AMERICAN STUDIES

PEPE ESCOBAR—The US Navy simply cannot imagine dealing with maritime exclusion zones – or having to demand an “authorization” every time they need to cross them. In this case the Empire of Bases would lose “access” to its own bases.

This is compounded with trademark Pentagon paranoia, gaming a situation where a “hostile power” – namely China – decides to block global trade. The premise in itself is ludicrous, because the South China Sea is the premier, vital maritime artery for China’s globalized economy.

HIRAM LEE–De Havilland was among the liberal anticommunists who shifted significantly to the right. She joined with another member of the ICCASP—future US President Ronald Regan, who was then preparing to spill his guts as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee—to oppose the Stalinist elements within the organization. She later testified about the experience in a private session before HUAC.

PETER KOENIG—Dominating Eurasia is part of the self-declared Anglo-American hegemon’s objective – and it is a key reason for Washington’s relentless aggression against China and Russia. One of the strategies Washington applies is the thousands of years-old “divide to conquer” – separating Western Europe from Russia and China. For hundreds of years before the ascent of the Anglo-American empire, western European countries and territories were natural trading partners of Russia, as well as of China, the latter largely thanks to the old (2100-year-old) Silk Road.

KOLLIBRI TERRE SONNENBLUME—“Centering”—and much else of what we’re seeing that’s positive—is being brought to the fore in large part by young people, and this too is very welcome. The leadership class of the US at the federal level is a bona fide gerontocracy at this point, like the last days of the Soviet Union. A major housecleaning is needed. (Or a new house. Or no house at all.) The young people definitely know this, and if we’re going to center people by age, we ought to be centering them. Alas, that we have more “olders” than “elders” in the US, to quote a teacher I once had.

CALEB MAUPIN—In this episode Caleb discusses the importance of understanding the truths underscored by Dialectical Materialism, among which the fact that everything changes all the time, that NOTHING stays the same, not even from one second to the next, is central.  This means anything is possible, that the past, even the immediate past, does not need to rigidly determine the future. That A ≠ A. The chat also dwells on how people’s “high” events, highly romantic things they participated in—Vietnam war, the Great Depression,  the McCarthy period and the fight against anti-communism—seem to freeze their perception of what is possible, providing them with a single lens to view history.