Right To Left

Recently, independent American journalist - Matt Taibbi posted a hard-hitting editorial about how and why he feels American journalism is failing it's readers and viewers today. "The transformation from phony "objectivity" to open one-party orthodoxy hasn't been an improvement" After a fair bit of unpacking and explaining his critique, Taibbi notes: The most Soviet of the recent efforts didn’t have a classically Soviet headline. “Comedians are struggling to parody Biden. Let’s hope this doesn’t last,” read the Washington Post opinion piece by Richard Zoglin, arguing that Biden is the first president in generations who might be “impervious to impressionists.” Zoglin contended Biden is “impregnable” to parody, his voice being too “devoid of obvious quirks,” his manner too “muted and self-effacing” to offer comedians much to work with. He was talking about this person: Forget that the “impregnable to parody” pol spent the last campaign year jamming fingers in the sternums of voters, challenging them to pushup contests, calling them “lying dog-faced pony soldiers,” and forgetting what state he was in. Biden, on the day Zoglin ran his piece, couldn’t remember the name of his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and referred to the Department of Defense as “that outfit over there”: Yeah, no comedy to be found there! “In Extraordinary Statement, Trump Stands With Saudis Despite Khashoggi Killing” was the Times headline, in a piece that said Trump’s decision was “a stark distillation of the Trump worldview: remorselessly transactional, heedless of the facts, determined to put America’s interests first, and founded on a theory of moral equivalence.” The paper noted, “Even Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill expressed revulsion.” This week, in its “Crusader for the Poor” piece, the Times described Biden’s identical bin Salman decision as mere evidence that he remains “in the cautious middle” in his foreign policy. The paper previously had David Sanger dig up a quote from former Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross, who “applauded Mr. Biden for ‘trying to thread the needle here… This is the classic example of where you have to balance your values and your interests.’” It’s two opposite takes on exactly the same thing. The old con of the Manufacturing Consent era of media was a phony show of bipartisanship. Legitimate opinion was depicted as a spectrum stretching all the way from “moderate” Democrats (often depicted as more correct on social issues) to “moderate” Republicans (whose views on the economy or war were often depicted as more realistic). That propaganda trick involved constantly narrowing the debate to a little slice of the Venn diagram between two established parties. Did we need to invade Iraq right away to stay safe, as Republicans contended, or should we wait until inspectors finished their work and then invade, as Democrats insisted? The new, cleaved media landscape advances the same tiny intersection of elite opinion, except in the post-Trump era, that strip fits inside one party. Instead of appearing as props in a phony rendering of objectivity, Republicans in basically all non-Fox media have been moved off the legitimacy spectrum, and appear as foils only. Allowable opinion is now depicted stretching all the way from one brand of “moderate” Democrat to another. An example is the Thursday New York Times story, “As Economy Is Poised to Soar, Some Fear a Surge in Inflation.” It’s essentially an interview with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who’s worried about the inflationary impact of the latest Covid-19 rescue (“The question is: Does [it] overheat everything?”), followed by quotes from Fed chair Jerome Powell insisting that no, everything is cool. This is the same Larry Summers vs. Janet Yellen debate that’s been going on for weeks, and it represents the sum total of allowable economic opinions about the current rescue, stretching all the way from “it’s awesome” to “it’s admirable but risky.” This format isn’t all that different from the one we had before, except in one respect: without the superficial requirement to tend to a two-party balance, the hagiography in big media organizations flies out of control. These companies already tend to wash out people who are too contentious or anti-establishment in their leanings. Promoted instead, as even Noam Chomsky described a generation ago, are people with the digestive systems of jackals or monitor lizards, who can swallow even the most toxic piles of official nonsense without blinking. Still, those reporters once had to at least pretend to be something other than courtiers, as it was considered unseemly to openly gush about a party or a politician. The new, cleaved media landscape advances the same tiny intersection of elite opinion, except in the post-Trump era, that strip fits inside one party. Instead of appearing as props in a phony rendering of objectivity, Republicans in basically all non-Fox media have been moved off the legitimacy spectrum, and appear as foils only. Allowable opinion is now depicted stretching all the way from one brand of “moderate” Democrat to another. read the rest at: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matt-taibbi-the-sovietization-of-the-american-press It would be worth asking if this trend towards one party rule in America will actually survive if the ruling Democrats experience colossal failure, as they appear to be starting now that the economy is tanking and doesn't seem to be reviving with trillions of instant stimulus dollars being created out of nowhere. The border disaster has gotten even worse; the Covid-19 pandemic is not going to go away under Biden (especially now that it's becoming apparent that much ballyhooed vaccines are having negligible effects on new coronavirus variants in Brazil and South Africa); so, if or I should say WHEN the wheels fall off the Biden economic miracle, what are all the banking and corporate hotshots going to do after they've put all their eggs in the Democrat basket? Will they at least allow the return of a somewhat fair and open media? Not likely now! But, how many CNN viewers will be able to continue to ignore the dark, dangerous world outside as Biden World creaks and collapses in another year from now?

Right now, I am noticing the most anger and outrage on the left is coming from people who are really pissed off at AOC, Ro Kanna and others who acted so outraged 'kids in cages' when Donnie was in charge of the DHS forces at the border. Where are they hiding now? And if they are honestly about more than making the long, very slow climb up the seniority ranks of their Party, they sure as hell aren't showing it!

I've seen enough dementia cases to see the signs coming on. It's generally much more noticeable among older men than women, and especially men of Joe Biden's profile - loud, extraverted, domineering and talkative. I'm thinking somebody was working on a profile of his mental progression back last summer as his campaign was unraveling, and while most were expecting Joe would have to withdraw, the rulers at the top of the Democratic Party and some major donors were still determined to push Joe through and over the finish line if he could walk and wave and string a couple of sentences together. Cause, after all, that's about all he was doing for most of his lackluster political career. He had long been considered controllable within the party because of his limited intellectual curiosity along with a strong desire to please big money donors. So, if there was any chance, they were going to shove him over the finish line rather than risk it all on some upstart who might think he could make decisions for himself! The one thing that psychologists note about dementia patients is that they retain their long memories and behaviors well after they start losing short term memory and skills. SO, a career politician who first went to Congress back in 1973.....easy to figure the last things he would forget were how to act in front of the cameras and what to say to keep insurance and big pharma donors happy.

It's up to you guys to decide what you're going to do with your conservative party. But, I'd say that CPC has painted itself so far into a windowless corner with no escape, that there's no way to turn it into a winning party again....unless everyone east of the Manitoba...possibly even Alberta border loses their vote or moves to the US, Europe or elsewhere. Because the problem all started with Harper and his western (OIL) focus. If climate change didn't exist...or would not happen till far off in the future, and the US had no other sources of domestic or imported oil, maybe Alberta's tarsands would be worth enough to justify the high costs of production, and a conservative leader may have gotten away with putting all the focus on tarsands production. But, whether lying, dishonest rags like Rebel News will admit it or not, the only way oil production and exports resume today is if the Federal Government directly subsidizes Alberta's tarsands infrastructure and sells dilbit at heavy oil prices! If the rest of Canada is going to have to subsidize Alberta, it would be better to do it through direct transfer payments, rather than giving billions to the dirtiest oil production methods in the world! That's what Harper, his friends and the bottom-feeders at Rebel media are getting some or all of their income from, but it would be better to end it for financial and environmental reasons, rather than dragging this dirty white elephant on into the future over the coming decades!

Thanks. I haven't checked Gab in over a year, when it was still pretty new. I got a couple of referrals there from when I was a member and regular contributor at .... well, what was supposed to be an open and non-partisan political discussion forum back almost 15 years ago...around the same time I first joined MLW .... I should point out that I was using a different user name on both at the time. Later on, I changed my user name to the present one because of what I was seeing as a definite shift in my political and economic outlook. Anyway, the 'non-partisan' forum that was supposed to be open for discussion and respectful debate between all sides of the political spectrum, went from being a large right-leaning forum to a much smaller zealously liberal forum where non-liberals are about as welcome as non-Democrats on Democratic Underground .... if you get the picture. Anyway, this former member who was radically libertarian and in frequent back-n-forth debates with me sent me a pm one day about Gab, and that he was leaving our DTT forum and making gab his permanent online home. I wasn't happy either where I was, which...as conservative moderators seem to disappear or be listed as "former" moderators, it was impossible not to notice that one, extremely active, extremely liberal ( but also extremely Neocon) moderator appeared to be taking over the whole place....not only with the largest volume of comments, but also starting the most threads. It was like the whole forum became his personal blog and those left became little more than spectators. Eventually, my cynicism got me put out of my misery, as one day I logged in and discovered I couldn't get past a message that declared I was "banned for rules violations." Well maybe, but I had nowhere to go and no one to argue with...just like the way authoritarian liberals run Twitter and Facebook today. All water under the bridge so to speak, but in an era where most people have abandoned open forums for 'social media' platforms and just talk to likeminded about whatever crap their doing or have opinions about, I would have thought that the those who are still running forums would want to maintain a healthy environment that would encourage a wide degree of participation...but I could be wrong. All I know is that I wish the internet was still as open and often chaotic as it was in the early days before the tone police arrived to enforce niceness and correct thinking on what authorities consider important issues.

FIRST, you need to prove that such a group as "Blue Anon" exists, and then we'll talk about it! Q Anon is talked about because several years ago a conspiracy theorist online troll (calling himself Q Anon) started posting comments on obscure rightwing message boards like 4 chan - claiming that leading Democrats were grooming children and using them for sex .... at a pizza parlor in Washington D.C. and other unexpected locations, and what's most implausible -- that Donald Trump ... of all people, and his heroic band of leading Republicans will ride to the rescue of children being abused and exploited by wealthy Democrats in Washington, New York and other locations. Nobody believed this idiocy except for a hard core of stupid rightwing acolytes, because of the obvious: IF the pedophile conspiracy were a bipartisan collection of wealthy businessmen and political leaders of both parties it would actually be a plausible theory! But to portray it as being the product of one, and only one political party in a two party system, is just sheer stupidity!

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that patriots tend to be white/ while terrorists are brown or black! Regarding the source, it looks like stepping away for a little while and returning, I find Bubber has made the same transition as other centrist liberals who have gone full bore rightwing on issues of militarism and imperial overreach, and will no longer allow any self-examination of their own motives or their allies. As for "white men" and your specific reference which I would assume to be rightwing Nazified white men who get angry each time they are expecting to be praised/and find criticism....even mild criticism ......... I always expect them to throw tantrums, because they don't want a real debate on the evidence or merits of their arguments. They just want to walk away and say they "destroyed" the Libs, just like every idiot fan of Ben Shapiro writes for a title to some Youtube clip of a Ben Shapiro debate their reposting. Over the past 5 years, the so called left and right in America, are almost in lock step on every issue except having embarrassing, uninformed and arrogant louts like Donald Trump getting up onstage and saying things out loud like 'we're in Eastern Syria for the oil', which smart, respectable imperialist warmongers like Barack or even his surrogate - Joe Biden, understand they have to keep that part hidden from view. So, should it be any surprise that white liberals are a disappearing species now that their attitudes about race and policing are putting them back onside with the worst that the Republicans have to offer?

When you start bragging about yourself and showing off, while mocking others, you have to make sure you don't end up having to eat your own words...like Idiot Joe here and his minions of internet and TV news apologists!

I used to watch Maher's ABC show "Politically Incorrect" 20 to 25 years ago, and I can honestly say, I think he is still the same self-aggrandizing, uninformed, money-grubbing asshole he was back then! The only difference is he used to have hair back in the old days! Maher got cancelled back then, because he was just shooting off his mouth without thinking as usual, and when his usual rant against automatic calling soldiers "heroes" included 'they fight out in the open, while we drop bombs from 10,000 feet....how is that brave....or words to that effect. That is how it was heard by everyone to the left of "All We Are Saying, Is Give Peace A Chance" regardless. So, it was no shock that after a few days of attempted clarifications and backpedaling by Maher, he was out of a job...along with his idiot-know nothing regular panelists...like the regular fixture he was boinking at the time - Arianna Huffington...who had to take some of the money she scored from her gay ex-husband and start her own news aggregator site...that was successful for a few years, and now soon to go under the waves. All that aside, what is different about Maher's bullshit 'tough love' approach back then, compared to the drivel he is spouting now? Since I considered myself to be a libertarian back then...and was actually doing some reading about libertarian political and economic philosophy, I called out Bill Maher as a poser whenever a friend or someone I worked with was talking about him and his stupid show. Maher was a "libertarian" who only liked and agreed with Democrats....and pro-war centrist Democrats at that. It was pretty obvious that his notion of libertarianism meant being a Hollywood liberal with libertine attitudes about sex and who liked to smoke pot, but did not like women having opinions and refusing sex....just sayin there's a gathering scandal waiting to drop on him some day in the future. Like Marilyn Manson, you never know when, but as soon as one case goes to court, then the dam breaks and there's a flood! And back then, just as now, Republicans were always enemies, unless they agreed with all of his stupid opinions and takes, and then he would say "you're one of the good ones." His favorite Republicans were the soon to be MSNBC host - Joe Scarborough....who was just the kind of ConservaDem that Bill Maher always approved of!

I do now, thanks! I will never put more than a modest amount of trust in any news aggregation service...whether it claims to be left, right or neutral, and the key reason is because "aggregating of news from left to right for you" means checking the 'left' side of the pro-military US imperialism promoters and contrasting their takes with the 'right' side of the pro-military-industrial and media complex. And of course these independent voices are almost all centered in Washington or a handful of likeminded allies in London. Since I don't expect to get a Russian, let alone a Chinese or Iranian take from Ground News, I don't expect to be disappointed! But, what no news aggregator or reporter of any kind can get past without spending some long hours sleuthing and ferreting out lies and misinformation in a search for the truth, is to find a source that is not connected or at least not tainted by what CIA official and self-aggrandizing braggart - Frank Wisner termed as his "Mighty Wurlitzer." The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America It seems that, so many times, we would have no idea about what's really going on anywhere except for the sheer arrogance and enormous egos of the perpetrators of fraud and deception! In this case, Wisner freely offered some of his time to talk to a clearly adversarial journalist - Hugh Wilford, of the leftist and decidedly anti-war magazine - Ramparts, way back in 1967...when the Vietnam War was at its peak US troop presence and about to turn into a murderous and disastrous quagmire just a year later! Wilford turned his notes and unpublished material into a book on the subject of what this top CIA official was willing to tell him openly and without any demands for confidentiality. Wisner was apparently so confident, that the barely concealed CIA programs of media collaboration and manipulation at the time, that he felt he could just let it all hang out and brag about how smart he was for planning it out and watching daily news reports parroting the CIA-desired narratives on a wide range of stories. No, I think it goes way beyond "wienie" ways of describing this event... after all, Joe Biden did not SLIP! He clearly fell at least two times, with the 3rd time being a little closer to a slip than a fall. If Joe was (first of all, he wasn't walking...he was clearly trying to run or jog up those stairs....first mistake) walking on a flat surface or worse - descending on a flight of stairs, it would have been a disaster, and nobody( including BS fact-checkers like Snopes) could have tried to portray it as a "slip!" So, when I first saw the pics of Biden (at Drudgereport) down on his knees on that staircase, and clicked on the links that re-directed to the US edition of Sun News, I wanted to know what American news sources were saying about this event. And, in the immediate hours afterwards they had absolutely NOTHING! The editors and online mouthpieces at CNN and MSNBC were probably all called in on a zoom conference call to do damage control, where they were discussing how and when to present this embarrassing display as positively as possible for the President and the Government.....'make sure you emphasize that the President didn't injure himself or go to hospital afterwards, people, ...he's fine...etc.'. Needless to say, Newsmax and Breitbart had a field day with this, but even Fox News seemed a little muted in their response....trying to find some sort of middle ground in between, I suppose. Exactly!! They couldn't shut up about it....including Biden himself! Live by the sword/die by the sword, so to speak. I remember watching Youtube clips of Showtime's "Our American President" cartoon series, and in every clip where they show Donald Trump walking somewhere...anywhere, they portray him as moving ridiculously slowly after his slow, careful descent down a ramp a couple of years back. Trump defenders can say that at least he was smart enough not to risk falling, so he's got that one on Idiot Joe! I wonder if they will talk to Jill or even Kamala about reigning him in on his irrational exuberance, in case he gets a notion he's going to take off and show that he can still run some time in the near future.

You haven't even addressed my questions ..... which is why I didn't invite conservative participation on a post that asks liberals specifically to account for how they intend to fight China / without exacerbating racism in America and other western satellite nations. I know how close to non-existent any rightwing concerns for minorities of all different colours and ethnicities are already! Now bring me the libs!

What I noticed was once again the dog that didn't bark!! Namely ABC News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS News etc. etc....where was Fox News also? Aren't they still supposed to be rightwing anti-Democrat media? Since I still have many rightwing media tabs and bookmarks among my liberal and actual leftist sites to check when I go online, I first noticed that the video of this old fool stumbing and falling while trying to run up the stairs (nobody is mentioning that Idiot in Chief was running/not walking at the time) was the top banner on Drudge and Zerohedge, and almost nowhere else. And they likely wouldn't have seen it either if the US division of Sun News didn't run with it first. But, just to show how deeply and intentionally news and information is divided in America today, if you do a search with any search engine for "Biden falls" all the links pop up from rightwing news, bloggers, Youtubers and aggregators, and NOTHING appears from acceptable liberal media sources! Only two options to explain this: MSM wants to bury this embarrassing display of arrogance and foolishness on the part of the new president (who won't allow Secret Service or other aides by his side when going up or down any stairs) or maybe they want him dead or incapacitated so Kamala can take his seat and officially be declared the new president!

For some mysterious reasons of cognitive dissonance, WHAT TO DO ABOUT CHINA???? doesn't seem to connect with, Why Has There Been a Spike of Anti-Asian Hate? * I'll point out here, I'm not talking about or not really interested in talking to conservative rightwing louts who wear their white supremacy and racism on their sleeves! I want to hear from the liberals....who otherwise claim to be the most non-racist white people on the planet, but who are now hedging and fudging their rhetoric about how the shift in US foreign policy called (Pivot To Asia) under Obama, meant a shift from a shadowy, never defined War On Terror to a return to Cold War fight for imperial supremacy against America's "enemies." And these enemies are once again, Russia...mostly because of their large stockpiles of nukes, and recalcitrance at playing by the rules of Big Power US dominated global capitalism, AND China...for succeeding too well at turning their economy from state-managed communism into state-managed capitalism, and threatening US dominance of global capitalism! If the liberal imperialists who stocked Obama's administration would refuse to admit or acknowledge any feelings of racism in their anti-China rhetoric...just as the Obama reboot - Joe Biden Crew refuse to admit today, the not so subtle subliminal messages are: sinister, devious looking Russians (like Putin) and equally devious looking Chinese leaders (which every good liberal will insist has nothing to do with race or visual appearance, but communicates the same message to the average viewer). And regarding that New York Times breast-beating lamentation about "Why Has There Been a Spike of Anti-Asian Hate? " linked above from the NY Times editorial: There’s a good viral thread being shared around Twitter right now by China Daily‘s Ian Goodrum compiling a small selection of anti-China mainstream media headlines in answer to the New York Times question “Why has there been a spike in anti-Asian hate”? Goodrum confronts one with the possibility that the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans cannot be comfortably filed away as merely the result of Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric while in office, but arises at least partially from a virulent propaganda campaign against the US empire’s leading opponent of which the liberal media have been enthusiastic participants. “We are being bombarded with anti-China hate for a reason and it has nothing to do with human rights,” journalist Rania Khalek commented while sharing Goodrum’s thread. “This is just a tiny fraction of it. At the same time anyone who questions the state department narrative is being accused of loving tyrants and defending genocide. Sound familiar?” https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/03/19/what-were-really-seeing-with-all-these-anti-china-narratives/

I do a quick search for your claim and I find every link on the first page of a "China forced child labor" search turns up either "forced labor" or "child labor." I suppose that since children do not have the same freedoms of movement as adults and are easier to control, the term: "Forced Child Labor" is already overreaching for shock value alone! Not that child labor is a good thing, but right from the titles, I can see where the bullshit is being mixed in to the propaganda narratives!" And, it's worth noting that there is another side to this story, which contends that the Hong Kong crisis was little more than a CIA/MI-6 destabilizing campaign being used to try to chip away and weaken another Anglo-American 'enemy.' And likewise....whatever goes on in the vast, underpopulated cold desert conditions where the Uyghurs live in Western China, cannot be separated from encroachment and indoctrination of Islamic fascist teachers coming America's favorite dictatorships - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Egypt....who started the Wahabbi cultural transformations in Sinkiang that have been carried out all across the Muslim World. And since I take NOTHING that gets spewed out as news from MSM propaganda outlets on any given subject, I am not going to just take claims of the past 10 years that China has "concentration camps" filled with "hundreds of thousands" of Uyghurs without clear evidence that goes beyond translated claims of Uyghurs or reports from Falun Gong-associated propaganda sites, like this idiotic "Epoch Times" we are getting polluted with in recent years! And as for "Child Labour," does such a thing exist in America?? How Illegal Migration Fuels Child Labor in American Suburbia In a November 19 story – co-published with Mother Jones and El País – ProPublica Illinois’ Melissa Sanchez shines a light on illegal alien child labor in the suburbs of Chicago. Although leftist ProPublica is hardly a pro-enforcement media outlet, the article nevertheless demonstrates how mass illegal migration – combined with greedy smugglers and the debts incurred by illegal aliens to the criminal cartels that smuggle them into the country, unscrupulous employers, and passive worksite enforcement– coalesce to facilitate and fuel the exploitation of children at the workplace. In her piece, Sanchez concentrates on Central American (mainly Guatemalan indigenous) migrant teenagers. Many of these migrants arrived as UACs (unaccompanied alien children), allowed themselves to get caught by the Border Patrol, applied for asylum, and were eventually released to “sponsors.” The author admits that these young asylum applicants are overwhelmingly economic migrants, coming to make money and help their families. She also acknowledges that “as word spread that it was easy for minors — or adults accompanied by a child — to get into the U.S. and seek asylum,” increasing numbers of economic migrants have attempted to use that loophole. “Some began to work when they were just 13 or 14,” writes Sanchez, “packing the candy you find by the supermarket register, cutting the slabs of raw meat that end up in your freezer and baking, in industrial ovens, the pastries you eat with your coffee.” Other places of employment included automotive parts factories and recycling facilities. The teenagers knew they were legally not supposed to be working, and that it could jeopardize their asylum cases in immigration court. Many, however, feel that they have little choice but to toil away. One 15-year-old “had debts to pay, starting with the roughly $3,000 he owed for the ‘coyote’ who guided him across Mexico from Guatemala. To finance the trip, his parents had taken out a bank loan, using their house as collateral. If he didn’t repay it, the family could lose its home.” The migrant children usually find work through temporary staffing agencies (“oficinas” in Spanish), which gives business owners a degree of cover and plausible deniability. Many work during the night, which often makes them too exhausted and sleep-deprived to pay attention in school, causing more than a few to simply drop out and continue working illegally. Some are also hurt on the job, but prefer not to seek medical attention to avoid trouble. Sanchez bemoans the reactive passivity of “government agencies charged with enforcing child labor laws [that]don’t look for violations, though some officials say they aren’t surprised to hear it’s happening. Instead, those agencies wait for complaints to come to them, and they almost never do.” Thus, “the companies benefit from the silence. It’s an open secret no one wants exposed, least of all the teenagers doing the work.” And, finally, the article contains a telling tidbit about the impact of the above-described child labor on the labor market. Sanchez mentions “an indigenous Guatemalan labor leader” who “has heard complaints from adult workers in the fish-packing industry who say they’re losing their jobs to 14-year-olds.” Since these adult workers are almost certainly illegal aliens, this snippet demonstrates that high levels of unchecked illegal migration can have a negative impact even on other unlawfully present foreign nationals, let alone legal immigrants or U.S. citizens. And all this goes on among the nice split-level bungalows, well-manicured lawns and white picket fences of the typical suburbia in America....according to Pro Publica! So, when you throw shit at someone else halfway around the world, you never know what's coming back to hit you right in the face! *I have to note that neither the rightwing, anti-immigrant, anti-dark people site republishing the report, nor liberal Pro Publica which did the research and wrote the report, are able to delve down and consider the root cause of ALL forced labor and child labor goes back to capitalist economics....which favors those who can produce goods and services at the highest profit margins. Charging higher prices for finished products would be one way to maximize profits, but competition, demand for product and ability of the customer to pay, often constrains that end of the process. So, the other option is to produce the products as cheaply as possible. The lower the labor costs, the lower the price of the finished product. And as the Pro Publica report tells it, if a 13 or 14 year old Guatemalan can do the same job as the adult Guatemalan refugee, the employer will want the young teenager instead of the adult! Plain and simple! As a result, both liberals who want to end child labor and the refugee crisis, and their conservative, rightwing brethren on the other side of the political aisle, are unable to address the root cause of the crisis directly because of their shared acceptance (veneration in the case of most rightwingers) of capitalism. So, all they can do is attack the problem from the outside edges.... more intrusive policing, more punitive laws, finding scapegoats to blame for the crisis, or demanding new laws and new government institutions in a ramped up authoritarian assault on "illegal" immigration, that usually casts a much wider net and infringes on the rights of those with legal documents and even spills over onto average white citizens, who find that they are also under surveillance, whether they realize it or not. But, never do liberals nor conservatives ask whether the economic system they've built up and relied upon is the ultimate source of this and so many other problems.

Ah yes, Eastern Europe! Where the fight against communism led to the support of the re-emergence of fascist parties and fascist governments that have hollowed out economies today after foreign buyers bought up all the former state industries and enterprises. Are there any Eastern European nations today from the Baltics down to Bulgaria and Macedonia, where the only people left are old pensioners after 30 years of young people fleeing to at least find work in England and the EU countries?

Of course! Since there's not enough pro-American propaganda available on Fox or MSNBC. Only difference is you have to choose D flavored propaganda or the R flavored version. If you ever attempted to get past Google or even worse - Wikipedia, and went directly to any non-conformist sites on the internet, you could find a whole different world! It used to be a lot easier to find a variety of sources 15 or 20 years ago, but now the internet is almost completely controlled by oligarchs who send out their minions to push and promote fake agendas, and just like the crap you find in the cereal aisle of your local supermarket, it's all the same garbage presented in a multitude of colors and flavors to confuse and mislead the consumer. I never said "ALL!" But my main point is that regardless of all the claims and BS we got after 9-11 about "Islamism" and the importance of promoting democracy and human rights, the US Government has been squarely on the side of the worst of the worst Islamofascists and just plain amoral dictators. US Provides Military Aid To More Than 70 Percent Of World’s Dictatorships About three-quarters of the world’s dictatorships currently receive military assistance from the United States. This is a strange record for a nation that consistently justifies its sweeping foreign interventions as aimed at “promoting democracy” and “thwarting evil dictatorships.” by Whitney Webb Only problem I got with China is that they are building up to become world power status they feel was denied to them 200 years ago by the encroaching British and American empires. But, for the moment, China offers an oppositional force to what would otherwise be even worse US hegemony that no one would be able to push back.

Mexico and Guatemala Tighten Borders for Possible Migrant Caravans February 18, 2021 On February 15, the Embassy of Mexico in Guatemala posted a tweet announcing the Government of Mexico would not allow migrant caravans to enter, saying, “Mexico does not promote, nor allow the irregular entry of migrant caravans into national territory.” (Translated from Spanish to English.) Mexico’s warning follows information from Guatemalan intelligence sources of a tentative U.S.-bound migrant caravan possibly originating from Honduras. Last week, the Government of Guatemala held a meeting between immigration, law enforcement, and intelligence agency heads to address the possible caravan. So, once again, what the hell is the difference between Biden Admin policy and the shit Trump was doing...aside from rearranging the deck chairs on the USS Titanic? The crux of the problem in Central America goes back centuries to the beginning of the American Empire's commercial expansion and exploitation of southern territories it decided it had regional sovereignty over....expanded Manifest Destiny or some bullshit flagwaving rhetoric. While the modern crisis lands mostly on the Bush/Obama Administration which went about regime changing governments for frivolous reasons after failing to take back Venezuela for US oil companies. For example, the 2009 CIA-organized military coup in Honduras against the elected government of Manuel Zelaya came as a result of Zelaya acting on a campaign promise to institute a minimum wage for Honduran workers. And needless to say, Big AG and the builders of new high end luxury resorts weren't happy about having to pay slightly more in wages that would take pennies off of their profit margins! So, they sent their lobbyists to go squawking to the White House and Capitol Hill. The result was spineless centrist Democrat Obama sending Sec. of State - Queen Hillary out to organize the coup that literally loaded the soon-to-be former Honduran president to be taken away in exile, while an interim government, responsibly managed by a military general who was also a major cocaine trafficker in his sideline job, put his boot down on any non-compliant peasants and workers who were trying to organize unions. Honduras soon created the highest per capita murder rate in the world...outstripping conflict zones in Africa, the Middle East etc.. AND that's how you get a refugee crisis at your door! Ever since then, Obama finished out his 2nd term doing nothing of substance, and smiling and waving at cameras, while Trump came in with big talk about building a big wall...that hardly got started....let alone finished, and allowed DHS and Border Security to run the same lethal and often murderous tactics that were already underway when Obama was in the White House...."kids in cages" be damned! And now that America has Brainless Joe in charge, just like every other domestic and foreign issue, nothing changes....except for the window dressing! Kids are locked in small portables instead of dog cages...so I guess that's a step up according to some. It doesn't offer the same opportunities for pictures!

Nice guess! But I did not grow up and have never travelled to the Middle East! My understanding comes from my study of history (especially the rise and collapse of empires), my growing awareness of the increasing propaganda and disinformation pumped at us constantly about our politics, technologies and economic systems, and last but not least, when I've talked to people who actually come from places that are under the targets of US, Israeli and Allied bombs and missiles, I try to take the opportunity to learn a little more from someone with a firsthand account. Those who have grown up in the ME usually don't know everything (otherwise they wouldn't likely accept living and working in one of the colonies). But, people who grew up and/or came of age not being able to go to school, lining up with their mothers for water and food rations, and being told in very strong terms that they were not allowed to play outside...even on the balconies of apartments...even on days when they did not hear any guns firing or any shouting etc.. It's a different take when you hear it from populations who have been terrorized by foreign forces who almost always move about unseen and unheard....until something blows up!

The "Big Dog" is going to leave us all observing mushroom clouds rising on the horizon! fwiw, the dispute over sovereignty and control of Eastern Siberia (territories that included the large port city of Vladivostok) that were seized during Russia's eastern push across Asia...and into North America (Alaska) that included large stretches that were seized from China and even led to forced expulsion of Chinese, could not be resolved during the 1950's. And Khrushchev's big speech after consolidating full control of the presidency and the Communist Party - making Stalin an equivalent of Hitler...mostly to justify his reform plans (that almost got him killed during Stalin's time) to turn towards introducing capitalist methods of production and investment, did not go over well with Chairman Mao, needless to say! After that, a lack of clear policy direction and control under Kosygin and Brezhnev made a breakup of the political Communist International inevitable. And that was the beginning of the end of China's military cooperation with the Soviet Union. Mao was always a Luddite by nature....believing that strength of numbers on the battlefield would overwhelm whatever new high tech toys China's enemies attacked them with. Mao even laughed at the Nuclear Arms race between the US and Russia because of his dismal view of technology (and likely out of practical considerations, because he knew that his nation would never be in position to join such a competition at the time). Mao did remain to be a strong believer in guerilla warfare and felt that superior numbers would always defeat superior armaments...no doubt influenced by China's costly success at pushing back Americans in the Korean War, with little more than hundreds of thousands of poorly armed and equipped infantrymen. Well, things are somewhat different now, but China may have been acting on pragmatism up till now, by refusing to join America's military spending arms race. But now that they are investing billions in new weapons and increasing their size, it looks like you warhawks may finally be getting the war you've always wanted to justify a return to Reagan era military madness!

And everything was so much better when President Combover was sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office....right?? Trump’s Border Policies Strengthen Organized Crime. Here’s How. 2018 BY STEVEN DUDLEY The Trump administration’s policy, however, is shortsighted, in part because research shows that it may, in the long run, strengthen criminal groups. Here are five ways that happens: (bullet points only) 1. It Pushes People Into the Illegal Market 2. It Raises the Price for Criminal Services 3. It Sets the Table for Future Criminal Activity 4. It Destroys Trust Between Authorities and Migrant Communities Where Organized Crime and Gangs are Prevalent 5. It Reduces Remittances, Which Could Increase Crime Rates Make of this link....likely from some CIA or State Dept. funded propagandist mouthpiece what you will! I'm just posting it up to make the point that the same arguments were being made by the same people before Brainless Joe took over the role of president.

Soviet Union?? There are many examples in history where oppressed nations and peoples become the oppressors (Israel being a prime example today), so it's not hard to see China moving from 'defending our territorial waters' to imposing its will on nearby island nations. But, the takeaway point (as you have more or less pointed out also) is that China was seeking to become a global economic power without having to waste (or invest) resources in military buildups or weapons research and development. This has mostly been forced on China because of stupid American Empire policy of demanding unilateral global control through this century....even as the USA's economy weakens and rots from the inside out!

The anger and resentment in China against the west goes back long before Mao and the first Chinese communists started out 100 years ago! Look up the Opium Wars that China called "A Century of Humiliation" for starters. The anger and desire for revenge spurred the insistence that China become powerful enough to repel any foreign invaders and attempts at gunboat diplomacy from any source! So, if you think this all begins and ends with the Communist Party of China, you're in for a rude awakening! Likewise the CIA/MI-6 and their various ethnic and religious nutcase front groups they support. Most of the crap we hear and read about China now, is spawned by contributors to this Epoch Times...which is directly a construct of the Falun Gong religious cult that got banned in China over 20 years ago for trying to overthrow the government.....similar to the Turkish cult leader - Fetullah Gulen, whom the CIA had set up in rural Pennsylvania after he had to flee Turkey. I couldn't give a crap about either side of this tempest in a teapot, but it's interesting how often the spooks expensive and best laid plans turn to shit! They become enraptured with a few useful foreign tools who tell them exactly what they want to hear (think back to "Curveball" and his weapons of mass destruction before Bush 2's Iraq Invasion) and by supporting hated and despised cranks within a certain targeted nation, the Washington establishment strengthens the regimes they are trying to weaken and destroy! It works every time! How many ships going to and from Venezuela has the US Navy or Coast Guard stopped in international waters in the past couple of years?

How is Trump's approach any different from Biden's approach....inflammatory rhetoric aside?

Sounds like you're describing US policy / rather than China here! For example, here's Slow Joe with the narco-trafficking president of Honduras at an "Alliance For Prosperity" meeting to discuss the importance of allowing foreign corporate investment to move unencumbered by labor, health and environment regulations in Central America: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/08/central-america-neoliberal-biden-plan/

And is that "resentment" grounded in factual reasons or is it fantasy? The US Empire certainly would never allow anyone else to run "freedom of navigation" exercises in the Caribbean, or anywhere off the coasts of either North or South America! How and where? And if carriers and a blue water navy was all part of China's devious plans....as your Yellow Peril narrative portrays, WHY weren't they doing this from the start, instead of beginning all at once three or four years ago, according to DOD spokesmodels? 'If we don't fight them over there, we'll have to fight them right here' ....... is that it?