AMERICAN DUPLICITY

JAY JANSON—The many bloody and thieving wars ordered by President Obama should make people recall how Obama as a candidate for president ran as a peace candidate, and so be cautioned not to be fooled with the present promising of both this years candidates to end America’s forever wars. Recently, President Trump called the Vietnam War “a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker.”  With all President Trump’s macabre and bizarre use of US military, including assassination and deadly sanctions, and mainstream media’s consistent wars promoting, the world is prone to forget how candidate Trump was the most dramatic American denouncer of US wars in history. 

ERIC ZUESSE—Furthermore, since the less-educated persons aspire to be more-educated, they are — even without knowing it — aspiring to become less open to contrary views, instead of to become more open to such views. One bad consequence of this is: it strangulates imaginativeness, openness, and creativity, in favor of being rote, rigid, and bureaucratic. Another bad consequence of it is that the authority-figures, in such a society, are, in some important ways, actually inferior to the rest of the population. Moreover, America’s colleges and universities are not increasing their students’ open-mindedness (as they should) but the exact opposite — they are reducingtheir students’ open-mindedness.

RT.COM—Many industry leaders and some of the biggest US corporations included on the S&P 500 index are now challenging the tariffs. In addition to electric carmaker Tesla, which is seeking a cancellation of tariffs along with a refund for duties already paid, other big-name producers such as Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo are suing the US government. The long list of plaintiffs, totaling around 3,500 according to Reuters, also includes the operator of major US pharmacy store chain Walgreen, retail firms from various spheres such as Pep Boys, Home Depot and Target Corporation, as well as clothing company Ralph Lauren and guitar manufacturer Gibson Brands among others. 

PEPE ESCOBAR—As President Putin has made it very clear over and over again, the US is no longer “agreement capable” . As for the “rules-based international order”, at best is a euphemism for privately controlled financial capitalism on a global scale. The Russia-China strategic partnership has made it very clear, over and over again, that against NATO and Quad expansion their project hinges on Eurasia-wide trade, development and diplomatic integration. Unlike the case from the 16th century to the last decades of the 20th century, now the initiative is not coming from the West, but from East Asia (that’s the beauty of “initiative” incorporated to the BRI acronym).

THE SAKER—One more example: the Empire is now sending ships into the Black Sea as some kind of “show of force”. Yet, every military analyst out there knows that the Black Sea is a “Russian lake” and that no matter how many ships the US or NATO sends into the Black Sea, their life expectancy in case of a conflict would be measured in minutes. There is a popular expression in Russia which, I submit, beautifully sums up the current US/NATO doctrine: пугать ежа голой задницей, which can be translated as “trying to scare a hedgehog with your naked bottom”.