From Caitlin Johnstone’s June 2018 article comes some wisdom in dealing with many people in this broken world.
Please follow the link above to see details about the other eleven tips (my favorites are listed below):
1) It’s always ultimately about acquiring power. 2) Money rewards sociopathy. 3) Wealth kills empathy. 4) Money is power. 5) This same ruling class controls the media. 7) Society is made of narrative. 9) Powerful forces are naturally incentivized to collaborate with each other toward mutual interests. (Note: think Roman Empire occupation forces and religious Pharisees .. more on this later) 10) There is an immense amount of wealth that can be grabbed in the chaos of war and conflict.
It is the last one, #12 below, that caught my eye:
12. The push towards truth always starts with yourself.
You can’t out-manipulate seasoned manipulators. The main error most people make when trying to deal with a sociopath is to try and manipulate them back. Don’t even try. They have years of experience on you because they literally have done nothing else. While you were laughing and crying and worrying and connecting and relating to people, they were working out how to play humans like Garry Kasparov worked out how to play chess. And when you have literal teams of sociopaths collaborating together to amass power, you my dear child, do not have a chance. Don’t play their game. You will lose.
The only way to win this is to set your compass resolutely to “true.” Always be honest with yourself. Find all the different ways that you are manipulating others and see them and acknowledge them. Find your tribal allegiances and your desire to be right, and tip your hat to their existence. The more self-aware we are, the less levers we have to be manipulated by. If you are blindly partisan or loyal to a particular faction, that makes you gullible to propaganda because your wishful thinking and your desire to be right come into play. Get honest with yourself about who you are and what you want, and you will start to become an un-playable piece on the board.
It is a tough day when you find your ladder is on the wrong wall .. thinking how I felt when I realized in late 2003/early 2004 that President George Bush lied about WMDs .. I had to be honest with myself, I had been deceived all along. While there were other things about history that made me suspect of the government of my own country, it was nothing compared to this. I was a changed man.
This also has me thinking of how the most zealous Pharisee in the Roman Empire occupied territory of Judea felt in 31 A.D.!
The author of the Bible’s book of Acts, doctor Luke, describes Saul (who later because known as Paul) in the following clips:
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. (Acts 8:1-3)
“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison,as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. (Acts 22:3-5)
What changed Saul’s mind in his search for truth? A very dramatic event:
Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priestand asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” (Acts 9:1-6)
Coming face to face with Truth, Saul found no condemnation .. just love and a mission! He went away a changed man, so much so, that he changed his name!
What is the lesson here in 2019?
The first is “situational awareness” in spotting manipulators or sociopaths in our midst as Caitlin Johnstone pointed out in her article.
The second being “setting our compass to true”. This is not unlike the fictional character Benjamin Martin in the movie “The Patriot” when he gives Anne (Gabriel’s new wife) a talisman of Polaris, the north star, that belonged to his late wife. He explains that the star is a symbol of unwavering strength and serves as a constant guide.
Being aware of one’s surroundings and culture while seeking truth is a very honorable path. As the American Empire starts to stumble and crumble, this will become more and more a strategy to consider embracing.
As a follow-up to my previous post about innovation hijacking, the above photo shows President George Washington leading 13,000 troops to put down a tax rebellion that was totally just according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent
Alexander Hamilton’s plan to pay for the combined war debts of all the colonies with a heavy Whiskey Tax (in today’s terms, $2.50/gallon), in the Distilled Spirits Tax of 1791 act.
How very British of Alexander right? Apparently, the Amerexit (secession of the thirteen colonies from the British empire) was all in vain as the names and flags have changed but power instead of liberty reigns yet again. Hijacked!
So in my last post I had shown how George Washington, as a young British officer, sparked a war between two superpowers in the Ohio country, called the French Indian War (1754-1763), this conflict had a distinct fallout in the American colonies after its conclusion. My effort today is where:
… I hope to bring both the ramp-up to revolution over the next 25 years (1750-1775) as well as the end result of the quest for independence into focus, and how the dreams of the 20% of the people that were for independence, liberty and freedom were hijacked resulting in a culture in 1790 that involved the very things they were fighting against:
… tyranny, new or higher taxes, monopolies, and restrictions …
By the end of the war the British Empire was the undisputed superpower in both North America and Europe and was all too eager to foist upon their hapless colonial subjects the previously unenforced Navigation Acts along with new taxes. Thanks George!
The liberty experienced for the past 140+ years started losing ground to increased power that the state brings with coercion and violence. To be sure, this shift was gradual, but within a generation it was clear that the British empire failed to understand each of the American colonies to the extent that they should never had intervened from thousands of miles away. As any parent knows, once you have a child on the way to their own independent life, attempting to control that child for the parent’s own well-being is an effort in futility UNLESS you make slaves of everyone.
In England itself, with the liberal Whigs out of power and the warmongering Tories in control, there was fresh support for the new King George III who would station its troops in the colonies during peacetime, enforce the Navigation Acts, restrict western settlement to stunt growth, and institute new Parliamentary taxation. Statist power came like a pendulum to each of the colonies. So with the Proclamation Line of 1763 that restricted western settlement, the 1764 American Revenue Act that enacted taxes on sugar and increased customs enforcement, and the 1765 Stamp Act that raised new taxes on paper products, it was finally The Stamp Act that was especially hated and produced a storm of protest.
Why was there no general revolt in 1763, or 1764? Murray Rothbard has a thought from his fifth volume of Conceived in Liberty:
Ultimately, revolutions are mass phenomena, and cannot succeed without the support—indeed the active and enthusiastic support—of the great majority of the population. . . . Otherwise it will not even make a respectable showing, much less take and keep the reins of government. But the masses will not move, will not erupt, if they lack aggressive leaders to articulate their grievances and to point the path for them to follow. The leaders supply the necessary theoretical justification and analysis of the revolution’s short- and long-term goals. Unaided by leaders, the masses tend to accept each act of tyranny, not out of willing agreement, but from failure to realize that successful opposition can be mounted against the status quo. The articulation by the leaders is the final necessary spark that ignites the tinderbox of revolution.
Leaders are not appointed, they rise to the occasion when this kind of statist tyranny happens. These leaders risk all, as during the American Revolution demonstrated in just the lives of those that signed the Declaration of Independence.
In 1765, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, who respectively wrote the Virginia Resolves and Massachusetts Resolves stepped up their game. Sam Adams also established a resistance group known as the Loyal Nine, which soon expanded into the colony-wide Sons of Liberty. The result was that by 1766 The Stamp Act was repealed.
However, in Massachusetts after the passage of the tax-increasing Townshend Acts in 1767, British troops occupied Boston and colonial assemblies were forced to be dissolved. The colonies responded to this increasing coercion with mass non-importation protests that severely hurt British commerce. This BOYCOTT sent a message to the British that eventually, three YEARS later resulted in that the Townshend Acts were partially repealed in 1770.
Yet again, the British Empire pushed buttons yet again as they are now dealing with a teenager, and enacted the Tea Act of 1773 that extended the British East India Company’s tea monopoly to American shores.
This was epic BS as ANY nation that picks and chooses where their people can purchase products THEY want (i.e. free trade) is not a friend of the consumer and is a fried of both economic warfare and eventual physical warfare. Here is looking at you President Trump with all your sanctions and trade deals. But I digress …
Those in Boston promptly responded accordingly with the famous Boston Tea Party of December 1773. Great Britain responded with the Coercive, or “Intolerable” Acts of 1774, which provoked the assembly of the First Continental Congress in late 1774.
It was at this point that the radicals (I am pretty sure in 2019 USA that these people would have been targeted, marginalized and most likely suicided), led by Massachusetts’ Sam and John Adams and Virginia’s Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, battled the conservatives and decided upon a colony-wide boycott of all British products.
In the spring of 1775, the British redcoats responded by trying to arrest Massachusetts radicals John Hancock and Sam Adams, who were currently near military supplies in Concord. Paul Revere traveled to nearby Lexington to warn of the impending British, and colonial minutemen confronted the approaching British troops. The showdown led to the famous “Shot Heard Round the World,” and the American Revolution began.
At this point, with open warfare on the people, which is what the confiscation of firearms is, how does liberty respond to power? Philosophically, it was with managing the war that the forces of liberty faced their most difficult challenge, since war is naturally a coercive event that leads to death and destruction.
The war itself split the liberty lovers that probably included less than 20% of the general population. Many would align with power within this renegade government and use British tactics and statism against the British. How absurd. Bringing war to a larger power in the same way that larger power does war is a study in insanity. This was accomplished both during the American Revolution as well in the Second American Revolution, the War Against Southern Independence that most people refer to as the American Civil War.
Murray Rothbard, in Conceived in Liberty Volume I-IV, yet again points to what method actually saved the American Revolution, which was the use of guerilla warfare where he is paraphrased as saying:
… the Patriots’ greatest military strength lay in their guerrilla warfare tactics (ambushing armies, sneaking behind enemy lines, disrupting supply chains, etc.) and he argued that the only libertarian method of fighting a war is through such guerrilla warfare. This is because it is relatively inexpensive since there is no standing army, soldiers are better motivated because they are close to home, and there is far less need for a stifling and oppressive military bureaucracy.
.. and beyond this, the strategy that was chosen:
.. the decision to fight the war conventionally led to enormous government intervention in the economy through paper-money inflation, debt financing, price controls, and confiscation of goods
War debt leads once again to a desire for a strong central government that will eventually bring tyranny to the forefront yet again, like in 1794 with Washington leading 13,000 troops into Western Pennsylvania and the very real situation we have today with a militarized Redcoat fully entrenched here in the USA in 2019:
So we have come full circle in showing how this struggle between liberty and innovation has with power and political status-quo bureaucracy.
So quickly, in general, I will offer two of my own experiences with this as I referred to in my previous post:
Also in “Part 2”, I hope to offer my own general experiences of where an innovative project’s dreams were hijacked by political and organizational forces bent on expediency and short term gains.
I have a two in mind, one in business and one in ministry, that I have personally participated in. The parallels are very interesting!
It does seem that innovative projects and initiatives do threaten the political status-quo in any organization. I have no doubt that this is the main reason that Jesus himself resisted the human-natural act of forming an organization to accomplish some vision or mission.
In corporate America, as opposed to smaller businesses, there seems to be a bent toward managing verses leading, that risks are to be totally managed so as to really make no progress at all for years or decades. In the end, the business can no longer sustain itself as management surrounds itself with “yes men” (I know that sounds wrong in this PC-world, just assume someone else e-mailed me about this aggression) and stifles innovation that would actually IMPROVE the ability of the business to provide value to its customers going forward.
In my specific case, a very innovative project was hijacked in the development stage by management that failed to understand the project’s attributes and decided to bring in a partner that was ill-equipped to compete development and bring the project into production. Along the way, typical traits were demonstrated like the marginalization of those who really knew the core philosophy of the project as well as how the design was intended to positively impact this business. In the end, money was squandered and the project, like so many in government circles (F-35, Ford Carrier Class, etc), ends up imploding and being a general dumpster fire where good money is thrown after bad.
In organized ministry circles, similar innovative approaches can also bring the status-quo political fake news people out of the woodwork to halt anything that they can understand as being beneficial for people who could use a relationship with Jesus to bring peace and love to their lives and give them an insight into the way that Papa (God, Father) is especially fond of them. Close-minded church-goers and rule-followers have little patience for alternative ways that people can be reached whether is be from one’s home, from a coffee-house or even in the marketplace.
In my specific case, a ministry that had already transitioned from an inward facing clique/country club to a spiritual family that actually had a heart for those without Jesus, just could not give up their view that the church building was the center of what Jesus-following is all about. Threatened that their years of tithing (investing) might find them not able to realize their ROI, they effectively marginalized any staff (professional/volunteer) personnel that would not maintain the new status-quo.
In both instances, the lost dreams of the innovators has to be grieved, which is a process that every visionary has to deal with in their own terms. While they will many times see the positives and learnings that came out of the process as being very beneficial for the next “project/dream”, there is usually always a scar on ones heart to those that gave their all to attempt something that others barely or rarely understand, something much bigger than themselves.
I can only reflect on how Francis Marion, guerilla leader of the militia in South Carolina (1780-1783) that successfully dogged Cornwallis so that he could eventually be trapped by the French fleet at Yorktown. After much of the conflict was over, he was already being marginalized for the next chapter of life in the American Colonies as I indicated in a previous post:
So by the fall of 1781 as the British catastrophe at Yorktown reverberated throughout the British Empire, there were nationalist forces that were already parting ways with the radicals, and even the militias that brought them to this day. By 1783, Francis Marion saw the writing on the wall. The NOV1782 election meant that Marion had to leave Pond Bluff yet again for the 06JAN1783 legislative session. Writing from there on January 18th he shared the inequalities that tainted his excitement about the future of the colony as well of the federation of states. It seems that the Rhode Islander Continental Nathaniel Greene was awarded 10,000 guineas from SC toward the purchase of a SC plantation and quoted an old saying “that kissed goes by favor”. Georgia had also given Greene 24,000 acres as well. Marion eventually was awarded 300 acres in 1785.
It should be noted that the correspondence Marion had with Greene stopped abruptly as the hostilities stopped in DEC1782. Marion had hoped that Congress would follow through on the promise of a lifetime of half-pay for officers but it would be 50 years before that practice would finally start. Marion lamented that “idle spectators of war” were in charge now.
It is little wonder then why there is much more effort needed to be put towards the maintenance of liberty in this broken world than it does to maintain power. It seems that power, and kings, is the default mode of man:
Just some things to reflect on.
I do hope this allows y’all to reflect on history as well as current events.
I am primarily thinking about the culture in early 1770s America, where those in the British colonies enjoyed a rather “hands-off” approach by their British Empire masters by 2019 standards for sure. With no income tax, the only recent tax that upset the colonies was the Stamp Act that would result in a 2% tax. What would 2019 Americans give for that level of taxation?
What set the stage for the culture in the 1700s to have a “default” of no or little taxation was the life lived in the Americas from the 1607 Jamestown (Virginia) and 1620 Plymouth (Massachusetts) initial settlements in the New World. From this point forward, with the abundance of unsettled land and distance from the primary mother country (after the Dutch were forced out of New Amsterdam) made the typical feudalistic setup very difficult. Settlers were true owners of the land and saw the value of private property. They were all “self” employed, working to provide value to others in the region to barter and trade with as necessary. Whenever there were attempts to utilize the “state” to impose tyranny, new or higher taxes, monopolies, and restrictions, there was an appropriate response by people shaped by their new-found beliefs and life, Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia (1676), Leisler’s Rebellion in New York (1689), and Morris’ Rebellion in New Jersey (1699).
By 1707 when Great Britain was formed out of a combined England and Scotland, a world power emerged and the American colonies was still just a backwater, out-of-sight, out-of-mind project. There were leaders in the British Empire that realized that possibly the best way for the colonies to grow and prosper (which in turn would benefit the British Empire) was to practice a hands-off approach and let the colonies spontaneously develop. This extremely beneficial policy ended with the French and Indian War (1754–1763), but the expectations had already been set over the past 150 years.
By the way, the culture of 1750 Americas with all these pioneering families, does NOT match the culture of the United States today, no way, no how. This is not something we can revert to with a flip of a switch. The reset towards a life of liberty for families will take generations with a risk of political evils and or genocide at every turn. This is a most difficult road.
Back to 1750, let there be no doubt that the aggressor in the French and Indian War was the English. It turns out that the claims of the “Ohio Company”, directed by the royal governor of the colony of Virginia Dinwiddie, that the other side of the Appalachian Mountains belonged to England. Knowing that another world super power was probably unaware of this claim, Dinwiddie asked for advice from the British Crown and did not act until 1753. At that time, a young British officer was selected to carry the message on this “diplomatic” mission.
In 1753, Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia ordered a young, ambitious 21-year old George Washington on a mission deep into the Ohio Country to confront the French. Washington’s account of his journey to Fort Le Beouf and back made Major Washington a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1754 Washington’s surprise attack upon a small French force at Jumonville Glen.
It turns out that the Ohio Company had yet to build anything on their claimed land and so Washington’s off-the-record mission in 1753 involved identifying a location to build a fort. The British were intercepted by the French during this first mission and they were promptly sent back across the mountains with a letter from the French that denied British claims.
The Virginia governor then decides to form a 300 man volunteer force and then promoted the young George Washington from major to Lt. Col. Washington then leaves with 186 of these men to go build a fort quickly.
About 25 miles from the location Washington had in mind for a fort, an Indian ally cautioned him with news of a French force of unknown numbers were in the area. Washington decided to entrench his troops, and then found out that less than 50 French troops were approaching Washington’s 150+ (there has been desertions along the way due to low pay and running out of rum).
Washington’s orders were to act only on the defensive unless their passage through this territory or building of the fort is forcefully resisted. Washington instead decides on a preemptive strike with 40 men, 20 Indian allies against 33 French soldiers who were unarmed eating breakfast. The French obviously did not expect violence since they had no sentries posted. Their mission was with peaceful intentions.
Unfortunately, for the colonists in the Americas, this mistake would launch a war that the British Empire would then attempt to recover their expenses from, in the way of new taxes levied to provide for their “safety”.
Sad, isn’t it, that the empire’s aggression, the political ineptitude of political players and their military leaders leads to war of deaths and debt that is then born by those within the empire’s control. This innovative project where people were able to coexist in a land peacefully and without state coercion were about to see their world turned upside-down.
Stay tuned for “Part 2” where I hope to bring both the ramp-up to revolution over the next 25 years (1750-1775) as well as the end result of the quest for independence into focus, and how the dreams of the 20% of the people that were for independence, liberty and freedom were hijacked resulting in a culture in 1790 that involved the very things they were fighting against:
… tyranny, new or higher taxes, monopolies, and restrictions …
Also in “Part 2”, I hope to offer my own general experiences of where an innovative project’s dreams were hijacked by political and organizational forces bent on expediency and short term gains.
I have a two in mind, one in business and one in ministry, that I have personally participated in. The parallels are very interesting!
Usually, when the bombs start to drop, it is really the middle of the story. The start of the story is usually hidden to the public at large, both intentionally and by sheer ignorance.
The “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq by US forces in 2003 was not the reaction to something Saddam did wrong, like having WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), but was part of an agenda that was set in motion years if not decades before:
It’s surely clear to almost everyone now that we were lied into an illegal war which not only destroyed an entire country, but which also led directly to the rise of ISIS and helped bring terrorism to Europe too. – Ron Paul (2016)
While statism kills, empires kill on a whole different level. While nations like Germany (Jews) and China (farmers) and USSR (Ukrainians, etc) and USA (Southerners and American Indians) do their share of genocide, there is nothing like an empire that can take that to a whole different level.
But it was not always so. Take for instance a majority of the time the British Empire was a world power, as Eric S. Margolis in this article explains:
The British were always masters of efficient imperialism. In the 19th century, they managed to rule a quarter of the Earth’s surface with only a relatively small army supported by a great fleet. Many of their imperial subjects were so overawed by the pomp and circumstance of British rule that they often willingly cooperated, or at least bent the knee.
Call it colonialism 101. Ardent students of Roman history, the British early on adopted the Roman strategy of ‘divide et impera’, divide and conquer. The application of this strategy allowed the British Empire to rule over vast numbers of people with minimal force.
For over one hundred years, life in the American colonies were not bad at all actually. This is why there was 1/3rd of Americans that did NOT want to go to war with the British Empire, as up until the 1760s, the British ruled in a minimalist way!
When we reflect on the poor country of Iraq, and how it was somewhat abused by English power in the early 20th century especially after the discovery of oil, never really knew what was in store for them by 1990. From a post WWII transition that saw American influences in the Middle East region on the increase, and with Saddam Hussein in the employ and control of the CIA, even supplying Iraq with chemical weapons in its war against Iran in the 1980s, it is clear that the American Empire was in the driver’s seat.
In 1990, when the world was shocked that Hussein invaded Kuwait, there were those in the US Government that were not surprised as they gave him the green light. This even allowed the US Empire a “reason” to respond to this attack on an adjacent sovereign nation and allowed a “coalition” of UN nations to mount an attack on Iraq (Gulf War I) to place it under tighter control until the US again invaded 12 years later.
Eric S. Margolis goes on to explain:
I was in Iraq in 2001 and 2003 and saw how much it had developed in spite of the draconian rule of Saddam Hussein. I was one of only a few journalists trying to dispute the western lies about Iraq. The dim-witted Iraqi secret police threatened to hang me as a spy – after I revealed their germ warfare plant at Salman Pak had been set up and was secretly run by British technicians.
There was enough fake news in the early 2000s to convince the American public and the world that Saddam was bad and that the US and its allies were good.
Iraq, let’s recall, was the target of a major western aggression concocted by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Britain’s Tony Blair, financed and encouraged by the Gulf oil sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia.
Truth be told, these “leaders” are in fact war criminals still walking free.
Most people don’t understand that Iraq remains a US-occupied nation. We hear nothing about the billions of dollars of Iraqi oil extracted by big US oil firms since 2003. For the US, Iraq was a treasure house of oil with 12% of world reserves. It was OPEC’s 2nd largest producer.
Recall one of the leading neocons who engineered the invasion of Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, claimed the US could finance its entire invasion of Iraq (he estimated the cost at about $70 billion) by plundering Iraq’s oil. Today, the cost of the occupation has reached over $1 trillion. Wolfie is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, President Trump says the US will grab Syria’s oil fields.
It is all very sick, but the problems in Iraq do not make it into MSM these days:
Ever since the 2003 invasion, Iraq has been ruled by a succession of US-appointed figureheads who have proven as corrupt as they are inept. During the war, the US destroyed most of Iraq’s water and sewage systems, causing some 500,000 children to die from water-borne diseases, wrecking much of its industry and commerce, leaving millions of men unemployed. Public services have broken down.
Before the US invasion, Iraq led the Arab world in industry, farming, medicine, education and women’s rights. All that was destroyed by the ‘liberation.’
The fallout from this conflict and that in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria have produced economic refugees that have invaded Europe and dispersed Christians out of the Middle East. Will we ever know the true statistics for all the chaos that was put into action in 2001 (Afghanistan) and 2003 (Iraq)?
How is that for the legacy of American Exceptionalism?
Blow-back (CIA term) is a thing, and we thought the 2000/2010s had seen enough terrorism as a result, just wait ..
It would be entertaining if it were not so sad and dangerous. Our political class, enables by the elites, scurry around pointing fingers at people assuming that no one can remember the past few years, let alone the past few decades.
Remember Democrats, the “peace” party? Well, they identify as the “war” party now. That transition was amazingly fast and all the sheep that identify with their blue sticker stayed true to blue.
Apparently, Moon of Alabama (MoA) has been following the impeachment hearings, something that I would not waste my own time on, and noted some points of hypocrisy that only comes out when politicians open their mouths.
“It is clearly in our national interest to deter further Russian aggression,” Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said in explaining why Trump’s decision to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to the most immediate target of Russian expansionism didn’t align with U.S. policy.
But at a time when Democrats are simultaneously eager to influence public opinion in favor of ousting the president and quietly apprehensive that their hearings could stall or backfire, the first round felt more like the dress rehearsal for a serious one-act play than the opening night of a hit Broadway musical.
“In direct contravention of U.S. interests” says the NBC and quotes a member of the permanent state who declares “it is clearly in our national interest” to give weapons to Ukraine.
But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such?
President Obama was against giving weapons to Ukraine and never transferred any to Ukraine despite pressure from certain circles. Was Obama’s decision against U.S. national interest? Where are the Democrats or deep state members accusing him of that?
Russian aggression can be summed up in the following map:
Oh crap … wrong map? No, correct map, just a member of the permanent state talking BS .. “Russian aggression” .. pleeeeaaaasssseee.
MoA also points out who gets to set national foreign policy:
The U.S. constitution “empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries.”
The constitution does not empower the “U.S. government policy community”, nor “the administration”, nor the “consensus view of the interagency” and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that
The president does not like how the ‘American policy’ on Russia was built. He rightly believes that he was elected to change it. He had stated his opinion on Russia during his campaign and won the election. It is not ‘malign influence’ that makes him try to have good relations with Russia. It is his own conviction and legitimized by the voters.
…
[I]t is the president who sets the policies. The drones around him who serve “at his pleasure” are there to implement them.
Just as Thomas Jefferson changed course when he came into office after John Adams, so too can Trump after Obama, BUT WAIT .. is what Trump doing so different than Obama?:
President Obama was against giving weapons to Ukraine and never transferred any to Ukraine despite pressure from certain circles.
Oh really now. But something changed that got the Democrat’s dander up .. I am thinking they are courting the Military Industrial Complex more and more because all that lobbying money talks!
Finally, there seems to be some people in this world (much less than 5% for sure) that have thought things through .. and this Ukrainian businessman has been doing some thinkin’:
It is not in the interest of Ukraine to be a proxy for U.S. deep state antagonism towards Russia. Robber baron Igor Kolomoisky, who after the Maidan coup had financed the west-Ukrainian fascists who fought against east-Ukraine, says so directly in his recent NYT interview:
Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine’s most powerful figure outside government, given his role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn back toward Russia.“They’re stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations,” he said, comparing Russia’s power to that of Ukraine. “People want peace, a good life, they don’t want to be at war. And you” — America — “are forcing us to be at war, and not even giving us the money for it.”
…
Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets.
Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its geopolitical rival. “War against Russia,” he said, “to the last Ukrainian.” Rebuilding ties with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine’s economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He predicted that the trauma of war will pass.
…
Mr. Kolomoisky said he was feverishly working out how to end the war, but he refused to divulge details because the Americans “will mess it up and get in the way.”
Yes, the US was just USING the Ukraine, that is why the color revolution under the Obama administration, just to undermine Russia.
Unfortunately, Trump has gone along with the economic war with Russia, but as it turns out, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so Russia of 2019 is a lot stronger than Russia of 2014. Maybe this is the 3D/4D/8D chess that Trump has been playing all along?
The bottom line? Well I agree with Bionic Mosquito on this one:
… he [Trump] was voted in based on his most basic attacks against the system: war and empire, central banking, Hillary is a crook and should be in prison, fix immigration.
On at least one of these – war and empire – I offer two thoughts: first he hasn’t started a meaningful new war; second, he is doing a great job of accelerating the rest of the world’s movement away from the American empire. Both are tremendous libertarian victories as far as I am concerned.
