Will Oceania (Imperial USA) accept its assigned role in 'spheres of Influence?

The weekend was way too busy, in a dozen ways, to post a blog.  Finished the first draft of my own great big book on AI, for example. (Coming soon, I hope.) Still, let's try for a short, pungent one mid-week.

Nathan Gardels offers an interesting essay, in Noema Magazine, on a coming era of world  "spheres of influence."  Of course, that model of the world has long been desired by some as a replacement for the 80 year, generally benign American Pax, which has - despite its many mistakes and flaws - been inarguably the very best time for humanity in the history of our species. Compared to any other. Compared to all others. All others, combined.

 Note that, despite horrific exceptions:

Easily 90% of living humans have never witnessed war with their own eyes. Ponder that, in light of history.

I'd estimate 95% of world children have never starved and are in school. And immunized. Ponder that, too.

The percentage with drinkable water and sanitation keeps climbing.

... as did the fraction with general human rights. And so on... That was the trend, till recently.

Hence, what is the central goal of tyrants and those who desire a return to 6000 years of nescient feudalism? The American Pax is too strong to be attacked and too popular to be toppled by world rebellion. But as we've found, it can be suborned from within...

...not to be destroyed. America is far two strong for that. The professional classes are too mighty and the subornation - while spectacularly successful right now - won't last.  But if the bipolar ailment of one of our ruling parties**-- oscillating from imperialism to isolationism and back again - can be exploited, getting us to retract into a localized 'sphere of influence,' that could give the international arrays of hierarchs what they want.

What is the goal? Gardels edges up to it but never quite arrives. Elsewhere - just last month - I posted about “The Technate of North America,” illustrated in this dredged up map from a similarly fevered era, the 1920s and 30s. Part of a range of bizarre political ideas that have flourished in times of stress. 

A notion now pushed by the Yarvin-Thiel-Miller 'dark enlightenment" twits roaming the White House right now. (I've known Yarvin a long time.)

George Orwell portrayed where 'spheres of influence' go... a nightmare pattern of endless simmer-war among Eastasia, Eurasia and our own Oceania.  

In a stunningly creepy pareidolia, Oceania would look an awful lot like the “Technate” map. Though with Britain ("Airstrip One")  thrown in as plot setting for Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Which perhaps inspired Orwell in the first place! 

I riff further on this here.

 

      == Pause and reconsider the 'spheres.' ==

Before you give these dopes too much credence, please consider that Putin is not winning his 'sphere' in Ukraine. Europeans do not want any part of his influence sphere and - while they are rearming fast, in light of the USA's unreliability - they know that their only successful asymptote is Putin's end. Preferably at the hands of fed-up Russian troops and veterans. The 1917 Soldiers Revolt option that Putin himself mentions frequently, in frantically repeated denial.  Hence "Eurasia" doesn't look so good a bet, right now. 

Especially since China's top goal (shall we whisper it?) is Siberia.

As for 'Eastasia', well, China is ascendant, yes. But anyone who believes - after Ukraine - that they still think slow, noisy troop ships can cross the Taiwan Straits is a dummy. Can Beijing blockade or hurt Taiwan? Sure, they can do that. But never boots on the ground. Any boots that try will 'hit' sea bottom.

Sorry. 'Spheres of Influence' is their dream. And that of a complicit Republican Party whose core foreign policy syndrome has always been a BIPOLAR ailment that I first diagnosed back in the last century, but most-recently wrote about here, in 2017. 

        The way that GOP administrations - and indeed all of their political leaders - tend to gyrate between two states…

…either manic imperialism or depressive isolationism.

Bush era neocons manifested the former, openly raving “We are now an empire!”... a phrase that now blares from the Trump White House -- on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and alternate weekends.  After just weeks earlier proclaiming an isolationist “America First!” policy to end all wars of intervention or nation-building and even our world network of alliances that kept the peace (mostly) for the last 80 years.

These bipolar and extreme mood swings are predictable, hypocritical and dangerous!

**Are Democratic administrations guiltless, or more-sane? Well, yes, comparatively so. Certainly, less blatantly and compulsively cyclical between extremes. And in most cases – except Somalia – at least listening to professional advice.

A final note. 

Do not ignore the incredible contrast in COMPETENCE displayed between Russia's many years in Ukraine and and the US military's dazzling three hours in Caracas. A level of incredible competence going back to the initial and proper surgical actions in Iraq and Afghanistan (both of them ruined by insane Bushites plunging us into subsequent quagmires.. Western weapons and training and those using them are spectacularly effective and - in stark contrast - the entire network of those who bought Russian military hardware or doctrines now deeply regret it.  As I just said, the only battlefield where the U.S. military experiences competency regret is a quagmire. And hence, getting us stuck in one is a central enemy goal.

The contrast could not be more blatant, in comparison to "War Secretary" Pete Filthy Fingers *** Hegseth - just 6 weeks earlier - berating 500 Generals,Admirals and top Sergeants, calling them "too fat and woke to fight!" Oh, like a famous lush and walking petri dish should talk.

No wonder they fired or transferred most of the military JAGs who can advise officers when an order is illegal. And just weeks after taking charge they closed the FBI office charged with tracking 'foreign influence programs."

Above all, they must end the Marshallian ethos of the United States Military Officer Corps... as they are apparently succeeding doing with the FBI and intel agencies. 

That will be a tough nut. But if you fire enough of the good ones, you can work your way down to the General Jack T. Ripper types.  At which point we could be screwed., all the way down to purity of essence.

========

And the Boss tells it. 

========

*** Hegseth repeatedly told his Fox Weekend co-hosts that he doesn't believe in germs and "I haven't washed my hands in a decade." 

​

What Democrats did wrong... Three categories of rationalizing - while ignoring why they hate us.

At the end I'll cite some book and SF news, including some fun! Like part two of my comedy, The Ancient Ones.

Only now we'll return to the topic on everyone’s mind… WTF just happened?  And what should we do now?

We'll start with Nathan Gardels – editor & publisher of the excellent Noēma Magazine - who always offers interesting observations. Though, he often triggers my infamously ornery “Yes… but…” reflex and a too-long response. (Several posts here originated in rémise to Nathan.)

In a recent missive - "How to Soul-Search as a Losing Party" - appraising What Democrats did wrong, Gardels points out many valid things… while reaching a conclusion that I deem spectacularly mistaken. Taking note of how so many Black and Hispanic males abandoned the old, Rooseveltean Coalition, he joins with so many others out there, urging a campaign of gentle conciliation.

Nathan cites a raft of earnest intellectuals, as well as deliberative ‘citizens panels’ that have – in Europe – shown some success at getting participants to bridge the dogmatic gaps that divided them. Indeed, such experiments have been terrific! It is the mature approach. And it works… 

...with those who are already drawn far enough into the process to leave behind their familiarly comfortable, polemical echo chambers. Forsaking today’s media Nuremberg rallies, in order to participate. 

“(O)nce informed and empathetically exposed to the concerns of others, participants move from previously held dispositions toward a consensus.“

Indeed, that participation can be widespread! As in the Truth and Reconciliation process led by Nelson Mandela, in South Africa, and similar endeavors in Argentina and Chile, wherein vast swathes of the public – on all sides – realized they must do this… or risk losing everything.

As for it happening in today’s USA? Well, I can think of one actual, real world example. 

         

All across the nation, grand juries are selected from randomly-chosen voters and vetted for general reasonableness. In a majority of American counties, the resulting panels consist largely of fairly typical white retirees. And yet, it has been exactly those red county white retirees who – after exposure to arguments and copious evidence – have indicted so many Republican politicians and associates of a vast range of crimes.

    I’d argue that is a kind of fact-based consensus-building, even if it leads to some well-deserved pain by the fomenters of one side.

That is the first of many reasons why the masters of that side will have no interest in allowing wider versions of consensus building.

I do not see any hope of such a thing happening in today’s America, at any kind of scale.

…with one barely plausible exception.

Meme-images for your semi-sane and residually honorable MAGA

Swamped with patent disclosures, podcasts and the Great Big AI Panic of 2024. And just learned the H1N5 bird flu may be nastier soon! (😟check your supplies.) Also, I appear to be more optimistic than most... and most of you have voted already. 

Still, I gotta do what I can, offering you some final, concise leverage. Not for your hopeless MAGA-Putinist uncle. But maybe his worried wife, your residually-sane aunt.  

What leverage?  Why... punchy jpegs, of course! 

   == Ammo Images that might sway... ==

How can anyone still sway to the hypnotism...

...of a face drenched in makeup and dripping hair dye?   

But OK. Let's start with a simple question.  

             Who are his enemies and who are his friends? 

ONE sentence ought to settle everything:

                                                     

Two Defense Secretaries. Two chiefs of staff. His Attorney General. His National Security Advisor & Secretary of State. His domestic policy head. Chair of the Joint Chiefs. Two communications directors. His Vice President plus 250 more.

Make your MAGA see this jpeg! ==>

All of them were HIS choices. Whom he called "Great Guys!"... who are now denouncing him as a horror-calamity and lethal stooge of foreign enemies.

 

At minimum, he's a terrible judge of character! (Who fell 'in love' with Kim Jong Un.) 

But don't worry. In Trump II he's promised there will be no adults at all.

Examples: James Mattis, Marine General(ret), Trump’s 1st Defense Secretary: “Donald Trump is the first president in my life who didn't even pretend to try to unite the American people. He tries to divide us.”

Mark Esper, Trump’s 2nd Defense Secretary: “I believe he is a threat to democracy.”

John Kelly, Marine General(ret), Trump’s 2nd White House Chief of Staff: “He often said‘Hitler did good things, too.’”

Ask Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley +Admiral McRaven +250 other officers!  

 Ask nearly all scientists.

Ask counter insurgency experts about “ex” commissar Putin’s long puppet strings.

But Don does have friends!

Here they are!==>

Have your MAGA zoom in and explain this.

== But... but isn't Trump the agent of God? ==

Such a Christian! Though if he ever willingly chose church over golf, no one has seen it. Here's one time he had to show up. And this one image says it all.

There's a hilarious and sad video of him mouthing-along while trying to recite the famous and well-known 23rd Psalm with worshippers and giving up after "He leadeth me.."  Too lazy even to memorize a couple of passages for show, he still after all these years, refuses to name a favorite passage. 

"It's too personal."  Riiiiight.

But then... some evangelicals can see all that! So they switch to the "Cyrus" argument. Like the King of the Medes who freed the people of Judah from Babylon, Trump is a 'righteous gentile!' A pagan who serves God by actions & deeds! 

(How? By destroying America and democracy and serving Moscow? But we'll get to that.)

Huh. Some servant of God. The most opposite-to-Jesus human any of us ever saw typifies every Deadly Sin! (Have your MAGA recite them aloud and NOT see Trump as the archetype!) 

Look, I don't credit the Book of Revelation. (Though all of you should know it! See the comic book version Apocamon; I mean it. You truly need to see what some of your neighbors wish and plan for you!) 

Still, there is a recurring character in that nightmare tome who DT resembles. I'm not talking about the Lamb of God. The character's name starts with "auntie" or "the Anti --" and Trump fits every described characteristic.  To a T.

== Is it the Economy, Stupid? ==

A problem with good times... folks soon take it for granted. Unemployment was the big issue. 

But after clawing our way out of the Covid Recession and Supply Chain inflation (nearly all economists blame Trump for worsening those) the 2021 stimulus bills worked!

Infrastructure - bridges etc. - are being fixed! Unemployment has stayed at the lowest level since the early 60s. We're in the best US economy since WWII.

Inflation? What? Ask your MAGA to step up NOW with wager stakes and bet which two nations have had the LOWEST inflation in the Industrial world for 3 years! 

(Hint, it's the US and Japan.)

 

Then why so grumpy?   Because Fox rants at fools to enjoy sanctimonious grumpiness! It's more fun than accepting the truth... that you are mesmerized by an echo chamber and Nuremberg Rally, with one central goal...

... to hate facts and fact professions & the damn, dry statistics.

But let's make it a wager. Assert the following and demand your MAGAs step up (like men) with cash stakes on the table:

EVERY Democratic Administration was more fiscally responsible regarding debt and deficits than EVERY Republican administration. 

In fact, most Democratic administrations had by far better economic outcomes across the board, for everyone except oligarchs and inheritance brats, who ALWAYS do vastly better under the GOP. Demand wagers!

But this is the biggie. The USA is undergoing the greatest boom in MANUFACTURING since the Second World War.  

That is unambiguous. Democrats did it.

== Climate Change ==

Nothing better illustrates the agenda of the GOP masters than fostering all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science, teaching, medicine, law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.  

"Hate the FBI!" is the most amazing and dangerous in the near term, but the anti-science campaign is core, over the long run.

Dig it. They're not attacking science in order to make $$ by delaying action on climate disaster. It's the reverse. They use climate denialism as one of many tools to attack all scientists and undermine trust in science. 

Why? Oligarchs can't restore 6000 years of insipid feudalism til they castrate all fact professions. But more on that elsewhere.

The crisis over our endangered EARTH is a vast subject! But this posting is about last minute, punchy capsules. So use this: Foxites flee in panic when you mention OCEAN ACIDIFICATION, which is unambiguously killing the seas our children will need and can only be caused by CO2 pollution. How they run from those two words.

Alas, instead of giving credit to the genius meteorologists who now predict hurricane paths within a few miles FIVE DAYS in advance, jibberers yammer: "They cause hurricanes!"

WHO is 'they?'  No, never mind that. You said it when earthquakes hit California. Recognize God's wrath when you feel it...

== Ukraine and NATO and Putin ==

Seriously? Who do you think Ronald Reagan would side with? The barely changed Kremlin and relabeled KGB, run by "ex" commissars who all grew up reciting Leninist catechisms? Who are now re-nationalizing all Russian businesses, crushing dissent and rebuilding the USSR?

Um, can anyone with a trace of fairness in their hearts not root for and support the attacked Ukrainian underdogs? And say "Damn Putin and his fellow tyrants!"

Dig it: NATO is now stronger than ever since 1946! Putin is fighting for his own murderous, richest-man-in-the-world life, desperate to get Trump into the Oval Office. It's his one hope.

LOOK at Trump's pals! At the expressions on their faces. Zoom in.

Can any of your neighbors who support Putin call anyone ELSE a 'commie'?

== Memory Lane ==

And wager NOW over the different death rates of the vaccinated vs. the un-vaccinated.  Death rates are simple. Even the reddest state suppies stats on that. And there's no ambiguity at all. Fox is trying to kill you.

== Immigration ==

But what about immigration? Well, surprise? I'll sorta half give you that one!

It's a vexing problem and the farthest left has not been helpful. They refuse to see how Putin and other tyrants have herded poor refugees into Europe and America, knowing it will push potitics in those countries to the right.  And it has even worked on U.S. Hispanics, who poll overwhelmingly wanting tighter borders.

Look, you may not like facing it, but Putin's strategy here has worked! And if you lefties want the power to do good, YOU are gonna have to prioritize. Compromise.

But this is not a Bill Maher screed aimed at woke-ist betrayals of the only coalition that can save the world. Later.

It is about far-worse MAGA lunacy. And what could be more lunatic than Trump ordering the GOP - last January - to torpedo the Immigration Bill they had just finished negotiating! 

That bill would have majorly increased the Border Patrol, plus internal tracking of refugee claimants and would have built more wall by now than the entire Trump presidency!

Now why would he do that? Simple. Going back generations before Trump & Putin took over the Republican Party, the GOP's master oligarchs loved cheap labor!

You just think about that now.

P.S. If a time comes when Republicans reject the madness and corruption that skyrocketed in the GOP since Dennis 'friend to boys" Hastert, and choose instead to return to political negotiation, moderate dems will race to work out incremental steps to mix pragmatic border security with helping refugees return safely to their improved home countries... with living by the American tradition (and biblical injunction) of kindness to legitimate newcomers.

== Again  - the most-effective single sentence is... ==

"ALL of the honest adults who served under Trump now denounce him."             

Earlier I showed former Trumpists who were admirable to some degree, and now denounce him. Now gaze at some more! Though some of these weren't quite as admirable as the 1st bunch. ==>

Still, these guys at least want the USA to survive! If only because it's where they keep their best stuff. Hypocrites some of them? I prefer the first set! Still, we need all the help...

On the other hand, THIS is a Republican we can all respect! (below):

== So what about fascism? ==

Seriously? This is an issue?

My Dad beat up f--ng Nazis in Chicago in the 1930s, when they marched both for Hitler and for the spectacularly misnamed "America First."  I know f--ng Nazis when I see em! And even if Trump isn't one by strict definition*...

   ... all the current American Nazis think he is! And they love him.

Take it from Doctor Suess!

   

h.

<==And even doctored, you know damned well this image tells truth.

* But of course... he is.

== The endless lies ==

I notoriously demand WAGERS over all the lies! e.g. ANY randomly chosen 5 minute segment of any Trump speech! Put it before a randomly-chosen panel of low-political retired, senior military officers! 

I have a long list (dropped into comments*) of wager challenges. And not one MAGA in ten years has ever had the manly guts or confidence to step up with $$$ atty-escrowed stakes. Not one, ever. Weenie no-cojone cowards.

But let's start with Trump's endless promises to prove Obama was born in Kenya, or the mythical promise of a "Great Health Plan to replace Obamacare! I'll unveil it next week!" And then the next week and the next, for year after year after year... 

...and MAGAs never ask "Um, well?"

Or releasing "My great financials!" Or "I'll proudly release my tax returns when the IRS is done auditing!" Except the audits were a myth!  Or his college transcripts. Or the bone spur xrays. Or the fecal spew of lies during covid.

What we DO have is at least 20 copies of the Honolulu Advertiser from 1962 that folks have found in attics and garages all over Hawaii, with a birth announcement for Barack Obama. But any retraction or shame from ol' Two Scoops? Never.

There's a reason...

<==Declassify the "we fell in love!" notes from Kim! 

Then there's the biggest damn lie of them all...

== And heck, let's give you some more! ==

Do I have an ulterior motive, in dumping upon you this tsunami of jpegs? I mean other than hoping that a few of you will use them to help save the nation and world?

Hey I am over 70 and pushing 'clippings' at the young is what we farts do! ;-0

 But still... I am angry at MAGA crapheads dumping on Tim Walz, a 25 year veteran who trained hundreds of young troops with patience that made him beloved... as with 20 years of high school civics students... and the teams he coached to state championships... and so much more. (The Putin servants searched for ONE former student they could bribe to denounce Walz; even one.) 

A command sergeant major whose shoes you lying bastards aren't fit to...

   Like this good man who served and still does ==>    

(Calm David. You promised 'malice toward none..." Sure, after we save America in this 8th phase of the recurring civil war.)

In contrast to real men... we have this cringing, face-painted carnival barker... zoom in!

The colors are un-altered.

== Miscellaneous Adds! ==

Okay I'll conclude by dumping in a few more. Use whatever you like! MAKE the redeemable/reachable... if you know any... zoom in and see and then snap out of the trance! 

...and a few may even hear the call of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt and even Reagan... realizing they must help rescue the Republican Party from treasonous madness. (LOOK below.)

And remember, Dems ALWAYS do better vs deficits and with almost every economic indicator...

Finally, Here's my biggest effort at supplying political tactics that might have ended this phase of the US Civil War decisively, in 2020, instead of merely getting a Gettysburg - vital(!) but requiring us to keep fighting the same monster.  May this year be Appomattox! Followed by "Malice toward none and charity for all..."

...and an America that leads a consensus-wiser world toward freedom, hope, and the stars.

.........  And in the words of Tiny Tim... God bless us, one and all...

================

================

Oh, I oughta give originator credit lines for every single one of these jpegs!  It's a modern problem. Almost none of the postings I took them from had credits, either!  This is one thing I expect AI to solve and soon.  May they be Machines of Loving Grace.