VASSAL STATES

ERIC WALBERG—I have to laugh at how monumentally pig-headed the US is about something the simplest Egyptian fellaheen knows and that millions of American poli sci majors fail to grasp. Was it really that surprising that Philby was able to dupe these self-centred bureaucrats for so long? And was it really ‘treason’? To Philby, the Good was in support of communism, which always made land reforms and more just distribution the many priorities. That is what ‘democracy’ logically demands. Western-style elections are really only the icing on the cake.

Besides occupation and death, what did the US offer?

ERIC ZUESSE—The ‘Impeachment’ that is taking place in the U.S. Senate is not a criminal trial, at all, but instead a partisan propaganda operation to enable Donald Trump to be shamed and embarrassed but not sent to prison, and not executed, for what he has done, the actions and statements that he has perpetrated that fall under a number of U.S. criminal laws.

MoA—he current government of Taiwan is trying to break the U.S. and Europe’s One-China policy to become an independent country under U.S. and NATO protection. The Peoples Republic of China, the mainland, insist, historically correct, that the “Republic of China,” Taiwan, is a part of mainland China. Since 1972, when Nixon went to China, the U.S. has supported that position:

In the case of the United States, the One-China Policy was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: “the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position.”
The ruling Taiwanese nationalist Democratic Progressive Party under President Tsai Ing-wen’s leadership now has a plan to break that policy. Despite regime change in Washington DC it has support from U.S. anti-China hawks.

HIROYUKI HAMADA—That’s why so many people buy the idea that Russians are messing with their “democracy”.  It is not that they actually believe that Russians do stuff to them, but they sense the position of Russia in the imperial framework.  “How dare Russians get in the way of the United States of America!”.  How ironic is it that those who are going through the economic shock therapy now at the hands of those who inflicted an economic shock therapy against the Russian people after the destruction of USSR fail to see what is happening to themselves.  Needless to say, imperial gravity is global.  Some western proxy powers, on the other hand, are eager to comply and do extra miles in order to hold better positions in the imperial hierarchy.  Neoliberal restructuring of their economies, compliance with military strategic necessities, and demonization of “enemy countries” and so on can be more prominent in those countries than the US itself.  

AJAMU BARAKA—Trump’s plan from the beginning of his administration was to complete the Obama pivot to Asia, but those efforts were undermined by the domestic political obstacles he faced in just trying to gain full control of the Executive Branch. And while Trump was eventually successful in winning over elements of the U.S. and European ruling classes to a more aggressive stance against China, his short-sighted, erratic “America first” policies and his inability to consolidate effective power over the U.S. state were a destabilizing force for the continued hegemony of the Western colonial/capitalist project.  

The U.S.-EU unity project with its NATO military wing in the service of collective imperialism and under U.S. leadership is the neoliberal corrective strategy to Trump.