CHRISTIAN PARENTI—Trump described his foreign policy as “America First,” thus tapping into a more-than-century-long strain of American isolationism, or conservative anti-war sentiment. But his attacks on American empire were not ideologically coherent. He hated NATO but he loved Israel. He increased pressure in Cuba, but did the opposite with North Korea. He increased the military budget even as he attempted to withdraw troops all over the planet. His reasoning, when given, was crassly transactional.
DEEP STATE
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ROGER BOYD —To understand where the Western elites are in accepting the new reality we can peruse the pages of their major mouthpiece journals and the work of their bought-and-paid-for academics and public intellectuals. I will regularly cover such work as a way of assessing whether or not the Western elites are still struggling in denial or are showing some ability to move on and accept the new reality.
The journal Foreign Affairs, published by the Rockefeller-created Council on Foreign Relations, provides just such a vantage point from which to view the current state of mind of the US capitalist oligarchy.
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Losing an election costs Democratic party leaders nothing; all the career politicians and political operatives at the top keep their careers either way. From their point of view this is just a cushy job with sweet benefits, and they keep those win or lose. And obviously Biden himself doesn’t care; he’ll have a comfortable retirement regardless of the outcome in November, and on some level he’s surely aware that it’s nuts for a dementia patient to be in the White House anyway.
If the Democrats cared about getting your vote they’d be trying hard to earn it. They’re not trying because they don’t care.
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EDITOR—French President Emmanuel Macron has made numerous suggestions of sending NATO troops to battle against Russia and Vladimir Putin responded in a big way during a 2 hour speech to the Federal Assembly to end the month of February. Putin’s warning has shocked NATO to its core. This video breaks down what this means for the future of growing conflict between Russia and NATO, and indeed humanity itself. Independent media is under attack.
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EDITOR—Lira holds forth on the origins of Ukraine’s astonishing corruption, and the deep-seated emotional motivations for Nuland’s hatred of Russia, which Lira traces back to injuries and persecution inflicted on her great-grandfather during Russian pogroms in Bessarabia almost 150 years ago, forcing his son’s emigration to America. This emotional scar, shared by many Jews in the US establishment (Blinken, and the Kagans and the rest of the neoconservatives, for example) may explain, to some extent, their deeply-held Russophobia. Victoria Nuland, says Lira, is not a nice person. She’s a suckup to those above her and a mean tyrant to those with less power. Meanwhile, as one of the key people in charge of “the Ukraine project”, she oversees the colossal grift taking place in that country by all kinds of US and Western business and political figures, much of it huge money-laundering operations, theft and illegal use of state assets, etc.