There is an argument to continue the convention of referring to the President of the United States as the most powerful man in the world. The dollar has not quite yet been replaced as the world’s international reserve currency and Bretton Woods still, creaking and cracking, holds.
China is now the manufacturer of the world and its brands are no longer laughable worldwide. The United States has just sustained massive damage to its soft power from its support for Gaza genocide.
But China still plays the long game, relying on trade, investment and loans to increase its economic reach. It does not depend on military force or covert regime change to secure access to economic resources.
The more direct American methods work in the short term. Israel is benefiting from the Arab regimes of the Gulf, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all being dependent on US military and security service support to protect them from their own populations.
The USA is still prepared to project direct military power and fight wars overseas to maintain its influence. China now has greater military capability than the USA, but sees no advantage in using it.
Chinese leaders look with disdain at the crazed and sustained violence of the NATO states this last quarter century, and sees the West losing, not gaining, global influence. That China is gaining steadily such influence, nobody seeks to deny.
But the USA has succeeded, by defying international law, in physically enabling the genocide in Gaza. They will in the next week install a puppet government in Venezuela and quickly move to strip that country’s vast oil wealth into the hands of the US oil giants.
Short-term American crudity can succeed a little while longer, as the Chinese watch their trillions of dollar reserves build, and bide their time. So for now I think we can still go along with the cliché that the US President is the most powerful man in the world.
Except obviously he isn’t. The fact that Joe Biden wakes up in the morning and has to be reminded to remove his pyjamas is no longer hidden. That Biden’s mental faculties declined past normal operation some time ago has been extremely obvious, yet denied by the media and the political establishment even when it was obvious to everybody.
There is a parallel to F D Roosevelt. The myth is not true that his paralysis was hidden from the American public, though it was minimised in PR output. But what is certainly true is that when he stood for re-election for his fourth term in 1944, his extremely poor health, including heart failure, was hidden and directly lied about. He died after five months in office.
We seem to live in a strange age where politics relies more than ever on the big lie technique, even as social media makes the exposure of such lies inevitable. My interpretation is that the permanent state of cognitive dissonance and bewilderment of a population that does not know what to believe any more, is a state which power likes to see in the population.
As the radical fall in turnout in the UK general election showed, the bewilderment and distrust simply leads populations to disengage.
So now we know that Biden is not running anything much, who is? Certainly not Kamala Harris, who has been completely sidelined as Vice President and given only poisoned-chalice briefs like border control. Her function till now, other than the obvious box-ticking of having her on the ballot, was as a lightning rod for public dissatisfaction.
Being President of the United States is a big job. I have no doubt that Biden has enough faculty to make some broad calls, without absorbing a great deal of detail on policy or information on recent events. His career long support for Israel has determined policy; how much he really understands about what is happening in Gaza is a different question.
Most important is that Kamala Harris is absolutely tainted with the active genocide support of the Administration; the supply of weapons and direct military assistance to Israel are all on her too.
But if Biden is not the man running the USA, then who is? How does the state operate?
Well, according to my sources, the most powerful man in Washington, and effectively de facto President, is Jake Sullivan. His official position is National Security Advisor but I am told his work covers far more than this, including domestic policy questions, and he is the person who does the detailed work which Biden cannot do.
Which makes it interesting how seldom he appears in the news – which he does primarily when visiting foreign leaders.
Sullivan has the classic Atlanticist background, as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford to supplement his Yale education. He is fanatically pro-NATO and anti-Russian, unquestioningly Zionist and was the architect of the destruction of Libya as senior policy adviser to Hillary Clinton.
Given the obvious inadequacy of Biden, the studied disinterest of the media in analysing how his Administration actually functions, tells us a very good deal about self-censorship and media ownership.
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So the obvious question then is who controls Jake Sullivan?
I’d go a lot further than you do about US no longer being a peer of China: I’d say they lost it 7 or 8 years ago – which is why right now pretty much all the world bar Europe, Canada, NZ and Aus want to be part of their gang, not the USA gang.
Militarily they lost it – 1990s microchips are no longer a strategic advantage over Russia, China, or even Iran (not even Yemen). But Hypersonics are a rocket technology where Russia clearly leads. In other words carrier-based threats have become vulnerabilities. US nukes, especially nukes on Subs, match all peers, but that way goes MADness and at best a pyrrhic draw.
Even if US could match Russian technology, they could not build it in quantity. Russia makes the same amount of steel with 40% of the population. China makes 12X as much. When people ask why Russia uses 10X the shells that Ukraine (supplied by all NATO) does, and it is NATO running out first, that tells you how far the West has fallen behind.
Backing Israel now is one of multiple desperate measures by US (Ukraine; sanctions on China; threats over Taiwan; threats to ICJ; and the open blackmail of European politicians). This is not a panicky US gradually losing it – this is an angry US that knows it is long lost.
“So the obvious question then is who controls Jake Sullivan?”
Ditto.
And if there were necessity to choose, whose man is he, Clinton’s or Obama’s?
p.s. on the publics – at least looking at Germany the economic hardship is one cause for this utter lack of resistance and no leadership from huge institutions.
In the 1950s you had the church, you had academic institutions, many papers, and above all SPD and the unions.
In the 1980s you had the church, you had academic institutions, the media, the Green Party and the popularized entities from the 1960s civil rights movement á la européenne and the unions.
Now you have – nothing. Only one left party could call for mass protest but it is 6 months old at maximum and they have no mass base (yet).
No masses would follow AfD. And then you have the biggest problem of all which Craig points out, mass media ownership.
Which is a very serious threat.
Apparently Mélénchon suggests France leave NATO. Huh?
Oh, and the Financial Times on Germany and Trump:
“Isolated Germany fears a second Trump term
The possibility that a new administration could weaken security guarantees and increase tariffs on US imports is causing angst in Berlin”
https://archive.is/b2vPC
(which is childish but that´s what we have in B).
“And if there were necessity to choose, whose man is he, Clinton’s or Obama’s?”
As Dr Johnson remarked, “Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea”.
«right now pretty much all the world bar Europe, Canada, NZ and Aus want to be part of their gang, not the USA gang.»
It is quite the opposite: the USA have chosen “Cold War 2” now because they know that if they “contain” China (and Russia) now by pushing them out of the “global order”, they still will dominate most of the world and the Chinese sphere of influence will be much smaller than the Soviet sphere of influence was. A much larger part of Europe and Asia, and Central and South America, is under USA suzerainty than during the “Cold War 1” era, Africa is a mess, and China does not do “regime change” (yet).
BRICS is just a powerless talking shop for nations that are actually mostly rivals or USA allies, even less effectual than the old Society of Nations or the United Nations.
Re. China. Interesting to see that they are still the major owner of American debt.
The question is: “does this debt give them any leverage ?”
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240720/who-owns-the-us-debt-1119442161.html
China has been divesting itself of US debt for years. Beijing offloaded a total of US$53.3 billion of Treasuries and agency bonds combined in the first quarter of this year alone.
The US is in a unique position with the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, in that it can always find buyers for its Treasuries. But even that has its limits and is unsustainable in the longer term, as China no doubt realises.
We saw with Liz Truss’ s fiscal disaster, Britain doesn’t have similar financial clout to play silly fiscal games with the bond markets. The gilt markets freaked out over her idiotic plans for £60bn in unfunded tax cuts – there was a belief the UK would risk defaulting on repayment of long-held gilts that were nearing maturity; weak demand for bonds and lower bond prices pushes up yields too. That’s fiscal policy… the Federal reserve, ECB and BoE respectively control monetary policy incl. interest rates. Politicians are increasingly spectators.
Statecraft is an esoteric mystery; devoid of principles; at the core of it are a nation’s financial interests and maintaining prosperity; that means maintaining status and standing : global winners and losers. Due to financial deregulation and the way things have developed; the politicians in the West are increasingly powerless to change anything.
“It [China] does not depend on military force or covert regime change to secure access to economic resource”
Surely it does. Look at the island building and land grabs in the sea of Japan and areas between there and Singapore. China is placing increasing pressure on anyone supporting Tiawan. Sabre-rattling by China? Sabre-rattling by the USA?
China’s sabre-rattling is fairly local, though; doesn’t excuse it. America’s, isn’t, however; their local equivalent would be noising up Mexico, Canada, Cuba and the West Indies.
America interferes far away from its geographical zone – to protect the investments of its capitalists, one can only assume.
China owns Taiwan already. “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
What laughter there must be in Beijing when the US spends money and theoretically commits forces to the defence of Taiwan.
Building an island and claiming it seems eminently reasonable, occupying the Middle East and slaughtering populations doesn’t.
Taiwan is part of China.
Watch Nikki Haley. When the White House race shakes down to Trump versus Harris, the one of the two who’s most likely to meet a black swan, experiencing for example an adverse health event, a godawfully terrible debate, or ruinous trouble in a courtroom, is Trump. And if he leaves the fray, it’s true it could possibly be Vance who takes his place, owing to considerations of donations and the ticket, but it could also be the vile Haley, the disgusting woman who wrote “Finish Them!” on an Israeli artillery shell bound for Gaza. That’s not simply supporting genocide. That is revelling in genocide.
This could be read as a betting tip, given that Haley is out at price of 860.
You have to admit though noone can smile, even laugh the way Harris does. Even if she is sad she appears optimistic.
https://www.qwant.com/?client=ext-firefox-sb&q=kamala+harris+laughter&t=images
That could become the basis of an entire campaign.
Smiling lady v. the funny man
p.s. and enlist ALEC BALDWIN (ha!)…
…as impersonator of the smiling man SNL-style, naturally. What did you think?
AG
Many Americans find her insincere or fake.
She has earned the nickname ‘Knee pads’ – a crude take on how she’s climbed the career ladder.
The media may be trying to pretend she’s some new refreshing force in politics. But it wasn’t all that long ago that the same media were saying she may be dropped as VP and from the 2024 Biden ticket – because her tanking popularity ratings risked dragging down Biden. Her short-lived 2020 campaign for the leadership saw her on 1%; Tulsi Gabbard, then a Democrat, famously took her apart in the televised candidates’ debate over her record in California. She’s of Caribbean and Indian heritage, often highlighting one or the other depending on the audience, in an attempt appeal to black and South Asian communities. But her record as prosecutor in California, suggests she was very hardline against poorer black working class communities. And as attorney general of California, she defended the state’s use of the death penalty.
I think Trump will beat her fairly easily. They should’ve had a genuinely open contest but the likes of Pelosi and Schumer and the Clinton/Obama party machinery is fundamentally anti-democratic. They prefer stitch-ups over open debate and free choice, because the big wealthy donors won’t tolerate a Sanders-type candidate, and they call the shots.
“Knee pads”?
nice.
Yeah I heard the Harris double standard was legendary as California is concerned.
But then: Who among these is not a crook?
I guess none of the viable alternatives among the Democrats wants to hurt his/her chances to run 2028.
So they pass now.
Be it Newsom et. al.
However I still can´t believe H. Clinton has given up on that POTUS position…
I personally doubt that Vance is such a powerful figure for 2028. He is too decent. He might have sold out but unlike others he might still have a conscience. Which would make chances much better for DNC then than many think.
p.s. I keep forgetting where Tulsi Gabbard came from…
p.p.s why isn´t Sanders running? With announcing that he could fuck over the entire establishment. I mean he has nothin´ to loose.
AG
Sanders is too old now. But he was never really seriously in contention even in 2020.
He’s too redistributive (a US socialist?) and too critical of Wall Street to attract the estimated billion dollars in corporate and private donations it’s widely assumed a presidential candidate needs to mount a successful campaign. Sanders, to his credit, knew this, and it’s why he’s been a big advocate of campaign finance reform to get the ‘big money’ out of politics.
Politics is rigged in favour of the rich in the US, none more so than in a presidential campaign. And rather than fight this, the Democrats have surrendered to it. Constraining the candidate choices on offer, beyond that which only having two parties already does.
Gabbard is from Hawaii.
“The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum”.
– Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life
who is running America? check in tomorrow night when a wanted war criminal receives endless standing ovations from the US Congress.
right behind him will be a smiling clapping seal that ticks every important Guardian box for political leadership (including, not least, $5 million from AIPAC). it will be the world’s enduring image of old Bomber Harris, aka Genocide Kamala.
It will certainly be an iconic moment in the history of the US empire which came into being in the middle of the last century and assassinated its elected president in 1963 in order to stretch that empire more widely. At least the Canadian parliament could affect ignorance when cheering an old Nazi. This planned celebration of genocide tomorrow will ring throughout history yet to be written, a history written by the victors.
At present time it is difficult to imagine what existence NATO, Israel or Ukraine will have within the next decade. The US will still be around for some time to come I’m sure, but the upcoming election can only bring further ruin, whatever the result.
“At least the Canadian parliament could affect ignorance when cheering an old Nazi. This planned celebration of genocide tomorrow will ring throughout history”
100%. it is very unlikely that these genocide celebrators will be hailed by history as the world’s last, best hope, as they are by today’s western media.
I just read that Harris has discovered a pressing need to visit a sorority in Indiana and won’t be in the chamber.
Kamala has a pressing engagement elsewhere. I’d have a go at getting past all your preconceived prejudices.
China is demographically collapsing, and as the major imperial power in Africa, it will not long maintain this facade of being the friend of the oppressed. Being the creditor of the world only works until the world starts defaulting. All that aside, I am perturbed at the level of admiration Xi and his tinpot empire elicits among the liberal/left of the west. It seems the philosophy that you can fix everything with science and politics — and the more intrusive the politics the better — just will not die, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I’d question some of these concepts, including the idea that “(fixing) everything” (by any method) is a big idea in China – but it’s true that the western left doesn’t get where the epoch is going, or indeed where the epoch currently is. There is little or no critique of technology and its direction. The radical left seems totally washed out. It has no idea even about the schizo distractions that have been put up such as the transsexual rights stuff. In Britain, look in vain for a consequential response to, say, the recent riot in Leeds. Eyes really should be on Xinjiang and the Uighurs too (popup police stations, zoned internet surveillance, camps – nobody should say this isn’t the planned capitalist future globally), but sadly they aren’t.
Are you kidding? Even at the height of hospital bombing in Gaza last year the West collectively sponsored a UN resolution condemning human rights violations against Muslims ….. in Xinjiang, China! It was sponsored not only by everyone arming Israel but by Israel itself!
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/23/un-member-countries-condemn-chinas-crimes-against-humanity
“Eyes really should be on Xinjiang and the Uighurs too (popup police stations, zoned internet surveillance, camps – nobody should say this isn’t the planned capitalist future globally), but sadly they aren’t.”
It really does seem that this is the official narrative and is almost entirely a creation of the West.
I’ve been around since the fag end of the British Empire and the tales that the West as a whole tells itself now sound rather familiar. That all is not 100% perfect in the upcoming global power. Well so what? That we still lead in this thing – well next week we won’t and they’ll be scrabbling around for something else to point to. That somehow the world still respects us and looks to us for leadership despite this outrage and that outrage that we’re committing. That we just have to believe and stick flags on everything to turn it around. Nope, the momentum is there and nothing short of thermonuclear war is going to make much difference. Where we end up is still up to us though. Could be as a comfortable Switzerland or it could be cows grazing in the Forum as with Rome. More likely something in between but every idiocy now closes off options for the future.
The liberal/left though doesn’t admire the scientific truth that’s most fundamental to our psychology, that we are a type of great ape.
Liberals aren’t left, they’re far right. Oh and leave me bananas alone.
Maybe we should ask who is running the EU. Probably Jake Sullivan again. I noted the news this morning that “The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borell, has stripped Hungary of the right to host the next meeting of foreign and defence ministers over its stance on the war in Ukraine”. I have to agree with “Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on Facebook: “What a fantastic response they have come up with. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but it feels like being in a kindergarten.” ”
It’s a kindergarten with terrible weapons in the UK, EH & USA.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgr542l753po
The problem with Orban’s stance on the war in Ukraine should be stated clearly. He has visited Kiev, Moscow and Beijing recently in an effort to stop the conflict: those offended by his conduct, such as ‘Jungle Joe’ Borell wish to perpetuate the conflict.
David Warriston
Although Hungary currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen has said Budapest’s views do not correspond with the bloc’s official line, and that the bloc (EU) might not be the right fit for Hungary.
All because Orban tried to barter a peace deal, Hungary is to be punished. A high level EU summit in Budapest has been cancelled.
While we are on the broad topic of “Who is running X?”, a related question is “Who is running Europe?”.
It’s not Europeans. The biggest economy in Europe – Germany – has been crippled to serve US interests: substituting US LNG for cheap Russian gas made a lot of its industry uncompetitive with US rivals. When the US destroyed the Nordstream pipeline (in which not only Russia but also Germany had invested billions of dollars), German leaders said nothing. The subservient German press told its readers that Russia had blown up its own pipeline.
Obviously, Washington – not German politicians – calls the shots in Germany. The really tough question is, “How?”.
Bribery? Blackmail? Or the threat of “regime change” if the German government doesn’t do what it’s told?
It may sound absurd that the USA would attempt regime change in a west-European country – but why is it absurd? Washington has engineered regime change in many countries throughout the world, why should western Europe be an exception?
It would probably be done “peacefully”, backed up by rent-a-mob demonstrations/riots as usual. But if need be, the USA has over 50,000 troops stationed in military bases in Germany (link).
Brexit and Cameron deposed in 2016 was US regime change, quite likely. Farage and Johnson were their puppets. That was why no one was allowed a British-style compromise on the outcome, despite the fairly even result. It was US foreign policy to try to divide Europe, and is also why Starmer isn’t allowed to challenge Brexit. It’s backfired, of course, but that’s always the way with US foreign policy recently and is why the US is starting to fail.
You lost a democratic vote, stop whining.
Cameron didn’t have to have the vote in the first place. The vote was always going to be divisive, regardless of who won. Divide and rule?
“the USA has over 50,000 troops stationed in military bases in Germany”
50,000 doesn’t sound a lot until you remember that Germany gave up national service (i.e. conscription) in 2011.
«Obviously, Washington – not German politicians – calls the shots in Germany. The really tough question is, “How?”. Bribery? Blackmail? Or the threat of “regime change” if the German government doesn’t do what it’s told?»
Bribery, blackmail, threat of regime change, all help, but even a fully independent German ruling class would still choose to obey the USA, because the USA Navy control all the choke points through which Germany imports food and fuel and exports products. In WW1 Germany ran out of food; in WW2 run out of oil (and people); and they do remember it. The USA, like the English Empire before them, are totally against any link between Europe and Russia, because Russia could make Europe independent of the USA as to food and fuel imports.
Very few developed countries are self-sufficient in both food and fuel, among them USA and Russian Federation (and partially the People’s Republic of China, where the government, following very ancient Chinese practice, has set up enormous reserves of food and fuel). The others would crumble if the USA Navy “sanctioned” their food and fuel imports.
Who runs America?
Not the president, most agree. Not the slimy bastard Sullivan either, although he’s nearer to the core of it. No one person runs it, now. There exists a deep state, unelected and unremovable. That conspired to murder JFK. They never went away.
“the national security state that they’ve built and engorged with taxpayer dollars, using fear and the excuse of American “safety”, has dispatched armies and special operations forces and drones all over the world to commit mayhem and increase global instability, to kill civilians, wipe out wedding parties, kidnap and torture the innocent, assassinate by robot, and so on.”
— from Shadow Government by Tom Engelhardt
Craig: “the permanent state of cognitive dissonance and bewilderment of a population that does not know what to believe any more, is a state which power likes to see in the population.”
Absolutely true. Witness the use of psychological warfare techniques on the masses, as they did, notably, during the imposition of lockdowns:
“A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened… The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.”
— Spi B Committee
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
— H.L. Mencken
Lots of interesting questions here. My 2 penn’orth says Obama was talking into Biden’s earpiece, having written his speech for him, and saying it to him as Biden stood and spoke it straight back. Obama seemed to be calling the shots, but Harris won’t need the same level of puppeting and may make her own agenda.
China stated several years ago that it would invade Taiwan ‘at a time of its choosing’. Taiwan holds much of the US’s tech industry as it is rich in rare earths. Japan has not been allowed an independent armed service since WWII and is still unforgiven across much of the region. The US bases are Japan’s defence force. Japan today is peaceful and gentle and ambitious to be the best at everything done very neatly.
In another television interview a spokesman stated that ‘western democracies plan for the next 5 years. China plan for a thousand years’. China is interwoven with transport down through Iran and Africa and with tech systems worldwide. Every UK university has 1000 Chinese students every year. India has to keep trying to push China back from crossing its border. Tibet is Western China. It’s former name must not be spoken and its people have been replaced with Han Chinese.
Our local China representative who comes from Taiwan told me ‘China is coming. Soon everyone will have to learn Mandarin’. She teaches the language.
General Petraeus told me that no member country in NATO can unilaterally secede so Trump cannot decide to pull all American troops out of Germany.
The motive is control of energy. Gas under Gaza. Iran’s oil. Russia’s oil and gas. The wars the energy companies want us to fight for them are to defend dollar hegemony and the price of oil.
”General Petraeus told me that no member country in NATO can unilaterally secede so Trump cannot decide to pull all American troops out of Germany.”
How could a member country be prevented from seceding? Would they be threatened with invasion?
De Gaulle did not take France out of NATO in 1967 but he did disengage from much of the NATO apparatus.
Also Israel is all but a member in name of Nato.
Under Article 13 any country may leave NATO with one year’s notice.
Although Japan is not allowed an army, navy or air force since 1954 it has been permitted a Self Defence Force, currently this is made up of a Ground Self Defence Force with 150,000 active personnel, a Maritime Self Defence force with two light carriers and various smaller craft including submarines, and an Air Self Defence Force which has 745 aircraft including F-15s and F-35s. If only these were an army, a navy and an air force then Japan would have the fourth most powerful military in the world.
Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan is Jewish so we know exactly how the Gaza situation will play out..
‘Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan is Jewish so we know exactly how the Gaza situation will play out.’
I’ve always assumed he was Jewish through his mother (whose maiden name I can’t find) given his forenames. Claiming Irish roots has been fashionable in the US since JFK – Reagan, Clinton and Biden all did this. Sullivan has a brother and a sister who are also part of the political/legal machine; their working associates would indicate an affiliation with Israeli interests with names like Klobuchar, Gelb, Breyer, Roth and Bitar.
Victoria Nuland and Anthony Blinken are two prominent members of the Biden regime who have an ancestral history inside the Jewish community of central Europe.
Kamala Harris’ heritage lies a little closer to home. Although her father was from the Caribbean it seems that she has roots within the Brown family, a slave owning family of Scottish descent.
The Irish Times is claiming that the Brown family are Irish from county Antrim.
https://archive.is/Vktjt
I guess for that time there’s a good chance the Brown family could have been plantars from Scotland.
Venezuela? Sorry have I missed some development overnight?
“They will in the next week install a puppet government in Venezuela and quickly move to strip that country’s vast oil wealth into the hands of the US oil giants.”
——
On the subject of the identity of who runs the Empire currently. We mean identities.
The Empire has had its constant shapeshifters as they passed the torch from one artificial Westphalian entity to the next – of course retaining their Infalliblilty status through the centuries.
All their eggs are smashed as their hand basket goes to hell. They screwed the EU pooch in trying to take the Crimea and destroy the RF.
They have No Reverse Gear, so escalation is as always their only solution to every setback.
They are a self-delusional Hammer, so everything has to be nailed!
When NuttyYahoo, the chief Hammer, is visiting his not-so-secret Bosses in Person – there is something afoot!
Are they suddenly contemplating the impossible? Will they move beyond simple graft, blackmail, bargaining, lying, cheating and mass murder?
Will they look to hide from the justice for crimes against Palestinians wholly witnessed and evidenced as no other time in history – hoping to escape retribution and justice by throwing scapegoats to the multipolar Law Based coming order – thus instantly subverting that New Human civilisational Progress?
Who runs things? The psychopath CEOs? Yes, but they aren’t the Owners who really own those bastards.
“Venezuela? Sorry have I missed some development overnight?”
That was also my initial reaction DG so I searched a bit and Venezuela is having a presidential election on July 28. It’s mostly only the CRAP media where I can find anything about it and the reporting is heavily anti-Maduro and pro Edmundo Gonzalez who is the only other contender with a realistic chance (I think – I don’t know enough about it).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmundo_Gonz%C3%A1lez_Urrutia
ET.
Try here for info.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/ [ e.g. “Abby Martin: Hands Off Venezuela” – youtube ]
Very interesting. I’d never heard of Jake Sullivan.
Back in 2020 the BBC broadcast an interview by David Frost with Joe Biden. An edited version is here:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bonus-episode-frost-biden/id1532912344?i=1000494676555
It’s no longer available on the BBC website.
When I heard this interview it was immediately clear to me that Biden’s cognitive ability had massively declined since 1987. Yet it wasn’t till his disastrous debate performance a few weeks ago that the BBC even began to voice doubts about his mental capacity.
They mostly try to shift the focus onto his age (which is only 4 years older than Trump) rather than his mental capacity (which is obviously very much less than Trump’s).
This shows a striking capacity for self-delusion.
The biggest problem with Biden administration, is in how it was very much a replay of Obama’s administration. All the same names came back to the State Department, carrying all the same old grudges against Russia. Russia, remember, ruined their plans for regime change in Syria. Putin also famously gave Snowden sanctuary earlier in the same year, 2013. An eventful, consequential year indeed.
Hard not to believe the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych, in late 2013-14, wasn’t orchestrated by the US/UK in response to Putin’s audacious intervention, in support of Assad, in Syria. The view in Washington and London I’d imagine, was ‘how dare Russia interfere in our plans to rebalance the ME in Sunni interests’ – seen as a barrier against Iran and growing Iranian influence after the majority Shia takeover in Iraq.
Of course, if that’s an accurate thesis, based only on my intuition, the public don’t know half. And if they did they’d be furious with US and UK elites and their scheming.
«All the same names came back to the State Department, carrying all the same old grudges against Russia. Russia, remember, ruined their plans for regime change in Syria.»
I think all that is pretty irrelevant. Russia is still “a gnat on the butt an [USA} elephant”: the primary reason is that, since not so long ago, the USA elites realized that the PRC was going to dominate the world economy and was minded to create their own sphere of influence, and it so happens that Russia is the biggest “buffer state” that the PRC has got, just as Ukraine was the biggest “buffer state” Russia had got. So the obvious plan is to flip first Ukraine to be an USA protectorate, and then using that (“domino theory”) to flip Russia to return to being an USA protectorate like during the Yeltsin era (and that would flip Kazakhstan too), so that the CIA and DoD can build a chain of biolabs and based along the northern and western Chinese borders to train and arm lots of “freedom fighter” Azov-style brigades inside the PRC to destabilize it. That is far more important than even the gas and oil.
“Israel is benefiting from the Arab regimes of the Gulf, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all being dependent on US military and security service support to protect them from their own populations.”
Somewhat true, mostly not. An over-simplification. True of Bahrein (Sunni king protected from Shi’a pop) and Egypt (American-organised military coup to displace democratically elected Morsi). Rest of the Gulf doesn’t have civil populations that the ruling families need to be protected from. As the Saudi minister described Qatar: 300 princes and a television station. He should have added: and a gas field. Saudi, no: Saudi uses another method to protect themselves from their population: they pay them off. Jobs for everybody. Jordan is in a unique position: the country’s GDP has never, since independence in 1946, been sufficient pay for the administration. It has always been dependent on external subsidies to keep the country going. Hussein was excellent at playing one source off against another to maintain his effective independence. Abdullah is not very bright, and has allowed himself to be trapped into American subsidies and consequent submission to Israel. He doesn’t have any choice (or he won’t be able to ride his motor-bike again on the Pacific Coast Highway – that is said to be his favourite activity in life).
«Rest of the Gulf doesn’t have civil populations that the ruling families need to be protected from.»
Truly ridiculous hallucination: the rest of the gulf have 90-95% immigrants as population, the majority of them indians and pakistanis and egyptians, and they are treated very badly. Why haven’t they done a rebellion of the slaves and taken power, perhaps helped and supported by the indian, pakistani, or egyptian governments that would then control all that wealth? Because the USA would not allow that.
Professor R D Wolff, in this interview gives a tour de force of the Ukraine war and sanctions and tariffs on Russia, China and Iran, he describes how easy it is to bypass them. OK, he says it might mean a bit more paperwork and a little extra expense but they are easily bypassed. An example is oil and gas sanctions against Russia; India and China are importing huge amounts of same from Russia, and in the case of India are sending the oil into the EU, who are willing buyers, oil being fungible and/or easily blendable. It’s making India (the middle man) very rich. He points out that China will not let Russia fail or vice versa, because it is a marriage made in heaven (C’est le mariage parfait). This is in my opinion a wonderful interview not to be missed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84tD1Nc2Pro
I’m quite surprised China hasn’t openly provided purely defensive military hardware to Russia. For the sooner the conflict is brought to a conclusion, the better, for both Russia and China.
As George Orwell put it: “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.”
As of April this year, the EU had given $117 billion in financial, military, humanitarian, and refugee assistance to Ukraine. As of May this year, the US had given $175 billion of aid and military assistance.
Colossal sums wasted, given Ukraine isn’t strong enough to push Russia out and will in all likelihood end up signing the same ‘territorial concessions for security guarantees’ deal they could’ve signed two years ago. The EU Commission and US Congress are acting without public support in committing such enormous sums to a lost cause.
Though of course, some cynics suggest the war, much like the long fruitless trillion dollar stay in Afghanistan – i.e. one big racket; in which the money is being recycled back to US defence companies whose stocks soar. Companies all these Western politicians have large share holdings in. Ursula von der Leyen allegedly has form; she bought enough COVID vaccines to give every European ten doses each! Over €4bn of those doses were wasted! Muddying things further, her husband, Heiko von der Leyen, just so happens to be Medical Director of the US-based company Orgenesis, which specialises in developing RNA COVID vaccines and has received EU funding awards.
Ursula von der Leyen was personally involved in negotiating that wasteful ‘vaccine deal’ and she and the EU, have been fighting requests for the release her private messages negotiating it. Not sketchy at all /s.
It’s not in anyone’s interest to acknowledge the support that China is giving Russia. If it became common currency in the West, the brainless jingoes would demand sanctions including banning imports from China. That would be disruptive and a bit destabilising for China (we’re only the Golden Billion after all and there’s 7 or 8 billion others) but, as the shelves in Walmart emptied, it’d be at least as bad for the sanctioners. Modern wars aren’t supposed to actually inconvenience the voters in their towns. So we all pretend it isn’t happening.
“I’m quite surprised China hasn’t openly provided purely defensive military hardware to Russia”.
I am sure that it would, should Russia ever need help. In reality, it is Russia that has supplied China with essential military equipment since the days of the USSR. (Actually, there are very few examples of military hardware that are “purely defensive”. As the Kiev mob have often demonstrated, even surface-to-air missiles can demolish apartment blocks if incompetently handled).
It seems obvious that if either Russia or China were seriously threatened, the other would come to its aid with no holds barred. It would have to. The Chinese and the Russians are thoroughly familiar with the principle expressed by Ben Franklin: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately”. It’s probably in Sun Tzu somewhere.
«I’m quite surprised China hasn’t openly provided purely defensive military hardware to Russia.»
It is pretty obvious: because Chinese companies are still big exporters to the USA and make a lot of money there and do not want to be “sanctioned”, and they want that gusher of profits to continue for as a long as they can. The USA and the PRC are in mutual dependency, and that limits options, even if both are trying to disengage (the USA more than the PRC, because it is easier to find offshore places to replace China than rich export markets to replace the USA).
Jake Sullivan? The guy who is running America?
The guy who looks and talks like an extra from The Simpsons and who the week before October 7th said “The Middle East Region Is Quieter Today Than It Has Been in Two Decades”
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/israel-war-middle-east-jake-sullivan/675580/
That Jake Sullivan? Running America?
Yes! Isn’t Matt Groening smart? His caricature characters are exactly like the real things.
Oh, please. The foreign policy of the Biden administration has been establishment foreign policy — the “Washington consensus” — for generations. It runs on auto-pilot. “Empire”, it’s sometimes called. The U.S. didn’t invent it, and the Chinese aren’t saying no either.
Trump may or may not be willing to cede Ukraine to his admired friend in the Kremlin, and he views NATO as a failed mercantile venture (‘believe me’, to use a Trumpism, he’s not objecting on moral grounds), but you’ll notice he did not repudiate Israeli apartheid or throw his support to the current — and it must be said, disastrous — Venezuelan regime. If Craig thinks otherwise of Venezuela, perhaps he should try running for office there as well; he can’t do any worse than usual. But yeah, the U.S. want its oil. So does Donald.
And remember those “beautiful” letters Trump received from Kim Jong Un? His is plainly a divergence from long-standing Washington consensus, but it’s based on hair styles, not principle.
Get real, perhaps?
“and it must be said, disastrous — Venezuelan regime.”
Maybe they did quite well considering they are up against the Empire of Lies. ‘Regime’ is for those who’ve come to power undemocratically, like US presidents. Otherwise, yeah.
How do you know for sure that the (US) will replace Maduro with a (US) compliant puppet? The (US) has tried several times to usurp a democratically elected Venezuelan president in the likes of Chavez and Maduro. The last puppet (Guaido) – who was the spitting image of the (US) puppet president Obama – failed miserably to overthrow Maduro.
Yes, the (US) is spending a fortune on NGOs and propaganda channels. Maduro must win the support of the military, which I think he still has, come the elections.
Officially Genocide Joe Biden is supposed to be the most powerful man on the planet. However, for me Biden, Harris or Trump, or whoever is POTUS, is just the face of the gigantic corporate machine that runs America. That’s where the real power lies.
Re: ‘The dollar has not quite yet been replaced as the world’s international reserve currency and Bretton Woods still, creaking and cracking, holds.’
The Bretton Woods system isn’t ‘creaking and cracking’; it’s dead, having been formally ended by the Jamaica Accords of 1976 – though in reality, it died in August 1971, after the US declared that it was no longer prepared to convert dollars into gold at a rate of $35 per troy ounce. (Apparently, our host was taught economics by Jeffrey Sachs, which might go some way to explaining his muddied thinking.)
Yes, I thought Bretton Woods was ended by Nixon.
Craig seems to have made an error there.
As long as the IMF and the World Bank hold sway, the essence of Bretton Woods remains in force. Otherwise the USA would not have been able to go on existing as a deadbeat parasitising others since 1945.
Michael Hudson, who not only understands superimperialism but actually explained it to the US government over 60 years ago, puts it neatly:
“You should essentially think of the IMF as a small office in the basement of the Pentagon, deciding what countries to support, and what countries are following policies that the United States do not want and therefore wants to wreck”.
— Michael Hudson https://michael-hudson.com/2021/02/at-the-oxford-economics-society/
Who is running America ?
Eight long-established banking families, which are:
Goldman Sachs, the Rockefellers, Lehman Brothers and Kuhn Loeb.
Rothschilds in Paris and London, the Warburgs from Germany, the Lazards from France and Israel Moses Sieff from Britain
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-federal-reserve-cartel-the-eight-families/25080
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-private-interests-banking-dynasties-control-washington/5796169
Between them, that lot are responsible for a lot of evil.
When people first hear about the Rothschilds, Rockefellers etc. they think it’s ‘conspiracy theory’, but when you actually look into it, they really are like puppetmasters, staying out of the limelight, manipulating things, amassing fortunes.
No one’s voting them out.
OT.
Radio news the head of the US Secret Service Kimberly Cheadle to resign.
AIPAC
It would appear that Jacob (Jake Sullivan) is/was a member of the 7th Floor Group (named after the 7th floor office of the US State Department used by Hillary Clinton). The 7th Floor Group has been described as a US Shadow Government.
Meanwhile Trump has some very powerful backers.
Miriam Adelson, the wife of the late billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has reportedly pledged to spend more than $100 million to support former President Donald Trump in the upcoming general election after staying neutral in the Republican presidential primaries this year.
“Adelson, an Israeli-born physician who specializes in substance abuse, is set to finance a rejuvenated pro-Trump super PAC, Preserve America, which was initially formed for Trump’s reelection bid in 2020, Politico reported Thursday. The Adelsons contributed $90 million to Trump in that election cycle. ”
https://forward.com/fast-forward/618034/miriam-adelson-funding-trump-israel/
No doubt Trump will finish what he started here when he’s returned to the Whitehouse.
“The Biden-Harris administration has worked to expand the Trump administration’s so-called Abraham Accords, which were helping Israel sideline the Palestinian cause by removing it as a thorn from Israel’s relations with regional neighbors.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/22/capitol-hill-netanyahus-second-home/
“The Biden-Harris administration has worked to expand the Trump administration’s so-called Abraham Accords, which were helping Israel sideline the Palestinian cause by removing it as a thorn from Israel’s relations with regional neighbors.”
True, but it has not been successful. The Abraham accords are now a dead letter, though isolated Israeli offices still exist in Gulf state capitals, offices where nobody goes, and have to be heavily defended. Saudi never signed. The whole atmosphere has switched and can’t be brought back.
The author Ms Barnard doesn’t seem to be very aware of what Trump is likely to do if he gets in.
You can wager those people don’t truly control Trump though, as he’s not the sort of person to take orders from anyone. Politically, he’s still an enigma and a complete aberration to the highly controlled US two-party system. The Republican party, don’t know how to oppose him and his MAGA movement. They probably hoped his ‘hush-money’ trial would rule him out of contention, it didn’t. He strikes me as the kind of man who’s easily manipulated by deceivers; those, who know they can get him onside through false flattery: praising his his wisdom; his astuteness. Above all, he craves validation and the fealty of others, as a monarch would.
His politically unqualified Jewish son-in-law – who acted more like an agent of Israel – being a classic example of how those who ingratiate themselves can become powerful players in a Trump’s administration. Trump planned to ‘drain the swamp’ of the secretive cabal of permanent officials. Steve Bannon, the capable ‘brains behind MAGA’ was probably the most able and feared of Trump’s confidants by said Deep State operatives. But Bannon was foolishly fired by Trump in a fit of pique. I think Trump hated the fact TV sketch shows like Saturday Night Live (SNL) were presenting Bannon as the mastermind behind his victory; Trump’s ego couldn’t handle that assertion. SNL had Bannon running the White House. Trump ended up being saddled with Pompeo and Bolton. Both men are the epitome of ‘deep state’ operatives, and both have since revealed their total antipathy for Trump.
I doubt if Trump is capable of following any logical and consistent policy, other than his own personal interests. He may be convinced by Jared, but also by someone else two minutes later.
If a second Trump presidency brings hope for an end to the bloody Ukraine war, it’ll likely pose major problems for the Palestinians.
I suppose at least it could force the EU and UK leaderships out of their indifference and complacency? Netanyahu’s supporters appear to welcome the prospect of Trump 2.0. They believe Trump/Vance, along with the GOP, will give 100% support to any plans to deport Gazans and annex their territory. They think he’ll support expanding settlements in the West Bank too.
Have you noticed this distinct ‘pro-Trump’ turn, by large sections of the media? This is what putting Israel first looks like. Do these broadsheet columnists and opinion piece writers admire Trump : No! But they think he could be useful to Israel and its expansionist aims, and for some, that’s the only test – the prism they see the world through.
Not sure I’d agree with that. Trump is not reliable. I had the impression that AIPAC was going along with the sudden Kamala publicity offensive. Presumably because she’s a more reliable servant than Trump. In Kamala they’ve got a Starmer, someone who’s reliably under control.
Laguerre
Israel play both sides. They are too experienced in lobbying to get caught on the wrong side.
One of the big advantages, for Israel, from the US being a two-party system is how they can fund both sides ensuring : Heads they win, tails the Palestinians lose.
I don’t think Harris would be quite as sycophantic to Israel as Biden’s been. Biden has a long, long history of being an apologist for Israel – indulging Israel’s excesses. Biden has been worse than other recent Democrat presidents’ Bill Clinton and Obama, in terms of indulging Israel.
“I don’t think Harris would be quite as sycophantic to Israel as Biden’s been. ”
You don’t have a reason for saying that. It is not known; it is also irrelevant, as we were talking about Israel’s choices for the future, not the past. There is every reason to suppose that she will be as I described, a Starmer. The acceptable ethnic face under control.
Laguerre
Well, it’s true, I don’t know. But we do know that Obama had frosty relations with Netanyahu. Remember the hot mic incident, in which Obama’s response to France’s Sarkozy’s “I cannot stand him, he’s a liar” comment about Netanyahu, was to reply: “You’re fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day.”
And before Obama, Bill Clinton genuinely attempted to bring about a peace deal – Rabin’s assassination ending those hopes. Few Western governments seem to realise the mentality of the extremists who carried that out that assassination to prevent a deal, are now the govt of Israel.
Goose “those extremists” were, according to the Barry Chamish book, “Who Murdered Yitzak Rabin” (2000) and later works, Shin Bet. They carried out the operation on the orders of Shimon Peres,, who in his youth invented and founded Shin Bet, and it is widely believed he controlled the organisation till he died
Chamish describes the convicted assassin as an Oswald-like figure, and points to alarming shortcomings in the Israeli government account of the assassination. It is a complicated story but the author presents several photos and witness statements which seem to destroy the narrative set out by the government, All of this made me doubt the “lone nut” explanation offered. The enquiry into Rabin’s assassination, known as the Shamgar Commission, found the head of Shin Bet, Carmi Gillon had committed numerous serious security lapses regarding Rabin’s safety. Yet Peres apppointed him to head the Shimon Peres Peace Institute, instead of punishing him
Mr Trump may not be amenable to reasoned argument; but I expect he is as amenable as anyone to a loaded gun or threats to his family.
Trump Heights (Hebrew: רמת טראמפ, romanized: Ramat Trump, [ʁaˈmat ˈtʁamp]) is a planned Israeli settlement in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights named after and in honour of Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States.
Remember the Golan Heights is still under International Law an occupied territory (just confirmed by ICJ opinion), yet Trump ignored all that. Further the West Bank is at the moment a de facto part of greater Israel [Judea and Samaria] and is claimed as such by all Zionists; in my opinion it would take no stretch of the imagination for Trump to agree to this. Maybe a promise to rename Bethlehem “Trump city” with a huge casino could ensure the $100 million donation, chump change for Miriam Adelson.
I too was startled by the statement on Venezuela, having no inkling that it was going to be another Argentina as compared with Brazil or even Mexico. With so much going on elsewhere I had rather forgotten about it. But I do have a bookmark to the excellent https://venezuelanalysis.com which is covering the 28th July presidential election with its 10 candidates including President Maduro.
Evidently polls are not very reliable as this quote shows.
“A Dataviva poll released on Wednesday showed Maduro garnering 55 percent of voting preferences, compared to 21 percent for his main rival. In contrast, More Consulting released its own study on Monday with González leading Maduro by 55 to 31 percent”.
However an allegedly leaked poll from an opposition pollster is suggesting a narrow lead for Maduro, who seems to be campaigning hard. Fingers crossed.
On Wednesday a man (Netanyahu) who has ordered a genocide against an oppressed people (Palestinians) will receive a standing applause in the (US) Congress, it will be his fourth time addressing the (US) Senators and Representatives.
Most of the (US) Congress is so enamoured/captured by the Zionists that some (US) Senators have actually come out and said that an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Gallant by the ICC (if issued which I very much doubt they will be) is an attack on (US) sovereignty.
The (US) is aiding and abetting Netanyahu in genocide.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/22/capitol-hill-netanyahus-second-home/
In the Great Game called Imperialism and Neo-liberal economic enforcement everyone knows the rules. Even the stubborn demi-adolescent Trump.
There are adults in the room but they are worse than the kids.
The US and its acolytes are in decline and disarray yet the decline will take a long time to unravel (beyond mine and most people’s lifetimes on here) but unravel it will.
The only way to stop the other sensible adults in the BRICS – The Belt and Road Initiative etc. is to go to war. And the question for the Warmongers is: if you do decide to go to war, can you take the casualties (maybe including yourselves and your families) and survive your decisions?
If the answer is no, then stop the juvenile mouthing off (as if you were showing off on Tik-Tok) and start negotiating for a better and more equal world.
If the answer is yes and you want to carry on your lunacy, then you and others will die.
Simple as that for myself.
The choice is for the West to make – not any country outside that sphere. It is their call and theirs alone.
Al Jazeera today reported on a Chinese diplomatic initiative which has united all Palestinian factions to sign a memorandum to form a unity Government, including Hamas and Fatah as well as the other groups affected.
It is a positive initiative that forestalls an agenda to work together which cannot be ignored by the new and old US president or the other culpable parties in the current genocide pact.
The EU should welcome such an initiative and so should Starmer.
It’s time to support positive action. The Zionists should call off their dogs of war now.