By Jeff J. Brown for The Saker Blog
30 July 2019
Crosslinked with:
Pictured above: it’s the Beavis and Butt-Head Show. Or is it Butt-Head and Beavis? Does it really matter? They, like all Western political leaders are suborned from the get-go, by global capitalist 1% elites.
Every time I come back to the West, this time in France, comparing Eurangloland and China just slaps me in the face. I’m getting to talk to many European citizens about life here and their impressions of Sinoland. I will first talk about Western governance and leadership. In Part II, I’ll compare it to China’s.
Following how Boris Johnson got “elected” Britain’s newest prime minister was surreal to say the least. Best as I can tell, the citizens were not even involved. It was all done behind closed doors, among Conservative Party cronies, with all the corrupt wheeling and dealing you can imagine. It reminded me just how undemocratic their parliamentary system can be, with the people voting as much for a political party as a person.
With Donald Trump, we now have on the global stage a real live Beavis and Butt-Head duo to laugh at and mock. It’s shockingly humiliating that two of the West’s most representative “democracies” can actually be led by a former reality TV star and slum lord billionaire (Trump) with another megalomaniac, media-hungry former TV host, who loves to be an outrageous buffoon in front of the camera (Johnson).
These two carnival-barking clowns are what passes for “global leadership”. I can’t stop laughing while I write.
Not that other Western “democracies” are any better. France’s “two-to-the-final-round” system assures that no one threatening the entrenched capitalist order can be elected. Emmanuel Macron is another Wall Street-whore, anti-99% austerity Trojan horse, like François Hollande (I can’t believe I voted for that deep state Manchurian son of a bankster!), and his campaign (Macron’s) was bankrolled by the American billionaire Henry Kravitz (https://www.voltairenet.org/article204276.html). Thus, my wife and I voted for the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélanchon in the first round of the last presidential election. Mélanchon got really close, but in the second round, we were left with “destroy the French working-middle class” Macron and the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, who actually has a very progressive social agenda. So, to do anything to keep Manchurian Macron from getting elected, we voted for Le Pen.
We are not the only people who voted the same, “anybody but Macron” way, as we have talked to French friends who did the same thing. How democratic is a system where you are forced to vote from one political extreme to another, to avoid a neoliberal train wreck, who is hellbent on making working class people suffer even more than they did during the totally corrupt, previous “socialist” Hollande administration, who was nothing but a Washington slut?
Is this what our supposedly “superior, noble, Western ‘democracy’” has to offer, as a “shining white temple on the hill”, for the rest of the world to emulate?
Boris Johnson replaced feckless Theresa May, who was a human jellyfish. Before her and going back in time, the world suffered David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. Every one of them were wealthy elites who worked overtime to serve the interests of the Fortune 500 and Western global empire, totally subservient to Big Daddy Yankee. All during this time, working- and middle-class British folk got the shaft buried deeper and deeper into their backsides. What kind of future do their children have? It’s bleak to say the least. The UK’s wonderful National Health Insurance is being turned into a sausage factory, students have unpayable university loans, lots of subsistence level training jobs and low pay temporary contracts.
Do you really want me to catalogue US leadership? Before Trump, we had the quintessential CIA-puppet Barack Obama. I totally exposed his and his family’s deep state allegiance in The China Trilogy (see below). Other than his half-black skin color, speaking skills and pushing for gay marriage, his administration was indistinguishable from his predecessor’s, the boy-idiot, “always pulled from the jaws of failure” George W. Bush. Before intelligence-challenged “W”, we had pedophile Billy Clinton, who made several trips to Jeffrey Epstein’s “rape a minor” Lolita Island (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/11/19/china-versus-the-west-another-shocking-comparative-vignette-china-rising-radio-sinoland-171119/). Billy Boy carried water for the banksters and Wall Street like a firefighter overdosed on crack.
At least we knew Bushie Boy’s father was a CIA White House plant, having been the spy agency’s director before. Ronald Reagan was a Grade-B Hollywood actor, who made millions promoting hatred of communism, and was probably suffering from dementia during his later years in the White House. The deep state tried to assassinate him for making peace with those boogey-Russkies, so give him credit for that. Jimmy Carter was vilified for thinking past the 24-hour new cycle, by talking to the people about – capitalism forbid – conservation and learning to live with less. Off with his head! He’s been vilified ever since, just like Bush 41 for passing the American Disability Act. If those gimps and retards can’t walk into a building, too fucking bad, as every true capitalist will tell you.
We have close friends in France and the husband has had a managerial post for 20 years with a big US oil company. He is shocked about how cruel and inhumane the attitude of every Stateside visitor is who comes to work here, and there are many of them: older, younger, men and women. Their contempt and disgust for their country’s fellow citizens who are poor or sick is always manifest, as is their hatred of “that black president”. While France is being neoliberalized into poverty for the middle and working classes, most of the citizens here still have a strong sense of solidarity, the ideal that fellow citizens should help those in need.
I can go on and on back in time. Gerald Ford had the IQ and finesse of “W”, sort of a temporary duty Theresa May. Richard Nixon was a delusional megalomaniac, likely addicted to Dilantin and got kicked out of office by the deep state for wanting to end the profit spinning genocide in Southeast Asia. This, after he and Henry Kissinger led the extermination of millions of innocents in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. When asked why he was resigning, Nixon famously told the truth about Western “democracy”, I don’t want to go out like Jack!, knowing that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by his own government for fighting the 1% elites. In The China Trilogy, I wrote about Obama admitting the same lament.
Nixon’s predecessor, Lyndon Baines Johnson did level the socio-economic playing field, by pushing through his Great Society, voting and civil rights legislation, thank you, but sold his soul to the Devil by playing a key role in the murder of JFK. Don’t believe me? William Pepper has sworn affidavits proving the case (http://noliesradio.org/archives/118087). No wonder LBJ died a broken man, with a double guilty conscience for palace high crimes and sending millions of US and Vietnamese citizens to their early graves.
The last US president who actually tried to be presidential was John F. Kennedy and he paid a heavy price for standing up to America’s capitalist owners: he got his brains very publicly blown out all over Dealey Plaza, in Dallas, Texas.
President Dwight Eisenhower could see that the military-industrial-legislative complex was already an octopus vampire squid in control of the government and economy, but like every other president before and after him, was powerless to tame this ever-growing, insatiable capitalist monster. His presidential farewell warning speech fell on national deaf ears (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU).
Before Ike, there was poor Harry Truman, the only non-millionaire to be US president, going back to at least the beginning of the 20th century. He was much, much worse than the UK’s Theresa May, as he was warm putty in the conniving paws of the CIA, NSA and Joint Chiefs of Staff, he having signed the law to create these agencies of death. Truman also oversaw the racist incineration of millions of “yellow niggers” in Japan and Korea (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/15/dirty-dark-secrets-of-d-day-france-china-rising-radio-sinoland-190715/).
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was surely the United States’ greatest president and since he worked for the 99% at the expense of the 1%, was very probably poisoned to death, (http://reformation.org/assassination-of-president-roosevelt.html and https://yankophobe.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/was-roosevelt-poisoned-by-churchill/ and http://falsificationofhistory.co.uk/false-history/the-assassination-of-franklin-delano-roosevelt/), after the failed fascist, Wall Street coup d’état against him in 1933 (http://www.truedemocracy.net/hj32/19.html and http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Coup.htm and https://larouchepub.com/other/2006/3332morgan_coup_plot.html). W’s grandpa, Hitler and Nazi loving Joseph Bush was one of the main culprits in that plot. Once the elites got socialist Vice-President Henry Wallace deposed and replaced by jellyfish Truman, Roosevelt’s days were numbered. Starting with Andrew Jackson in the 1830s, every US president who has been against the big private bankers and/or the capitalist imperial Wehrmacht was killed, attempted to be killed or officially died in office. This startling statistic is glaring among Western “democracies” (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2015/10/01/dr-moti-nissanis-interview-on-44-days-radio-sinoland-the-bank-cartels-death-spiral-for-humanity-15-10-1/ and http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/04/13/pillars-of-american-democracy-cloak-and-dagger-case-studies/).
British leadership has not been much better, although white supremist, genocidal Winston Churchill was the man of the hour during World War II, if we can ignore tens of millions of mostly dark-skinned colonial subjects, who were exterminated like rats in the Crown colonies.
France had a truly great leader in Charles de Gaulle, who summed up what almost never happens among Western leaders,
In order to become the master, the politician acts as the servant.
And,
The (final) word is the people’s. What the people wish is the duty of the leader.
And that’s exactly how he governed. No wonder the CIA tried to assassinate de Gaulle six times. Serving the 99% at the expense of the socialist-hating, warmongering 1% is a capitalist crime punishable by death. Just ask JFK. The CIA even tried to turn France into a dollar denominated puppet state, because they knew de Gaulle represented the interests of his people, and not the bankster war machine (https://mondediplo.com/2003/05/05lacroix). François Mitterrand on the left and Jacques Chirac on the right paid attention to common French folks’ concerns, but the total takeover of French governance by American elites was a fait accompli, with the election of “I wannabe the French Kennedy/Reagan” Nicolas Sarkozy, whose father was a known CIA agent. Like father, like son (https://www.voltairenet.org/article157821.html). Hollande and now Macron have shown just how low French “democracy” can sink. These latter two should be tried and hung for treason, as agents in service to US elites, along with Sarkozy.
And so it goes in Western “democracy”. To understand Eurangloland’s governance, you just have to ask the simple question, Do the leaders and legislators honestly represent the interests of the 99% or the 1%? Wade past all the identity politics, race baiting, fearmongering false flags, wars – and going back centuries the answer is obvious. Western governments almost always work for the benefit of the wealthy elites, at the expense of poor, working and middle classes.
When it looks like the Capitalist War Party may lose control, like with the Great Depression and in postwar Europe, our owners give us just enough table scraps to nip any revolution for economic and social justice in the bud. Why did Euranglolanders get social security, the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, paid sick and vacation leave, and labor unions which were briefly given a seat at the table of establishment power? Because of the genuine popularity of communism and socialism among a broad section of the populations. Why did Europeans get much better benefits, like universal health care, unemployment benefits and subsidized childcare? Because postwar countries like the UK, France and Italy had communist and socialist parties that were winning elections. Populist movements and parties were already demonized and destroyed in the US by the end of World War II, with 1950s McCarthyite witch hunts being the Capitalist War Party’s icing on the cake.
This is not a modern phenomenon. Every civilization has had to choose whether to support the interests of the rich or the masses. Most have and continue to slavishly work for the 1%. Using limitless financial resources, the elites slowly coopt all branches and levels of government, using the usual Imperial Toolbox: bribery, blackmail, extortion, false flags and when all else fails, assassination.
In their private writings and conversations, US presidents going back to George Washington all lamented how the 1% made being truly presidential impossible. They and every elected official, judge and cop have had to and must continue to serve the elites’ demands, first, second and third – then maybe the needs of the 99% might be taken into consideration, but not for long if it threatens their profits, which is why all those postwar benefits are being clawed back across Eurangloland, under the banner of neoliberal austerity.
The vast majority of the 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian King Hammurabi’s Code concerns protecting the land and chattel property interests of the elites. Emperor Nero pulled off one of the earliest known false flags, by burning down one-fourth of his own city, Rome. Jesus Christ was killed for attacking wealthy bankers, and these latter pushed the Roman government to do their dirty work, to make an official example of him.
Julius Caesar was not assassinated for being a dictatorial tyrant. He was murdered by his peers because he was mandating laws to redistribute land and social wealth to the poor and farmers. He was threatening the riches of the Senate’s oligarchic families, who “governed” Rome like a criminal enterprise, and in fact, the modern Mafia families we know today in Italy descended from these same “democratic” thugs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IO_Ldn2H4o). Douglas Valentine so graphically lays out this capitalist nexus between Western governments, mainstream media, organized crime, supposed “law enforcement”, Jesus’ banksters, the Roman Senate’s rich and powerful families, who have evolved into today’s Wall Street and warmongering military contractors (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/02/douglas-valentine-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-the-cia-is-global-capitalisms-secret-gangster-army-190702/).
Business in the West has been going great guns since the Old Testament and billions of innocent men, women and children have been slaughtered and enslaved to keep that bottom-line fat with genocidal lucre. The only change over time being the evolution of technology, which has made the elites’ resource stranglehold go global, excepting communist-socialist-anti-imperialist countries, like China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Bolivia, Syria and on and on.
So, there you have it. It’s painful to accept that Western democracy is a giant fig leaf, an illusion hiding government sponsored organized crime and an ersatz “free press”. Our politicians can’t do the right thing, cannot really be leaders of the 99%, because they are suborned to the dictates of the wealthy 1% elites. That is why Eurangloland almost always gets mediocre to bad leaders and very corrupt governments, The 1% wants all those seats of supposed power filled with minions who can be bribed, blackmailed, extorted and if that doesn’t work, like Lincoln, Roosevelt, JFK and others, they just kill them to resolve their belligerence.
In Part II, we’ll compare and contrast Western governance with China’s.
Bio: Jeff J. Brown is a geopolitical analyst, journalist, lecturer and the author of The China Trilogy. It consists of 44 Days Backpacking in China – The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass (2013); Punto Press released China Rising – Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017). As well, he published a textbook, Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). Jeff is a Senior Editor & China Correspondent for The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing and is a Global Opinion Leader at 21st Century. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff writes, interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on YouTube, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio, iTunes, Ivoox and RUvid. Guests have included Ramsey Clark, James Bradley, Moti Nissani, Godfree Roberts, Hiroyuki Hamada, The Saker, and many others.
Jeff can be reached at China Rising, jeff@brownlanglois.com, Facebook, Twitter, Wechat (Jeff_Brown-44_Days) and Whatsapp: +86-13823544196.
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If you edit and publish my article(s) the only request is that the intended meaning in my article(s) not be changed or taken out of context. You may use the suggested graphics, which to the best of my knowledge are available free under Creative Commons, but I cannot guarantee that they may be used without the permission of their creator and/or owner. You may select your own choice of graphics, pictures and /and or videos (or none) that complement the intended meaning of my article. Please share and distribute my articles widely. My contact email is jeff@brownlanglois.com.
Finance capitalism and imperial finance is the problem. The 2 biggest financial imperialists are the US and UK. 2 hedge funds pretending to be a country.
And how does this all still work ? Because of CHINA ! China is still the biggest holder of US treasury debt. Add Hong Kong and Taiwan and you have China as the by far the biggest slave colony to the USA, All of this is their choosing !
Russia went from default in 1998 to 6th biggest economy with no trade with the USA. Yet Chinese leaders still think they need the USA. Lets have a regime change in China if thats what it takes for them to stop financing the USA
The complaint against China your statement reflects is actually a business relationship, China sends goods over here and is paid in the form of dollar bonds. Those bonds then draw interest and mature, from there China can use dollars to purchase America products w/o having to use the dollar/yuan exchange mechanism which costs money. Any extra dollars at the end of the day then get converted back to yuan and are sent home, there is always a supply of dollar bonds to draw from as long as the two country’s continue to trade.
If this trade mechanism starts to fall apart and the shelves being to empty here in the states, you have both a trade deflation and monetary deflation taking place as less bonds are needed to purchase American goods yet the greater amt of maturing bonds are no longer needed to buy goods here and so will be converted to yuan.
So if the trade war continues to escalate, eventually you need more money to service the debt and rates will have to rise causing a snowballing effect on the debt/gdp ratio rising.
This then is the continuing nightmare that leads to a hyperinflationary economy that slowly increases the poor to rich ratio, so slowly that it all seems natural and meant to be until the last straw suddenly breaks the camels back and entitlements of all sorts stop being paid, the citizens revolt, the military is called in to quell the violence and then this becomes the new normal. It all has to occur, so be careful what you wish for, for the day will soon arrive on your doorstep in a fashion you make not like.
Alabama, what you are saying does not change the fact, that what Paul said is correct.
I beg to differ, he makes the argument that china does not need the usa and if they were to stop buying bonds their so called troubles would vanish, but to do this they need a “regime change”.
I was simply making the point of the relationship between the two and how that mechanism worked. I never questioned would China be better off w/o the usa, it is doubtful they would, they have built up the china dream and if that dream was to be compromised by the loss of business to the usa, the Chinese gvt (and possibly citizens) certainly would not benefit from that action.
So is he still correct about what he said, or do your facts about his statement and my facts about his statement differ slightly?
I love the “hedge funds posing as countries”. Bravo.
Sure-‘slaves’ whose life expectancy and standard of living have burgeoned unlike in any other state in history over the last seventy years. Slaves who live in the greatest economy on Earth, and where education, science, technology, infrastructure and culture are progressing unlike any other place in history. And the ‘Masters’ live in a human faeces soiled dystopia of record elite wealth, mass poverty, inequality, unpayable debt, crumbling infrastructure and social division and hatred so virulent that civil strife seems inevitable. The Chinese cannot pull the plug on the USA, yet, because the dying monster would thus be rendered utterly unpredictable and dangerous.
Good grief man,
you’ll probably be updating (without a shred of evidence, again) from
“Iran is almost certainly less unequal than the USA”
to
“China is almost certainly less unequal than the USA”
Sure, what does a spot of inequality matter when you can work yourself to death http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-02/03/content_19477082.htm
“Foxconn, among some other companies in China, allegedly forced their employees work to overtime, which resulted in occasional karoshi (death caused by overwork or job-related exhaustion) and suicide, an official with the All China Federation of Trade Union (ACFTU) said on Monday, Beijing News reported.
Guo Jun, secretary of ACFTU’s secretariat, made the remarks during a press conference in Beijing on Monday.
According to Guo, employees in these enterprises work for more than 10 hours everyday and rarely have days off. Some privately owned, or middle- and small-sized enterprises don’t offer paid leave to workers. These illegal long hours lead to various psychological issues among their employees, which sometimes cause karoshi and suicide.
Foxconn, a major supplier of components to Apple, has been in the news in recent years after a series of suicides by workers, which activists blamed on tough and high-pressure working conditions.
Lack of investigations and light punishment are reasons behind the illegal overtime, Guo said, adding that many companies even learn from Foxconn how to make more profits.”
Why don’t you give us a proper name by which to recognise your Sinophobic, Iranophobic, Zionazi trash, so that we do not waste precious seconds reading the agit-prop drivel before moving on to something rational and honest?
Your report is four years old, makes plain that the conditions reported are ILLEGAL in China, and Foxconn is Taiwanese owned. Meanwhile, in the real world, Chinese wages have grown massively over the last two or so decades, Chinese internal consumption is growing, the Chinese have almost eliminated poverty throughout the country, while in your beloved West, wages have been stagnating for decades, work is increasingly contingent and precarious, wage theft is rife and the ranks of the working poor continue to grow and grow.
Four years old, illegal?
A lot has changed. Ignoring your Taiwanese obfuscation (after all, if Amazon know the conditions are illegal, it’s certain the Chinese authorities know), here’s the conclusion of one from Jun 2018, from news websites https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/06/16/amzn-j16.html:
Please stop the tit for tat personal digs (removed) and keep your quotes short – as you have provided a link. Mod.
Quote
In a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, CLW Executive Director Li Qiang laid out the investigation’s main findings, noting that what the organization found, “violates Chinese labor law. Foxconn uses a large number of dispatch workers and violates workers’ interests via these dispatch companies. This practice, in and of itself, is unethical and illegal.”
Amazon was in fact well aware of the criminal conditions that prevail at the Hangyeng assembly plant, admitting that an independent audit conducted in March revealed the excessive number of dispatch workers as well as the underpayment of overtime.
Far from being “issues of concern,” as the company claims, these were deliberate policies employed by Amazon to boost its profits through Foxconn, the notorious Taiwan-based manufacturer that gained notoriety following revelations that 14 workers at the company’s Shenzhen Apple assembly plant committed suicide in 2010 as a result of the long hours, poor pay, and barbaric conditions workers were forced to endure……
Amazon, which made $3 billion in profit last year and whose CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world with over $120 billion in assets, relies on the ever-deepening exploitation of its warehouse, manufacturing, and delivery workers around the world to produce and deliver its products as cheaply and quickly as possible. The technological and logistical advances that Amazon has created must be brought under the democratic control of the international working class in order to reallocate these immense resources to meet human need, not private profit.
End Quote
What is extremist?
You speak of the political situation in France and classify Mélanchon as „far-left“ and Marine Le Pen as „far-right“. And you add: « How democratic is a system where you are forced to vote from one political extreme to another… ».
I do not agree with theses classifications. Neither Mélanchon nor Le Pen are extremist. For me, extremist is for example to pretend that Russia today is a threat to her neighboring countries or to diabolise Putin and Assad. Extremist is also to say that the USA will remain the most powerful country for decades (as Obama did). Extremist is to say that the USA are democratic while China is not democratic.
By the way, I live in the French speaking part of Switzerland, where the elections in France are quite often discussed. I did support Marine Le Pen in these elections of 2017, which you discuss. For me, Macron is more extremist than Le Pen.
Hi, Paul, well said.
When I said “extreme”, that is the definition given by the mainstream media. For me, Mélanchon is what normal should be. I agree with you, Macron is the neoliberal extremist, which is why we voted against him.
Jeff
The West is not governed by Donald, Boris, Emmanuel and Angela. They merely provide the Show. The West is governed by the bankers behind the Show.
I agree with that but I think it is more than just the bankers.
It is a collection of bankers, “industry” leaders, academics, military and intelligence people who collectively consider themselves “fit to rule.” They all attend the same schools and belong to all the same country clubs. They pull the strings on the puppets who are offered up for election. They have no compunctions about that since they regard “democracy” as nothing more than a necessary facade to mollify the masses who are considered not “fit to rule.”
Sometimes someone comes along who gets elected and actually believes that they are President (e.g. Bush) and sometimes someone, who is unapproved by the “elite,” comes along and gets elected anyway (e.g. Trump).
In the end, it doesn’t make any difference. The same people are always really in charge.
Behind the scenes, there are stresses that are showing their true colors and lack of concentrations. Soon these shall be brought more into the public realm, and no one knows the outcome of those actions, for, we have never been here before and therefore do not know how the other side will react.
We know how they should react, and if that reaction is a positive one, all could be good. If the reaction remains the same as the past, then the wars persist and the system wide embarrassment increases.
The cards have been dealt, they just have not been played.
It’s why China was able to escape hereditary parasite rule. You have to destroy the country in 200 years of foreign intervention, imperialism, civil wars, foreign invasion and genocide, by the Japanese, and a final civil war between the forces of Evil and the Good, representing the people, to do it, before it can be achieved. Chinese history is littered with such massive upheavals and overturnings, and the new ruling regimes are usually led by charismatic and capable people and flourish for centuries, before lethargy and corruption settle in, and the process is repeated. There will be no humane and just ‘reform’ of the West, ever, certainly not before the ecological Holocaust finishes us off, because the predatory, misanthropic, elites are so well-entrenched, so vicious and genocidal and so well-prepared to smash any and every sign of resistance.
Yes indeed Hans. Its all a Punch & Judy show to keep people both distracted and also believing they have an actual say by voting every 4 or 5 years. The politicians serve those who weild the real power.
I havn’t voted for anyone for 20 years as I realised it won’t make any Real systemic change. Us plebs get thrown a few scraps here and there to keep us happy, but that’s about it. I don’t want to keep quoting Emma Goldman, but I’ll just say she was right.
My answer to Jeff J. Brown’s very poignant question:
Looking back at the 19th century, one could say that the West’s leaders were people of some real substance. They were able to kill, enslave, and steal other peoples’ wealth — in China’s case by causing addiction en masse to opium, harvested by peasant slave-labour in India.
Fast-forward to our contemporary West whose current ”statesmen” have seen the wonderful light and pleasures of drug stupor, paedophilia, laziness, and the ensuing all-out imbecilification. Meanwhile, China is thriving from having struggled ferociously to lift herself out of the vileness without raping and enslaving other peoples.
Trump and Boris — two orange baboons of absolutely zero substance. What total rot.
Well said! Thank you.
Not finding Nixon’s quote, “I don’t want to go out like Jack!,” anywhere. Does anyone know where this came from?
I got it from Godfree Roberts. I think he found it one of the many books about Nixon.
Appreciated. Thanks Certainly helps understanding the crazy look in Trump’s eyes after Helsinki and the press asked Donald if he didn’t agree with the intelligence community.
Sorry, last comment about Nixon that gets overlooked. Nixon had the Treasury Department issue $2 Treasury Notes.
Mr Brown´s opening paragraph on Beavis´, sorry, Boris´ election “with all the corrupt wheeling and dealing you can imagine” etc. and “people voting as much for a political party as a person” is just wrong, since he was voted in by 160,000 members of the Conservative Party. Removed – no attacking the author – breaks moderation policy. Mod.
This is a great site, but gross inaccuracy like this reminds one of the (wash my mouth out) MSM.
”Mr Brown has a Masters in Animal Nutrition according to Linkedin. How does that qualify him as ’geopolitical analyst’ ?”
What a preposterous piece of gossip. Jeff isn’t strutting around here with his Linkedin profile, so your ”corollary question” is entirely moot. Jeff’s credentials as a geopolitical analyst can be found in his dedication to and the quality of his work.
Much of what Jeff has written is verifiable. I am not a geopolitical analyst by training either, but many of the historical facts he presents are in the public domain. However, in the US, geopolitical anal ists are fed on bulls(t, which turns them into merciless warmongers and vassals to the very people Jeff writes about. Witness ‘the Chicago Boys’, Donald Rumsfeld and Allan Dulles both Princeton graduates, etc etc.
Fact are facts and trump university degrees in inbred propaganda narratives.
Growing up and working on a farm is the best education!
Boris won a local election, not a national one.
BoJo was voted in by about two-thirds of those 150,000 Tories, average age 72 or something (matching their IQs)so 110,000 odd senile delinquents, driven by class hatred and insatiable greed, out of a population or 60 million or so. ‘Liberal democracy’ in its most naked form.
Why are the leaders so awful?
I have often wondered that myself. I have always attributed it three things.
One, the public educational system. The public educational system teaches conformity, obedience and discourages critical thinking. It also inculcates students with a false history of the nation and and a very slanted and uncritical view of current events. That educational system sets up kids for the “media system” and the farce of the “two” party system.
Two, a bought and sold media. I don’t even read the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, etc. These – and many others – are pure propaganda outlets. Unfortunately, a majority of Americans still don’t understand that. You can’t have a real democracy without an honest, independent media.
Three, (in the United States) the two party system, which in fact is a one party system. The two (one) party system argues ferociously over minor issues while the one (two) party system serves the so-called elite while the populace is gnawing at each other’s bones on the false dichotomy.
It requires major money to become a succesfull politician and that tends to limit the field to mediocrities with big money backing.
In any party political system the requirements of the “party” always wind up getting placed ahead of the representation of the constituents. Even the Greens are guilty of that flaw, as demonstrated by their failure to pursue the dioxin issue in Tasmania during the 2nd pulp mill approval fight.
Decent, competent people do not tolerate embedded conflicts of interest in the organisations they associate themselves with. Consequently there is a dearth of decent, competent people putting themselves forward for representative roles in the political parties, and as those individuals make up the pool from which potential leaders are drawn the available quality of leadership material enters an inexorable decline.
It is the flawed nature of those individuals that allows the zionazis and the 1% to exert their influence, because those flawed individuals have, and will continue to happily entertain the conflicting of the wider common good with the narrower interests of those who grease their paths to glory, or riches, or whatever floats their boat.
The good news is that this nasty little scam could be brought undone by the voters in democratic nations refusing to vote the party line and instead voting for independent representation at every opportunity, and paying attention to how those independent representatives conduct themselves.
Mike from Jersey is correct about media and education having a role, but these are second order problems that can be solved by electing governments comprised of individuals capable of recognising the threats posed by flawed education and media sectors and addressing them by legislating to correct the flaws and compel suitable conduct. The first order problem is the nature of those doing the legislating.
Its actually the reverse, your representatives are only as good as your ability to educate them. If one was to have to bring suit against one or the other to right the ship, one would have to start with the dept of education to quell the tyranny of the political system, hopefully I wont have the time to proceed with such actions and will just let the chips fall where they may.
I would agree that educational and media reform would help solve the problem, but I don’t think it will happen.
Educational and media reform would be a revolutionary change and most people don’t want revolution. They simply want to peacefully enjoy their lives. The general population doesn’t get motivated to force bedrock change absent a catastrophe – like the Great Depression. That is the reason why the predators running this country have maintained control for so long. They are motivated to maintain the status quo since they are the prime beneficiaries. The average person doesn’t object until things get really horrible.
Unfortunately things are already horrible, if you were to start to try to right the educational ship now, one would find politicians cant really afford to feed their own citizens under the new set of circumstances. Health care costs would slowly drop as the health of the nation improved nutritionally, but mechanically the youth are on one hell of a destructive path that cant be changed politically, even by the time you’ve reduced health care costs to zero. Its really lose lose as far as the eye can see with today’s reality.
Tomorrow night could be a different story, if we could only get to tomorrow night.
Actually, I think things can (and will) get much worse.
If you look at the history of the last gilded age this is what you see: people worked 16 hour days, with no health care, no days off, no unemployment benefits and so on. They were often paid in scrip which was almost worthless but only redeemable in the store run by the employer.
Even then, the populace did not revolt, although the threat of violence was everywhere, both on the side of labor and the side of capital.
That was considerably worse than what we have now. People can and will endure a lot before they fight back.
And just where are the signs of revolt right now?
They are nowhere.
We are indeed headed in that direction but we aren’t close to being there yet.
In that previous Gilded Age, the world was not careering towards an ecological Holocaust, was not bedevilled by thousands of thermo-nukes and not threatened by genetically engineered bio-weapons. We are IMMEASURABLY worse off at present.
Mulga Mumblebrain,
What you say is true as to people who are aware of and concerned about those issues. In other words it is true that our predicament is actually worse but it is not true as far as these things being a motivator to action.
Most of the public is asleep. The issues we are talking about won’t concern them until either they are financially desperate or the SHTF on ecological or military issues.
That is the point that I am trying to make. The people of the United States will do nothing to change this situation we face.
We have to accept that.
Mike, here in Austfailia, the public is partly comatose, brainwashed into a vegetative state by hard Right regimes, whose coal industry patrons are very demanding but generous, and the Murdoch media cancer, and other Rightwing indoctrination organisations. Then there are others who vaguely sense that all is not well, but they are bound to the wheel of debt, mostly mortgages and credit cards, so dare not, or cannot, break free, because it leads to the street.
And then there are those who know, more or less, how deeply we are stuffed. They are beginning to panic, particularly the young, those with most to lose, but, being young, they are naive and hopeful. I found out about climate destabilisation in high school, but everyone else ignored it, or, like me, found the thought that the powers that be would do nothing and actively work to continue the process, out of pure greed, incomprehensible. Within ten years I realised that those powers were far more Evil than I had childishly imagined, and I resigned myself to human extinction, caused by capitalism acting as designed. I just calculated, until c.2000, that it would happen outside my lifespan, but now even that seems misguided.
Mulga,
You wrote:
“… within ten years I realised that those powers were far more Evil than I had childishly imagined.”
Sometimes, I wonder if I, myself, am naive about the extent of true evil in the world.
The greatest moral debacle of all is the belief that those on the Life-hating Rightwing extreme are simply people with a different way of looking at reality. This, it seems to me, is a decrepit relativism that abjures any philosophical, intellectual or moral discernment and judgment. My own calculus of good and Evil is based on whether actions contribute to the preservation of Life on this planet, Life seeming to my agnostic heart to be the highest good. I rather imagine that The Sin for Which There is No Forgiveness must be the destruction of Life.
The current, and several of the most recent Rightwing regimes in power in this country, are pretty undisguised in their hatred of Life and preference for money and power. Bizarrely and nauseatingly, but predictably, a good many, including the regime capo, Morrison, blather on about their ‘religion’, in his case the debased idiocy of ‘Pentecostalism’. This is a creature who imprisoned refugee children, indefinitely, until they went mad, who, as Treasurer and PM, handed out billions to the rich while overseeing a number of viciously punitive and disempowering campaigns to persecute the poor, weak and defenceless, whose regime is the most ecologically destructive here ever, and is actively denialist and pro-coal etc, etc. If this is a follower of Jesus Christ then I’m the Pope. THAT, in my opinion, is a record of Evil that will lead, inexorably, to the greatest Evil of all, the destruction of humanity and most Life on Earth. If Morrison’s ‘God’ approves of that, then he has horns, cloven feet and a tail, and wields a pitch-fork.
Well things can only get worse until they get better, their is still a thing called the law,(as defective as it may be) and even if it is on trial right now, it still has the opportunity to right the ship, or face the consequences of blindly sailing off of a flat Earth.
The warning signs are being advertized in plain site so as to not surprise any one of the 3 branches, but give them ample and fair warning of the precarious position they are soon to be faced with, if they lack an explanation,(the current outcome) they become guilty by association, if they take the path of most resistance, the guilty party’s can be tracked back to the worst offenders,(as much as they believe they have covered their tracks), if they come to an agreement, things get better.
No ‘voting’ in a ‘liberal democracy’ makes ANY difference, anymore. ALL real power in capitalist economies is held by the rich owners of the country. The election farces are charades, with the parties bought and paid for by political ‘contributions’ ie open bribery, and policed in power by ‘lobbying’, the entirely capitalist brainwashing system of the media, advertising, PR, think-tanks and the Holy Markets in currency, investment etc. When in power the money supply is controlled by the private banks and Central Banks ‘freed’ from political control, ie freed from the expression of the serfs”democratic’ will. The average schmuck has ZERO control over society, either individually or en masse, whereas one kleptocrat, say Zuckerberg or Merdreoch, controls the fate of billions and exercises his power like a veritable Emperor.
here is a good article on the subject of crappy leaders (from 5 years ago):
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/boarding-schools-bad-leaders-politicians-bullies-bumblers
I can’t speak for China, but I know why the west’s are so bad. In one word, its corruption. It starts early in a child’s life. In the USA, there is competition to get into the best pre-schools. Because its the kids from the best pre-schools who get into the best elementary schools, and its the kids from the best elementary schools who get into the best secondary schools. And that top-flight secondary school looks so good on an application to get to the best colleges. We’ve just seen a large scandal get exposed where rich people were buying spots in the best colleges. Because of course its the kids who go to the best colleges who get the best graduate school opportunities. And the bribery and corruption doesn’t end there. The C-student lawyer from a top law school needs a clerk opportunity with a famous judge for their resume.
The point is, it is corruption that determines everything from top to bottom in the west. They might let a few token people in on their merits, at the lower levels. Even the big lawfirms need someone to do the actual work. But those people are never promoted to the top. The people promoted to the top have the best connections or have bribed or blackmailed the decision makers.
Nobody competent in America ever gets promoted above middle management. Those promotions are chosen based on connections, bribery or blackmail. Competence is not required.
I have only one problem with your writing here Jeff, and that is the Beavis and Butthead characterization. I think the old English nursery rhyme Tweedledum and Tweedledee is more apt.
From Lewis Caroll, Through the Looking Glass and what Alice Found there:
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.
Here they are, depicted in line drawing
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Tennieldumdee.jpg
Now, now-Western leaders MUST be superior to Chinese, because Westerners are White, ‘Judeo-Christian’, Free Marketeers. The Chinese are ‘Commies’, ‘chinks’, ‘slopes’ and even the compradore bootlickers like the scum acting out in Hong Kong, to please their Western paymasters, are ‘mere Asiatics’. Even the best of them, given a pat on the head by his Western admirers in the form of the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo, who rightly observed that the Chinese would require 300 years of tutelage by Westerners before they could be considered ‘civilized’, was, after all, just a servant, and ‘No dogs or Chinese allowed’-remember? Any further discussion is simply fake news.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this essay from Jeff J. Brown and look forward to reading the next part.
Hierarchies.
We can’t LIVE with them.
We’re not allowed to live without them.
Thanks Jeff, you just pulled millenia of history into one well organized polemic. The worst part is that the detailed history you present is 90% unknown. I am well read and informed but you pointed out things I had not known, such as the early death of every single president president who didn’t fully comply.
It really makes you wonder why any well informed person would bother to run. I note that Tulsi Gabbard’s narrative of being against regime change wars just evaporated in her vote to fund them via the 2 year budget that funds killing people more than elevating the people of the US.
It’s really grim. However, I am not sure I totally agree with you about China. It has had many internal regime changes aka Dynasties, when Chinese people got fed up with being screwed by their elites. We’ll see.
Looking forward to you China part II.
JFK: a good book, Final Judgment by M.Piper show us how likely the CIA/Mafia/Mossad has been in hs murder. SOon after JFK, who was suspicious of Ben Gurion’s nuclear weapon aspirations, Johnson allowed the Israelis to build their nukes. Hardly ever mentioned and actively deflected by Mossad for many years.
Whether 9/11 or other flase flags and deception, this triangle often is involved.
Takes a lot to change that.
Given that Western political leaders really do not and cannot represent the general populace but rather big moneyed interests, the political process has largely devolved into show business. Competence is not exciting for the masses and personality is rarely competent. There was a running joke in the ’84 election: Walter Mondale for Prime Minister and Ronald Reagan for King. Trump is in some ways the ultimate personification of this. He is at heart an entertainer. You can’t really appreciate his persona without some knowledge of reality television and professional wrestling. Trump is the classic “heel” (bad guy) pro wrestling persona. The exchange between Trump and Kim Jong Un was classic pro wrestling style feuding. Kim appears to really “get it”.
The interesting thing about the Trump “character” is not that Trump tells his supporters only what they want to hear. That’s just politics. But that he doesn’t even seem to care what expectations his supporters have of him based on his rhetoric. Everything is purely for the Show and Trump doesn’t even seem to realize that his supporters care for anything more than the Show. In pro wrestling nothing is real, nothing has actual consequences and nothing really matters except the immediate excitement of the Show. The pro wrestling fans know all this of course but they only care about the Show. And why not, it’s just entertainment. Presidential governance is a little more complicated. Things do matter.
This became clear to me following the election. Trump went on a thank you tour. When he went to address his supporters they would want to go into a “lock her up!” chant. Trump simply told them that this had been just for the campaign and he didn’t care about that anymore. He also admitted that the “Drain the Swamp” line was just something he said for the crowd. It didn’t mean anything and Trump didn’t really even like it or invent it.
For those interested, here is a link to some of Trump’s moments in professional wrestling. Trump even gave a job to Linda McMahon. The wife of wrestling promoter and Trump pro wrestling associate Vince McMahon.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/6-unreal-moments-from-trumps-pro-wrestling-career/
Check out Trump’s shaving Vince McMahon’s head in Wrestlemania XXIII “Battle of the Billionaires”
Thanks, Jeff, for holding up a mirror to the West.
The current crop of bozo leaders is a reflection of what is in the people that the elites have corrupted with their control of the MSM. That control was being shattered by the Internet which is why they are cracking down on alternate thinking on it. I expect in the next phase the outright suppression of access to websites that refuse to toe the line.
The west 99% are children. They want to be looked after. Adults do not need leaders.
I don’t believe it’s correct to describe Ronald Reagan as attempting to make peace with the Russians (Soviets). As far as I know, there is no evidence that Reagan thought of the Soviet Union as anything but an “evil empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world”. It also should be mentioned that the high state of tension with the Soviet Union was due to Reagan’s military build up and trashing of Detente. The rather openly stated strategy of the Reagan administration was to force the Soviet Union to compete in an arms race leading eventually to an economic crisis and the collapse of the Soviet system. This was an extremely risky strategy that could easily have lead to World War III if not for Reagan’s partnership with Mikhail Gorbachev. Reagan did work with Gorbachev to reduce nuclear weapon stockpiles, granted. But I attribute this more to Reagan’s dislike of nuclear weapons as well as his personal relationship with Gorbachev than any more noble goals.
I imagine that Reagan was told not to worry about the Soviet as the USA had agents in place, either Gorbachev or those around him, who were going to surrender, split the country and open it up for looting, as occurred.
FDR gets a pass from many historians. It doesn’t go without saying that he was Wall Street from the get go. See Antony Sutton’s works, inc:
Full text of “Antony Sutton – Wall Street and FDR” (1975).pdf
https://archive.org/details/pdfy-FPUkz4pezsfsrVfZ
http://sttpml.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/13285654-Antony-Sutton-Wall-Street-and-FDR.pdf
WALL STREET AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Sutton_Wall_Street_and_the_bolshevik_revolution-5.pdf
Antony C. Sutton — Feb. 14, 1925 – June 17, 2002
http://www.antonysutton.com/
Because International Finance TPTB want it. Incredible someone still believe national politics has anything to say.
Love Part I, Jeff. Can’t wait for Part ll!
Your article is a fast paced, condensed, right on target train ride including so many head spinning points of political interest of the personality and moral defects of the brain-dead-buffoons who run the show for the outrageous, deadly, human-hating emotionally-challenged (reptilian?) masters, who are nothing but thieves and robbers of humanity on our planet (and very possibly on other planets, as well).
This could mean that our planet (and galaxy/universe) is filled with human-masquerading monsters who want to use humans as slaves to plunder the planet on their behalf (according to Snowden’s leaked info to former PM of Canada, Paul Hellyer). If so, what can we humans do to stop them? Is it even possible?