Fourth Turning Has Arrived: Adios Western Ruling Class

EU elites promised a prosperous green future. This could be their undoing

What is embroiling Europe is deeper than a political crisis – it is approaching what can be called a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling elite. This can be thought of as a metaphysical event that precedes political upheaval, the latter being merely confirmation that such a crisis has taken place. Legitimacy is, of course, a rather nebulous concept, and it defies objective measurement.

Ruling classes throughout history have always advanced various claims about their own legitimacy, without which a stable political order is impossible. In tracing the contours of the current crisis, it’s important to establish what exactly the claims Europe's technocratic elite have put forth and how they are becoming increasingly difficult to believe.

Ostensibly, the EU’s ruling elite has staked out the green transition as its raison d’être. They claim to have the mandate, vision and competence to see it through and have set clear targets to measure their success.

It was a good run, but when you're destroying nuclear power plants and running 6 percent deficits to prop up your Potemkin economy and financial markets, the reaper is right around the corner.

FT Admits Govts Have Been Scamming Western Voters on Immigration

FT: The immigration smokescreen is beginning to lift

The EU collectively, which fears losing the global competition for high-productivity workers, is similarly trying to attract skilled non-EU migrants with a “talent pool” scheme aptly nicknamed “Tinder for jobs”. But a wave of fervently anti-immigration candidates are high in the polls ahead of the European parliamentary elections this year. If Trump is re-elected in 2024, his repulsive comments about undocumented immigrants poisoning America’s blood will also create expectations of a general clampdown.

Perhaps, particularly in the UK, the tough-on-refugees, soft-on-workers game is up. Audiences have worked out the trick and are heckling the conjuror. But if the alternative is taking the risk of actually being honest with voters, governments might think it’s worth trying the well-practised ruse once again.

It has never been about high skill immigration because they've been letting in wave after wave of welfare-using migrants. High skill labor doesn't go on welfare. The average immigrant into the West is using welfare at much higher rates than natives.

Bin Laden's Letter to the American People

The Guardian deleted this letter because it's being interpreted wrong on social media. How does deleting source material qualify as journalism or even basic truth-seeking? There's no way to even combat false interpretations without the source material!

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

From Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin to the American people,

I speak to you about the subject of the ongoing war between you and us. Even though the consensus of your wise thinkers and others is that your time (TN: of defeat) will come, compassion for the women and children who are being unjustly killed, wounded, and displaced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan motivates me to speak to you.

First of all, I would like to say that your war with us is the longest war in your history and the most expensive for you financially. As for us, we see it as being only halfway finished. If you were to ask your wise thinkers, they would tell you that there is no way to win it because the indications are against it. How will you win a war whose leaders are pessimistic and whose soldiers are committing suicide? If fear enters the hearts of men, winning the war becomes impossible. How will you win a war whose cost is like a hurricane blowing violently at your economy and weakening your dollar?

The Bush administration got you into these wars on the premise that they were vital to your security. He promised that it would be a quick war, won within six days or six weeks; however, six years have passed, and they are still promising you victory and not achieving it. Then Obama came and delayed the withdrawal that he had promised you by 16 more months. He promised you victory in Afghanistan and set a date for withdrawal from there. Six months later, Petraeus came to you once again with the number six, requesting that the withdrawal be delayed six months beyond the date that had been set. All the while you continue to bleed in Iraq and Afghanistan. You are wading into a war with no end in sight on the horizon and which has no connection to your security, which was confirmed by the operation of ‘Umar al-Faruq, which was not launched from the battlefield and could have been launched from any place in the world.

As for us, jihad against the tyrants and the aggressors is a form of great worship in our religion. It is more precious to us than our fathers and sons. Thus, our jihad against you is worship, and your killing us is a testimony. Thanks to God, Almighty, we have been waging jihad for 30 years, against the Russians and then against you. Not a single one of our men has committed suicide, whereas every 30 days 30 of your men commit suicide.

Continue the war if you will.

Palestine shall not be seen captive for we will try to break its shackles.

The United States shall pay for its arrogance with the blood of Christians and their funds.

Peace be upon those who follow right guidance.

Justice is the strongest army, and security is the best way of life, but it slipped out of your grasp the day you made the Jews victorious in occupying our land and killing our brothers in Palestine. The path to security is for you to lift your oppression from us.

Claim: Biden Bribed by Russian Intelligent Asset

If this is true, it's the kind of bombshell that could wreck the current government.

Red State: Burisma Founder Mykola Zlochevsky, Who Allegedly Bribed Joe and Hunter Biden, Is an SVR Asset

It was revealed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Monday that the “foreign national” mentioned in an FD-1023 form by a confidential human source (CHS) not only claimed to have bribed Hunter and Joe Biden but possessed a total of 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them about the arrangement. He created the recordings as a sort of “insurance policy.” It was not clear whether the FBI had copies of the audio recordings or not.

Last week Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Anna Paulina Luna, and Nancy Mace said that the foreign national identified in the FD-1023 form is Zlochevsky.

Unlear if this is true, and if true, if the source was a Russian asset from the start or turned later. If Biden was bribed by a Ukranian now working for Russian intelligence, I assume the American ruling class will try to spin it as Russian interference.

Preamble to War: US Hegemony and Its Perils

China is preparing for war with the United States, or perhaps more narrowly USG and the Baizuo. The document doesn't read like a foreign diplomatic cable, but something closer to a Trump speech. It is rhetoric preparing for more open and direct conflict.

 

I will leave aside many obvious comments, that I've already seen covered elsewhere. Instead, I'll comment on why I believe Russia remains the greater threat to the American ruling class even though it is the lesser economic power, and for that reason, the lesser military threat over the course of a long war. 

The document is heavily tainted by socialist ideology, but this is to be expected. Russia sets itself up as a Christian nation in conflict with the Satanic Baizuo. China is an ideologically Marxist country that frames most conflicts in terms of that ideology. Russia is ultimately the bigger threat to the Baizuo because it appeals to the Baizuo's domestic enemies, to Christians, to traditionalists around the world. China's message here is mainly to the rest of the world, whereas Russia's was directly aimed into the West itself.

For example, the U.S. has reserved its most abusive media manipulation campaigns not for socialist countries, but for traditionalist, Christian and nationalist governments. Hungary has been singled out for abuse and there was only this month or last, a new subversive media effort launched exactly as China describes below. My point is simply that Hungary would be a natural ally for this message, but China cannot make it because it comes with ideological thorns. Similarly, they cannot speak of the U.S. targeting traditional and fundamentalist Islam because they themselves similarly warred upon it in Xinjiang. 

This partially explains why Russia is demonized by Baizuo in a way that China is not, why the NBA plays games in China, but the NHL cuts ties with Russian hockey, why Hollywood changes its movies to meet Chinese content rules. Russia is the great enemy because it is culturally similar to the West and the war made upon it is very similar to the war made upon Christians and traditionalists inside of the USA. The Baizuo immediately accepted the absurd claim that Trump's victory was Russia's doing and some secret alliance existed because they consider the both of them enemies and they project their enmity for both into a non-existent alliance against them. They revealed their plot, and assume others must be plotting against them.

For similar reasons, USG won't require an extensive propaganda war against China along the road to war. Whatever doubts about the Ukraine conflict exist in the minds of many Americans, far fewer will doubt that China is "the real enemy." USG will tell the trannies that they are at war with Christ and Russia, while they will tell MAGA they're at war with commies in China. Make no mistake, war is coming in many forms, starting with escalation of economic, political, cyber and information conflict. 

The question for Americans is whether they will be fooled by Baizuo draped in red, white and blue, or whether they will, best case, remove them from power before a war escalates or, when conflict begins, leave them alone and surrounded by the Russian and Chinese enemies they called forth.

Any bolded text, aside from the headers, is my highlighting. 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China: US Hegemony and Its Perils

US Hegemony and Its Perils

February 2023

Contents

Introduction

I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around

II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force 

III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation

IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression

V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives

Conclusion

Introduction

Since becoming the world's most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.

The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage "color revolutions," instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a "rules-based international order."

This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.

I. Political Hegemony -- Throwing Its Weight Around

The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.

◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries' internal affairs abound. In the name of "promoting democracy," the United States practiced a "Neo-Monroe Doctrine" in Latin America, instigated "color revolutions" in Eurasia, and orchestrated the "Arab Spring" in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.

In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an "America for the Americans," what it truly wanted was an "America for the United States."

Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish. 

The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of "color revolutions" -- the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine and the "Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a "central role" in these "regime changes." The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called "People Power Revolutions."

In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.

◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization "supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization's "bias" against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.

The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries' activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing "a world free of chemical weapons."

◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an "Indo-Pacific Strategy" onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.

◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of "democracy versus authoritarianism" to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first "Summit for Democracy," which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another "Summit for Democracy," which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.

II. Military Hegemony -- Wanton Use of Force

The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world's total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.

According to the book America Invades: How We've Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were "spared" because the United States did not find them on the map.

◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, "Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019," the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.

Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.

◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.

The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.

The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the "Kabul debacle" in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as "pure looting."

In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.

The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.

III. Economic Hegemony -- Looting and Exploitation

After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including "approval by 85 percent majority," and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar's status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting "seigniorage" from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America's political and economic strategy.

◆ The United States exploits the world's wealth with the help of "seigniorage." It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.

◆ The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon's secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that "the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem."

◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America's strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.

◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America's strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called "three lost decades."

◆ America's economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and "long-arm jurisdiction," the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world's population. "The United States of America" has turned itself into "the United States of Sanctions." And "long-arm jurisdiction" has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.

IV. Technological Hegemony -- Monopoly and Suppression

The United States seeks to deter other countries' scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.

◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.

In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan's semiconductor industry, the United States launched the "301" investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.

◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.

The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China's high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.

The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.

◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the "chips alliance" and "clean network," the United States has put "democracy" and "human rights" labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China's 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the "5G clean path," a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect "cyber security." The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.

◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an "empire of hackers," blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.

U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as "Prism," "Dirtbox," "Irritant Horn" and "Telescreen Operation" are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that "do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules."

V. Cultural Hegemony -- Spreading False Narratives

The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.

◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.

There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world's market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.

◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in "direct intervention," but also in "media infiltration" and as "a trumpet for the world." U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.

U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter's public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler's directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a "white list" to amplify certain messages.

◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.

◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate "peaceful evolution" in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.

The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.

Conclusion

While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.

Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries' internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.

Frozen Baizuo 2023 Edition

ZH: New England's Power Crisis Set To Return, Regulator Warns

New England's power grid could be several cold snaps away from the start of an energy crisis that reappears whenever temperatures dip because of the state's heavy reliance on natural gas generation, delayed/blocked expansion/upgrades to energy infrastructure, and lack of grid diversification.

Average temperatures across Massachusetts started to slope down in mid-August. Temperatures are between 55-60 degrees Freigheight, indicating the heating season could be just weeks away.

Another serious issue is the controversial US law, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, more commonly known as the Jones Act. This law helps ensure the US merchant marine fleet remains busy by only allowing US vessels to transport goods from one domestic port to another, barring foreign vessels.

This means New England can't receive LNG shipments from the US Gulf because the US shipbuilders don't build LNG carriers. So LNG facilities in New England have to rely on foreign shipments -- adding to the complexity of the region's issues.

Not Much Smart Money Will Be Left

RT: Huge global storm is starting, Moscow warns

“Most likely, a huge global storm is starting,” Peskov warned in an interview with Tass on Monday.

“In many ways, there are objective reasons for that, but there are also subjective reasons for this beginning storm, which are linked to absolutely illogical and often absurd decisions and actions of the authorities in the US, Europe, the EU and individual European countries,” he said.

Anyone betting on the governments of the West is the dumb money (aside from a few outliers such as Hungary). Once the Gods of the Copybook Headings are released, political power is useless. What was "smart" for the past several decades is no longer smart because the people who used to control events are now at the mercy of Nature, and probably God's wrath. Maximize profits on the carnage until they ban shorting, close the futures markets and make it illegal to bet against them, at which point you hope you've bought enough physical assets plus the guns and ammo that may be needed to keep them.

Next Up: Partitioning Ukraine

The Saker: Will the Ukraine be partitioned next and, if so, how?

ranslation: MOSCOW, August 16 – RIA Novosti. Western curators have practically written off the Kyiv regime and are already planning the partition of Ukraine, Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Colonel-General Volodymyr Matveev said at the Moscow Conference on International Security. “Obviously, the West is not concerned about the fate of the Kyiv regime. As can be seen from the information received by the SVR, Western curators have almost written it off and are in full swing developing plans for the division and occupation of at least part of the Ukrainian lands,” he said. However, according to the general, much more is at stake than Ukraine: for Washington and its allies, it is about the fate of the colonial system of world domination.

It sounds as if Western support for Kiev is ending:

Several countries in the West are waiting for Kiev to surrender and think their problems will immediately solve themselves, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba in an interview published on Tuesday. “I often get asked in interviews and while speaking to other foreign ministers: how long will you last? That’s instead of asking what else could be done to help us defeat Putin in the shortest time possible,” Kuleba said, noting that such questions suggest that everyone “is waiting for us to fall and for their problems to disappear on their own.”

VoxDay: The Partition of Ukraine

This anticipated partition would be a very good thing, as it would mark to an end the war between Russia and NATO by the surrender of the latter. The problem is that it will almost certainly require the European “partners” to break with the neocons who presently dictate US foreign policy, and the neocons are more than willing to fight to the very last European – yes, European, not Ukrainian – rather than give up their revenge war against Russia.

So, as fearful as the European leaders rightly are – they are terrified of their native populations going all Sri Lanka on their useless, cowardly selves once the winter shortages kick in – I don’t believe they are fully cognizant of the consequences of the Russian victory due to the media gaslighting, so they are reluctant to throw off their globalist masters and give up the fancy pants and lollipops that come with their submission.

Which means that I don’t think the nations that matter – France, Germany, and the UK – will give up and accept the new geopolitical reality until the winter of 2023 extinguishes all hope of reprieve, unless the coming winter is even worse than we’re expecting and the citizenries explode in open revolt.

Here is the post-war map that Medvedev posted, with the current map for comparison:

How likely is this? Here's an interesting news item from Vox's post: Germany wants to retake Polish soil — official

Since the reunification of Germany in 1990, Berlin’s strategic goal is to “regain in some form their former lands, which are now within Polish borders, and subordinate the entire belt of countries between Germany and Russia,” the Polish official said.

Can Russia obtain peace and splinter the EU by offering Poland historically Polish lands?

Beyond the geopolitics, I still believe that this round of a multi-year, perhaps decade-long bear market will complete when the EU surrenders to Russia and accepts that the Baizuo of USG have destroyed Ukraine. There was a rumor of a peace offer back in July that didn't materialize, but eventually it will come one way or another. On the European side, the self-inflicted pain from sanctions will pressure the Europeans.

Baizuo Found Dead After Fact Checking Meme

We are reaching levels of reputational collapse that shouldn't be possible. An obviously fake story was fact-checked because in 2022, the average voter might believe a story about the Washington Post calling for the cancellation of elections to save democracy. This hits on so many levels. The public assumes the media are the authoritarians? Possibility that the media itself is so stupid that it is fact-checking jokes? It's own sideso malinformed by mainstream media that it requires these fact checks? However you spin it, the implication is a reputational fatality for media.

Poor Baizuo

Tragically hilarious. Newsweek: Zelensky Makes Public Plea to China's Xi Jinping After Calls Unanswered

In an interview with Hong Kong's South China Morning Post published on Thursday—his first with an Asian news outlet—Zelensky said he had sought a direct line to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, since the Russian invasion began more than 160 days ago.

"I would like to talk directly. I had one conversation with [President] Xi Jinping that was a year ago," he told the Post's Amy Chew. "Since the beginning of the large-scale aggression on February 24, we have asked officially for a conversation, but we (haven't had) any conversation with China even though I believe that would be helpful."

How sad is it that the Ukrainian people have suffered and died because they have a clueless GAE puppet for a leader? How stupid is Zelensky to not understand Russia and China are aligned and he is a tool of GAE aggression?

30 Minutes to WW3

Pelosi's plan lands at 10am.

iFeng: 台警方证实佩洛西专机今晚10点降落台北

中国台湾网8月2日讯　据台湾“中天新闻”报道，台北市警方证实，美国众议院议长佩洛西将于今（2日）晚10点降落台北松山国际机场，车队将直接前往台北君悦酒店，台北警方启动相当于“元首”级别的“鸿宾勤务”沿途交管，出动400名警力，预计明天行程将出动700名警力。

毕殿龙 22-7-30 04:03

A September-October Crash Scenario

Crude oil is "inflated" by Western green energy policy and psychotically anti-Russian foreign policy. The ruling class in Washington, DC, New York, San Francisco etc. must be removed wholesale if the public wants cheaper energy. For now, a majority of the public wants to do some combination of permanent lockdowns and nuclear war with Russia and China, so that will not happen. No one on the scene proposes both a return to realpolitik and an energy policy based on actual science and physics, instead of computer models generated by an apocalyptic green cargo cult or a policy that favors oil and gas producers over the rest of the economy.

The main assumption for this crash scenario is the economy declines as expected, but crude oil remains high. The stock rally also eases financial conditions. This keeps inflation and inflation expectations high.

The Federal Reserve, which has dragged its heels on inflation the whole way, stops dragging its heels on QT. When the QT amount doubles to $95 billion in September, the Fed starts actually doing QT.

The combination of higher than expected inflation plus the Federal Reserve getting serious about inflation again triggers a far larger market collapse than the one in mid-June.

This is not the only possible crash scenario, only one of them. As I've been saying for months, there are only two real "free lunch" policy available for the government: peace with Russia and doing anything to increase confidence in energy markets. Ease the sanctions, let energy costs plummet and economic pressure will lift. Sans that, their only hope is that the economy collapses enough to kill oil demand without triggering something like the 2008 market crash because there is no known scenario where things get better without getting worse first.

Why Are U.S. Gas Prices Falling?

Fang Fang's boyfriend started a #GasPricesAreSoLow hashtag on Twitter and it's going about as well as you might guess.

In case anyone is genuinely wondering why gas prices are falling, prices peaked right about the same time the 4-week moving average of initial unemployment claims bottomed. There's a small window where the clueless will celebrate falling gas prices because they don't realize it hints at a rapid decline in economic activity.

Gasoline demand is where it was in 2021, when the economy was still partially locked down. The drop in demand has helped lift inventory. All good news for gasoline prices. I expect prices will keep falling, but I expect they will start falling even faster because the economy is weaknening, not because of a healthy increase in supply or because foreign policy becomes sane again.

It's Not a Recession. It's a Depression.

The ruling class is out in force with redefining a recession. Here's why it's a waste of time.

AP: EXPLAINER: How do we know when a recession has begun?

By one common definition, the U.S. economy is on the cusp of a recession. Yet that definition isn’t the one that counts.

The U.S. isn't on the cusp of recession. By the common definition of negative growth in two consecutive quarters, a recession is already six months-old if BEA reports a negative number on Thursday.

As for definitions, they can be flexible. I don't think a bear market is a 20 percent drop in stocks. Every correction from 2009 to 2021 was a correction, not a bear market, even though stocks fell 20 percent or more at times. What's the quibble with the recession definition?

But economists say that wouldn’t mean that a recession had started. During those same six months when the economy might have contracted, businesses and other employers added a prodigious 2.7 million jobs — more than were gained in most entire years before the pandemic. Wages are also rising at a healthy pace, with many employers still struggling to attract and retain enough workers.

(long string of expletives)

Excuse me FRED, can you drop some tactical nukes for me?

FRED: Sure thing boss!

Great, let's start with rising wages. Adjust those for inflation would ya Freddie?

FRED: Incoming!

Real wages are plummeting. Seems consistent with ye olde recession.

The job market’s strength is a key reason why the Federal Reserve is expected to announce another hefty hike in its short-term interest rate on Wednesday, one day before the GDP report. Several Fed officials have cited the healthy job growth as evidence that the economy should be able to withstand higher rates and avoid a downturn. Many economists, though, are dubious of that assertion.

Shall we drop another tactical nuke on their critical meme infrastructure?

At best, labor is a coincident to lagging indicator. If the recession is already six months old and labor didn't start turning down until April, there could be a lot more pain ahead. As in, this recession isn't going to be some dip in activity, but something that at minimum will be a three to four quarter protracted contraction. Looking back, I see they revised GDP to make the 2008 recession much longer than originally recorded. It had been a mild contraction, barely scoring as a recession. I have contended for months that even if not a recession now, the BEA would eventually revise this year into a recession.

The Fed is also trying to combat raging inflation, which reached a 9.1% annual rate in June, the worst mark in nearly 41 years. Rapid price increases, particularly for such essentials as food, gas and rent, have eroded Americans’ incomes and led to much gloomier views of the economy among consumers.

Inflation creates a price illusion. Only looking at wages, revenues or GDP makes one think there's growth. The number is going up. Adjusting for inflation reveals the more activity you engage in, the more money you lose because it's happening with devalued currency. .

Look at the imploding retail stocks as an example. Retailers bought goods expecting to sell them amid high demand, but demand was fake. It was inflation. Supply chains helped disrupt the timing, but also the economy rapidly shifted as inflation came out of the economy. They should have never ordered the inventory. 

Nobody knows how deep this incoming economic malaise could get because it is still wholly distorted by a CPI still running at above 8 percent over the past 12 months. The CPI is rapidly decelerating though. The Cleveland Fed's Nowcast for July is down to 3.3 percent annualized. I don't annualize to forecast, but merely to show how fast the monthly CPI numbers can collapse. If highly efficient companies such as Wal-Mart report department "growth" that could be more than 100 percent price gains (I don't know that this is true, I've only see reported sales figures for various firms that are below the CPI), it indicates the collapse of inflation could reveal widespread economic losses. Wal-Mart is probably a winner in this environment too, keep that in mind.

It did in the first three months of the year, when GDP contracted 1.6% at an annual rate. Economists have forecast that on Thursday, the government will estimate that the economy managed to grow at an annual rate of just below 1% in the April-June quarter, according to data provider FactSet. If accurate, that forecast would indicate that the economy isn’t technically in recession by any definition.

Even if growth does go negative for a second straight quarter, Fed officials and Biden administration economists point to a lesser-known measure called “gross domestic income.”

GDP calculates the value of the nation’s output of goods and services by adding up spending by consumers, businesses and governments. By contrast, GDI, as the name implies, seeks to measure the same thing by assessing incomes.

Over time, the two measures should track each other. But they often diverge in the short run. In the first quarter, GDI grew 1.8% — much better than the 1.6% decline in GDP.

As part of its judgment of whether an economy is in recession, the NBER considers an average of the two measures. In the first quarter, the average was 0.2%, suggesting that the economy expanded slightly.

This isn't an argument devoid of logic. There have been near-miss recessions in the past. The flaw here is inflation. It assumes these numbers are accurate and won't be revised in the future. Given the high rate of inflation, I'm highly confident future revisions will be negative.

Consider these charts and comments from Jeff Snider:

Inverted curves aren't about what just happened. They've already discounted the (likely) 2 qtrs of negative GDP. IOW, the "technical recession" is already in there.

The deep inversion is about what's still coming. And if what already did is half a year of lower output... pic.twitter.com/QGl8KNiezI

— Jeffrey P. Snider (@JeffSnider_AIP) July 26, 2022

The market can't be discounting something like dot-com recession, because that scenario would mean we've already had the recession (Q1/Q2 '22). Can't be something like H1 '08, either. Inversion *has* to be something like 81-82 or 2d part of 08-09.https://t.co/EH7guxTKpo pic.twitter.com/iwE3bxruVq

— Jeffrey P. Snider (@JeffSnider_AIP) July 26, 2022

In two weeks, the spread between the 30-year and 3-month treasuries has been cut in half. The 3-month is only pricing in a 50 bps hike too. If the Fed goes ahead with 75 bps, my hunch is the curve could invert tomorrow or quickly after the initial chaotic frenzy in markets.

Arguing over the definition of recession is missing the forest for the trees. Something wicked this way comes.

Economic Reclosing? U.S. Gasoline Demand Below 2020-2021 Levels

Mass Deportations Becoming Viable

Open borders has laid the groundwork for an extreme backlash on immigration.

Homeless shelters in Washington D.C. are filling up with asylum seekers from Texas and Arizona. Mayor Bowser says “I fear that they're being tricked into nationwide bus trips when their final destinations are places all over the United States of America.” pic.twitter.com/7OOH6F2Dpl

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 17, 2022

In case this eventually gets deleted off Twitter:

The replies have some clueless Baizuo claiming DC needs more resources, but they are overwhelmed by people pointing out the U.S. government is unleashing these problems on California, Arizona, Texas, and really all over the nation. For all the crap California takes for its homeless problems, the fact that DC now has overwhelmed homeless shelters makes shows us California is also in worse shape because of open borders. Might homelessness disappear in California if all 30 million or so illegal aliens were deported? It would free up a lot housing.

Mass immigration is an insane policy. It is an invasion by foreigners. Those who support it are traitors, and I do not use that word as hyperbole. Those who fail to secure the borders abdicate their claim to authority, in the same way that a city that refused to police crime cedes power to vigilantes, neighborhood watch groups and organized crime. 

DC's mayor is whining after a three months of a small influx of illegal aliens. Border states and many localities in the U.S. have been dealing with massive waves of migrants for years and decades. There is no defensible political position except seal the borders and deport the 30 million or so illegal aliens in the country. Texas and other Red states should start rounding up illegals on their own and start busing them to expensive, left-wing areas like the Hamptons, along with Baizuo centers such as Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis. Not even the Baizuo proles support these policies. They only support illegal immigration because the TV tells them it is racist to oppose it and because they don't personally feel the effects. Reality has a way of crushing even the most relentless propaganda. We're hitting that point with the mass invasion of the United States.

The American public doesn't need any other reason than open borders to overthrow the entire ruling class for intentionally inflicting all this damage on the county. The irony too, is that there's no resouces anymore. America is not a wealthy country. The left's desire for things like universal healthcare are a total joke without mass deportations. As happened in Denmark, eventually a "hard right" nationalist element will emerge on the left to match MAGA and populism on the right.

Why So Much Talk of Nazis?

This is an amazing article if you have the objectivity to realize we can apply the same analysis to Western media.

Geopolitical Monitor:The ‘Goebbels Method’: RIA Novosti as Window into Russian Propaganda

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”; that is one of the methods of Russian propaganda, called, ironically, the Goebbels method. “Ukrainians are all Nazis and Russians are there to save them”; that is a fact repeated in different shapes and forms across RIA Novosti’s comments. Russian propaganda works.

RIA Novosti uses Nazi-derived words less and less, which is indicative of them shifting to new narratives. Those narratives are nevertheless complementary to the core message — Ukrainians are Nazis — but they are also neo-Nazis, and satanists. So, Russian propaganda also lives, it changes, creates comfortable stories, adapts itself to new contexts.

In our digital age, when information and disinformation are accumulating every second to be preserved in all of their triteness, the human brain relies even more on mental shortcuts when processing news. It goes to such an extent that if the political agenda of pro-Russian media changes, everything changes: in a fraction of a second, Putin can become an enemy of the people, the West the best ally, and so on.

Russian media ramped up mentions of Ukranian Nazis. There are some legit Nazis there, but it's overdone for propaganda. Now let's see what the Western media has been up to the past few years. Ah yes, off the charts propaganda that would make the Russians blush.

Baizuo Beginning to Look Ahead

This is not bad news for the American people, but it is very bad news for the current ruling class.

Elsewhere, Michael Hudson gave a speech to China’s Global University: The End of Western Civilization

What has made the Western economies oligarchic is their failure to protect the citizenry from being driven into dependency on a creditor property-owning class. These economies have retained Rome’s creditor-based laws of debt, most notably the priority of creditor claims over the property of debtors. The creditor One Percent has become a politically powerful oligarchy despite nominal democratic political reforms expanding voting rights. Government regulatory agencies have been captured and taxing power has been made regressive, leaving economic control and planning in the hands of a rentier elite.

A laser guided missile into the Baizuo. Much more at the link.

PPI Surges, Depression Incoming

Market Ticker: FIIIIRE! (PPI)

It gets worse in the intermediate category, which I remind you takes six to 12 months, minimum, to work through the system to the store shelf.

For comparison, here is 2008:

He is not wrong in what he says, but the example of 2008 shows that price increases don't have to make it through to the consumer. If instead demand collapses, these high costs will turn into losses for the businesses. 

The average price for oil in July is $105 through yesterday, down nearly 10 percent. Not enough to really dent inflation yet, but a start. The drop to the low $90s the past two days could double the percentage drop if it holds through the month.

Oil has topped though, and the pattern has a target of $65. Consider how bad things will be for $65 oil in the middle of a war with a government intentionally jamming oil prices as high as possible.

Open Borders Killing the American Family, Driving Homelessness Higher

Housing takes years to plan for. When a government opens the borders to massive migration, it is placing extreme stress on the existing housing stock. Soaring rents, soaring home prices and soaring homelessness are a direct result of this policy. Inflation is exacerbating a problem that at its heart is being caused by the Baizuo admin's immigration policies.

From Australia. MacroBusiness: Immigration ramp-up will turn rental crisis into catastrophe

“Rental competition is tough at the moment”…

“The number of properties available for rent has fallen to historically low levels and demand to rent is up, particularly in the capital cities, with Covid-normal underway and the borders having reopened”…

“A return of migration and an imminent rebound in the international student market will continue to add to rental pressures, further shrinking the supply of available properties.”

Leith van Onselen comments,

All indicators coming from the Albanese Government suggests it will ramp-up immigration aggressively. It plans to use September’s jobs summit, which will be dominated by immigration lobbyists, as a Trojan Horse to gain ‘consensus’ for the biggest ever migrant intake.

Anybody lobbying to increase immigration needs to answer the following question: where will the hundreds of thousands of new migrants live when there is already an extreme shortage of homes for the existing resident population?

As usual, the many costs of extreme immigration are never considered by the ‘Big Australia’ lobby nor policy makers.

Australia is a microcosm of the USA. The U.S. is in worse shape because it is also allowing in terrorists, murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, sex traffickers and assorted ne'er-do-wells.