MW—Trump continues to gaslight the American public—or tries to—regarding how he’s going from one victory to the next against Iran. I’m genuinely curious whether he believes this line about how ‘Iran will collapse after the midterms, so just vote for me,’ or whether he’s simply cynically attempting to jawbone the price of oil down a bit to somehow sneak past the midterms. And then try to figure out some sort of exit. As John Mearsheimer is fond of saying, the MOU was a surrender document that Trump signed, but now he’s trying to back out of it—but Iran keeps insisting on its terms. Which shows that Trump’s word is worthless—not worth the paper he signs. Like Mearsheimer I’m deeply skeptical of the escalation-after-the-midterms narrative

D.O.—The deep state is defined as a fluid, spontaneous network of elite stakeholders across intelligence, military, finance, and lobbying sectors. It is not an organized secret society but a dynamic system that preserves its own influence and interests (2:14-2:57).
Lack of Ideology: The system is described as being inherently pragmatic, using ideologies like socialism or capitalism merely as tools to perpetuate its own existence and homeostatic equilibrium (22:15-23:01).
The US Case Study: The speaker uses the United States as a primary example, highlighting mechanisms like lobbying, “dark money” in politics, and private military contracting as perfectly legal—yet deeply corrupt—ways the deep state exerts influence and shapes domestic and foreign policy.

SIMPLI—Good ol’ Western rags and their 4-dimensional meta-logic. Ukraine is both suffering the lion’s share of losses and destruction, but somehow winning. Russia is both losing and has no men to ply a “deadlocked” battlefield, yet is ready to invade Europe from every direction with an unstoppable phantom army.

Also, if Putin’s “stuck army” is being contained and slaughtered piecemeal in Ukraine, wouldn’t a ceasefire be the most dangerous possible outcome, as it would free his “stuck soldiers” to come invade Europe? Yet it is the Europeans who are desperate to freeze the “already stuck” Russian Army along the current line of contact, and free it to potentially march elsewhere.

Things that make you go hmm. (If your IQ’s higher than your diastolic pressure, that is.)

Virtually none of the logic out of the dim-witted Euro-circus can any longer even pass the sanity test.

It truly is the case, that the circus has left but the clowns stayed behind.

EA—Trump has violated US law by waging war without Congressional Authorization. He has threatened annihilation of a country and its people. From a psychological point of view, this is deranged. From a legal point of view, it violates the basic principles of the UN charter. Waging or even threatening war is illegal under international law, and by extension, since the US is part of the UN Treaty, it violates US law.
Why has no one in Congress, the Senate or any visible political leader condemned it and called for impeachment or at minimum, removal from office under the 25th Amendment?

BL—How Sensitive is cross-cultural psychology to the difference between capitalist and socialist societies in dealing with acculturation?
How incisive is cross-cultural psychology in perceiving the attempts of capitalist’s colonial and imperialistic tendencies to justify forcing people to move under the adverse conditions it creates? How perceptive is cross-cultural psychology to the fact that most people are not immigrants, but refugees or even slaves? How good is it in revealing how prominent it is that native people being invaded is more common than exceptional, with the plight of Palestinians being the worst case. How discerning is cross-cultural psychology to the class basis of acculturation? Is it conscious that the acculturation process will be easier for upper-middle class people and middle class acculturates than working class folks?

PE—In imperial systems such as we have become, people are defined by their ruling beast, and Americans are seen around the world as facsimiles of the vile animalcule that runs roughshod over our Congressional bordello and putrified Supreme Court, so that his infantile pratfalls are taken as ours along with his sordid crimes.

If the damage to what is left of our decaying nation were only a matter of his infantile tantrum follies it would be derided and ridiculed by an incredulous world but might be soon forgotten.

If limited to absurdities such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, building a gilt White House ballroom, or a gigantic triumphal arch with no triumph, painting the Reflecting Pool, or renaming the Kennedy Center for himself, such jejune idiocies might be awkwardly explained as products of a diseased mind.

His real disasters, though, are likely irreversible, and perhaps fatal to the nation.