Trump made waves this week with his major economic subjugation of Europe on the announcement of his 15% tariffs, made before a stooped and servile Ursula von der Leyen.
Why did you not offer a reasoned argument as to why his sense of things is wrong. Why do you call it blood and soil idiocy. Is there not a growing oppression of the native people in favor of unassimilated barbarians feasting off their government's tired welfare state and this migration is growing without concern for the citizens? I find your analysis rather infantile and ignorant.
Nation is a C19th conceit. Identity is a C20th fatuity, invented to disguise class, the motor of history. As the boss class becomes ever more openly fascist, they try to pretend that it's your neighbour who's the problem, not them thieving off you. Verily the socialism of fools.
No, you ignorant dickhead, the welfare state for poor people is worse than ever to keep the rich bastards' welfare state in tip-top condition. When did you last see a merchant banker begging for food or slumming it in an NHS hospital?
>the combined ‘victories’ of the Euro-American Atlanticist sphere.
The empirical facts are that:
1) Russia is fighting a civil war instigated by the West, and various types of flying bombs are reaching 1000 km into the Russian core, with no end in sight
2) Everything north of and including Philadelphia seceding from the US and then launching an equivalent civil war against the remaining US core on the instigation of Russia/China is absolute fantasy right now. Scotland doing it to England has better chances of happening, but it is still a very remote possibility. Meanwhile Russia dares not launch any flying bombs into the US directly. Not even into the territories of the vassals.
As long as those empirical facts persist, the Euro-American Atlanticists are, sadly, decisively winning indeed.
P.S. Today the Ukro proxies launched a drone into Minsk, quite openly. No casualties but some cars were damaged by shrapnel. So they are getting bolder, and that will only escalate further.
Sadly shows the pathologically obsessed nature of GM's well-intentioned dooming, but I suppose it's my fault for not creating "discussion threads" on off days to allow poor anguished souls like GM to let off steam.
Are you a beta simp? I suspect Simplicius is human and not an AI bot. Therefore, why wouldn't he experience human emotions and not have the right to respond to a comment on his article?
It’s not that GM does it only now and then. He is rather obsessive about his stance and with little variation. A tad tiresome. I have tried telling him multiple times that Russia can’t just nuke other countries, we all die.
It’s a pretty mild rebuke , but you appear to be of the school that considers that human opinion should always be beyond any form of criticism, questioning or satire.
If so this is probably the wrong place for you. In any event I have been satirising his very repetitive contributions for months, to little effect I might add, but hopefully to the amusement of a few.
I regard satire whether directed at myself or anyone else as an essential tool and part of human experience and development, as does any adult. “Taking the piss” is a national pass time in Oz any one who accused someone of “ad hominem” behaviour would be mercilessly satirised, however I shall refrain in this instance. Should the accusation become repetitive however….
Put into a nutshell the constant stream of comments by this gentleman are:
1.- Putin is a weak traitor to Russia, because he has not managed to start III WW. He should have bombed the US and/or Europe and why would any Russian leader lose a couple of seconds pondering about the consequences of that action?
2.- Putin's indignity derives from his abandonment of the sound communist ways as ideally practiced by Stalin.
3.- The URSS was a sound, well administered country and it demise is one of Putin's most terrible sins. So the fact that nearly 40 years ago the URSS dissolved is a suficient proof of the failings of Putin's leadership today.
4.- If Russia is losing, then the West must be "winning", there is no need to consider China's insignificant role in the world today. No need to consider either the state of things, economic and political, in the USA and Europe.
GM's ideas are often so unrealistic that I cannot believe that he really means what he says. Maybe he is just a guy who loves to stir people up? If so, then he must have a lot of fun sometimes.
Hmmm, yeah, let's see. We will be in war in which the other side gets to bomb us freely but we will never dare strike back because you see, that would start a war, and such a war would be so terrible.
GM is playing a game himself, so he is not going to be fazed by this kind of response. If he was always straight up and sincere, Simplicius' response would be callous (even if understandable, considering GM's persistent attitude and stance).
Euro-Atlanticist winning is a strange kind of winning. Their spheres are in decline and their proxy is on the point of collapse. You mistake desperate 'Hail Mary' attacks as something other than flukes.
How are they in decline? They literally expanded NATO, took over Moldova, destroyed and took over Syria, flipped Armenia (one of the traditionally most loyal Russian allies) and Azerbaijan has now also dropped all pretense it is not hostile to Russia.
Austria is talking about joining NATO, Serbia of all countries (!!!) is providing weapons to Ukraine, Bulgaria will for the first time fight Russia directly if ordered to, etc. etc. etc.
There are barely a dozen countries in the whole world who are resisting.
Ho hum, terrifying or would be if 3 of the countries opposing the western zombie states weren’t nuclear armed(N Korea, China and Russia). The last 2 are civilisational states as is Iran. Just accept it pal, the west is collapsing and it needs to , and the torch of human values and progress is passing to these states. Nothing you can do about it except be grateful it is happening and enjoy the spectacle.
China's prodigious development and her geopolitical positioning is many hundreds of times more significant than all NATO's expansion to Finland, Sweden and possibly Austria.
The number if countries is only relevant in the General Assembly of the United Nations. Relevant are population numbers, technological, civil and military expertise, material production and access to natural resources. The West is declining.
And Syria's loss, or the Armenia/Azerbaijan catastrophe are of such absolutely insignificant importance that you forgot to even mention them.
China has zero geopolitical positioning right now. How much they can produce only matters so far as they cannot be physically cut off from resource inputs and trade routes. But the US is busy on doing exactly that and China is not doing much kinetically to stop it.
Remember that Germany was on a similarly unstoppable trajectory in the early 20th century, then found itself on the verge of starvation in 1918 and had to sue for peace while still being closer to Paris inside France than to its own borders.
China could have solved this war for Russia decisively two years ago. Not even by supplying artillery shells and missiles, just by DJI turning over drone production to the Russians instead of selling 70% of their output to the Ukrainians.
Had it done that, there would be no such situation with the secondary sanctions today.
Just that little thing.
But it didn't do it.
And that is not all of it.
Because meanwhile Russia could have, of course, solved its problem decisively on its own, but that would have requred the use of the type of force that we are constantly told Russia's "allies" (i.e. China, India and Brazil) are against.
Well, what kind of allies are those then?
But that doesn't stop the various talking and blogging heads from twisting themselves into very complex pretzels trying to rationalize it all...
You seem to read Western propaganda screeds that fail to recognize the West's dire straits. Finance capitalism's neoliberal policies has deindustrialized the US and Europe, exacerbated by Russophobic sanctions and refusal to accept Russian gifts of oil and gas. These policies have wrecked the West's social welfare programs, leaving a dissatisfied and angry population. Western leaders lack popular support. Likewise, Western military equipment has been shown to underperform in the Ukraine, regardless of being very expensive. Not only that, but the war has attritted Western weapons in general. Debt and money do not win wars.
China is outperforming the West politically, socially, and economically.
The West is good at sabotage and terrorism, but these acts also do not win wars.
Note that Austria was like Germany partitioned in occupation zones, and the the Red Army pulled out in 1955 on the strict condition of permanent Austrian neutrality. There is such a treaty, which is still in force.
Thus if Austria decides to join NATO, it would be in direct violation of it, and Russia would be in its right to invade again. But it can't do that, because, oh wait, a serious of traitors in the Kremlin gave up all the territory in between without a fight.
Of course, there were similar agreements with Finland too, and we know how that went...
Thank you very much, Pascal, to remind us of this ignored little detail: there is no deal until the European Council of heads of state or government approves what Ursula has negotiated.
Let's assume for a moment that the unthinkable happens and that the European Council approves the deal. What happens when, after some time, the Americans conclude that Europe, as inevitably will be the case, is noy buying enough American LNG or American weapons, or is investing not enough in the USA? I guess that such failing to comply would be reason enough to end the agreement. In this way, the Americans can decide to blow up the deal whenever they want. And then the tariff war can restart.
Some minor American functionary then snaps his fingers, and european knees hit the floor with a resounding thud, grateful for the opportunity to gratify their American Master.
In that case, needs to be signed, otherwise cannot be enforced. Treaties materialized in writing what has been agreed, with force of law. Ask Russia and the US promise not to expand NATO, not materialized in writing.
As long as the "deal" is not signed, then it does not come into force.
That's why both von der Leyen and Trump are are in deep. UvdL because she promised stuff she does not have the power to do, and Trump because he's been again boasting about stuff that as per today do not exist.
Seems it'd be quicker to list opinion-makers who do not read Simplicius, at this point, instead of those who read him. Which is practically anyone who can string together a coherent take on the Ukrainian conflict.
alt.right. Pro-corporatist, blames immigrants for all ills, anti-liberalism (anti-woke), thinks all states are by definition 'socialist'. "My wife's pussy is dry with sand in and that's the way I like it" Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson "I love making up nonsensical phrases and sounding confident" are the usually pointed to cheerleaders of this internet era theosophy.
I'm sorry for your wife, but using her as a skin rasp is not good. I ask again, what is the extreme right? What is its definition, non-ideologized? As a reminder, we know of very great figures of socialism, who were assimilated to an extreme right invented from scratch for the occasion and exonerated from the acts of its ideology. For my part, I only know of 2 factions, the notables and the royalists wrongly called conservatives. The parties, whatever the tendency, are lordships but of notables who see themselves as nobles. I have always admired the imagination of people, socialists, who describe famous figures, Hitler, Mussolini, etc. as extreme right even though they sat as executives in the central office of the socialist party, even going so far as to name his party, for Hitler, Nazional Socialism. Why not have named it Nazional Extreme Right? So, I still don't know what the far right is, but it doesn't matter, my party is me.
Oh god, you're one of THOSE retards. I suppose you cannot find any ideological differences between the Communists and the Hitlerites?
You know, the racialist ideology, the worship of military expansionism, the veneration of hierarchy, the adoration of private wealth, the centralism of patriarchalism.
Now, I don't hold a torch for the far-left (Or maybe you don't think THEY exist either), but there are clear ideological differences, although being of a somewhat different orientation from both myself, I find some crossovers in actuality.
You may be trapped in the 19th century, and only see the 'elites' as having the capacity for political thought, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to agree with you.
racialist ideology, the worship of military expansionism, the veneration of hierarchy, the adoration of private wealth, the centralism of patriarchalism.
The term "retarded," did you read it somewhere yesterday? You use it in all your posts here. The term racialist, another leftist invention of the slave masters. Those who claimed and claim this ideology have so much remorse that they invent terms to transmit this remorse to others. Sorry, I don't believe in socialism or communism, a rowdy child of socialism, but let me say it again, Hitler was indeed a socialist. In truth, socialism and everything else are just trini with their serf slaves who maintain them. There were only two factions in the past: the royalists, whose lords donned armor and went to fight to preserve their property, including the serfs and notables, who saw themselves as nobles and had borrowed all the customs and advantages except one: in their shoes afloat, they did not intend to fight to preserve their property but to retreat far from all risks and leave the task to the serfs, who would push them by the bayonet in their backs. The idea of a leader and master with a big pair of boots protecting me appeals to me quite a bit, unlike the frightened idiot with lips instead of a ball handle exposing my body to protect himself.
There, I am my own lord and serf; to avoid ending up in the dungeon, since I couldn't challenge these lip-snatching types to a duel, I left Europe.
Take your frustrations with that ideology someplace else. I'm no fan of Vox Day either, but your cultured and bred revulsion to right-wing ideas are uninteresting and thoroughly pedestrian.
Left and Right political or social positions are relative not objective positions. That's easy enough to see if you look at them over historical timeframes.
But if you want a definition that's a little more objective, I'd say the the Left is the tendency to Excite, the Right is the tendency to Inhibit.
Essential Vox Day is a nationalist who believes that each country should be run for the benefit of the citizens of that country, and that ethnicity defines a nation.
Needless to say this pits him against the globalist cabal that runs everything in the western world, and why he is banned from every media platform.
So 19th cent racism as well. Jeez. Bet he's a bundle of laughs IRL.
I know plenty of ethnics who are more concerned with the rights and decency of society here than the many ethnic-natives who can barely read or write and just want someone they can kick down on.
If I was born in India I'd consider myself Indian, and work to improve that land. Or Jamaica, Malawi, or Canada.
It's plumb ridiculous to say that your ethnicity determines where your loyalties lie. Or that social-justice can only be achieved by ethnic-natives.
100-1 he never considers the white immigrants to the global south in the same way.
Because of your argumentation it makes totally sense that the 'National Socialist Workers Party' (that's what NSDAP means) started with slaughtering communists, socialists and Union-activists first in the concentration camps, right before they went after the Jews, Sinti & Roma and after that they just killed everyone who dared to dissent in any way. (look up the poem of father Niemeyer)
Thank god that people like you exist who believe just about everything that their masters taught them - just ignorance is no bliss and being without any concept of understanding differences (despite their self given names) puts you in a - let's say it friendly - place of unqualified partner for discussion.
Unqualified partner for discussion? Are you the master of qualifications? Remove a misunderstanding from my mind: why choose the term "socialist" if one stands opposed to the trend and hates socialism? Hitler was a cadre in the central office of one of the two socialist parties, both calling themselves "national." The stronger party refused his membership, so he turned to the second. The beginnings of communism appeared during the French Revolution under the leadership of Babeuf. Even then, his former revolutionary comrades brought him to the guillotine. All groups represented in the assembly (Jacobins, Girondins...) are the seeds of what would later be called socialists or social democrats—radical, centralizing power, yet all elites. The Mountain would distinguish itself from all others through terror under Robespierre, a figure revered by Hitler and Mussolini, a former syndicalist and socialist cadre.
Parenthesis: a republic cannot be democratic; by definition, it is oligarchic. As for the rest, the only ideology I know and follow fits my mind. I have neither servant nor master other than myself, fulfilling both roles. Defining the far-right seems complex. I offer you a lesson, free of charge. The terms right, left, and center were used during the French monarchy of Louis XVI. In the post-revolutionary assembly, supporters of the Ancien Régime sat on the right; revolutionaries—centralizers (like the monarchy) and generally radical—on the left; moderates seeking compromise in the center. Socialism has great figures, all bourgeois and tyrannical. Groups once labeled far-right were monarchists; those labeled as such today have nothing to do with them, claiming to be republicans.
I state as history recounts: under Hitler’s rule, European socialists collaborated. After the Reich’s defeat, they rewrote history to project their former comrades onto the far-right to erase their misdeeds. In conclusion, two tendencies exist: monarchists and republicans—always revolutionary yet behaving as nobles. The republic is merely the kingdom of elites ruling over the same serfs with the same prerogatives as under nobility. You should focus more on defending yourself than an ideology. You must treat your mental pathology, reformat your mind, resetting it to zero.
Well he has written many books making a case for his worldview, is an independent comic book author and publisher, and he operates a website to manage all his activities, on which he blogs almost daily about his position on the freshest news item. He was also a videogame designer, not sure if he still is.
These are all activities aimed at disseminating his political takes to the outer world, or reinforcing them with those that already follow him. Especially through the medium of art.
About his success, I'd say he is definitely known within alt-right circles and neo-reactonaries a-la Curtis Yarvin.
So yes, he has original takes, he sports a dedicated following, he is definitely an opinion-maker, as far as the semantics of the definition of who is an opinion-maker goes.
Then, in case the ADL or the Southern Poverty Law Center will deem your proselytising dangerous enough to warrant them to write and edit a discrediting wikipedia page about yourself, which is what they did for Vox Day, then I dare say it would be OK to call you an opinion-maker too.
You don't need to assemble oceanic masses at your rallies to be called an opinion-maker
I love the idea that europe has gamed the US, but it is nonsense. Where else does europe go for anything if the US changes the rules on whatever whim? I have never known a colony to be secretly in charge of its master..... unless this colony is threatening to take itself off to be a colony of some other master- Russia-China? Which would be its one real power card except that none of these people in charge in Europe are ever going to do that. They have buried that exit- for themselves. And if some successor came to power with a different view they would do it anyway- at the drop of hat, since Europe would have nothing left to lose. So what we are really seeing is an attempt to close the door on that route rather than anything about the value of any real US deal. The Ursulas are terrified that old europe might decide that Russia China is a better option for it (which it is) than the US, and the US is terrified of that too, so we have this attempt to merge one economic nothing-burger into another, turn its people into birds in an illusory aviary who see bars where there are none, and so do not even try to fly out.
Israel was never a state of any sort before this US forward base that appears to be this state, emerged. So the analogy does not hold! Really Israel is a proxy fighter and if it stopped actually fighting and dying for the US out there it would soon find out what it is to be what it is.... whatever that is! The europeans have no intention of doing any real fighting and dying en masse even for themselves let alone for the US.
"The Jews colonized the USA in the early 20th century, that is indisputable."
To your point, Big Guy. From a recent Tucker Carlson interview on the relationship between banks and war. Yeah...it wasn't Lutherans who cobbled together this disgusting shit-show.
"...Israel is a proxy fighter and if it stopped actually fighting and dying for the US...."
Really?
Which of Israel's wars or genocides or atrocities was for the USA?
What benefit has America received from being Israel's bitch? (Besides arms sales?)
"US forward base"
Really?
How many American troops are based on this "forward base"?
You're misunderstanding the situation.
Reality:
American bases in foreign countries:
Saudi--11
Kuwait--10
Bahrain--12
Oman--6
Jordan--2
Djibouti--2
Iraq--6
Turkey--13
Syria--4
Israel allows American military on its soil, but no permanent base.
"Why Is There No US Military Base in Israel?
The absence of a formal, permanent US military base in Israel, despite the robust and enduring strategic alliance between the two nations, is a consequence of several interwoven factors. These include political sensitivities, Israeli sovereignty concerns, historical regional dynamics, the nature of US security cooperation with Israel, and the geostrategic considerations that prioritize flexibility and regional acceptance."
Depends on your concept of 'benefit' I suppose - just today saw an anecdote from Yoram Ettinger about Lockheed Martin saving billions of dollars in R&D annually by essentially allowing the Israeli's to do their field testing on F35's etc.
I guess you have to remember most of the decisions are still made by old white blokes operating with the same tragically stupid and evil 19th century ideas about society that their grand-daddies did. As old fashioned as the phrase 'America's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East' sounds to us, it probably sounds like a great way of projecting force against the savages to every US president in the last 70 years. Although the Americans inherited the settler colony from the British, they've really taken the ball and run with it in that time. The Israelis, to their credit, have done such an effective job of hobbling any meaningful resistance to their agenda at both a cultural and governmental level with dual loyalty/passport holders and media kompromat ala Epstein Island, that its impossible to know where the dog ends and the tail begins anymore, as evidenced by the endless below the line discussions on it.
Ultimately, it matters not which is the host or parasite in the relationship anymore. Its been said often before, though it seems tragically and ironically naive in light of the last 2 years, that Palestine is one of those parts of the world that shows us what the capitalist overlords have in store for all of us in the long run - both the British and Americans have long demonstrated they're inseperablely commited to the Zionist project and will have to go down with the unsinkable ship. Sure I doubt the Americans would actually come to launching the nukes for Tel Aviv, but I suspect we'll be waiting a long time for Moscow or Beijiing to even think about trying to stop Israel's final solution v2.0 in Palestine either.
Back to the issue: "Israel is a proxy fighter for the USA"
"'America's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East'"
That's just nonsense--and I say that with the utmost respect.
How many aircraft does/has America flown out of Israel?
The fact is that Saudi, Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Turkey, etc, etc, etc ALL host massive and numerous American military bases.
Does Israel, the "American aircraft carrier?"
Uh, no.
As mentioned earlier, the ONLY benefit the US receives from its subservience to that tiny Zionist enclave is weapons sales. And I guess that includes weapons testing. That doesn't make them our proxy, though.
Right, I think I understand what particular level of understanding we're operating on here, but for the sake of clarifying:
How would you characterize the relationship between successive governments of the United States/UK and Israel resulting in them operating in near lockstep for over half a century then? Coincidence? Like I said, it doesn't matter which is the dog and which is the tail, at this point. It's all rotten.
The aircraft carrier turn of phrase isn't mine and it isn't meant literally either so not sure why you're arguing that one. If you can't see how sustaining an aggressively expanionist, non-muslim ethno state in the middle east has suited the empire's broader designs over the last 70 years then I'm not sure how to help you man.
I completely agree, the perspective of EU winning this one is delusional nonsense. For one that this post misses, what about the renounce of taxing tech-giants gains? How can one see this as a victory at all?? BS
It’s interesting what you say. I’m Spanish, living in the UK. One of the most fascinating spectacles that I’ve witnessed from afar in the last thirty years is the Americanisation of Spain (?!).
Bear in mind this is a country that was more of less dragged kicking and screaming into NATO and the Euro (not so much the European Common Market, which was seen as a positive thing at the time). A country that despite admiring the American phenomenon to some extent, always had a healthy disregard for Anglosaxon and Northern European culture. A country that despite having six or seven regional languages (no dialects mind) had a sense of a strong common culture and history.
Where it failed at the time was in the general repression of free thought and personal freedom. That’s where the American ideology found a foothold. We couldn’t find our own path towards a healthy ideal of responsible democracy, so we modernised around US oriented values. So, for the first twenty years of our first ‘finally joining with the modern western world’ all was ok. But now?
Spanish society and culture has turned into a ridiculous anachronistic shitshow. Among the many divisions that have now developed (or perhaps increased) is the one between the acculturalised ‘moderns’ (of which I was one, born in ‘65) and a minority that hanker after the past (because we’re unable to imagine a synthesis).
What future does Spain have in the EU or even dare I say within the western fold? But the country is not bold enough to move with the tines and look to BRICS, although I think that’d be the truly Spanish thing to do.
The issue is that Spanish “elites” are fully globalised elites.
With that in mind you can’t expect any kind of rebellion, they are part of such system.
From the king (who is as abject as Von der Leyen) to all the business millionaires class they are 90% part of the cabal who were educated in the UK, US, Switzerland…
You can compare it in some ways eith leaders of previous generations, who were much more Spanish. Juan Carlos, raised in Spain. Business man like Florentino, Amancio, Villar Mir etc while having a lot of criticable aspects were fully Spanish. They are in the twilight, and their heirs are part of the cabal.
In the cultural part also very few reaction, only the people associated with Gustavo Bueno.
99% of writers have fallen in a stupid adoration of the concept of “Europe and their culture”. Best book I ever read in the topic is “España contra Europa” of precisely Gustavo bueno.
The political games and divisions of the society are born from this cultural, and political progressive subjugation and there is very few it can be done to revert.
The hope lies in Hispanic American people advocating for bigger integration of the Hispanic world, culture, history, etc
I love your comment but deplore your last statement, because it is equivalent to what you have already done. Just because the language is shared, does not mean the culture is. Latin American culture is very distinct from Spanish culture, especially so with pre-EU Moderns Spain (and its distinct regions). Do not be deceived into believing that the rise of Hispanic culture in America will actually address any of the problems you have identified. All of the elites of Latin America already had the same globalist education decades before it happened to Spain.
Everything you both are describing that happened to Spain also happened to my country, New Zealand, albeit of a different flavour. Because we share the same language the absorption and "terraforming" of American values and culture upon us was even more radical and disgusting, only harder to identify and isolate. Again, do not be deceived into thinking that because there is a rise of Hispanic culture in America that it will be anything other than a change of flavour.
You’re right. And the same could be said of Great Britain. Though it’d be difficult for someone who only started living in England in the early 90s as an adult, to tell what was at the time imported from the US I still have been able to recognise the changes brought in the last 30 years. It’s easier when you have children and see the unfamiliar values they get taught, and changes in language.
Thanks Julliane for saying that. I’ll leave it where it is because I’m sure that Simplicius’ readers are the kind that will wade through 100% of the comments even if it means staying up beyond bed time! They’ll see it.
The UK is exactly the same, to our detriment - entirely Americanised. Look at Boris Johnson's absurd "Pacific Tilt" to support the US in the Far East.
What business does the UK have in the Far East threatening China, like a little terrier barking away at an Alsation from the other side of a fence?
The UK has myriad problems and can't even defend its own borders; it's armed forces don't have the numbers to last one month against those it delusionally regards as "peers" (Russia, China); it doesn't have the industrial base to sustain a protracted conflict.
See also our government's obsession with events in the Middle East, wasting our limited stock of missiles assisting in Israel's defence.
Or the hysteria triggered by George Floyd's death a few years ago.
"The only ray of hope, at least in regard to the topic of tariffs, is the following: the overall tariff plan was never really meant to be an isolated cash grab, but rather the beginning of a structural re-engineering of the entire financial system, first the US and, presumably, the rest of the world, as consequence. This is evidenced by Trump’s repeated invocations of nineteenth-century US, and his desire to replace the income tax with tariffs."
I think Trump understands at least on some level that tax receipts are insufficient to fund the government and service all the various forms of debt and entitlements. This is a severe danger to the American economy.
In the long term you can grow your manufacturing base, but unfortunately that's a decades long process and will also require a re-ordering of the school system.
In the shorter term, you have to both raise taxes and devalue the currency. Trump is effectively creating an indirect sales tax. Realistically there is zero chance the income tax will be repealed. He is also guaranteed to nominate an easy money Fed Chairman who will slash overnight rates which will in the long term depreciate the dollar even more. Gold owners will do very well over the next few years.
It's a brilliantly shrewd political move. He's instituting two massive tax increases on everybody that will never go away, which will of course hit the middle and lower classes hardest, and doing it as the president of the party whose economic mantra is "middle class tax cuts."
Really? The Civil War showed, that the tariffs, payed by the Southern part of the US, were funding the majority of US budget. On the other hand, the tariffs allowed the North to build its economy around industrial production.
Most of our consumer goods at all price points are produced overseas. The middle and working classes don't have much choice in the matter.
There's certainly a lot of products we can produce, but building out that industry is something that will take years. In the meantime, we are left with paying higher prices.
Look, I work for an American manufacturer. We produce high-end scientific instruments and the corresponding reagents, and we sell those all over the world. I'm all for increased manufacturing in the US.
But let's be realistic. Basic low margin consumer products are not going to be produced in the US in large quantities. It's just too expensive. High-skilled manufacturing like what we do will bring much better wages.
OK that's a fair point about consumer goods. I had assumed that there was at least some degree of basic item manufacturing in the US like clothing etc, but I stand corrected.
My only comment would be that this manufacturing should return to the US, and it represents a great opportunity to make this happen, but as you say this will not happen over night.
This comment is aso addressed to the two people above who made valid points.
The Moose, if it's going to decimate the American middle class to further support the ultra-rich how is that a "brilliantly shrewd political move" mate?
Reading this dissection of Trump's "historic" EU deal, I can't help but think of Majorian's brief reign in the 5th century. Here was the last truly capable Western Roman emperor, announcing grand reforms and military campaigns that temporarily restored Roman authority across Gaul and Spain. Contemporary chroniclers hailed his victories, coins were minted celebrating the "renewal of the empire," and for a moment it seemed Rome had found its footing again.
Of course, three years later he was dead, assassinated by the very generals who had grown fat off the empire's decay. His fleet rotted in Spanish harbors, his administrative reforms crumbled, and the Vandals resumed their raids with renewed vigor.
The parallels are striking. Majorian too understood that perception mattered as much as reality in holding a dying system together. He knew the importance of grand gestures, of making the provinces believe Rome was still the center of the world. But like Trump's $750 billion LNG promises that the EU can't actually deliver, Majorian's restoration was built on foundations that had already rotted away.
The real tragedy isn't that these "dead cat bounces" fool anyone anymore—it's that they prevent the kind of honest reckoning that might actually lead to renewal. Rome's final emperors spent their last decades issuing increasingly hollow edicts from Ravenna while the Ostrogoths carved up Italy. At least Aurelian and Diocletian, facing their own crises two centuries earlier, had the clarity to see the empire as it truly was and rebuild from there.
Perhaps the most Roman thing about our current moment is this: even as the East builds new cities and breaks ground on engineering marvels that would make Trajan weep with envy, we're still here arguing over whether our latest PR spectacle constitutes a real victory or just another gilded funeral mask.
Interesting observation. The difference between the Roman empire and the US empire is, the US empire has the US dollar, which still reigns supreme despite what the BRICS are attempting to do, which will take years to fully implement. In the meantime, Trump is taking bold steps to reshape the US dollar to make it more robust, and more useful.
“to reshape the reshape the US dollar to make it more robust and useful”…comment clearly originates from someone who believes it’s impossible to overdraw his bank account if there are still checks in the checkbook.
Well if the vast majority of humanity choose to begin trading outside the dollar then what power does the empire wield? The dollar is merely money in the US and international trade. Though ingrained in the global financial system its value is only based on faith, but faith can be fickle especially when there is no trust.
The rulers of the Houthis have no western bank accounts to freeze, no western assets to seize, no shiny western toys to take away, and consequently no fucks to give.
The rulers of rest of the world have all these things and consequently are quite pliable. For was it not written of old that "freedom's just another word, for nothing left to lose"?
The Spanish (and before them the Aztecs) spent decades fighting and losing a guerilla war with the Chichimecs of Mexico, until some Spanish friar came up with the brilliant idea of assimilating the Chichmecs and buying them off with gewgaws, after which the fearsome Chichimecs soon were pacified.
This is doubtless news to you but the dollar serves at least two purposes: as a unit of account in trade, and as a currency denomination in finance. Perhaps it’s not too late to get an internship at the Fed. OTOH, you could do some reading.
You're right—the denarius held reserve currency status for centuries even as it was debased, and unseating the current dollar will indeed take decades.
But unlike Rome, which at least had real silver backing its currency initially, we're now creating stablecoins explicitly backed by the very treasuries that represent our $36 trillion problem—it's like minting new denarii backed by promises to pay in old denarii. [I went deeper into stablecoins here: https://no01.substack.com/p/debt-dollars-and-digital-delusions]
How is "real silver backing" relevant when you can just reduce the amount of silver in the coin?
Anyway, your observation is correct to the extent that any currency that is based on debt is a currency that is unsustainable. But US treasuries need a home, and the stablecoin system buys the dollar more time. Time is on America's side, not the EU's side. This is a power struggle between the EU bankers and the American bankers, and Trump is getting the American bankers on side to collapse the EU, which presents an existential threat to America.
I had an article somewhere with numbers about stablecoins. If I remember correctly the whole crypto-ecosystem has something like a market cap of 4T. To have stablecoins provide a lifeline to the US treasuries, it would need to be universally adopted like yesterday (ie: infeasible).
I don't know about the bankers, but I do agree that the EU is going down. We should go back to nation states, not trying to be a geopolitical block.
Someone holding pure silver would be in a better position than someone with only a supply of official coins. The government demanded everyone pay their taxes and official fees and would also pay their workers (legionnaires etc.) in its increasingly crappy debased coins—no matter how little silver was left in them. But in the real economy people knew the difference.
If you had pure silver (from a mine, trade, or old coins), you could trade it privately for way more of those official coins than someone going the other way.
Basically, the state pretended its coins were valuable, but the market wasn't fooled. Your raw silver kept its real buying power, while the guy stuck with only official coins watched his savings evaporate.
It is a clear trend, but on the other side they are always succesful in coming up with a new financial hat trick. There is a whole bunch of goldbug doomers out there that are always wrong. No signs of a stock market crash. Currency is going to be linked to the peoples ability to operate in a digital environment, at all levels, and there is still a long way to go along that track. Anything goes to freeze gold.
I've been following this space for the better part of 20 years and I am astonished by the time it takes from decay to collapse! So, I adjusted my expectations. I probably will still see the change to a gold-backed trading system in my lifetime. Stablecoins can improve transactions quite a lot. They're instant and cheap ways to transfer money. However, one thing they are **NOT**. And that's a store of value.
However, the trust is eroding in the current fiat system, and bitcoin/gold/silver are signaling that. My personal opinion is that TPTB funnel all their attention to the crypto markets to sway peoples attention (and especially money) away from real PMs. You just can't print PMs, but you can pump yet another crypto coin (read: https://no01.substack.com/p/the-big-short as to what is happening in the silver space)
Thank you for your comment. I was actually subscribed to your substack, which is one of the best around. For some reason you are increasingly active in geopolitics. So, from your post I infer that Bitcoin is a con game and will inevitably tank. I thought it was the perfect answer for a new kind of global business travellers, interested in instant liquidity everywhere, and of course, tax evasion and off shore money hiding. The transactional security appeared to be a major pro too. But the energy consumption seems unsustainable. The price seems also increasingly unreal. Not to mention the transaction costs and other cryptos competition. By the way, do you have an opinion on Cardano? Finally, your article on silver was epic. With a 92-1 ratio you are talking about a 44,4 ratio, almost twofold. It could go even higher, considering the implications of such a squeeze for the Ukranian war. The people, banks, able to use the Russian proven deposits as collateral, will go a long way. At the moment, they can still do it via Singapur, Malasia, Hong Kong, the Emirates and other financial hubs. Russian counter sanctions and the ballon will burst.
However one note: I'm not "active" in geopolitics. I just dump my brain on how I see the world ;-). Getting on in years, it seems that my wisdom increased somehow. I'm starting to get things more and more right.
Bitcoin: I think it is (being) pumped up to divert funds from REAL assets. Speculation and gambling mentality trumps long-term wisdom.
The REAL game-changer is *not* BTC, *not* ETH, ... It's the blockchain. "tax evasion/money hiding": how? The blockchain is public (the whole point of it). Just kill all endpoints (crypto exchanges) and you kill the coin. But the blockchain (and then I'm thinking SOL/XRP or even USDC/T), they can be used for transactions. But not as a store of value.
Cardano: never heard of it. But I'm not really following the crypto markets that much. For that I have Sam 😋.
I'm digging myself into Silver Miners at the moment, much more promising setup.
"In the meantime, Trump is taking bold steps to reshape the US dollar to make it more robust, and more useful."
And those steps are what? Tariffs? QE? Devaluation?
If you are right, why the rest of the world is avoiding the US$ more and more, turning to their own currency in bilateral trade?
What I see here is one big assumption - that the USA is still the center of the earth and it's not anymore, not even remotely. The fat lady has left the building already, not merely stopped singing. But as long as the US citizens can make believe that they are still part of a so called exceptional nation, they'll swallow the "bold steps' nonsense, it's called cognitive dissonance.
It doesnt mean the dollar is not king anymore, it means the US cannot be trusted, but only a few countries are sovereign enough to protect themselves from American extorsion.
Tariffs are the price of admission to anybody who still wants to use US dollars, and Trump is making US dollars more attractive at a time when the BRICS are struggling to put together an alternative.
Politics is defined as "the art of the possible" and Trump is doing what is possible. Give him credit for that.
This is an extremely dynamic global political environment. At least Trump is doing something. It may be incremental, but it's what can be done.
I'm not saying this is a sustainable solution, because it isn't. It buys us some time. You simply can't base a monetary system on debt, but Trump can't do anything about that right now. The collapse must occur, and will occur. The usual solution the bankers use to "fix" a debt-based money collapse is world war. I am not optimistic. Let's be clear: this is a bad situation. But if Trump wasn't President, we'd probably already be in a world war. If Trump pulls this off, it buys us a little time. First and foremost, the EU must be crushed, it is the ultimate evil.
"...and Trump is making US dollars more attractive at a time when the BRICS are struggling to put together an alternative."
Assumptions and more assumptions - where is it clear that the BRICS+ are struggling to put together an alternative?
Define struggling or is it merely working steady but slowly towards a real, sustainable creation of a payment-system that's free from danger of coercion, bullying and sanction?
2nd point that I see as a flaw in your argumentation is the assumption of division between USA & EU.
This is for the plebs to swallow but since capital has no loyalty, knows no borders and is intertwined in an incestuous way, there is no EU crush - if so it's political because the capital factions are in general only two: industrial capital and financial capital and even those two are intertwined (see Black Rock for example).
Trump can stand on his head, the powers that be will decide what's going to happen and Trump can play along or vanish into the dustbin of irrelevance - another one will be ready to step in and do their bidding.
I am in the EU and I see the politicians of the EU groomed and US-americanized for decades. You have no chance to get to a certain point of influence in the EU if you have not been to the US, study there or worked there and be groomed whilst being there.
Same is true for the CEO's and other upper management of the big companies, they are international owned, not nationally - that was a long time ago.
The EU is an appendix of US interests in total - militarily, economically and culturally.
What we see is show for the plebs and it seems to be working - the show must go on.
The world war has been sung for almost 4 years, we are at least at the 7th. What you still haven't grasped, only the tribal chiefs trade, the object of the trade (the serf) serves the new master as he served the old one. Tell yourself that it is difficult to understand the politics and the movements of one and the other unless you are a moron and degenerate like them. The societal did not arrive by humanism, ideology, it is the form of politics that requires no skills.
Being the FED independent from the government, tarifs are one of the few things a president can do, the other being the budget or closing agencies. Again, I think we should focus on long term trends rather than on stunning PR or breaking news. The US is all about money making. Crypto and stablecoinds are a response to the inability of making money with dollars. On the other side, there is an structural inability to build infrastructure or have a sense of whats the common good. The US is all about me growing dont step on my lawn. When you look to an area like South Dallas, they only have two tiny light rail stations. This is structural. This is not going to change. If anything, the only infrastructure America has built with public money are military bases and forts both inside the US and all over the world. In the meantime, street violence and shootings are rising. Health, education and real estate are choking the people. This is not going to change. And forget about closing the border. The migrant labor extraction is critical to create capital. Migrants will be paid less and hidden, as a new slave working force. No signs of foreign policy changes either. Its all about capitalism and Trump is not going to change that.
But if they have capitalism, then these tiny rail stations show us there is no need for more. Here in Europe we have these fancy railways, costing endless amounts of taxpayers money. If you could earn a fortune by building any form of infrastructure, then you would find entrepreneurs and investors queuing up.
The decay of the US and the West is obvious and irreversible.
Trump Is sinking into increased mental instability, one clown-show after another, following in the shuffle-steps of Biden: Western Europe is 'led' by feckless opportunists who are panicking because their economies are being ground down by American cut-off of ceap Russian energy and the vast superiority and innovativeness of China.
The Von der Leyen fellation is at best a delaying tactic while these dwarfish ninnies try to come up with some way to save their "garden."
Basically, they are assisting in their nations' deindustrialization and devolvement into cheap labor sources and canon fodder for American attempts to pick Russia apart.
One looks forward to their forceful removal and replacement.
Only a full about-face, resumption of Russian energy and intelligent trade deals with China can prevent the inevitable collapse into mayem and ruin.
In other words, decoupling from the US, embracing the East and joining the sales and economic boom that's building there and in the South. China will happily assist: it has the resources and market opportunity for Europe to make a good start replacing the American market.
The world economy will shape up as multilateral, minus one - as Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said.
How about this for another parallel between late Roman and modern American imperial collapse?
In the late 5th century the Emperor Majorian (in coordination with the eastern Emperor Leo I) issued an edict prohibiting the theft of stone from old buildings. Punishments included not only fines but also floggings and the amputations of hands, and not just for the thieves but also for the buildings' owners.
A solid idea, but the edict did little to halt the decline of the empire, things were too far gone.
Fast forward to today, and we have an epidemic of people, some meth-heads and junkies, some not, ripping out copper wire from stores, factories and residences, some of them abandoned, some not.
In both cases, ancient and modern, the desire for short term and small scale profit just makes long term and large scale maintenance and renewal much more difficult.
A cascading destructive cycle where individual opportunism makes society weaker, leading to more destruction.
I have seed grain that I should be ploughing into the earth in the spring to harvest much more grain in the autumn.
But that's hard work and it takes too damn long!
I'll just eat it all today, because if I don't, those junkie barbarians will come and eat it all tomorrow!
Iran was attacked exactly on the 61st day of a 60-day ultimatum, which Trump gloated about publicly, then he talked about giving them two more weeks but the US joined the bombing mere two days later.
Given that Lindseay Graham replied "Ask the ayatollah" to the question "what happens on the 51st day", that should all be taken as a real threat for much more than economic war.
After Putin swallowed without respondong the strategic aviation attack too, Russia is wide open to anything now
Trump gave China an August 12th deadline for coming to terms on a tariff deal.
This is a message to China, not Russia. The Chinese will recognize this is a sign of weakness, not strength. But I think the Chinese will be smart enough to make some token concessions so Trump will be able to call it a "win" and move on.
<<Trump is inarguably the right man to lead a nation of erratic degenerates.>>
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
I'm not so sure. China is still withholding rare earth minerals. The recent Ursula Fond of Lying trip with her EU compatriots to China ended in disaster. The Chinese bused them around like cattle instead of in a limousine motorcade, had no officials meet and greet them and a 3 day trip turned into 1.
The Chinese respect Trump, so they will play along. On the other hand, the Chinese have nothing but contempt for the EU, an attitude which is perfectly right and just.
Thank God for the Chinese, at least they are run by responsible people.
It did take some time but after six months we arrived to the point where the positions of Putin, Zelensky and Trump are all clearly presented. And there is no way to bridge the differences with diplomacy.
You are reasonable and pragmatic Simp. That’s why I am a paying sub. I have been sorely disappointed in DT over the last month or so. He appears to have thrown in with the very people who threw him out in 2020.
My opinion is they removed him thinking that there were no more serious wars left to fight. Also they wanted to get to hoppin on the 2030 agenda. I have a PDF of that agenda from the WEF in 2021. In 2022 they began to learn otherwise courtesy of the Russia/Ukraine conflict. I suspect they thought with sanctions and a formidable UK Army (it certainly was) would be enough to break Russia. After that was finished then China would bend the knee.
As we all know it didn’t go down like that. I believe they want Trump for the Patriotism and Nationalism boost. This would be for military recruitment and potential conventional wars. Once again they underestimated his supporters same way they did with the Covid vaccines.
I was a staunch supporter. I certainly have NO regrets working to get him elected. He’s far better than the left. But I am a free thinker and he appears to be doing the bidding of the Neocons. The very same people who backstabbed him at every turn. I expected more out of him. I won’t make that mistake again.
Meant to put a disclaimer on my post. To you fucking retards on the right (I’m on right too btw) that think everything is controlled or scripted don’t bother replying to me. Some of you people are truly hopeless. You’re so hopeless you don’t even know it. You have ZERO business reading this much less discussing it. Go outside and get some fresh air and try and accomplish something before the black helicopters come for you.
We all live in our own Matrix, Denis. We are well ahead of the rest who remain oblivious. The key out of it though is to reunite (or at least see as a malignant construct) the political dichotomies like Left and Right. These are all traps to be carefully navigated on the path leading to liberation.
Most of what you say is well said, but I see the majority who think and live within the matrix or big machine, and the select few who are on the outside looking in. That's what makes a free thinker. Loony tune has no clue what I'm saying cause he's too deep in the hole to think his way out of it, man.
Obama finished off the last of the Left. Trump is looking like an Obama for the Right, designed to assimilate the paleo-conservatives and independent Libertarian types into the neocon borg.
Trump was a New York Democrat until he recognized he could never win their nomination process.
For over a century, the D's were the party of Rothschild and the R's the party of Rockefeller. Two competing but mostly co-operating dynasties. That ended in 2017 with the death of David Rockefeller. They have been replaced in both political parties by a loose coalition of billionaires, which explains the current chaotic approach to just about everything.
I have said it for a long time now - Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
That said, everything Trump does now is a frenetic attempt to distract us from Epstein. Of course, the neocons surrounding Trump are well aware of this are are happy to use it for their own ends.
Now, concerning MAGA, MAGA is first and foremost a cult of personality. Emphasis on the word "cult". It is funny, watching them make excuses for their hero, even as he betrays them over and over and over.
Sure there’s a lot of people in MAGA who are covering for him. Most of them seem to be in the Boomer age group (my parents for example). But like the Covid vaccines there’s a good portion of us that are independent minded in a sense. And unlike the left we don’t shut up and do what we’re told. I talk to these people everyday and many have or are losing faith.
That’s all this ever was; one last chance to try and fix things with civility. Trump was simply the best option we had to attempt that. I have noticed many that are turning away are the firearm owning types and former Veterans.
Covid doesn’t exist is my fav. Damn I want to just shake some of those people. Was a time when I thought they might even be controlled opposition or paid trolls. The purpose would be to make those of us with a legitimate concern about the covid vax look bonkers. You know like how it was rushed through at “WARP SPEED.” Lol.
Very few humans think for themselves or are even capable of doing so.
Consider how stupid most humans are, I am not really sure whether that is not a good thing, all considered. So not like cats!
For that matter, most humans do not want to think for themselves. For most humans most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of other humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the humans they can trust to have their backs.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever they have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Very well said Cat. Learned there actually exists a cryptocurrency called fartcoin. Not only does it exist but it has a market cap of $1.4B. I couldn’t believe it. My friend is into crypto and he told me how smart the people were for getting into it and making 3000% return.
He frustrates me but I could never kick him out of the group lol.
Oh my, it is all of but fore the screaming ............ of the popcorn vendors posing as leadership in the US. I just looked up the numbers on the new dam in China. It is projected to have about 91 times the power generation of the Hoover dam. Stick a fork in it baby.
Considering that one of the criticisms of that dam is that the area is geologically unstable, they may wind up flooding more than the market. I wouldn't want to live downstream of it....
I wasn't speaking of the dam triggering a quake.... I just read comments of some chinese geologists about the potential for a catastrophic quake in the area. If it were to happen and cause a failure of the dam it would be a very bad day for those downstream. I'm certainly no geologist so I don't know how similar the areas between the Three Gorges Dam and this one are. I know that those geologists were opposed to the building of the new dam, but I have no way of judging how much their opinion was swayed merely by the fact of their opposition to it.
It´s possible. But, I remember a lot of criticism over the Three Gorges dam when it was being built. Interestingly that one alone puts out over 20 times the annual TWh production of the entire US electrical production as of 2023 figures I read. So, I tend to go with the Chinese on this one. The new dam is projected to have three times the output of Three Gorges. We will see.
This^^.. Why would the Chinese and Russians, et al want war when they can win it all in the marketplace?! The western empire totters on failing legs.The Dept of War became the misnamed Dept of Defense, on Aug 10, 1949...more imperial bilge larded onto the criminal yarn our masters were spinning. For the sake of full disclosure, can we change it back to the more honest, Dept of War? Thanks.
Ukraine is the Elephant in the room. Its collapse (this fall) will change everything, but it has disappeared from the US news cycle. Trump walks a tightrope in this. He got a foretaste of MAGA rebellion with bombing Iran and got lucky when they temporarily backed down as did Israel. Russia will get its buffer in eastern Ukraine, and Trump will find some way of taking credit for the end of fighting, or at least credit for not getting actively involved with more boots on the ground than are already there.
I came here to understand the latest Euro-war but stayed for the brilliant comments. If the Europeans spent time learning about their last century they might step back from the precipice of yet another debacle. Didn't gramps spend any time lecturing the kids about the ridiculous bloodletting that only benefits the money-minders? Oh well...
So..."the monstrosity of global finance and capital which has grown since the post-war era likely cannot be undone with even these far-looking and good-intentioned half-measures." Great to see Trump struggling against these nefarious forces with his up, down, all-around tariffs. Impressive, particularly given that Trump has surrounded himself with Wall Street grifters, bankers, real estate magnates and hedge fund managers. All helping him return to the good old days of low taxes and few regulations under William McKinley. You know, when JP Morgan ran the banks, Rockefeller ran oil, and Fisk and Gould ran the railroads. Such good times! Look at Trump's cabinet. He's not fighting against finance capitalism and corporate power any more than he is fighting for peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. Trump IS the Deep State. There are several factions of the Deep State jockeying for power. Completely normal. None represents the American people. Sane Lefties gave up on the Democrats years ago. At what point do sane Righties give up on Trump and the Republicans?
Hate to quibble but JE is likely running an orphanage in Israel. Maybe face putty alterations (maybe not?!) and dick enhancement. Doing it for the children...
He's a tool. Easily manipulated and does what he's told--the job of both American and European political leadership. Money and its security state enforcers are behind the curtain.
Trump is a big tadpole in the small puddle which is Europe. A tadpole needs a puddle. The puddle doesn’t understand the tadpole, but has no choice but to accept its residency.
A Fish and Pond analogy probably overstates the scale of this non event.
Likely it will have no more reality than his releasing of his former buddy Epstein’s files.
Your jackboots are showing.
How so?
"They’re exterminating the celtic, germanic and slavic soul."
Blood and soil idiocy.
Hardly represents jackboots showing........
Why did you not offer a reasoned argument as to why his sense of things is wrong. Why do you call it blood and soil idiocy. Is there not a growing oppression of the native people in favor of unassimilated barbarians feasting off their government's tired welfare state and this migration is growing without concern for the citizens? I find your analysis rather infantile and ignorant.
Nation is a C19th conceit. Identity is a C20th fatuity, invented to disguise class, the motor of history. As the boss class becomes ever more openly fascist, they try to pretend that it's your neighbour who's the problem, not them thieving off you. Verily the socialism of fools.
No, you ignorant dickhead, the welfare state for poor people is worse than ever to keep the rich bastards' welfare state in tip-top condition. When did you last see a merchant banker begging for food or slumming it in an NHS hospital?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkCBhKs4faI
These days, if you say you're English, you'll get arrested and thrown in gaol.
>the combined ‘victories’ of the Euro-American Atlanticist sphere.
The empirical facts are that:
1) Russia is fighting a civil war instigated by the West, and various types of flying bombs are reaching 1000 km into the Russian core, with no end in sight
2) Everything north of and including Philadelphia seceding from the US and then launching an equivalent civil war against the remaining US core on the instigation of Russia/China is absolute fantasy right now. Scotland doing it to England has better chances of happening, but it is still a very remote possibility. Meanwhile Russia dares not launch any flying bombs into the US directly. Not even into the territories of the vassals.
As long as those empirical facts persist, the Euro-American Atlanticists are, sadly, decisively winning indeed.
P.S. Today the Ukro proxies launched a drone into Minsk, quite openly. No casualties but some cars were damaged by shrapnel. So they are getting bolder, and that will only escalate further.
Usual balanced and insightful commentary. Has absolutely no relevance to this article unfortunately.
It is sad though, as you point out, that the Russians haven’t seized Kyiv before lunch. Again.
He is more disappointed that Kiev, Europe and the USA have not been nuked yet.
Basil Fawlty with nukes
Sadly shows the pathologically obsessed nature of GM's well-intentioned dooming, but I suppose it's my fault for not creating "discussion threads" on off days to allow poor anguished souls like GM to let off steam.
No doubt he means well , not sure who too though.
Sorry, Simplicius, but this is an attack "ad hominem," and a condescending one into the bargain. I didn't expect that from you.
Are you a beta simp? I suspect Simplicius is human and not an AI bot. Therefore, why wouldn't he experience human emotions and not have the right to respond to a comment on his article?
because he has opinionated about the commentator and not the article itself. ...and that is BS.
Oh no, another poor little woketard who might get his feelings hurt.
Responding to a comment is not a right, it's a privilege.
Like living in any society, its members have to pay tax and the thread tax is a meaningful contribution to the discussion at hand.
In which case Jack, there are several who owe much in back taxes!
Sure thing. Right out of the communist playbook. You have no rights. Only those privileges we decide to give you.
It’s not that GM does it only now and then. He is rather obsessive about his stance and with little variation. A tad tiresome. I have tried telling him multiple times that Russia can’t just nuke other countries, we all die.
Hate to be the one to burst your bubble but we all die.
Thanks for spoiling my day… I am going to die…😭
But I prefer to die naturally and not because GM desperately wants someone to push the red button.
Isn't it a bit nicer to determine whether it's later rather than sooner and hopefully we have a choice?
It’s a pretty mild rebuke , but you appear to be of the school that considers that human opinion should always be beyond any form of criticism, questioning or satire.
If so this is probably the wrong place for you. In any event I have been satirising his very repetitive contributions for months, to little effect I might add, but hopefully to the amusement of a few.
I regard satire whether directed at myself or anyone else as an essential tool and part of human experience and development, as does any adult. “Taking the piss” is a national pass time in Oz any one who accused someone of “ad hominem” behaviour would be mercilessly satirised, however I shall refrain in this instance. Should the accusation become repetitive however….
Hats off to you laddie
Couldn’t have said it better!
thank you
In this particular case a well deserved one.
Put into a nutshell the constant stream of comments by this gentleman are:
1.- Putin is a weak traitor to Russia, because he has not managed to start III WW. He should have bombed the US and/or Europe and why would any Russian leader lose a couple of seconds pondering about the consequences of that action?
2.- Putin's indignity derives from his abandonment of the sound communist ways as ideally practiced by Stalin.
3.- The URSS was a sound, well administered country and it demise is one of Putin's most terrible sins. So the fact that nearly 40 years ago the URSS dissolved is a suficient proof of the failings of Putin's leadership today.
4.- If Russia is losing, then the West must be "winning", there is no need to consider China's insignificant role in the world today. No need to consider either the state of things, economic and political, in the USA and Europe.
GM's ideas are often so unrealistic that I cannot believe that he really means what he says. Maybe he is just a guy who loves to stir people up? If so, then he must have a lot of fun sometimes.
Hmmm, yeah, let's see. We will be in war in which the other side gets to bomb us freely but we will never dare strike back because you see, that would start a war, and such a war would be so terrible.
Where, I wonder, is the flaw in that argument...
Try sitting on a bag of frozen vegetables
It will help bring the swelling down
???
GM is playing a game himself, so he is not going to be fazed by this kind of response. If he was always straight up and sincere, Simplicius' response would be callous (even if understandable, considering GM's persistent attitude and stance).
Indica or Sativa or both? ;)
Euro-Atlanticist winning is a strange kind of winning. Their spheres are in decline and their proxy is on the point of collapse. You mistake desperate 'Hail Mary' attacks as something other than flukes.
How are they in decline? They literally expanded NATO, took over Moldova, destroyed and took over Syria, flipped Armenia (one of the traditionally most loyal Russian allies) and Azerbaijan has now also dropped all pretense it is not hostile to Russia.
Austria is talking about joining NATO, Serbia of all countries (!!!) is providing weapons to Ukraine, Bulgaria will for the first time fight Russia directly if ordered to, etc. etc. etc.
There are barely a dozen countries in the whole world who are resisting.
Ho hum, terrifying or would be if 3 of the countries opposing the western zombie states weren’t nuclear armed(N Korea, China and Russia). The last 2 are civilisational states as is Iran. Just accept it pal, the west is collapsing and it needs to , and the torch of human values and progress is passing to these states. Nothing you can do about it except be grateful it is happening and enjoy the spectacle.
Chill out.
China's prodigious development and her geopolitical positioning is many hundreds of times more significant than all NATO's expansion to Finland, Sweden and possibly Austria.
The number if countries is only relevant in the General Assembly of the United Nations. Relevant are population numbers, technological, civil and military expertise, material production and access to natural resources. The West is declining.
And Syria's loss, or the Armenia/Azerbaijan catastrophe are of such absolutely insignificant importance that you forgot to even mention them.
China has zero geopolitical positioning right now. How much they can produce only matters so far as they cannot be physically cut off from resource inputs and trade routes. But the US is busy on doing exactly that and China is not doing much kinetically to stop it.
Remember that Germany was on a similarly unstoppable trajectory in the early 20th century, then found itself on the verge of starvation in 1918 and had to sue for peace while still being closer to Paris inside France than to its own borders.
And what exactly is China doing for Russia, other than desperately trying to avoid secondary sanctions?
China could have solved this war for Russia decisively two years ago. Not even by supplying artillery shells and missiles, just by DJI turning over drone production to the Russians instead of selling 70% of their output to the Ukrainians.
Had it done that, there would be no such situation with the secondary sanctions today.
Just that little thing.
But it didn't do it.
And that is not all of it.
Because meanwhile Russia could have, of course, solved its problem decisively on its own, but that would have requred the use of the type of force that we are constantly told Russia's "allies" (i.e. China, India and Brazil) are against.
Well, what kind of allies are those then?
But that doesn't stop the various talking and blogging heads from twisting themselves into very complex pretzels trying to rationalize it all...
You just can't make this up.
Humans do not want to face ugly facts.
You seem to read Western propaganda screeds that fail to recognize the West's dire straits. Finance capitalism's neoliberal policies has deindustrialized the US and Europe, exacerbated by Russophobic sanctions and refusal to accept Russian gifts of oil and gas. These policies have wrecked the West's social welfare programs, leaving a dissatisfied and angry population. Western leaders lack popular support. Likewise, Western military equipment has been shown to underperform in the Ukraine, regardless of being very expensive. Not only that, but the war has attritted Western weapons in general. Debt and money do not win wars.
China is outperforming the West politically, socially, and economically.
The West is good at sabotage and terrorism, but these acts also do not win wars.
Never mind, you covered Austria already.
Note that Austria was like Germany partitioned in occupation zones, and the the Red Army pulled out in 1955 on the strict condition of permanent Austrian neutrality. There is such a treaty, which is still in force.
Thus if Austria decides to join NATO, it would be in direct violation of it, and Russia would be in its right to invade again. But it can't do that, because, oh wait, a serious of traitors in the Kremlin gave up all the territory in between without a fight.
Of course, there were similar agreements with Finland too, and we know how that went...
Treaties are meaningless. Enforcement is all that matters.
No disagreement on that.
There is no deal. Nothing was signed.
https://www.eclaireur.eu/p/no-deal-donald-eb9
Thank you very much, Pascal, to remind us of this ignored little detail: there is no deal until the European Council of heads of state or government approves what Ursula has negotiated.
You are very welcome!
I wonder if there even exists something like an official text of the presumed "deal"?
There exists only 2 press releases, one from the White House and one from the EC. The text itself is confidential as not approved by the EU Council.
Are you suggesting that the EU Council will not do as Ursula commands?
I guess we'll see what happens next.
Von de Leyen commands nothing. She has no decision making power. If this "deal" goes through, it'll be responsibility of Member EU states.
There are definitely texts from Taco on Ursula's phone.
She is not called Ursula Fond Of'lying for nothing.
Let's assume for a moment that the unthinkable happens and that the European Council approves the deal. What happens when, after some time, the Americans conclude that Europe, as inevitably will be the case, is noy buying enough American LNG or American weapons, or is investing not enough in the USA? I guess that such failing to comply would be reason enough to end the agreement. In this way, the Americans can decide to blow up the deal whenever they want. And then the tariff war can restart.
Nothing is unthinkable when it comes to the EC, other than acting for the interests and wellbeing of their own people.
If you think europeans will demonstrate any independence....
Well, the French prime minister sounded pretty independent when reacting to the deal. Let's wait and see.
We go through this kabuki every time.
Some minor American functionary then snaps his fingers, and european knees hit the floor with a resounding thud, grateful for the opportunity to gratify their American Master.
Wasn't there a time when Europeans refused to join the US in a war?
Interesting point. That time was when the europeans were not convinced that the Americans would not have their backs.
One sees a similar dynamic in dogs barking at strangers.
Deals don't have to be signed to be real (although I don't think this is a real deal).
Signed deals, treaties etc. between nations are just a process to formalize what has already been agreed to by other means.
In that case, needs to be signed, otherwise cannot be enforced. Treaties materialized in writing what has been agreed, with force of law. Ask Russia and the US promise not to expand NATO, not materialized in writing.
As long as the "deal" is not signed, then it does not come into force.
That's why both von der Leyen and Trump are are in deep. UvdL because she promised stuff she does not have the power to do, and Trump because he's been again boasting about stuff that as per today do not exist.
Orban was very quick to point that out...
https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1949881575518138501
...Another regular and loyal reader of Simplicius is none other than alt-right personality VoxDay: https://voxday.net/2025/07/23/clown-world-turns-on-zelensky/
Seems it'd be quicker to list opinion-makers who do not read Simplicius, at this point, instead of those who read him. Which is practically anyone who can string together a coherent take on the Ukrainian conflict.
What is the far right? Are we talking about an incurable and lethal pathology like socialism? Or some other divine plague?
alt.right. Pro-corporatist, blames immigrants for all ills, anti-liberalism (anti-woke), thinks all states are by definition 'socialist'. "My wife's pussy is dry with sand in and that's the way I like it" Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson "I love making up nonsensical phrases and sounding confident" are the usually pointed to cheerleaders of this internet era theosophy.
(outspoken pro-Isr*el to boot).
I'm just a pro. I don't care about anyone other than my own, deserving ones. I don't belong to any ideology.
I'm sorry for your wife, but using her as a skin rasp is not good. I ask again, what is the extreme right? What is its definition, non-ideologized? As a reminder, we know of very great figures of socialism, who were assimilated to an extreme right invented from scratch for the occasion and exonerated from the acts of its ideology. For my part, I only know of 2 factions, the notables and the royalists wrongly called conservatives. The parties, whatever the tendency, are lordships but of notables who see themselves as nobles. I have always admired the imagination of people, socialists, who describe famous figures, Hitler, Mussolini, etc. as extreme right even though they sat as executives in the central office of the socialist party, even going so far as to name his party, for Hitler, Nazional Socialism. Why not have named it Nazional Extreme Right? So, I still don't know what the far right is, but it doesn't matter, my party is me.
Oh god, you're one of THOSE retards. I suppose you cannot find any ideological differences between the Communists and the Hitlerites?
You know, the racialist ideology, the worship of military expansionism, the veneration of hierarchy, the adoration of private wealth, the centralism of patriarchalism.
Now, I don't hold a torch for the far-left (Or maybe you don't think THEY exist either), but there are clear ideological differences, although being of a somewhat different orientation from both myself, I find some crossovers in actuality.
You may be trapped in the 19th century, and only see the 'elites' as having the capacity for political thought, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to agree with you.
racialist ideology, the worship of military expansionism, the veneration of hierarchy, the adoration of private wealth, the centralism of patriarchalism.
= JEW
The term "retarded," did you read it somewhere yesterday? You use it in all your posts here. The term racialist, another leftist invention of the slave masters. Those who claimed and claim this ideology have so much remorse that they invent terms to transmit this remorse to others. Sorry, I don't believe in socialism or communism, a rowdy child of socialism, but let me say it again, Hitler was indeed a socialist. In truth, socialism and everything else are just trini with their serf slaves who maintain them. There were only two factions in the past: the royalists, whose lords donned armor and went to fight to preserve their property, including the serfs and notables, who saw themselves as nobles and had borrowed all the customs and advantages except one: in their shoes afloat, they did not intend to fight to preserve their property but to retreat far from all risks and leave the task to the serfs, who would push them by the bayonet in their backs. The idea of a leader and master with a big pair of boots protecting me appeals to me quite a bit, unlike the frightened idiot with lips instead of a ball handle exposing my body to protect himself.
There, I am my own lord and serf; to avoid ending up in the dungeon, since I couldn't challenge these lip-snatching types to a duel, I left Europe.
And good riddance. I hope wherever you moved to put up with airy-fairy bollox that sounds like a Jordan Peterson rejected script.
Take your frustrations with that ideology someplace else. I'm no fan of Vox Day either, but your cultured and bred revulsion to right-wing ideas are uninteresting and thoroughly pedestrian.
Why don't you write to Simplicius and request he throw me out then. Cos it's not up to YOU is it?
Left and Right political or social positions are relative not objective positions. That's easy enough to see if you look at them over historical timeframes.
But if you want a definition that's a little more objective, I'd say the the Left is the tendency to Excite, the Right is the tendency to Inhibit.
The Right says "Tighten Up Man!"
The Left says "Get Loose Baby!"
the problem is the Jew - always has been...
Along withe rule britannia supremacy
Leftwing - communal thinking (How you treat your friends).
Rightwing - hierarchical thinking (How you treat your boss).
Liberal - Treating others as you would like to be treated by strangers.
That's the skeleton on which the divisions hang, imo.
Banal and biased framing
Essential Vox Day is a nationalist who believes that each country should be run for the benefit of the citizens of that country, and that ethnicity defines a nation.
Needless to say this pits him against the globalist cabal that runs everything in the western world, and why he is banned from every media platform.
So 19th cent racism as well. Jeez. Bet he's a bundle of laughs IRL.
I know plenty of ethnics who are more concerned with the rights and decency of society here than the many ethnic-natives who can barely read or write and just want someone they can kick down on.
If I was born in India I'd consider myself Indian, and work to improve that land. Or Jamaica, Malawi, or Canada.
It's plumb ridiculous to say that your ethnicity determines where your loyalties lie. Or that social-justice can only be achieved by ethnic-natives.
100-1 he never considers the white immigrants to the global south in the same way.
Are you a Jew?
"If I was born in India I'd consider myself Indian, and work to improve that land. Or Jamaica, Malawi, or Canada.
It's plumb ridiculous to say that your ethnicity determines where your loyalties lie."
That may be what you would do, but I can assure you it does not apply to the majority of migrants now arriving in western Europe.
Because of your argumentation it makes totally sense that the 'National Socialist Workers Party' (that's what NSDAP means) started with slaughtering communists, socialists and Union-activists first in the concentration camps, right before they went after the Jews, Sinti & Roma and after that they just killed everyone who dared to dissent in any way. (look up the poem of father Niemeyer)
Thank god that people like you exist who believe just about everything that their masters taught them - just ignorance is no bliss and being without any concept of understanding differences (despite their self given names) puts you in a - let's say it friendly - place of unqualified partner for discussion.
Unqualified partner for discussion? Are you the master of qualifications? Remove a misunderstanding from my mind: why choose the term "socialist" if one stands opposed to the trend and hates socialism? Hitler was a cadre in the central office of one of the two socialist parties, both calling themselves "national." The stronger party refused his membership, so he turned to the second. The beginnings of communism appeared during the French Revolution under the leadership of Babeuf. Even then, his former revolutionary comrades brought him to the guillotine. All groups represented in the assembly (Jacobins, Girondins...) are the seeds of what would later be called socialists or social democrats—radical, centralizing power, yet all elites. The Mountain would distinguish itself from all others through terror under Robespierre, a figure revered by Hitler and Mussolini, a former syndicalist and socialist cadre.
Parenthesis: a republic cannot be democratic; by definition, it is oligarchic. As for the rest, the only ideology I know and follow fits my mind. I have neither servant nor master other than myself, fulfilling both roles. Defining the far-right seems complex. I offer you a lesson, free of charge. The terms right, left, and center were used during the French monarchy of Louis XVI. In the post-revolutionary assembly, supporters of the Ancien Régime sat on the right; revolutionaries—centralizers (like the monarchy) and generally radical—on the left; moderates seeking compromise in the center. Socialism has great figures, all bourgeois and tyrannical. Groups once labeled far-right were monarchists; those labeled as such today have nothing to do with them, claiming to be republicans.
I state as history recounts: under Hitler’s rule, European socialists collaborated. After the Reich’s defeat, they rewrote history to project their former comrades onto the far-right to erase their misdeeds. In conclusion, two tendencies exist: monarchists and republicans—always revolutionary yet behaving as nobles. The republic is merely the kingdom of elites ruling over the same serfs with the same prerogatives as under nobility. You should focus more on defending yourself than an ideology. You must treat your mental pathology, reformat your mind, resetting it to zero.
I would not call such people "opinion makers".
Why not
Because they have no discernible influence. Might as well ask a talking cat.
Well he has written many books making a case for his worldview, is an independent comic book author and publisher, and he operates a website to manage all his activities, on which he blogs almost daily about his position on the freshest news item. He was also a videogame designer, not sure if he still is.
These are all activities aimed at disseminating his political takes to the outer world, or reinforcing them with those that already follow him. Especially through the medium of art.
About his success, I'd say he is definitely known within alt-right circles and neo-reactonaries a-la Curtis Yarvin.
So yes, he has original takes, he sports a dedicated following, he is definitely an opinion-maker, as far as the semantics of the definition of who is an opinion-maker goes.
So? I could do a that. Doesn't mean that anyone who makes decisions is listening or gives a shit.
If you are able to do that, then do it.
Then, in case the ADL or the Southern Poverty Law Center will deem your proselytising dangerous enough to warrant them to write and edit a discrediting wikipedia page about yourself, which is what they did for Vox Day, then I dare say it would be OK to call you an opinion-maker too.
You don't need to assemble oceanic masses at your rallies to be called an opinion-maker
I love the idea that europe has gamed the US, but it is nonsense. Where else does europe go for anything if the US changes the rules on whatever whim? I have never known a colony to be secretly in charge of its master..... unless this colony is threatening to take itself off to be a colony of some other master- Russia-China? Which would be its one real power card except that none of these people in charge in Europe are ever going to do that. They have buried that exit- for themselves. And if some successor came to power with a different view they would do it anyway- at the drop of hat, since Europe would have nothing left to lose. So what we are really seeing is an attempt to close the door on that route rather than anything about the value of any real US deal. The Ursulas are terrified that old europe might decide that Russia China is a better option for it (which it is) than the US, and the US is terrified of that too, so we have this attempt to merge one economic nothing-burger into another, turn its people into birds in an illusory aviary who see bars where there are none, and so do not even try to fly out.
"I have never known a colony to be secretly in charge of its master"
Well, Israel seems to be in charge of the USA.
But I digress.
It depends upon which you regard as the colony -- the country with the larger population is not necessarily the "master".
Touche
Israel was never a state of any sort before this US forward base that appears to be this state, emerged. So the analogy does not hold! Really Israel is a proxy fighter and if it stopped actually fighting and dying for the US out there it would soon find out what it is to be what it is.... whatever that is! The europeans have no intention of doing any real fighting and dying en masse even for themselves let alone for the US.
Well, I guess it all depends on how you look at it.
The Jews colonized the USA in the early 20th century, that is indisputable.
So Israel is a colony of a colony, I guess.
It's all so confusing.
:-)
'Fun fact' factory going strong here! It is a bit of light relief in a world where everyone has turned into their very own Dr strangelove.
Ha! I should really watch that movie again, it's been too long and it has so much to offer in these troubled times.
"The international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids." -Dr. Strangelove
"The Jews colonized the USA in the early 20th century, that is indisputable."
To your point, Big Guy. From a recent Tucker Carlson interview on the relationship between banks and war. Yeah...it wasn't Lutherans who cobbled together this disgusting shit-show.
https://tuckercarlson.com/richard-werner-highlights-2
the USA is a colony of the jew. the only point of the USA government is to protect the jew and it illegal genocidal state.
"...Israel is a proxy fighter and if it stopped actually fighting and dying for the US...."
Really?
Which of Israel's wars or genocides or atrocities was for the USA?
What benefit has America received from being Israel's bitch? (Besides arms sales?)
"US forward base"
Really?
How many American troops are based on this "forward base"?
You're misunderstanding the situation.
Reality:
American bases in foreign countries:
Saudi--11
Kuwait--10
Bahrain--12
Oman--6
Jordan--2
Djibouti--2
Iraq--6
Turkey--13
Syria--4
Israel allows American military on its soil, but no permanent base.
"Why Is There No US Military Base in Israel?
The absence of a formal, permanent US military base in Israel, despite the robust and enduring strategic alliance between the two nations, is a consequence of several interwoven factors. These include political sensitivities, Israeli sovereignty concerns, historical regional dynamics, the nature of US security cooperation with Israel, and the geostrategic considerations that prioritize flexibility and regional acceptance."
https://thegunzone.com/why-is-there-no-us-military-base-in-israel/
Depends on your concept of 'benefit' I suppose - just today saw an anecdote from Yoram Ettinger about Lockheed Martin saving billions of dollars in R&D annually by essentially allowing the Israeli's to do their field testing on F35's etc.
I guess you have to remember most of the decisions are still made by old white blokes operating with the same tragically stupid and evil 19th century ideas about society that their grand-daddies did. As old fashioned as the phrase 'America's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East' sounds to us, it probably sounds like a great way of projecting force against the savages to every US president in the last 70 years. Although the Americans inherited the settler colony from the British, they've really taken the ball and run with it in that time. The Israelis, to their credit, have done such an effective job of hobbling any meaningful resistance to their agenda at both a cultural and governmental level with dual loyalty/passport holders and media kompromat ala Epstein Island, that its impossible to know where the dog ends and the tail begins anymore, as evidenced by the endless below the line discussions on it.
Ultimately, it matters not which is the host or parasite in the relationship anymore. Its been said often before, though it seems tragically and ironically naive in light of the last 2 years, that Palestine is one of those parts of the world that shows us what the capitalist overlords have in store for all of us in the long run - both the British and Americans have long demonstrated they're inseperablely commited to the Zionist project and will have to go down with the unsinkable ship. Sure I doubt the Americans would actually come to launching the nukes for Tel Aviv, but I suspect we'll be waiting a long time for Moscow or Beijiing to even think about trying to stop Israel's final solution v2.0 in Palestine either.
Ok, whatever you say.
Back to the issue: "Israel is a proxy fighter for the USA"
"'America's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East'"
That's just nonsense--and I say that with the utmost respect.
How many aircraft does/has America flown out of Israel?
The fact is that Saudi, Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Turkey, etc, etc, etc ALL host massive and numerous American military bases.
Does Israel, the "American aircraft carrier?"
Uh, no.
As mentioned earlier, the ONLY benefit the US receives from its subservience to that tiny Zionist enclave is weapons sales. And I guess that includes weapons testing. That doesn't make them our proxy, though.
Right, I think I understand what particular level of understanding we're operating on here, but for the sake of clarifying:
How would you characterize the relationship between successive governments of the United States/UK and Israel resulting in them operating in near lockstep for over half a century then? Coincidence? Like I said, it doesn't matter which is the dog and which is the tail, at this point. It's all rotten.
The aircraft carrier turn of phrase isn't mine and it isn't meant literally either so not sure why you're arguing that one. If you can't see how sustaining an aggressively expanionist, non-muslim ethno state in the middle east has suited the empire's broader designs over the last 70 years then I'm not sure how to help you man.
I completely agree, the perspective of EU winning this one is delusional nonsense. For one that this post misses, what about the renounce of taxing tech-giants gains? How can one see this as a victory at all?? BS
It’s interesting what you say. I’m Spanish, living in the UK. One of the most fascinating spectacles that I’ve witnessed from afar in the last thirty years is the Americanisation of Spain (?!).
Bear in mind this is a country that was more of less dragged kicking and screaming into NATO and the Euro (not so much the European Common Market, which was seen as a positive thing at the time). A country that despite admiring the American phenomenon to some extent, always had a healthy disregard for Anglosaxon and Northern European culture. A country that despite having six or seven regional languages (no dialects mind) had a sense of a strong common culture and history.
Where it failed at the time was in the general repression of free thought and personal freedom. That’s where the American ideology found a foothold. We couldn’t find our own path towards a healthy ideal of responsible democracy, so we modernised around US oriented values. So, for the first twenty years of our first ‘finally joining with the modern western world’ all was ok. But now?
Spanish society and culture has turned into a ridiculous anachronistic shitshow. Among the many divisions that have now developed (or perhaps increased) is the one between the acculturalised ‘moderns’ (of which I was one, born in ‘65) and a minority that hanker after the past (because we’re unable to imagine a synthesis).
What future does Spain have in the EU or even dare I say within the western fold? But the country is not bold enough to move with the tines and look to BRICS, although I think that’d be the truly Spanish thing to do.
I am Spanish also, living in Switzerland.
The issue is that Spanish “elites” are fully globalised elites.
With that in mind you can’t expect any kind of rebellion, they are part of such system.
From the king (who is as abject as Von der Leyen) to all the business millionaires class they are 90% part of the cabal who were educated in the UK, US, Switzerland…
You can compare it in some ways eith leaders of previous generations, who were much more Spanish. Juan Carlos, raised in Spain. Business man like Florentino, Amancio, Villar Mir etc while having a lot of criticable aspects were fully Spanish. They are in the twilight, and their heirs are part of the cabal.
In the cultural part also very few reaction, only the people associated with Gustavo Bueno.
99% of writers have fallen in a stupid adoration of the concept of “Europe and their culture”. Best book I ever read in the topic is “España contra Europa” of precisely Gustavo bueno.
The political games and divisions of the society are born from this cultural, and political progressive subjugation and there is very few it can be done to revert.
The hope lies in Hispanic American people advocating for bigger integration of the Hispanic world, culture, history, etc
But it is hard
I love your comment but deplore your last statement, because it is equivalent to what you have already done. Just because the language is shared, does not mean the culture is. Latin American culture is very distinct from Spanish culture, especially so with pre-EU Moderns Spain (and its distinct regions). Do not be deceived into believing that the rise of Hispanic culture in America will actually address any of the problems you have identified. All of the elites of Latin America already had the same globalist education decades before it happened to Spain.
Everything you both are describing that happened to Spain also happened to my country, New Zealand, albeit of a different flavour. Because we share the same language the absorption and "terraforming" of American values and culture upon us was even more radical and disgusting, only harder to identify and isolate. Again, do not be deceived into thinking that because there is a rise of Hispanic culture in America that it will be anything other than a change of flavour.
You’re right. And the same could be said of Great Britain. Though it’d be difficult for someone who only started living in England in the early 90s as an adult, to tell what was at the time imported from the US I still have been able to recognise the changes brought in the last 30 years. It’s easier when you have children and see the unfamiliar values they get taught, and changes in language.
Correct. You need to have been born no later than 1980 to really have a chance to properly quantify it.
Excellent comment. Deserves a higher profile than just as a reply to mine. You should post a version of it as an education in it own right!
Bravo Spain, the real Spain, that is.
Thanks Julliane for saying that. I’ll leave it where it is because I’m sure that Simplicius’ readers are the kind that will wade through 100% of the comments even if it means staying up beyond bed time! They’ll see it.
Well said. This is also the case for all former Warsaw Pact states that are recent additions to the European Union.
CCG Trump thinks you're already in BRICS, so why not.
Hahaha, I was thinking of Trump’s faux pas when I wrote that!
Same in Italy, I'm afraid!
The UK is exactly the same, to our detriment - entirely Americanised. Look at Boris Johnson's absurd "Pacific Tilt" to support the US in the Far East.
What business does the UK have in the Far East threatening China, like a little terrier barking away at an Alsation from the other side of a fence?
The UK has myriad problems and can't even defend its own borders; it's armed forces don't have the numbers to last one month against those it delusionally regards as "peers" (Russia, China); it doesn't have the industrial base to sustain a protracted conflict.
See also our government's obsession with events in the Middle East, wasting our limited stock of missiles assisting in Israel's defence.
Or the hysteria triggered by George Floyd's death a few years ago.
Ever seen a dog bark?
Europe could have done the decent thing, the right thing, with Russia.
But, oh no, let's see if we can teach those Russians another European lesson.
The $ devaluated to the € more than the tariff: that's the point. It was written in Miran's paper.
I got that attacking Trump gives likes, but there are many other true arguments to use.
Please see this:
Trump's Tariff Terrorism....https://montanarcc.substack.com/p/trumps-tariff-terrorism-exposes-total
"The only ray of hope, at least in regard to the topic of tariffs, is the following: the overall tariff plan was never really meant to be an isolated cash grab, but rather the beginning of a structural re-engineering of the entire financial system, first the US and, presumably, the rest of the world, as consequence. This is evidenced by Trump’s repeated invocations of nineteenth-century US, and his desire to replace the income tax with tariffs."
I think Trump understands at least on some level that tax receipts are insufficient to fund the government and service all the various forms of debt and entitlements. This is a severe danger to the American economy.
In the long term you can grow your manufacturing base, but unfortunately that's a decades long process and will also require a re-ordering of the school system.
In the shorter term, you have to both raise taxes and devalue the currency. Trump is effectively creating an indirect sales tax. Realistically there is zero chance the income tax will be repealed. He is also guaranteed to nominate an easy money Fed Chairman who will slash overnight rates which will in the long term depreciate the dollar even more. Gold owners will do very well over the next few years.
It's a brilliantly shrewd political move. He's instituting two massive tax increases on everybody that will never go away, which will of course hit the middle and lower classes hardest, and doing it as the president of the party whose economic mantra is "middle class tax cuts."
Really? The Civil War showed, that the tariffs, payed by the Southern part of the US, were funding the majority of US budget. On the other hand, the tariffs allowed the North to build its economy around industrial production.
Its only a stealth tax if the middle and working classes continue to buy imported goods.
My question would be what exactly is imported that consumers cannot swap out for US products?
BMWs? Porches?? Rolex watches? Nice cheese?
And what things in the US to buy which are not imported in whole or parts?
What about China and Vietnam my friend? Clothes, shoes, toys, electronic goods. All very largely imported.
Most of our consumer goods at all price points are produced overseas. The middle and working classes don't have much choice in the matter.
There's certainly a lot of products we can produce, but building out that industry is something that will take years. In the meantime, we are left with paying higher prices.
Look, I work for an American manufacturer. We produce high-end scientific instruments and the corresponding reagents, and we sell those all over the world. I'm all for increased manufacturing in the US.
But let's be realistic. Basic low margin consumer products are not going to be produced in the US in large quantities. It's just too expensive. High-skilled manufacturing like what we do will bring much better wages.
OK that's a fair point about consumer goods. I had assumed that there was at least some degree of basic item manufacturing in the US like clothing etc, but I stand corrected.
My only comment would be that this manufacturing should return to the US, and it represents a great opportunity to make this happen, but as you say this will not happen over night.
This comment is aso addressed to the two people above who made valid points.
The Moose, if it's going to decimate the American middle class to further support the ultra-rich how is that a "brilliantly shrewd political move" mate?
Sounds more like a recipe for disaster to me. 🤔
It's shrewd on the part of the ultra-rich.
In the short term may be. But I think we're on the same side here. I'm not telling you anything you don't know.
Reading this dissection of Trump's "historic" EU deal, I can't help but think of Majorian's brief reign in the 5th century. Here was the last truly capable Western Roman emperor, announcing grand reforms and military campaigns that temporarily restored Roman authority across Gaul and Spain. Contemporary chroniclers hailed his victories, coins were minted celebrating the "renewal of the empire," and for a moment it seemed Rome had found its footing again.
Of course, three years later he was dead, assassinated by the very generals who had grown fat off the empire's decay. His fleet rotted in Spanish harbors, his administrative reforms crumbled, and the Vandals resumed their raids with renewed vigor.
The parallels are striking. Majorian too understood that perception mattered as much as reality in holding a dying system together. He knew the importance of grand gestures, of making the provinces believe Rome was still the center of the world. But like Trump's $750 billion LNG promises that the EU can't actually deliver, Majorian's restoration was built on foundations that had already rotted away.
The real tragedy isn't that these "dead cat bounces" fool anyone anymore—it's that they prevent the kind of honest reckoning that might actually lead to renewal. Rome's final emperors spent their last decades issuing increasingly hollow edicts from Ravenna while the Ostrogoths carved up Italy. At least Aurelian and Diocletian, facing their own crises two centuries earlier, had the clarity to see the empire as it truly was and rebuild from there.
Perhaps the most Roman thing about our current moment is this: even as the East builds new cities and breaks ground on engineering marvels that would make Trajan weep with envy, we're still here arguing over whether our latest PR spectacle constitutes a real victory or just another gilded funeral mask.
Excellent comment. Thank you for the time you took to post it.
Interesting observation. The difference between the Roman empire and the US empire is, the US empire has the US dollar, which still reigns supreme despite what the BRICS are attempting to do, which will take years to fully implement. In the meantime, Trump is taking bold steps to reshape the US dollar to make it more robust, and more useful.
Lol, I don't think anyone was suggesting the Romans used the US dollar. You seemed to have missed the point.
from where i stand it looks like you missed his point.
That was my point 👉
. <-- this is the point!
Help! ....I've lost the Point.
“to reshape the reshape the US dollar to make it more robust and useful”…comment clearly originates from someone who believes it’s impossible to overdraw his bank account if there are still checks in the checkbook.
Yes, the hegemon USD remains the prettiest pig in the basket of pig currencies.
Like it or not, the US dollar is king.
Gunboat diplomacy works.
For now....BRICS🤩) !
Lol, BRICs are no match for the Empire.
Well if the vast majority of humanity choose to begin trading outside the dollar then what power does the empire wield? The dollar is merely money in the US and international trade. Though ingrained in the global financial system its value is only based on faith, but faith can be fickle especially when there is no trust.
That word "if" is doing a lot of work.
A King that is rapidly losing it's clothes.
Gunboat diplomacy that can't intimidate the Houthis.
The rulers of the Houthis have no western bank accounts to freeze, no western assets to seize, no shiny western toys to take away, and consequently no fucks to give.
The rulers of rest of the world have all these things and consequently are quite pliable. For was it not written of old that "freedom's just another word, for nothing left to lose"?
The Spanish (and before them the Aztecs) spent decades fighting and losing a guerilla war with the Chichimecs of Mexico, until some Spanish friar came up with the brilliant idea of assimilating the Chichmecs and buying them off with gewgaws, after which the fearsome Chichimecs soon were pacified.
This is doubtless news to you but the dollar serves at least two purposes: as a unit of account in trade, and as a currency denomination in finance. Perhaps it’s not too late to get an internship at the Fed. OTOH, you could do some reading.
You're right—the denarius held reserve currency status for centuries even as it was debased, and unseating the current dollar will indeed take decades.
But unlike Rome, which at least had real silver backing its currency initially, we're now creating stablecoins explicitly backed by the very treasuries that represent our $36 trillion problem—it's like minting new denarii backed by promises to pay in old denarii. [I went deeper into stablecoins here: https://no01.substack.com/p/debt-dollars-and-digital-delusions]
How is "real silver backing" relevant when you can just reduce the amount of silver in the coin?
Anyway, your observation is correct to the extent that any currency that is based on debt is a currency that is unsustainable. But US treasuries need a home, and the stablecoin system buys the dollar more time. Time is on America's side, not the EU's side. This is a power struggle between the EU bankers and the American bankers, and Trump is getting the American bankers on side to collapse the EU, which presents an existential threat to America.
I had an article somewhere with numbers about stablecoins. If I remember correctly the whole crypto-ecosystem has something like a market cap of 4T. To have stablecoins provide a lifeline to the US treasuries, it would need to be universally adopted like yesterday (ie: infeasible).
I don't know about the bankers, but I do agree that the EU is going down. We should go back to nation states, not trying to be a geopolitical block.
yes please, and make the euro implode.
hear hear
Someone holding pure silver would be in a better position than someone with only a supply of official coins. The government demanded everyone pay their taxes and official fees and would also pay their workers (legionnaires etc.) in its increasingly crappy debased coins—no matter how little silver was left in them. But in the real economy people knew the difference.
If you had pure silver (from a mine, trade, or old coins), you could trade it privately for way more of those official coins than someone going the other way.
Basically, the state pretended its coins were valuable, but the market wasn't fooled. Your raw silver kept its real buying power, while the guy stuck with only official coins watched his savings evaporate.
It is a clear trend, but on the other side they are always succesful in coming up with a new financial hat trick. There is a whole bunch of goldbug doomers out there that are always wrong. No signs of a stock market crash. Currency is going to be linked to the peoples ability to operate in a digital environment, at all levels, and there is still a long way to go along that track. Anything goes to freeze gold.
I've been following this space for the better part of 20 years and I am astonished by the time it takes from decay to collapse! So, I adjusted my expectations. I probably will still see the change to a gold-backed trading system in my lifetime. Stablecoins can improve transactions quite a lot. They're instant and cheap ways to transfer money. However, one thing they are **NOT**. And that's a store of value.
I went deeper into this here: https://no01.substack.com/i/167980420/the-trade-settlement-reality (search for "trade settlement")
However, the trust is eroding in the current fiat system, and bitcoin/gold/silver are signaling that. My personal opinion is that TPTB funnel all their attention to the crypto markets to sway peoples attention (and especially money) away from real PMs. You just can't print PMs, but you can pump yet another crypto coin (read: https://no01.substack.com/p/the-big-short as to what is happening in the silver space)
Thank you for your comment. I was actually subscribed to your substack, which is one of the best around. For some reason you are increasingly active in geopolitics. So, from your post I infer that Bitcoin is a con game and will inevitably tank. I thought it was the perfect answer for a new kind of global business travellers, interested in instant liquidity everywhere, and of course, tax evasion and off shore money hiding. The transactional security appeared to be a major pro too. But the energy consumption seems unsustainable. The price seems also increasingly unreal. Not to mention the transaction costs and other cryptos competition. By the way, do you have an opinion on Cardano? Finally, your article on silver was epic. With a 92-1 ratio you are talking about a 44,4 ratio, almost twofold. It could go even higher, considering the implications of such a squeeze for the Ukranian war. The people, banks, able to use the Russian proven deposits as collateral, will go a long way. At the moment, they can still do it via Singapur, Malasia, Hong Kong, the Emirates and other financial hubs. Russian counter sanctions and the ballon will burst.
Thanks for your kind words.
However one note: I'm not "active" in geopolitics. I just dump my brain on how I see the world ;-). Getting on in years, it seems that my wisdom increased somehow. I'm starting to get things more and more right.
Bitcoin: I think it is (being) pumped up to divert funds from REAL assets. Speculation and gambling mentality trumps long-term wisdom.
The REAL game-changer is *not* BTC, *not* ETH, ... It's the blockchain. "tax evasion/money hiding": how? The blockchain is public (the whole point of it). Just kill all endpoints (crypto exchanges) and you kill the coin. But the blockchain (and then I'm thinking SOL/XRP or even USDC/T), they can be used for transactions. But not as a store of value.
Cardano: never heard of it. But I'm not really following the crypto markets that much. For that I have Sam 😋.
I'm digging myself into Silver Miners at the moment, much more promising setup.
"In the meantime, Trump is taking bold steps to reshape the US dollar to make it more robust, and more useful."
And those steps are what? Tariffs? QE? Devaluation?
If you are right, why the rest of the world is avoiding the US$ more and more, turning to their own currency in bilateral trade?
What I see here is one big assumption - that the USA is still the center of the earth and it's not anymore, not even remotely. The fat lady has left the building already, not merely stopped singing. But as long as the US citizens can make believe that they are still part of a so called exceptional nation, they'll swallow the "bold steps' nonsense, it's called cognitive dissonance.
It doesnt mean the dollar is not king anymore, it means the US cannot be trusted, but only a few countries are sovereign enough to protect themselves from American extorsion.
Yoni mate, I claim no expertise, but if the US can't be trusted, then neither can its fiat currency. Does that make sense?
Doesn't matter if you trust the emperor or not if you still have to use his money.
But F F that was literally one of the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. Constant devaluing of the currency destroyed people's faith in it.
Actually, the devaluation began hundreds of years before the fall of the Roman Empire. Bullion content fluctuated in the meantime.
The bigger problem was that one didn't have to use the emperor's money.
Tariffs are the price of admission to anybody who still wants to use US dollars, and Trump is making US dollars more attractive at a time when the BRICS are struggling to put together an alternative.
Politics is defined as "the art of the possible" and Trump is doing what is possible. Give him credit for that.
This is an extremely dynamic global political environment. At least Trump is doing something. It may be incremental, but it's what can be done.
I'm not saying this is a sustainable solution, because it isn't. It buys us some time. You simply can't base a monetary system on debt, but Trump can't do anything about that right now. The collapse must occur, and will occur. The usual solution the bankers use to "fix" a debt-based money collapse is world war. I am not optimistic. Let's be clear: this is a bad situation. But if Trump wasn't President, we'd probably already be in a world war. If Trump pulls this off, it buys us a little time. First and foremost, the EU must be crushed, it is the ultimate evil.
"...and Trump is making US dollars more attractive at a time when the BRICS are struggling to put together an alternative."
Assumptions and more assumptions - where is it clear that the BRICS+ are struggling to put together an alternative?
Define struggling or is it merely working steady but slowly towards a real, sustainable creation of a payment-system that's free from danger of coercion, bullying and sanction?
2nd point that I see as a flaw in your argumentation is the assumption of division between USA & EU.
This is for the plebs to swallow but since capital has no loyalty, knows no borders and is intertwined in an incestuous way, there is no EU crush - if so it's political because the capital factions are in general only two: industrial capital and financial capital and even those two are intertwined (see Black Rock for example).
Trump can stand on his head, the powers that be will decide what's going to happen and Trump can play along or vanish into the dustbin of irrelevance - another one will be ready to step in and do their bidding.
1. "working steady but SLOWLY"
Slowly is the key word there. In fairness, it's not for lack of effort on their part.
2. If you can't see the division between the USA and the EU then you aren't looking very carefully.
He may only dream while asleep at night, which limits his visions.
I am in the EU and I see the politicians of the EU groomed and US-americanized for decades. You have no chance to get to a certain point of influence in the EU if you have not been to the US, study there or worked there and be groomed whilst being there.
Same is true for the CEO's and other upper management of the big companies, they are international owned, not nationally - that was a long time ago.
The EU is an appendix of US interests in total - militarily, economically and culturally.
What we see is show for the plebs and it seems to be working - the show must go on.
The world war has been sung for almost 4 years, we are at least at the 7th. What you still haven't grasped, only the tribal chiefs trade, the object of the trade (the serf) serves the new master as he served the old one. Tell yourself that it is difficult to understand the politics and the movements of one and the other unless you are a moron and degenerate like them. The societal did not arrive by humanism, ideology, it is the form of politics that requires no skills.
lol - trumptard. zion don is doing what his jew masters tell him...
Being the FED independent from the government, tarifs are one of the few things a president can do, the other being the budget or closing agencies. Again, I think we should focus on long term trends rather than on stunning PR or breaking news. The US is all about money making. Crypto and stablecoinds are a response to the inability of making money with dollars. On the other side, there is an structural inability to build infrastructure or have a sense of whats the common good. The US is all about me growing dont step on my lawn. When you look to an area like South Dallas, they only have two tiny light rail stations. This is structural. This is not going to change. If anything, the only infrastructure America has built with public money are military bases and forts both inside the US and all over the world. In the meantime, street violence and shootings are rising. Health, education and real estate are choking the people. This is not going to change. And forget about closing the border. The migrant labor extraction is critical to create capital. Migrants will be paid less and hidden, as a new slave working force. No signs of foreign policy changes either. Its all about capitalism and Trump is not going to change that.
But if they have capitalism, then these tiny rail stations show us there is no need for more. Here in Europe we have these fancy railways, costing endless amounts of taxpayers money. If you could earn a fortune by building any form of infrastructure, then you would find entrepreneurs and investors queuing up.
Masterful analysis.
The decay of the US and the West is obvious and irreversible.
Trump Is sinking into increased mental instability, one clown-show after another, following in the shuffle-steps of Biden: Western Europe is 'led' by feckless opportunists who are panicking because their economies are being ground down by American cut-off of ceap Russian energy and the vast superiority and innovativeness of China.
The Von der Leyen fellation is at best a delaying tactic while these dwarfish ninnies try to come up with some way to save their "garden."
Basically, they are assisting in their nations' deindustrialization and devolvement into cheap labor sources and canon fodder for American attempts to pick Russia apart.
One looks forward to their forceful removal and replacement.
Only a full about-face, resumption of Russian energy and intelligent trade deals with China can prevent the inevitable collapse into mayem and ruin.
In other words, decoupling from the US, embracing the East and joining the sales and economic boom that's building there and in the South. China will happily assist: it has the resources and market opportunity for Europe to make a good start replacing the American market.
The world economy will shape up as multilateral, minus one - as Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said.
Cool comment and even cooler moniker. I wanted to call my artisan bakery “6a6a ya9a “ … it never happened. Cheers
Thank you :-)
How about this for another parallel between late Roman and modern American imperial collapse?
In the late 5th century the Emperor Majorian (in coordination with the eastern Emperor Leo I) issued an edict prohibiting the theft of stone from old buildings. Punishments included not only fines but also floggings and the amputations of hands, and not just for the thieves but also for the buildings' owners.
A solid idea, but the edict did little to halt the decline of the empire, things were too far gone.
Fast forward to today, and we have an epidemic of people, some meth-heads and junkies, some not, ripping out copper wire from stores, factories and residences, some of them abandoned, some not.
In both cases, ancient and modern, the desire for short term and small scale profit just makes long term and large scale maintenance and renewal much more difficult.
A cascading destructive cycle where individual opportunism makes society weaker, leading to more destruction.
I have seed grain that I should be ploughing into the earth in the spring to harvest much more grain in the autumn.
But that's hard work and it takes too damn long!
I'll just eat it all today, because if I don't, those junkie barbarians will come and eat it all tomorrow!
The U.S. is going to need all the energy it can produce, in future years. Exporting gas today is foolish, dangerous strategy.
Trump shortened the time for Russia to respond from 50 down to 11 more days. lol
So, what will Trumpster decide to do after Russia doesn't comply?
He'll do something silly.
He already said he'll just add some half-hearted tariffs--not on Russia, but on other countries that buy Russian oil. He's run out of ideas.
Go South, they say. South, towards… those pesky ungovernable people! ❤️🐈⬛💙🇷🇺❤️
It's what Trump never said that makes me curious, Simplicius.
It could add up to nothing, maybe not.
Thanks for the great writing you do.
Don't discard the possibility of kinetic action
Iran was attacked exactly on the 61st day of a 60-day ultimatum, which Trump gloated about publicly, then he talked about giving them two more weeks but the US joined the bombing mere two days later.
Given that Lindseay Graham replied "Ask the ayatollah" to the question "what happens on the 51st day", that should all be taken as a real threat for much more than economic war.
After Putin swallowed without respondong the strategic aviation attack too, Russia is wide open to anything now
To be clear GM. If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that the USA will attack Russia militarily to protect Ukraine.
Aren't you the same person who always asking for Russia to nuke London, Warsaw, Berlin, and Paris because the Americans won't do anything about it.
Is the USA a paper tiger or not?
The US is a bully that is betting that Russia doesn't have the stones.
11 days? Interesting timing.
Trump gave China an August 12th deadline for coming to terms on a tariff deal.
This is a message to China, not Russia. The Chinese will recognize this is a sign of weakness, not strength. But I think the Chinese will be smart enough to make some token concessions so Trump will be able to call it a "win" and move on.
You would have been an excellent and renowned psychoanalyst capable of deciphering the erratic actions of a degenerate creature.
Trump is inarguably the right man to lead a nation of erratic degenerates.
Similarly, as dementia-addled second-rate gangster, Biden was also perfectly qualified to lead the USA.
Democracy: ain't it grand
<<Trump is inarguably the right man to lead a nation of erratic degenerates.>>
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
I'm not so sure. China is still withholding rare earth minerals. The recent Ursula Fond of Lying trip with her EU compatriots to China ended in disaster. The Chinese bused them around like cattle instead of in a limousine motorcade, had no officials meet and greet them and a 3 day trip turned into 1.
The Chinese respect Trump, so they will play along. On the other hand, the Chinese have nothing but contempt for the EU, an attitude which is perfectly right and just.
Thank God for the Chinese, at least they are run by responsible people.
why would they respect zion don?
Brilliant question!
That don't respect him in the least. The Chinese, like the Russians, respect that the formalities must be followed in international diplomacy.
It did take some time but after six months we arrived to the point where the positions of Putin, Zelensky and Trump are all clearly presented. And there is no way to bridge the differences with diplomacy.
What is clear is often quite ambiguous and misleading.
And Putin's position is effectively begging to be allowed to surrender, yet even that is not enough
Your Putin hatred has made you into an idiot. You've been full of crap in your comments for a long time. Just give it up.
Trump is frantically trying to do anything to distract people from Epstein.
Doesn't matter, it's just one more tool to be used to mousetrap Trump into war.
You are reasonable and pragmatic Simp. That’s why I am a paying sub. I have been sorely disappointed in DT over the last month or so. He appears to have thrown in with the very people who threw him out in 2020.
My opinion is they removed him thinking that there were no more serious wars left to fight. Also they wanted to get to hoppin on the 2030 agenda. I have a PDF of that agenda from the WEF in 2021. In 2022 they began to learn otherwise courtesy of the Russia/Ukraine conflict. I suspect they thought with sanctions and a formidable UK Army (it certainly was) would be enough to break Russia. After that was finished then China would bend the knee.
As we all know it didn’t go down like that. I believe they want Trump for the Patriotism and Nationalism boost. This would be for military recruitment and potential conventional wars. Once again they underestimated his supporters same way they did with the Covid vaccines.
I was a staunch supporter. I certainly have NO regrets working to get him elected. He’s far better than the left. But I am a free thinker and he appears to be doing the bidding of the Neocons. The very same people who backstabbed him at every turn. I expected more out of him. I won’t make that mistake again.
The problem Luke, is that you are far from being a free thinker. You think inside the matrix, bro. You are more lost than you think.
Meant to put a disclaimer on my post. To you fucking retards on the right (I’m on right too btw) that think everything is controlled or scripted don’t bother replying to me. Some of you people are truly hopeless. You’re so hopeless you don’t even know it. You have ZERO business reading this much less discussing it. Go outside and get some fresh air and try and accomplish something before the black helicopters come for you.
Great punch, Luke. Not sure if it's a KO or not?
Surely you jest, Alphabet. The man is a loony tune, and you look up to him. lol What a pair! lol
We all live in our own Matrix, Denis. We are well ahead of the rest who remain oblivious. The key out of it though is to reunite (or at least see as a malignant construct) the political dichotomies like Left and Right. These are all traps to be carefully navigated on the path leading to liberation.
Most of what you say is well said, but I see the majority who think and live within the matrix or big machine, and the select few who are on the outside looking in. That's what makes a free thinker. Loony tune has no clue what I'm saying cause he's too deep in the hole to think his way out of it, man.
I am always bemused when a US citizen refers to the "left" as if there is such an animal there.
The left was killed in halfway in to last century. There is the far right, and the extreme far right.
Obama finished off the last of the Left. Trump is looking like an Obama for the Right, designed to assimilate the paleo-conservatives and independent Libertarian types into the neocon borg.
left - right is fake. it is jew vs aryan .
Trump was a New York Democrat until he recognized he could never win their nomination process.
For over a century, the D's were the party of Rothschild and the R's the party of Rockefeller. Two competing but mostly co-operating dynasties. That ended in 2017 with the death of David Rockefeller. They have been replaced in both political parties by a loose coalition of billionaires, which explains the current chaotic approach to just about everything.
To borrow a question from "In Bruges" (great film. Highly recommended. 5 stars) which side are the Vietnamese on?
It is time for us to prepare for a post-Trump Populist World.
lol. Retard worked for Zion don. Red tie vs blue tie idiocy - the problem is the Jew. Always has been.
Free thinker ? Name the Jew.
https://ia600602.us.archive.org/1/items/ThePoisonousMushroom_655/The%20Poisonous%20Mushroom.pdf
I have said it for a long time now - Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
That said, everything Trump does now is a frenetic attempt to distract us from Epstein. Of course, the neocons surrounding Trump are well aware of this are are happy to use it for their own ends.
Now, concerning MAGA, MAGA is first and foremost a cult of personality. Emphasis on the word "cult". It is funny, watching them make excuses for their hero, even as he betrays them over and over and over.
Sure there’s a lot of people in MAGA who are covering for him. Most of them seem to be in the Boomer age group (my parents for example). But like the Covid vaccines there’s a good portion of us that are independent minded in a sense. And unlike the left we don’t shut up and do what we’re told. I talk to these people everyday and many have or are losing faith.
That’s all this ever was; one last chance to try and fix things with civility. Trump was simply the best option we had to attempt that. I have noticed many that are turning away are the firearm owning types and former Veterans.
Mostly as regards vaccines i hear excuses and raging cognitive dissonance
COVID doesn't exist, the Chinese invented it in a lab, Trump defeated it, using a vaccine that doesn't work!
Covid doesn’t exist is my fav. Damn I want to just shake some of those people. Was a time when I thought they might even be controlled opposition or paid trolls. The purpose would be to make those of us with a legitimate concern about the covid vax look bonkers. You know like how it was rushed through at “WARP SPEED.” Lol.
Very few humans think for themselves or are even capable of doing so.
Consider how stupid most humans are, I am not really sure whether that is not a good thing, all considered. So not like cats!
For that matter, most humans do not want to think for themselves. For most humans most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of other humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the humans they can trust to have their backs.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever they have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Very well said Cat. Learned there actually exists a cryptocurrency called fartcoin. Not only does it exist but it has a market cap of $1.4B. I couldn’t believe it. My friend is into crypto and he told me how smart the people were for getting into it and making 3000% return.
He frustrates me but I could never kick him out of the group lol.
Oh my, it is all of but fore the screaming ............ of the popcorn vendors posing as leadership in the US. I just looked up the numbers on the new dam in China. It is projected to have about 91 times the power generation of the Hoover dam. Stick a fork in it baby.
Thank you Simplicius.
Those pesky Chinese. First they flood the market with cheap and well made products and now look. They are flooding the actual market!
Yeah ............. they just don´t get it! Have a great day abc.
Considering that one of the criticisms of that dam is that the area is geologically unstable, they may wind up flooding more than the market. I wouldn't want to live downstream of it....
They said the same of the Three Gorges Dam, and it did trigger a major earthquake in 2013, a decade after it was built. The dam was not affected.
It also slightly slowed the earth's rotation...
https://scienceillustrated.com/nature/massive-structure-may-have-changed-earths-rotation
I wasn't speaking of the dam triggering a quake.... I just read comments of some chinese geologists about the potential for a catastrophic quake in the area. If it were to happen and cause a failure of the dam it would be a very bad day for those downstream. I'm certainly no geologist so I don't know how similar the areas between the Three Gorges Dam and this one are. I know that those geologists were opposed to the building of the new dam, but I have no way of judging how much their opinion was swayed merely by the fact of their opposition to it.
It´s possible. But, I remember a lot of criticism over the Three Gorges dam when it was being built. Interestingly that one alone puts out over 20 times the annual TWh production of the entire US electrical production as of 2023 figures I read. So, I tend to go with the Chinese on this one. The new dam is projected to have three times the output of Three Gorges. We will see.
Have a good one bemused.
"Stick a fork in it baby."
This^^.. Why would the Chinese and Russians, et al want war when they can win it all in the marketplace?! The western empire totters on failing legs.The Dept of War became the misnamed Dept of Defense, on Aug 10, 1949...more imperial bilge larded onto the criminal yarn our masters were spinning. For the sake of full disclosure, can we change it back to the more honest, Dept of War? Thanks.
Ukraine is the Elephant in the room. Its collapse (this fall) will change everything, but it has disappeared from the US news cycle. Trump walks a tightrope in this. He got a foretaste of MAGA rebellion with bombing Iran and got lucky when they temporarily backed down as did Israel. Russia will get its buffer in eastern Ukraine, and Trump will find some way of taking credit for the end of fighting, or at least credit for not getting actively involved with more boots on the ground than are already there.
Dick Minnis
removingthecataract.substack.com
You're sounding like your other blog a lot lately. Nothing wrong with that but the styles cross-pollinate.
Sometimes you've got to spice things up a bit for entertainment purposes.
I came here to understand the latest Euro-war but stayed for the brilliant comments. If the Europeans spent time learning about their last century they might step back from the precipice of yet another debacle. Didn't gramps spend any time lecturing the kids about the ridiculous bloodletting that only benefits the money-minders? Oh well...
So..."the monstrosity of global finance and capital which has grown since the post-war era likely cannot be undone with even these far-looking and good-intentioned half-measures." Great to see Trump struggling against these nefarious forces with his up, down, all-around tariffs. Impressive, particularly given that Trump has surrounded himself with Wall Street grifters, bankers, real estate magnates and hedge fund managers. All helping him return to the good old days of low taxes and few regulations under William McKinley. You know, when JP Morgan ran the banks, Rockefeller ran oil, and Fisk and Gould ran the railroads. Such good times! Look at Trump's cabinet. He's not fighting against finance capitalism and corporate power any more than he is fighting for peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. Trump IS the Deep State. There are several factions of the Deep State jockeying for power. Completely normal. None represents the American people. Sane Lefties gave up on the Democrats years ago. At what point do sane Righties give up on Trump and the Republicans?
The answer to that question died with Jeffery Epstein.
Hate to quibble but JE is likely running an orphanage in Israel. Maybe face putty alterations (maybe not?!) and dick enhancement. Doing it for the children...
Such a philanthropist.
Trump is not Deep State. He is too stupid to be Deep State.
Trump is merely a jumped up version of that loudmouth knowitall, the sort you can find at any corner bar.
Those humans who have more tolerance for drunks than I have know that this loudmouth can be easily manipulated. Trump is much the same.
He's a tool. Easily manipulated and does what he's told--the job of both American and European political leadership. Money and its security state enforcers are behind the curtain.
Trump is a big tadpole in the small puddle which is Europe. A tadpole needs a puddle. The puddle doesn’t understand the tadpole, but has no choice but to accept its residency.
A Fish and Pond analogy probably overstates the scale of this non event.
Likely it will have no more reality than his releasing of his former buddy Epstein’s files.
"A Fish and Pond analogy probably overstates the scale of this non event."
Not at all...
https://www.1260.org/Mary/Text/Text_Pushkin_The_Fisherman_and_the_Fish_en.htm
Excellent tale , I will have to ponder on it , thanks 🙏
Still pondering on the fish tale. Allow me to offer this in return which I came across yesterday:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thefoxandthebowl/p/a-new-name?r=2jojoi&utm_medium=ios
It occurs to me just now , that old woman in the fish tale’s mentality, aligns perfectly with that of the Zionist jews. May her fate be theirs.