United States Indian law was racial law, and that the United States discriminated against and treated Indians and Indian nations differently from other American citizens based on their alleged racial differences from white Americans. (“the Indian law is exactly what its name indicates: a racial law; and there is no way out of the extra-constitutional situation …” Emphasis in original.) Krieger also concluded: “The proper nature of the tribal Indians’ status is that of a racial group placed under a special police power of the United States.” It appears certain that what Krieger learned from his intensive study of federal Indian law and the state laws that discriminated against Indians, and what he emphasized to Nazi officials, was that the United States discriminated against its Indian citizens because of their race and had always done so. Thus, he concluded that Nazi Germany should be justified in doing the same against German Jews.

How intriguing, yet at the same time how profoundly disturbing, that American Indian law played a role in the Nazi formulation of Jewish policies and laws. Further research will hopefully reveal just how large a role United States Indian laws and policies played in that disturbing chapter of world history.

https://ictnews.org/opinion/nazi-german ... d13fc59ccf

There oughta be a sequel to this: Zionists, Palestinians and American Indians.

*************

Three ways to collapse the world order
July 29, 13:09



There are three ways to collapse the world order. The US is using them simultaneously, - Bloomberg


Every international order has an end. British hegemony collapsed in two world wars. Today, the question of the collapse of American hegemony, which has been built since 1945, is emerging, Bloomberg states ( https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/featu ... onomics-v2 )

There are three ways to destroy the existing world order:

- Defeat in a military conflict. The United States cannot wage or maintain several conflicts at the same time. America's resources are depleted, its sluggish industrial base is failing, and the threat from China is becoming a reality

- Economic collapse. The United States is mired in wastefulness, and America's national debt is growing at an unprecedented rate. Chaotic protectionist policies are causing an additional blow

- Ignoring established rules. No system can exist if its basic rules are violated. Democratic norms, territorial inviolability and much more are trampled not only by America's enemies, but also by Trump himself.

"History shows that there are many ways to destroy order. An alarming sign of our times is that America is trying them all at once," Bloomberg emphasizes

https://t.me/crystal_book/15955 - zinc.

The more actively the United States destroys the remaining vestiges of the old world order, the closer the point of phase transition, after which the formation of a new world order, post-Washington, will begin. Of course, this will go through wars and conflicts. No one said that it would be easy and carefree.

P.S. Regarding Trump's "ultimatums" yesterday, the war will not end in 10-12 or 50 days.
Trump's sanctions will only end the hopes of a "deal with Trump" amid the ongoing Russian offensive, and Biden's war will become "Trump's war" due to his current dependence on the neocons and the "tea party", which was already well demonstrated during the attack on Iran.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9981528.html

Google Translator

[blindpig]

Your taxes, their bombs
July 29, 2025 natyliesb
The Lever, 7/22/25

Funding the forever wars. Congressional Republicans have, as usual, turned must-pass legislation that will fund annual military policy into a defense industry bonanza. The latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act that advanced in the House last week authorizes $848 billion in spending for the U.S. military, much of which will be funneled (with additional revenue from Trump’s megabill) straight to private defense contractors. Other beneficiaries also include the business and foreign interests represented by the pro-Israel lobbying powerhouse AIPAC, which issued a wishlist of legislative items earlier this year, nearly all of which are now included in the defense bill.

The Israel lobby cashes in. AIPAC spent more than $100 million on the 2024 federal elections, setting a campaign spending record. Nearly two-thirds of Congress have accepted AIPAC money, ensuring a united bipartisan front in support of Israel even as the country wages what many experts have definitively concluded is a genocide in Gaza. Now, AIPAC-funded lawmakers appear to be happily rubber-stamping the organization’s defense requests, which will funnel more money to the Israel Defense Forces.

Investing in genocide tech. Lawmakers, with AIPAC’s backing, introduced the “United States-Israel Defense Partnership Act of 2025,” legislation in February to authorize hundreds of millions in spending on various partnerships between the Israeli and U.S. militaries. That includes $150 million for a new joint technology program between the U.S. and Israel to counter drone weapons; it also entails extending the so-called “Future of Warfare” program for another five years, at $50 million annually, to develop “emerging technologies” like artificial intelligence.

Last year, an investigation by the Israeli magazine +972 revealed that the Israeli military was using AI to generate bombing targets, contributing to the immense civilian death toll of the Gaza war.
Money talks. Most of the key defense provisions that AIPAC supported in a policy brief this year and lobbied for throughout the spring are now included in both the House and Senate draft versions of the new defense bill, having survived committee markups. AIPAC has spent nearly $1 million lobbying on the bill, among other legislative priorities, in the first quarter of 2025.

The lead sponsors of the U.S.-Israel Defense Partnership Act have received millions from AIPAC and its affiliated network of pro-Israel donors: Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), has accepted more than $1.5 million from AIPAC and its network of donors over his congressional career, while Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), counts AIPAC as his top campaign donor.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/07/you ... eir-bombs/

[blindpig]

Three Directions of the International Policy of American Imperialism

After the collapse of the USSR, there was only one superpower left in the world. The dictatorship of American financial capital won on a global scale.

Relationships developed between the capitalists of the West, primarily the USA, England, France, and Germany, based on a complete economic division of the world , which looked like the hegemony of transnational corporations. In these relations, American financial capital played the leading role as the largest, most concentrated, aggressive, and militarized.

In connection with this, a union of states was formed, including in the form of the NATO alliance, which suppressed the sovereignty of unwanted governments, resorted to military aggression and provoked wars with the hands of yet another group of paid nationalists.

The US government, controlling enormous military power in the form of a network of military bases and naval forces, provided the most favoured nation regime around the world, first and foremost, for American capital. All international institutions, from the UN to the IMF and the WTO, worked for American capital, whose bigwigs achieved in the 1990s and 2000s what the Krupps and other German oligarchs dreamed of in the late 1930s.

Globalization was a new kind of fascism, and liberal democracy was a new kind of Nazism.

American oligarchs disguised their corporations as “transnational” and their property rights as shareholdings of “institutional investors.” The American state pretended that it was not pursuing imperialist policies, hiding behind the demagogy of promoting democracy and fighting terrorism. Thousands of NGOs, pro-Western media, scientists, bloggers and other grant-eaters, USAID employees worked to propagate this demagogy.

However, the undivided omnipotence of American financial capital (fascism) could not continue for long.

Firstly , within the camp of imperialism there is competition between various corporations, groups of corporations and states under their control. For example, in 1999, European oligarchs struck a blow at America – they introduced the euro into circulation. The struggle for dictatorship over the world of finance began.

In mid-2002 (23 years ago!) Valery Alekseevich wrote:

"Trends in the euro and dollar exchange rates indicate the uncompromising determination of European oligarchs to dislodge US oligarchs from the struggle for dictatorship over the world of finance. The current, already quite long-term, approximate equality of the dollar and euro exchange rates indicates the approximate equality of the economic potentials of the US and the US. There are no objective signs that the success of the European currency is short-term and will not have consequences on other fronts of the economic war between the US and the US.

A serious difference between the USA and the US is observed today only in the ratio of their military-technical potentials, especially in the ratio of their nuclear-space potentials and groups. It is absurd to assume that the American oligarchs are not preparing to use this only noticeable historical advantage in the near future. There is no other way to explain the increased activity of the US oligarchs in the area of creating an anti-missile "umbrella" than by the beginning of substantive preparations for decisive forceful pressure by the US oligarchs on the US oligarchs, since the current economic and nuclear missile potential of India, Iraq, Iran, China, the DPRK, Pakistan, and Russia does not yet pose a serious threat to the USA.

After the collapse of communism in the USSR, the main political and economic opponent of imperialism, Europe, united by a single currency, became the main competitor of the USA, and thus the main... target of the Pentagon. The invitation made to the US by the US to work together on the creation of an anti-missile "umbrella" cannot deceive anyone. It pursues only one goal: to accelerate the creation of an American anti-missile "umbrella" at the expense of European brains. The US's agreement to participate in this project pursues only one goal: to gain access to information, technology and to create a European anti-missile "umbrella", thereby equalizing the military potential of the US and US oligarchs.

What will happen first - the potentials of the US and US oligarchs will equalize, or the US will treat the US like Yugoslavia, Iraq or Afghanistan, taking advantage of the current superiority of its military potential - is a matter of detail. But from the point of view of history, theory and current practice of market economy, it is impossible to imagine a situation in which the oligarchs, by an objective course of competition, would not put each other in a position of bankruptcies. After all, both the fall of the Bretton Woods Agreement, according to which the dollar was a monopoly currency, and the collapse of the "floating currency" system, in which the dollar nevertheless occupied the position of "first violin", are the consequences of the targeted economic policy of the European oligarchs, directed against the monopoly of the US oligarchs on the world market.

Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, there is not a single insurmountable obstacle that would prevent American oligarchs from taking a gamble in a hopeless economic situation and, with objectively low economic potential, not taking a risk, as businessmen do every day, of unilaterally using their temporary military-technical advantage over their competitors in a preventive manner. For this purpose, the US oligarchs are creating, on the one hand, an anti-missile "umbrella" to destroy the enemy's nuclear warheads in space, and on the other hand, they are constantly improving "neutron weapons" so that there are low levels of radioactive contamination in the depopulated territories subject to colonization."

This forecast is coming true before our eyes. The US is fueling confrontation with Europe and planning to build a "Golden Dome".

Naturally, the forecast was based on the situation at the beginning of the 21st century and could not take into account the fact that by the mid-2010s the economic and military-political potential of China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran, individually and collectively, began to pose a threat to American imperialism and the dominance of Wall Street capital.

Secondly , therefore, socialist countries (China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and Laos), countries of socialist, leftist orientation (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Nepal, Eritrea, Belarus, Transnistria, Syria under Assad) and large bourgeois states seeking to free themselves from dependence on American dictate (Russia, Iran, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Brazil and partly some others) have become competitors for the USA or at least rebels.

First of all, of course, the American imperialists were worried about China. The CPC, led first by Hu Jintao and then by Xi Jinping, had achieved rapid growth in productive forces by developing a socialist sector within a market economy that was significantly integrated into the world economy.

American capital, tempted by huge profits, turned China into a world factory in the 1980s-2000s. It was assumed that the export of capital to China would lead not only to the growth of the financial power of American corporations, but also to control over virtually the entire commodity mass of the world economy. It was assumed that China, like other underdeveloped countries, would turn into a financial, industrial, and market appendage of the United States.

But the Chinese communists, at the expense of the socialist sector, actively developed their production, adopted technologies and learned from Western capitalists. As a result, since the beginning of Chairman Xi's leadership (2013), China began to squeeze Western companies in the commodity market. That is, the share of Chinese goods owned by Western corporations has steadily decreased in relation to the share of goods owned by Chinese state-owned companies (or private, but under the control of the party corporations). Then China began to squeeze the United States and Europe in the capital investment market. Moreover, Chinese state capital, organized by Xi Jinping in the global foreign policy project "One Belt, One Road", takes on expensive infrastructure projects in underdeveloped countries such as the construction of sea and airport ports, railways and highways, hydroelectric power stations, dams, etc. The CPC, unlike the Americans and Europeans, does not interfere in the internal affairs of third countries. Thus, China is investing in the development of the fundamental economic base of African and Asian countries in much the same way as the Soviet Union did in its time, but not on a gratuitous basis and without the requirement of political loyalty.

In short, the Chinese communists took full advantage of American capital and entered a period of open economic rivalry with its owners. In principle, the logic and preliminary results of the policy of reform and openness roughly correspond to Lenin's plan when introducing the NEP, with the difference that at the beginning of the 20th century Western capital was scared, but at the end of the 20th century it was not.

The main factor in China's economic success was the competent leadership of the CPC . The main reason for China's economic success is the huge investments in education, primarily in engineering, and in research and development. If we take the urban population, about 900 million people, then in terms of the number of students per capita, especially in engineering specialties, China is among the world leaders.

In this regard, we can recall one of the most important factors in the USSR's victory in the Great Patriotic War, which is carefully hushed up by bourgeois propaganda: the high level of culture of the Soviet people, their thirst for education and science, which was inspired and provided for by Bolshevism. Before the war, there were more students in our country than in Western countries combined. The USSR was the most library-rich country in the world: one library per two thousand people - ten times more than in the USA. Librarianship in those years played the same role that access to educational and scientific information via the Internet plays today.

The US imperialist policy has three main geographic directions: European (including Central Asia), Middle East and Asia-Pacific .

Historically, the greatest forces and resources of imperialism were concentrated in the fight against the USSR in Europe. After the collapse of the USSR and the aggravation of the confrontation with China (2010-2015), they were directed against the Russian Federation with the aim of changing the political regime. Russia is the key to the northern borders of the PRC, and American imperialists dreamed of quarreling China and Russia so that the CPC would have to look for new sources of oil and gas, as well as increase the army to protect thousands of kilometers of Heilongjiang, Manchuria, Xinjiang. After the detente with the USSR, and then the Russian Federation, China reduced its army by more than half. Russia is a key link in the US policy of isolating and encircling China.

American imperialism failed to change the government in the Russian Federation by destabilizing the situation from within (the Orange Revolution scenario), so Plan B was put into action - a change or crisis of power through military defeat. Or, as Putin understands it, inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia. To do this, the US trained, armed and took command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which in itself was an escalation and explosive, since, firstly , there was a civil war going on in Ukraine (Donbass), and secondly , Ukraine had a permanent casus belli over Crimea.

This time, bourgeois Russia did not remain silent and at the end of 2021 issued an ultimatum on security issues in Europe. When it was officially rejected by Washington, the Russian army carried out an open intervention in the civil war in Ukraine with the aim of overthrowing the pro-American government (be sure to study the Marxist position on the SVO). In other words, bourgeois Russia, being essentially an imperialist force, for the first time in its history dealt a preemptive blow to American imperialism. However, the SVO from a lightning operation grew into a protracted military confrontation between the Russian Federation on one side and the United States on the other side, mainly by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the territory of Ukraine.

This allowed US oligarchs to seize the European gas market with simple manipulations and, in general, deal a blow to the economy of the Old World.

The American military exercised and exercises direct control over the Ukrainian armed forces, primarily from the base in Wiesbaden. During the US SVO, firstly , they tested military-technical solutions, combat tactics in the conditions of a modern war of more or less equal armies, tested their equipment, and secondly , they tried to inflict a military defeat on the Russian Armed Forces. As a result, the real situation at the front led to the conduct of military operations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces with the aim of reducing the military-technical potential of the Russian Federation.

Roughly speaking, the US is exchanging invested dollars, transferred equipment and the lives of Ukrainians on the territory of Ukraine for destroyed Russian combat vehicles, artillery, missile, radar and other military systems. That is why some decisions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces command (and in reality the headquarters in Wiesbaden) look suboptimal from a military point of view. In Washington, after the unsuccessful offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the summer of 2023, they realized that a military victory would not be achieved, so after that they simply burn Ukrainians in suicidal adventurous operations and senselessly stubborn battles for plantations and farms. It must be understood that the US imperialists benefit not only from the deaths of Russians, but also of Ukrainians. This reduces the total number of the former Soviet people.

In late 2024 - early 2025, the United States considered, firstly , that further continuation of the SVO does not reduce the military-political potential of the Russian Federation, but begins to increase it due to the growth of military-industrial complex production, cooperation with the DPRK, Iran, the absence of the desired isolation, etc., and secondly , that further pressure on nuclear Russia could lead to an exchange of nuclear strikes and an unpleasant escalation. In particular, V. Putin's threat to begin supplying weapons, including offensive ones, to countries sensitive to US security (for example, Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua) was taken seriously. What if we start deploying missile defense elements near the American borders?

Thus, the US is currently trying to negotiate with the Russian Federation on a sphere of influence in Europe and withdraw from the Ukrainian war or maintain minimal participation in it. This will allow the withdrawal of military bases, forces and resources from Europe in order to redirect them closer to China. The US is concluding a temporary truce and pitting its two competitors: Europe and Russia, focusing on the confrontation with China. Bandera's Ukraine is a bargaining chip, a played card.

As for the "Euro-Atlantic partnership", it was not the US that betrayed Europe, as it may seem at first glance, but Europe that did not support America in the new Cold War with China. For which it paid, remaining one-on-one with the Russian Federation. However, the objective contradictions between American financial capital (imperialism) and European financial capital (imperialism) will inevitably lead to confrontation. The conflict between the United States of America and the "United States of Europe" is the basis of the main scenario of the third world war.

In the Middle East (be sure to read the brief description of the region in the article), the US is doing everything to start a war between Iran and Israel, the monarchies of the Persian Gulf . Middle Eastern oil and gas feed the Chinese industry, so American imperialists are trying to block China's access to them. The US lacks the influence and power to do this peacefully, economically, diplomatically, and in other ways, so they are inciting, provoking, and sponsoring the genocide of Palestinians. The US is pumping both Israel and the Arab countries with weapons to ignite the fire of a major war that will destroy the region's oil and gas fields.

The main direction of foreign policy activity since recently is the immediate borders of the PRC or the Asia-Pacific region. Here, in the confrontation with China, the US relies on those countries whose bourgeois detachments are integrated into the ruling class of the US, that is, the Anglo-Saxons: England, Canada, Australia. They already constitute a separate military bloc, and in the future, integration, primarily in the military-technical aspect, will increase.

In its military confrontation with China, the United States has three consecutive components.

The first is the direct executors: Taiwan, Japan, South Korea. Their puppet armies will perform the same role that the Ukrainian Armed Forces currently perform, i.e. cannon fodder. The key task of the United States is to join them with the Indian armed forces.

The second , rear one is Australia and England. These are supply bases, replenishment bases, etc.

And the third is the United States itself, which plans to absorb Canada. America's main striking force is the Navy and bases in the Pacific Ocean and Asia.

What the war will look like is unclear, but military pressure on China is being exerted along these lines.

From what has been said it is easy to evaluate certain political processes from the point of view of their progressiveness or reactionary nature. American imperialism is the main evil, the main class enemy, the fight against which is beneficial to progress and communism .

Redin
05/31/2025

https://prorivists.org/105_usa/

Google Translator

[blindpig]

Two-Party Duplicity

And yet there never was a more widespread feeling in England than now, that the old parties are doomed, that the old shibboleths have become meaningless, that the old watchwords are exploded, that the old panaceas will not act any longer… But in England, where the industrial and agricultural working-class forms the immense majority of the people, democracy means the dominion of the working-class, neither more nor less… Yet the English working-class allows the landlord, capitalist, and retail trading classes, with their tail of lawyers, newspaper writers, etc., to take care of its interests. No wonder reforms in the interest of the workman come so slowly and in such miserable dribbles. The workpeople of England have but to will, and they are the masters to carry every reform, social and political, which their situation requires. Then why not make that effort? Frederich Engels, A Working-Men’s Party, July 23, 1881

In the middle of July, the House of Representatives considered amendment 114 to H.R. 580 that would reduce US military aid to Israel by $500 million, the amount designated for Israeli missile defense. Sponsored by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the amendment offered a rare opportunity for our national leaders to show a modest objection to Israel’s genocidal foreign policy or, as in the case of Greene, to voice opposition to an unnecessary subsidy from a debt-ridden country to a country with universal healthcare and subsidized education-- the lack of which account for two of the biggest factors in personal debt in the US.

Though only a gesture, a yes-vote on the amendment would have brought great attention to the ongoing brutal genocide in Gaza, to the nuclear-weapon-backed bully daily slaughtering starving Gazans as though it were a sport. It would have slowed the flow of US dollars supporting Israeli violence.

A yes-vote would have shown some actual principle behind the hollow slogan of “Make America Great Again” espoused by so many who neither really care about the US people nor have any idea where its greatness would lie.

But the amendment received only six votes, and few “news” purveyors even bothered to report it.

Some will heap praise on the four Democrats and two Republicans, citing their courage and independence.

But that profoundly misunderstands the moment.

It is wrong to offer accolades to those who are simply doing what they should do. The fact that there are so few supporting the amendment is less an expression of the moral worth of the six than a measure of the depravity of the many. We expect our representatives to do that which is morally correct. Gratitude is reserved for those who exceed their duty, not those who simply do what any decent person should do.

Voting no-- as did 422 House members-- is a despicable, scurrilous act. Voting to give the Israeli government even a dollar for its death-dealing enterprise deserves our utter scorn.

It is important to fully grasp what it means for nearly the entire legislative body of a country to back the genocide of another people, a people virtually defenseless for over eighteen months.

It would be easy, but cynical to see the House vote as reflecting their constituents or their apathy. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 32 percent of US respondents approve of Israel’s actions in Gaza, a substantial decrease since the beginning of Israel’s systematic killing of Gazan civilians. Therefore, the House vote is far from a reflection of the sentiments of all US citizens.

Instead, it is a result of the corruption of US politics, specifically the two-party system. AIPAC-- the leading lobbying group for Israel’s interests in the US-- distributed $29,078,901 to 335 House members last year, according to Open Secrets. Other Israeli interest-groups contributed to House members, as did US apocalyptic fundamentalists that identify with Israel’s supposed Biblical role.

Of course, it is not only the issue of Palestine’s right to exist that is shaped by the wholesale purchase of the two-party system. Publicly-run national healthcare, free of insurance companies-- overwhelmingly popular with the people-- never gets a serious legislative debate because of the influence of the profit-sodden insurance industry and Big Pharma. And the unpopular wars and massive defense spending keep coming, thanks to the effective, generous lobbying of the military-industrial behemoth.

My Italian-born grandmother often repeated a saying meant to explain crass opportunism and shamelessness: “Sei come Bertoldo, che mostra il culo per un soldo” (Bertoldo, shows his ass for a penny). Over fifty years of following the Democratic Party has taught me the real meaning of the insult.

Besides our morally corrupt representatives, the US mainstream media has historically thrown its support behind Israeli policies, almost without exception. Only alternative media and a profound distrust of the capitalist “news” outlets nourish opposition to official support for genocide.

What is truly remarkable, given the long standing “bipartisan” toadying to Israel and the high and growing costs of dissent in the US, is the noble actions by students and activists in the US who risk careers, arrests, and even deportation to show that everyone is not bought and sold in political life.

The old Nixonian notion of a silent majority in the US has been turned on its head. Today, it is not an alleged conservative trend that exists beneath the political life shaped by elites, but a latent pacifism, egalitarianism, and class partisanship smoldering beneath the surface of ruling-class politics (a part of which has defected to right populism out of impatience and frustration).

That sentiment is ill-represented by the broken, bankrupt two-party system.

Neither major US political party captures this undercurrent. But this fault is especially true of the Democratic Party that traditionally claimed to be a home for more progressive policy. A mid-July poll conducted by The Wall Street Journal shows how distant the Democratic Party is from the people. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party-- the highest number since the poll was initiated in 1990.

Where the Republican Party broke into negative net favorability in 2005, the Democrats sank into negative territory in 2016 and today stand 20 points below the Republicans, who, nonetheless, also remain out of favor.

The WSJ article captures well both the decline of the two-party system and the collapse of the Democratic Party in the face of Trumpism:

On the whole, voters disapprove of the president’s handling of the economy, inflation, tariffs and foreign policy. And yet in each case, the new Journal poll found, voters nonetheless say they trust Republicans rather than Democrats to handle those same issues in Congress.



In some cases, the disparities are striking. Disapproval of Trump’s handling of inflation outweighs approval by 11 points, and yet the GOP is trusted more than Democrats to handle inflation by 10 points. By 17 points, voters disapprove rather than approve of Trump’s handling of tariffs, and yet Republicans are trusted more than Democrats on the issue by 7 points.

By any rational standard, one would have to conclude that voters are dissatisfied with both parties, but view the current Democratic Party as beyond hope. They may disapprove of Trump, but find nothing suggesting an alternative with the Democrats.

The WSJ article quotes Democratic Party pollster, John Anzalone: “The Democratic brand is so bad that they don’t have the credibility to be a critic of Trump or the Republican Party… Until they reconnect with real voters and working people on who they’re for and what their economic message is, they’re going to have problems.”

The hope that they will reconnect flies in the face of years, even decades of tailing the Republican Party, locating their platform slightly left of the Republicans, a place that Party leaders felt confident would hold labor, African-Americans, women, and other groups in the Party’s clutches.

Meanwhile, the Democrats were vigorously pursuing the suburbanites and bedroom communities with lifestyle politics. Democrats gave the people answers to micro-aggressions when they were desperately looking for help with economic macro-aggressions.

Many loyal Democrats and earnest liberals are pressing the Party’s watchdogs to read the polls and repent, citing recent studies that show that working-class voters are hungering for an active social justice agenda. The Democratic Party left represented by DSA and Jacobin hope to rescue the Democratic Party from its leaders by underscoring the recent Mamdani primary victory as well as polling that shows that working people want what Mamdani offers and much more-- better pay, better benefits, cheaper prices, affordable housing, health care, etc.

But experience teaches that the Clintons, Obamas, Pelosis, Schumers, Jeffries, and Bookers are determined to steer the Democratic Party ship on the course dictated by its billionaire donors. They are perfectly happy allowing Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez to paint the ship with left-wing slogans, provided that they don’t threaten to abandon the ship.

However, there is good news and cause for hope.

A mid-May poll conducted by the ultraright Cato Institute and YouGov found that-- with 18 to 29-year-olds-- socialism is quite popular and-- to their shock-- Communism has substantial support as well. Despite years of indoctrination, the Cato fellows were hysterical to discover that 62 percent of these youngsters had a favorable view of socialism and even 34 percent had a favorable view of Communism. After all the years, the money, and the effort in painting Marx, Engels, and especially Lenin as agents of Satan, the kids still don’t get it! One can only hope that more of their elders will show the same independence and escape the clutches of the capitalist propaganda mill.

But there is more good news, coming from the UK!

In a bold move, Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana have announced the founding of a new party to the left of the Labour Party. The Labour Party-- since its brief flirtation with left social democracy after World War II-- has been drifting, even rushing, rightward. In many ways, like the Democrats, it has postured as the home of liberal and reformist ideas. And like the Democrats, it will not depart from business friendliness, minimal social advance, and an imperialist foreign policy today. Any deviance from conformity has been met with strict discipline and ostracization.

Former popular leaders of Labour-- counterparts to Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez in the US Democratic Party-- have signaled that they have had enough by announcing the creation of a new, left party on Thursday, July 24. In first-weekend polling, Corbyn and Sultana’s no-name party drew 15% of the respondents, roughly the same share as the in-power Labour Party polls.

On the following Monday, Morning Star commented enthusiastically:

Four hundred thousand and counting. Sign-ups to be part of founding the new party initiated by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana already surpass the membership of any existing political party in Britain.

While the appetite for a left alternative to Labour has long been clear, even supporters of the project cannot have expected a response on this scale…



[The] …rejection of the post-Thatcher political settlement is in reality a rejection of the consequences of the right’s policies — privatisation, deregulation and deindustrialisation — since these have been pursued by both governing parties since the 1980s…



[T]his is a very encouraging beginning. The march of authoritarianism and racism across this country, the disgusting consensus behind complicity in Israeli genocide and the attempt to keep public ownership and wealth redistribution off the table can all be challenged by the emergence of a left movement on this scale. No socialist can close their eyes to that.

Of course, we have to temper our optimism by acknowledging the tremendous challenges ahead. We saw how the auspicious start of the German alternative left party organized by Sahra Wagenknecht in 2024 faltered after remarkable early success. Nonetheless, the new German party, while failing to maintain its momentum, succeeded in shifting politics leftward and restoring confidence in a class-based agenda.

In the Corbyn/Sultana party, many see even greater opportunity to escape the stale politics of social austerity and military aggression. The initiative has already rocked the UK political system.

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com

http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2025/08/two ... icity.html

[blindpig]

Staying Nauseated.

I continue to deconstruct this piece of the US (or rather 404) military propaganda by these US Army colonels who have no clue, as is expected. Ask oneself, what is the litmus test for US military complex of inferiority? Easy--ask any US servicemen, especially officers, what's so bad about Russian Armed Forces and they immediately expose their sheer ignorance--like this:



I addressed it before, I will address it again--all this "but US Army has best NCOs in the world" talk is a complete nonsense. Nothing but propaganda. Obviously these US Army Colonels who were writing this amateurish drivel don't know that Russian Army which fights in former 404 is a CONTRACT Army, for the warmup. In other words--it is a professional army with combat experience US Army simply doesn't have and, obviously, is unable to process. Yes, this new Tank manual by the US Army Daniel Davis and I touched upon in our todays podcast met with a lot of laughter from the Russian side. But that's just one of many examples. But back to Contracts and NCOs. Here is Russia's Defense Minister in December 2024 at the Defense Ministry Collegium:

To this end, systematic work on staffing the Armed Forces continues jointly with the regions. This year alone, more than 427 thousand servicemen have already been signed. On average, more than twelve hundred people sign contracts daily. It is important not to lose the momentum of this process. I would like to note that an integral part of troop staffing is the combat training of new contract soldiers. It is necessary to introduce new methods of action and techniques into it that have shown high efficiency in the special operation. Also, synchronize troop training activities with the delivery of the latest means of armed struggle. Undoubtedly, special attention must be paid to the provision of reserve regiments – with instructors, weapons, equipment, and ammunition.

So, these are CONTRACT servicemen who are professional soldiers who upon signing the contract go through intense training. Many, if not all, of those combat troops down to a single grunt know about the war more than any US Army NCO. But then, of course, comes this institute of Soviet/Russian Praporschiks and Michmans (warrant officers). These guys ARE better than any NCO anywhere in the US Armed Forces because they vary in their initial study for this rank from a year to three years in special Training Centers or attached to Russia's military academies institutions. They are entirely capable to handle a platoon or even company, plus many are technical specialists who are deeply involved with the use of the weapon systems and training lower rank personnel to operate them, which also implies a command of their units under the overall officer command.

Here is an example of one of those: 183rd Learning Center of Russian Defense Ministry in Rostov-on-Don. This one does this:

The training center trains warrant officers under secondary vocational education programs in the following specialties:
"Technical operation of aircraft and engines" - specialists in the operation of aircraft (helicopters) and aircraft engines;
"Special machines and devices" - specialists in the operation of aviation weapons;
"Technical operation of electrified and flight-navigation complexes" - specialists in the operation of aviation equipment;
"Technical operation of transport radio-electronic equipment (by type of transport)" specialists in the operation of radio-electronic equipment

How long? Two years and ten months--34 months. I had several warrant officers under my command when I served. A whole of Russian Navy is professional today too. But you cannot explain this to these Colonels who compiled this "compendium". Russians laugh today (totally justifiably) that NATO (US) decided to fight with the country which is one huge military academy attached to the huge military industrial plant, ah yes--gas station too. Compilers of this "compendium" (of utter BS) should then learn that their statements below:



... about "personal judgement and experience" (based on what--shooting Afghan civilians and calling on CAS?) are debunked by none other ... than US Army officers who recognized that it is 2025 not 1950.



How about these Colonels look at the US Army instead:

Since the 1980s, America’s world ranking in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has declined, placing our once unquestioned supremacy in technological innovation and application on par with or behind those of our economic and military adversaries. A recent warning from the Office of the Secretary of Defense Acquisition and Sustainment Industrial Policy declared the paucity of STEM-educated Americans may lead to a “permanent national security deficit.” The lack of STEM education extends to Army officers. In 2018, the Army Strategy assessed the strategic environment to include partners, allies, and adversaries leveraging “advanced capabilities” such as cyber, counter space, electronic warfare, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI). T his assessment has proven true in the Russia-Ukraine War, an artilleryheavy war interwoven with the burgeoning development and implementation of new and evolving technologies that demand innovative thinking, alliances, and strategy informed by STEM+Management (STEM+M)

In general, the US officer corps, forget about NCOs, which comes today through ROTC and OCS programs lags even behind Russian Armed Forces warrant officers in STEM, most of US NCOs will have difficulty operating in Russian Army beyond the basic tactical skills common to all armies. Many forget that ALL US military academies, from USMA at West Point, before it degenerated into academic basket case, USNA, USAF Academy, Coast Guard Academy ARE ALL engineering schools. At least this is how they have been conceived.

I remind you how authors describe this graph, which is terrifying:



Here is the quote:

The consequences of this backslide are significant. Figure 2 (below) shows the percentage of officers, by rank, who possessed a STEM+M-related degree in 2020. Fewer than 14 percent of field grade officers and fewer than 16 percent of senior grade officers possess graduate-level STEM+M education. At these levels, 55 percent of Army battalions and nearly 15 percent of brigades are unlikely to have any staff officers possessing advanced STEM+M degrees. This shortage will become more important as the use of disruptive technologies increases during military operations where critical decisions are under accelerated time lines.

Just think about it--having some Division CO who was rushed through ROTC only to get some "instructions" in Leadership or have a degree in ... journalism and business from University of Phoenix, like former Chief of Naval Operation Lisa Franchetti? One can teach monkey to push buttons and follow some routines, but military was science, is science and will increasingly be science based in hi-tech, which requires extremely heavy STEM background even on the level of warrant officers, not to mention officers who must understand complexities of modern battlefield not just on "gut feeling" but understand what drives the battle in human and technological terms. After all, the author of the article teaches at the USMA at West Point, has Ph.D in economics and was an intel officer in the US Army. I guess he knows a thing or two about the US military and there is reason he is sounding the alarm. And here is a point, quoting beaten into fucking bloody pulp Sun Tzu's dictum about knowing thy enemy must start with the second part of it--to know thyself. That would be a good learning start to these Colonels, instead of creating all kinds of "compendiums". There is a reason some in Russia laughed at this, I, after "reviewing" it, feel nauseous.

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2025/08 ... eated.html

[blindpig]

When One of the World’s Most Powerful Nations Is Run By Spoiled Children
Posted on August 6, 2025 by Conor Gallagher

Like LSD, which can convince people they can fly—causing them to jump out of windows—weapons can make people overconfident. Skewing their tactical judgment.

-Ng, “Snow Crash”

As the US flails about trying to maintain a dominance that’s already gone, it’s often difficult to analyze or predict US actions because they usually appear on their face so irrational. I generally view Washington moves on the world stage as akin to playing blocks with a two-year-old. Without their involvement, you might be able to meticulously build a well-planned castle, but the two-year-old when reengaged might topple it with the swing of a hand.

The takeaway: building is hard. Destruction is easy. And in the case of the US it’s the destruction of economies, societies, and the planet through mafia logic. The first goal is to profit through extortion and rent-seeking. Everywhere. When that fails, Washington quickly pivots to its backup plan: regime change. But even that strategy is running out of steam these days.

There is little to no chance of forcing Russia and China to bend the knee, and Washington has few options aside from mutually assured destruction—either economic with Beijing or the good ol’ fashioned variety with Moscow. The attacks (and years of economic warfare) have thus far failed to bring about regime change in Tehran, and next time Iran, the thinking goes, will be more prepared—perhaps with China and Russia at its side. The bleed over from the thrashing about in impotent rage against Russia now has the US once again doing its best to push India off the fence and into the embrace of China and Russia.

There are still fever dreams in Washington of using ethnic divisions and proxy forces to take down Tehran, of destabilization in Moscow once Putin eventually dies, of economic or demographic forces weakening China, etc., but these are all based on wishful thinking rather than any realistic plan. In its place we’re seeing more lashing out, more sanctions, weaponized tariffs, and more bombings with Trump on a record airstrike pace. It’s not working.

Many in Washington are still tempted to double down on sanctions and tariffs as a tool to force countries to decouple from China and Russia despite the fact it hasn’t worked yet. As even Foreign Policy admits:

Sanctions are conceived to be coercive tools, inflicting economic pain until a state changes its behavior. In practice, however, states resist sanctions, absorbing the costs while exploring ways around them. Rather than change state behavior, sanctions change markets and reshape economic relationships, redirecting oil into channels built around geopolitics rather than commercial logic.

Thus far the sanctions on more powerful states like Russia and Iran oil do little more than rework the global oil market, forcing those countries even closer to China. Beijing, meanwhile, continues on with its efforts to build a more interconnected world with itself at the center.

A study published last week by Christoph Nedopil in partnership with Griffith University’s Asia Institute and Fudan University’s Green Finance & Development Center found that China’s investments and construction contracts in Belt and Road Initiative countries during the first six months of 2025 soared to $124 billion, compared to only $122 billion in all 12 months of 2024.

And so the BRI marches on despite the years-long effort by the US to smear and sabotage it. What exactly is the plan to compete with it? Well, nothing, of course.

While the US warns against loans and infrastructure cooperation with China, what does it offer in its place? Precious little. As Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo explained a few years back during his March 27 remarks at King’s College in London:

In the arguments about the Chinese debt traps (as it is called sometimes) and the large amounts of loans to African countries, I think that what is clear is that the Chinese have proven to be quite responsible in the giving out of these loans. There are always arguments about whether you get the best deal all the time, but the real question of Africa and African governments is who else is offering these loans? Who else is offering the support? It is not a question of here or there, it is really a question of what is available and it seems to me to make sense to take what is available.

At the same time Washington is working overtime in a neverending job to peel countries away from Beijing, the US itself would collapse were it to do the same it is asking of these nations. The rare earths metals and magnets chickens are finally coming home to roost, threatening all America’s precious death machines.

And the US and the rest of the world are increasingly reliant on China for their pharmaceuticals and other types of necessities. These are not supply chain issues that can be corrected overnight, and will be challenging to change at all due to the neoliberal economic models in the west that prioritize finance over actually making stuff.

One could almost laugh at these American elites and all their incompetence if they didn’t leave a trail of destruction in their wake. They first hollowed out US communities by shipping the country’s industry abroad, primarily to China, so they could a yacht or private jet upgrade. Do they take ownership of the fatal mistake?

Of course not. Instead we have children knocking over blocks. And it’s difficult to argue with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lavrov’s recent assessment that they’re essentially crazy little Nazi children knocking over blocks (he was talking about the Europeans, but I see no reason it shouldn’t extend to the US as well).

And these children are capable of doing a lot of damage.

We see what that looks like in Ukraine and West Asia where the US and its vassals help carry out a genocide in Gaza and spill blood everywhere. And unless Arab regimes or China or Russia or somebody wakes up, we may well get a temporary victory for the Western Zionists there in the form of more land and more control over regional supply chains. How that changes the long term downward trajectory of the US-led western facism project is less clear.

US sanctions are still capable of killing a lot of people. As The Lancet pointed out in a July study, “sanctions were associated with an annual toll of 564 258 deaths, similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict.”

And on average, half of those were children. To repeat, the US killing roughly 250,000 kids per year with sanctions.

Washington might not be able to put much of a dent in Moscow or Tehran, the think tanks in DC believe all those deaths are worth it because they help decimate smaller countries like Syria and others in South America and Africa and cause chaos in regions that are integral to other powers’ foreign plans.

The US can still weasel its way into foreign governments and spread like termites eating away at the foundation until all that is left is a failed state blowing up a region.

Take the example of the Caucasus, where under the cover of another Trump Nobel Peace Prize audition, the true aim is to inflame the region. It makes little economic sense for the people of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Perhaps it does for the ones calling the shots. Bribes and extortion work wonders for a time.

So does nurturing extremist ideologies. If we gander at a map one sees a wall of fire from the Baltic to the Black Sea (Nazism) that then branches Eastwards to the Caspian and beyond into Central Asia (neo-Ottomanism/pan-Turkism) and southwards to the Red Sea (Zionism and CIA Islam).

Even if these fanatics are unable to find success toppling governments in Russia, Iran, and other “unfriendly” states, they aim to prevent the goal of a secure, interconnected, and prosperous Asian heartland.

The goal is chaos. Destruction. There and elsewhere. This approach inevitably destabilises the global order and creates new risks, including for US interests.

While that might sound counterintuitive, have you seen how crazy US elites are?

Embracing the Breakdown

While the US cannot compete on a traditional nation-state board, on merit, by building things, or offering a vision of a better world, there is a belief held in high places that it is well-positioned for a world of fire and brimstone.

These accelerationists in the US who embrace the breakdown of society aren’t just keen on eroding state sovereignty at home but want to do it across the world where they believe they can build an empire-by-contractor where ruling clans do no more than oversee weapon systems, AI data centers, and mercenaries. Quinn Slobodian with a useful summary:

Right-wing accelerationists imagine existing sovereignty shattering into … a “patchwork” of private entities, ideally governed by what one might call technomonarchies. Existing autocratic polities like Dubai serve as rough prototypes for how nations could be dismantled into “a global spiderweb of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of sovereign and independent mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents’ opinions.” These would be decentralized archipelagoes: fortified nodes in a circuitry still linked by finance, trade, and communication. Think of the year 1000 in Middle Europe but with vertical take-off and landing taxis and Starlink internet.

Oh, and there’s also boatloads of money to be made in the carnage, as Christopher Cook notes about the ongoing US-backed genocide in Gaza:

[United Nation’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca] Albanese lists dozens of major western companies that are deeply invested in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

This is not a new development, as she notes. These firms have exploited business opportunities associated with Israel’s violent occupation of the Palestinian people’s lands for years, and in some cases decades.

The switch from Israel’s occupation of Gaza to its current genocide hasn’t threatened profits; it has enhanced them. Or as Albanese puts it: “The profits have increased as the economy of the occupation transformed into an economy of genocide.”

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the US remains the biggest exporter of weapons worldwide, delivering to a total of 107 countries between 2020 and 2024, and with a 43 percent share of global exports, that’s more than four times as much as the next-largest exporter, France.

Is it any wonder that the US embraces global warming, which is the great destabilizer?



Not only has the US given up on competing with China on “clean energy” tech, but the spooks at the National Intelligence Council sound almost giddy in their estimates of how states like Iran and China will be hit harder than the US and how this will present “opportunities.”



Washington doing its best to set the world on fire also means that other countries must devote more resources and attention to defense from the lunatic empire, which can mean less resources to deal with the fallout from global warming. That might have played a role in Iran where the government recently declared emergency public holidays in 18 provinces, including Tehran, as temperatures soared to nearly 50°C. From Unherd:

According to official reports, reserves in the capital’s main dams have plummeted to their lowest levels in a century, with a five-year drought and record-low rainfall cited as the main reasons. Despite repeated warnings from environmental experts, the government appears to have been unprepared for what it has referred to as “the worst drought in 60 years”.

What’s To Be Done?

As the US descends deeper into Dr. Strangelove territory and violence, decay, and lawlessness reigns supreme, the great question is where and how does this madness end?

Here are two options. The crazy elites in the US need to be stopped or they’re going to kill us all—either slowly through a mixture of climate catastrophe, breakdown capitalism, and genocide or there’s always the nuclear option.

Let’s not forget that a lot of these Silicon Valley accelerationists that are increasingly taking up roles in the government falsely believe they can ride out the nuclear holocaust or other major disasters and come out on top. That’s why they’re building their bunkers with pools and movie theaters. Nevermind that they’d probably only last a few weeks there before running into serious issues—and that’s if their servants or robots don’t kill them first—it’s all part of their vision of the world that doesn’t extend beyond themselves. As Douglas Rushkoff, who tech billionaires have called on for advice on how to survive the apocalypse, explains:

[It’s] the excuse for them to think through the fantasies they’ve had since they were little baby tech bros, to somehow create a digital womb around themselves that could anticipate their every need so they don’t have to deal with real people, and have nice little robots take care of them. It’s the dream that little boys and girls have being the last person alive and getting all the toys.

As they increasingly buy out and take up larger roles in government, they’re getting closer to being able to cause even more widespread destruction than they’re used to. And even if they’ll never really be able to enact their global digital womb, they might kill us all trying to. As Alastair Crooke has pointed out, the key nuclear allegation that started the war with Iran was coaxed from a Palantir counter-intelligence algorithm. So maybe the question we should be asking is: Do Palantir inputs believe those it deems worth living could survive a nuclear war and thrive?

It’s not like a lot of influential and well-funded “thinkers” in the US need a lot of convincing. As the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists points out, “many in the US defense establishment—the military, government, think tanks, and industry—promote the perception that a nuclear war can be won and fought.”

Add to the equation that if the US plutocrats have gone as far as Gaza, is there anywhere they’re not willing to go?

Add it all up, and it feels like we’re rapidly approaching that moment many have dreaded: decision time in America when the powers that be either give up on the dream of the Great American century or burn the whole joint to the ground. And the prospects aren’t looking good for elite American acceptance.

As just one recent example, here are the plutocrats’ court jesters in think tanklandia calling Russia’s nuclear doctrine “bluster” and that the Trump administration should not “fall for it.” The administration apparently agrees with its recent nuclear brinkmanship.

The calculation in their minds is simple: it is preferable to find out rather than accept a world that isn’t dominated by Washington.

What can the other powers like Russia and China do? They could start by locking down Eurasia.

That’s what they’ve been gravitating towards for some time. At the mid-July meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers in China Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi proposed the following for collective security and sovereignty:

A collective security body to respond to external aggression, sabotage, and terrorism

A permanent coordination mechanism for documenting and countering subversive acts

A Center for Sanctions Resistance, to shield member economies from unilateral Western measures

A Shanghai Security Forum for defense and intelligence coordination

Enhanced cultural and media cooperation to counter cognitive and information warfare

Should the SCO—whose members’ industrial capacities dwarf NATO—forge such a bloc, it could greatly challenge the Western dreams of picking off countries one at a time.

That’s hard to do with US beachheads in Israel, Turkey/Armenia, the Philippines, and of course all of Europe, but economic forces are not on the side of Washington, and you can almost feel the US collapsing under the sheer weight of keeping up this global game of subterfuge, clandestine activity, bribery, and just plain old troublemaking. It does so while ignoring its own decay and when the other side makes more economic sense and offers more peace and stability.

Yet, here’s the rub. Even if an alternative currency project gets up and running, and even if Russia and China keep playing the long game and bleeding the US dry (China cutting off critical minerals to Western defense companies is a good start) and waiting for it to collapse, that does nothing to guarantee the crazies are kept away from the nukes—it probably makes the US using them more likely.

And even a cordon sanitaire around the US won’t prevent its elites from taking out their rage on US citizens. Ultimately, the responsibility for dethroning these spoiled Nazi children (and I’m talking more about Musks, Thiels, Andreessens, Karps and company than Trump or the CIA Democrat neoliberals in their service) and restoring some sense of humanity will fall to Americans.

When could that come to pass? It’s hard to say, indeed:

I have to think that having the least intellectually sophisticated ruling class in modern history will eventually redound to our advantage. But exactly when and how it is hard to say
2:25 PM · Aug 3, 2025


https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/08 ... ldren.html

[blindpig]

Scott Horton: Who Opposed Nuking Japan?
August 6, 2025
By Scott Horton, Antiwar.com, 8/5/25

“The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” —Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

“In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. … The Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’ The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude.” —Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.” —Herbert Hoover

“[T]he Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945 … up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; … [I if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the bombs.” —Herber Hoover

“I told [Gen. Douglas] MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria.” —Herbert Hoover

“MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.” —Norman Cousins

“General MacArthur definitely is appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster. I had a long talk with him today, necessitated by the impending trip to Okinawa. He wants time to think the thing out, so he has postponed the trip to some future date to be decided later.” —Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s pilot, Weldon E. Rhoades

“[General Douglas] MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it, pacing the floor of his apartment in the Waldorf. He thought it a tragedy that the bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be limited damage to noncombatants…MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off…” —Richard Nixon

“The Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and the Swiss. And that suggestion of giving a warning of the atomic bomb was a face-saving proposition for them, and one that they could have readily accepted. In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb.” —Under Secretary of the Navy, Ralph Bird

“The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.” —General “Hap” Arnold

“The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.” — Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet

“The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war.” Adm. Nimitz

“The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons … The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.” —Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman

“Truman told me it was agreed they would use it, after military men’s statements that it would save many, many American lives, by shortening the war, only to hit military objectives. Of course, then they went ahead and killed as many women and children as they could, which was just what they wanted all the time.” —Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman

“The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb. … The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.” — Major General Curtis LeMay, XXI Bomber Command

“[LeMay said] if we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he’s right. He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” —Robert MacNamara

“The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment … It was a mistake to ever drop it … [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it.” — Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr.

“I concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945. Even without the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seemed highly unlikely, given what we found to have been the mood of the Japanese government, that a U.S. invasion of the islands scheduled for 1 November 1945 would have been necessary.” —Paul Nitze, director and then Vice Chairman of the Strategic Bombing Survey

“[E]ven without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” —U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, 1946

“Just when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia. Washington decided it was time to use the A-bomb. I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds.” —Ellis Zacharias Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence

“When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs. Many other high-level military officers concurred.” —Brigadier General Carter Clarke, the Military Intelligence officer in charge of preparing summaries of intercepted Japanese cables for President Truman and his advisors

“The commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated that the naval blockade and prior bombing of Japan in March of 1945, had rendered the Japanese helpless and that the use of the atomic bomb was both unnecessary and immoral. —Brigadier General Carter Clarke

“I proposed to Secretary Forrestal that the weapon should be demonstrated before it was used… the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate… My proposal… was that the weapon should be demonstrated over… a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo… Would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. It seemed to me that a demonstration of this sort would prove to the Japanese that we could destroy any of their cities at will… Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation… It seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world.” —Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss

“In the light of available evidence I myself and others felt that if such a categorical statement about the retention of the dynasty had been issued in May 1945, the surrender-minded elements in the Japanese government might well have been afforded by such a statement a valid reason and the necessary strength to come to an early clear cut decision. If surrender could have been brought about in May 1945, or even in June, or July, before the entrance of Soviet Russia into the Pacific war and the use of the atomic bomb, the world would have been the gainer.” —Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew

And for what it’s worth, then-Army Chief George Marshall wanted only to hit military facilities with it, not cities.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/08/sco ... ing-japan/

Some surprises there but ya gotta wonder how much CYA?

[blindpig]

How the U.S. Air Force general in charge of nuclear missiles almost wrecked relations with the Russians in 2013
August 8, 2025

Good grief, were our government officials and military representatives this unprofessional during the Cold War? This sounds like some cringey comedic movie. – Natylie

By David Axe & Matthew Gault, Substack, 7/21/25

David Axe is a journalist and filmmaker in South Carolina.

For five days in mid-July 2013, a delegation of the Pentagon’s top nuclear officials led by U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Carey traveled to Moscow to meet its counterparts in the Russian nuke force.

It was a make-nice involving the world’s biggest atomic powers, which for decades have possessed, and held back, the power to obliterate each other and the rest of the world in mere minutes.

And it came during what was, in retrospect, the last period of potentially fruitful interactions between the Americans and Russians, as Russia would invade Ukraine just seven months later.

Carey’s meeting was, in other words, a big freaking deal.

But to Carey—at the time the head of the 20th Air Force, America’s main nuclear ICBM strike force, with 9,600 airmen and 450 continent-blasting Minuteman missiles—it was a chance to engage in an epic, ego-fueled, taxpayer-funded bender.

Over the course of the five days, Carey allegedly guzzled around 50 drinks, hit on four different women—including three he later claimed might be Russian agents—and managed to repeatedly offend his Russian military hosts.

After an investigation, Carey was removed from command and assigned as a special assistant to the commander of the Air Force’s Space Command—a position with no real power. He retired in 2014 after doing his damnedest to wreck relations between the world’s top atomic powers while in the pursuit of booze and babes.

Carey’s marathon international insult was documented in a hilarious official report obtained by The Washington Post. Let’s count the drinks that disarmed the man once in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal.


U.S. airmen toast a Russian general at a Moscow air show. U.S. Air Force photo

Day 2: at least 4 beers plus 2 or more other drinks
The delegation checked into a Moscow Marriott the evening of July 15. First order of business was a team meeting to discuss the trip itinerary, including two days of meetings with Russian nuclear troops. At the meeting, Carey drank several beers … and began mouthing off.

“Again, he started in on the very loud discussions about being in charge of the only operationally deployed force and saving the world,” said a delegation member. Carey complained that his airmen had the worst morale in the Air Force—and blamed his superiors for “not helping out.”

The gripe did not include any classified information. But the witness described it as “not really something I was comfortable with you know, being part of in a Russian hotel in the middle of Moscow.”

Carey, who by this point had apparently slept only fitfully for several days running, went to the hotel lobby with one of his teammates, grabbed another beer and bought a cigar from a woman vendor. The male teammate proposed checking out a rooftop bar at the Ritz Carlton—a neighboring hotel—the next day.

But Carey suggested they go that night, and his colleague agreed.

At the rooftop bar, Carey had at least two more drinks. He and the other man met two young women who claimed to be British travel agents. The four revelers closed down the bar then wandered to the La Cantina Mexican restaurant, but it was shuttered for the night. Carey’s teammate mentioned that the Americans might go back to the Mexican joint the next day—and the girls should meet them there.

On return to America, Carey would voluntarily turn in the girls’ business cards to Air Force investigators, along with the cigar vendor’s card. The general would claim that the women’s behavior was fishy, and imply they might have been Russian agents. But Carey’s suspicion did not stop him from continuing to drink with the ladies in Moscow.


La Cantina. Virtualtourist.com photo

Day 3: 9 vodka shots, a bottle of vodka & a bar crawl
July 16 was the first day of meetings with Russian troops. And boy howdy was it a boozy one. Carey was 45 minutes late meeting the rest of the team, plus some Russian military guides, waiting in the Marriott lobby.

The Russians had arranged a demonstration by nuclear-force trainees and were worried the Americans might miss it.

Carey had gotten just few hours of sleep and his eyes were bloodshot. He snoozed on the van ride to the Russian base but was still not at his best during the morning’s briefings. Claiming he could not understand the Russians’ military interpreter—described as an “attractive” young woman—Carey told one of his Russian-speaking teammates to take over the translating.

The Russians “were insulted … they were unhappy,” a witness said.

Some Russian trainees—apparently part of the Kremlin’s nuclear security force—showed off their fighting, first aid and vehicle maintenance skills. Addressing the Americans, Carey derided the demonstration as “sophomoric.”

Lunch was served in a tent near the training range. There were nine vodka toasts. Some of the Russians, including a general, sipped water instead. The Russian general, for one, said he needed to be sober since he was in charge. In an ill-conceived attempt to ape the Russians’ toasting conventions, Carey singled out the woman linguist he had previously insulted, raised his glass to her and called her “beautiful.”

Carey was drunk, according to the other Americans. He ran his mouth about the Syrian war — over which Washington and Moscow have serious disagreements—and also about National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia.

One witness reported that “at some point he announced that the reason he had been late [that] morning was that he had met two hot women at the bar the night before.” The Russians were less than thrilled about this and “made it very clear we had to be on time the next day.”

That afternoon and evening, the Americans visited a monastery and then Red Square. There was more drinking in the van. At the monastery, Carey insulted the tour guide, a woman. “At one point he tried to give her a fist bump. She had no idea what he was trying to do,” one American said.

Carey wandered away from the main group. That evening, the nearly incapacitated general couldn’t keep up with his teammates in Red Square and sat alone “pouting and sulking.” He told the others he wanted to bail on the second day of meetings.

But that night, he was apparently feeling better. He decided the delegation would go to La Cantina, the Mexican restaurant. There was a Beatles cover band he wanted to see, he said. At La Cantina, he drank more and kept pressuring the band to let him play guitar or sing with them.

The band declined.

The two, ahem, “British” women showed up. One kissed Carey on the cheek and the general joined them at their table, where he told them about his job and the trip. Carey danced with one of the girls. “It was a fast dance,” according to a witness.

The general, two other Americans and the girls closed down the Mexican joint and hit a couple more bars. While stumbling back from the night of drinking, Carey opened up to one of his colleagues, again talking about not wanting to attend the next day’s proceedings.

But his drinking buddy convinced him he had to go, and Carey resolved to do his best. He didn’t get to bed until around 3:00, leaving him just four hours to sleep. By this point, Carey had apparently thrown back between 20 and 30 drinks since leaving his headquarters three days earlier.


Carey judging a cooking competition. U.S. Air Force photo

Days 4 & 5: 25 vodka shots, cognac & 3 glasses of wine
Despite his late-night booze-inspired resolution to set a good example, on the morning of July 17, Carey appeared to be having a hard time concentrating. He was 15 minutes late to the hotel lobby, looking exhausted, his eyes again bloodshot. As before, he slept through the car ride.

The demonstrations that morning were much like those the previous day. Carey was bored. And again he had problems with the Russian linguist, loudly correcting her translations in a crowded room, insulting her and embarrassing himself. The Russians were upset, but the translator—taking the high road—smoothed it over.

Carey then proceeded to embarrass himself further by attempting a lame joke with another translator. In a misguided attempt at levity, Carey proceeded to ask the man, “Can you hear me now?” Over and over again, invoking the then decade-old Verizon ad campaign.

The translator didn’t get it. Neither did the Russian brass Carey was there to make nice with. “The Russians were looking at him like are you crazy?” one witness said.

Then the drinking began.

At lunch that day, the number of toasts went up from the previous day’s nine to 25. According to witnesses, Carey participated in all of them. He even had a little wine on the side. During the meal, Carey’s face and eyes reddened and his speech slurred. He interrupted some of the toasts, irritating his Russian hosts.

He was wrecked.

“That’s the deal when you go to a Russian toasting event—you’re into the toasts,” Carey told an investigator. “The nice thing is that the toasting glasses are not full ounce glasses.”

But the glasses were full enough to get the general drunk, twice.

On the ride back to the hotel Carey disco-napped in the car but sprang to life once the group reached the front doors. He posted up in the hotel lounge and finished off a bottle of cognac left over from the day’s proceedings. Then he switched to wine.

Carey wanted to pull an all-nighter before flying home, in order to “get his body clock back in sync,” he said. Most of his associates fled. One delegate said he “didn’t want to end up in another situation like the night before.”

Some of the delegation stayed up with him and they chatted all night with the cigar lady about science and technology. In the morning, Carey and his delegation flew home. No further incidents were reported.

When they landed, someone complained. The investigation into Carey’s conduct started on July 30. The general declined to answer many questions and responded vaguely to others. “Carey’s account of events varied greatly at times from those of the other U.S. members on the trip,” an interviewer wrote.

But the rest of the American delegation recalled the five-day bender with total clarity. It’s clear, reading the investigators’ report, that every other person on the trip told the same story.

That Carey acted like a total frat boy.

Worse, the general apparently realized while in Moscow that the supposedly British women he cavorted with two nights in a row posed a security risk—but that didn’t stop him from drinking and flirting.

“It just seemed kind of peculiar that we saw them one night and then saw them again later while we were there and for people who are in business to be kinda conveniently in the same place where we’re at, it seemed odd to me,” Carey told an investigator.

Same thing with the cigar vendor. “She was asking questions about physics and optics and I was like, dude, this doesn’t normally happen. … A tobacco story lady talking about physics in the wee hours of the morning doesn’t make whole lot of sense.”

What also doesn’t make sense is how the man then in charge of some of the deadliest weapons in human history decided that a diplomatic mission to a rival superpower was a fine time to get shitfaced, chase sketchy women and insult the very people he was sent to impress.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/08/how ... s-in-2013/

[blindpig]

Amnesty International Is Evil
August 9, 2025



On October 7, 2023 Palestinian fighters overran at least eight Israeli military bases. Amnesty doubled down on its vilification of Palestinian armed resistance, basically parroting the Israeli line that it was a massacre of civilians that had no possible justification. Between 1980 -2021 (years before the October 7 attacks) Nazi Israel’s periodic bombings and economic strangulation of the West Bank and Gaza killed over 100,000 Palestinians.

Fake dissent, a thankless but necessary imperial task
Zionists have a well known practice of attacking people and organizations who criticize “Israel” even in the most feeble and inadequate way. Amnesty has been targeted with such attacks. Whether zionists realize it or not, these attacks are a clever way to serve their objectives because they help portray groups like Amnesty as real rather than fake opponents.

Pointing to its fake opposition to genocide in Gaza, Amnesty hopes it has retained enough credibility to incite hatred of Venezuela’s government.

Decades of serving the Empire in Venezuela
Justin Podur and I explained in our book, Extraordinary Threat, that Amnesty International’s reports on Venezuela have been terrible for decades. In 2017, we asked Amnesty if it would oppose the murderous sanctions Trump had just imposed on Venezuela. We also asked if it would oppose Trump’s military threats against Venezuela, and statements Trump officials had made trying to encourage a military coup.

Amnesty replied to us saying it would not do any of that because “responsible discussion on the current state of human rights in Venezuela should not be focussed on statements made by parties outside the country.” We were surprised that Amnesty would put such a despicable and absurd position in writing.

Justin and I showed that as far back 2002, when a US-backed military coup ousted former President Hugo Chavez for two days, Amnesty went to absurd lengths to deflect blame for US subversion onto the Chavez government. “Chavez film puts staff at risk, says Amnesty” proclaimed a Guardian headline of November 22, 2003. Amnesty’s rabidly anti-Chávez staff in Caracas managed to get a pro-Chávez documentary (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) banned from Amnesty’s film festival in Vancouver.



Many years later, Amnesty granted “Prisoner of Conscience” status to Leopoldo Lopez, a participant in the 2002 coup and other coup attempts that followed. Amnesty denied the Prisoner of Conscience designation to Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange when they were imprisoned.

Amnesty’s hypocrisy knows no bounds
Amnesty’s latest statement says that “Venezuelan authorities are demonstrating that their cruelty knows no bounds”. We’ve been spending 21 months watching Palestinian children get murdered with US supplied bombs, watching Netanyahu receive standing ovations in the US Congress, watching the U.S. government abduct hundreds of Venezuelans on US soil and ship them to prison in El Salvador as if they were slaves in the eighteenth century. I use the word “watching” repeatedly to stress the impunity with which the US dictatorship commits its crimes. And yet, unmoved by this historical moment of US savagery that has utterly destroyed the credibility of its imperial order, Amnesty can’t help but act as if nobody has noticed anything – that its demonization of US enemies can continue as easily as before.

So how does Amnesty justify alleging boundless cruelty on the part of the government in Venezuela that Washington has been trying to destroy for decades? Amnesty says fifteen people were detained in Venezuela, including many foreigners, accused of seditious activities.

Amnesty expects us to take its hypocritical imperialist word that the charges are baseless and that due process was denied to the accused. Amnesty also expects us to be outraged that Venezuela has allegedly not said where some of the accused are detained. Never mind how often US-backed subversives have escaped Venezuela, or otherwise flouted the law thanks to having US protection. Juan Guaido, who the US spent years insanely declaring to be Venezuela’s interim president was never arrested.

Incidentally, the Chavez government broke diplomatic relations with Nazi Israel in 2009. President Maduro has maintained Chavez’s anti-Zionist stance. Amnesty’s beloved Venezuelan opposition leaders like Leopoldo Lopez, on the other hand, have always been bloodthirsty Zionists.



Decent people who are aware of Amnesty’s track record should have no problem seeing the Maduro government as vastly more credible than this fraudulent human rights organization. We should hope US-backed subversives continue to be arrested in Venezuela, and that Maduro’s government takes every step necessary to foil the genocidal dictatorship in Washington.

https://orinocotribune.com/amnesty-inte ... l-is-evil/