W.J. Astore
Another Morning (and More Mourning) in America
Yet another mass shooting, this one in Louisville, Kentucky, and once again I marvel at the language used to describe such occurrences. The shooting that left five dead at a bank was described as a “tragic event,” akin to a tornado, something that simply can’t be prevented. The “heroes” were the responding police officers, and they certainly deserve credit for their bravery in confronting the shooter and killing him (one officer remains in critical condition).
What is to be said that hasn’t been already said? We live in a violent society with roughly 400 million guns, and we’ve already seen 146 mass shootings in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Democrats, of course, advocate for an assault rifle ban or other half-measures, knowing that they won’t have to follow through since Republicans control the House and will block gun control measures.
Perhaps the folly of all this is captured by the Onion headline that they repeat for nearly every mass shooting: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens. That about covers it.
Turning to the Pentagon, leaked papers are on the Internet that reveal Ukraine’s position is tenuous in its war with Russia. To summarize quickly, Ukrainian air defenses are short on missiles, Ukrainian forces are short on ammo, and offensive prospects look grim for this year. Senior American officials expect continued stalemate in the war, even as “happy talk” of a smashing Ukrainian spring offensive toward Crimea is spouted in some circles of the mainstream media. The leaked papers also reveal apparent U.S. spying on allies such as South Korea, not exactly a good look for America.
What’s revealing is how the mainstream media takes the Pentagon’s side, basically deploring the leak of this classified information and calling for more censorship on the Internet. I take the opposite tack. In a democracy, government actions are supposed to be transparent to us. I want to know what my government is up to; we all should. Certainly, the media should want to know. Instead, we’re encouraged to side with the Pentagon, perhaps the most powerful and secretive agency of the government.
And so we learned that our government continues to spy on allies even as it continues to provide massive amounts of military aid to Ukraine in a war that is currently a grinding stalemate and about which senior officials are far more pessimistic in private than they are in public. Valuable information, I’d say, that shouldn’t be kept secret from us.
The juxtaposition of these two stories suggests a possible solution to both. America has far too many guns and far too much ammo in private hands. Ukraine needs guns and ammo. Is it time for a “guns and ammo” drive for Ukraine across America? “Save Ukraine—donate your assault rifles and bullets!” Yes, I’m joking. I guess the violent reality of America is making me more than a bit crazy.
Bracing Views 
Fiscal Insanity: The Government Borrows $6 Billion a Day, and We’re Stuck with the Bill
By John & Nisha Whitehead
April 11, 2023
We’re not living the American dream.
We’re living a financial nightmare.
The U.S. government is funding its existence with a credit card.
The government—and that includes the current administration—is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are the ones being forced to foot the bill for the government’s fiscal insanity.
According to the number crunchers with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government is borrowing roughly $6 BILLION a day………………………
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Net interest payments on the national debt rose from $352 billion in 2021 to $475 billion in 2022 — the highest nominal dollar amount in recorded history. Relative to the size of the economy, such costs were 1.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest level in 21 years.Feb 16, 2023
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Ray, one solution, which has been employed before is simply to print more money and thus the immediate “problem” is solved. However, as we know, Quantitative Easing and such like make a mockery of one’s savings & investments, which theoretically could end up being of little value.
Apart from that little problem, following the seizure by the US of about $300bn of Russian assets,
the “Global South” are now more aware than ever of this danger and so look to invest/trade elsewhere, and in currencies other than the US dollar.
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And Ray, the ones who will really be most burdened are the younger generations…certainly those younger than me. For as long as the U.S. misleaders can sustain their attempts to keep the dollar’s dominant, almost hegemonic position on global exchange, and otherwise control the dominant institutions of global finance (World Bank & IMF), they can (and likely will) ignore the debt- treating it as if it’s as imaginary as Monopoly-game finances. This only encourages further excesses. They can literally throw $$ at any cause they want. We can be assured only that the expenditures will go for further supporting US financial hegemony. It certainly won’t go for human needs of U.S. citizens.
It’s when the unipolar, U.S. ‘rules-based’ financial order is broken, and, say, BRICs financial partnership solidified (and who knows, if other European leaders follow in a timely manner Macron’s recent declaration of independence from Washington, the EU’s emergence?), that the U.S. debt will finally loom large. For, the dollar will likely be weakened, Interest rates and inflation will necessarily rise, and those outside of the luxury class will really suffer from far greater economic insecurity than most of the ‘boomers’ have.
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Unfortunately, Roger, as that Economic straitjacket tightens, the US will see a dramatic increase of mass shootings so that even more people will be afraid to go out in Public.
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That’s all but certain, Ray. When I think about how much social friction and mental ‘imbalances’ are in evidence already, we can certainly expect those to grow at least in proportion to further economic insecurities. And, of course, the elites and other privileged folk will use the power of the state and law enforcement generally to protect them and their property- leading no doubt to more brutal responses and expansion of the incarcerated population in the attempt to maintain ‘law & order’.
Which makes me wonder: At what point does one say that dystopia isn’t just a future scenario… but that we’re already living in it?
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Excellent question, Roger. I’d argue we’re already in a dystopia, for all the reasons both of us can list. Or, as my wife prefers, Dickensian times.
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Does the latest article by Seymour Hersh constitute another leak?
Will the US MSM, Propagandists for the US WAR BUSINESS cover it? They re-published Julian Assange Wikileaks material, but they don’t mention his Just Cause against the US as a Journalist, essentially confined for the last 12 years since he entered the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, and locked up for years in a British Maximum Security Prison awaiting extradition under the Espionage Act, to the US for violating the 1st Amendment, as the US holds itself up to be the True Model of Democracy in THE WORLD.
‘TRADING WITH THE ENEMY’
Amid rampant corruption in Kiev and as US troops gather at the Ukrainian border, does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict?
The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zalensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.
What also is unknown is that Zalensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”
“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it……………………………………………….
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/trading-with-the-enemy
Watching from CanaDa as an individual, free from the US doctrine and indoctrination of the American People of US Global Hegemony, and while Americans can’t see it, I see Biden and his MIC oligarchs are making a killing off the Ukraine WAR with the $Billions of increased weapons and bullet sales like never before. The US government is already BORROWING $6 BILLION A DAY to maintain the illusion of American Wealth in an impoverished World.
I think the Day of Reckoning will come sooner than the children and grand children will be around and have to pay the $Bills this Generation is creating for THEIR FUTURE.
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Leaks, Leaks, and more Leaks!
‘Today In Empire: Copbots, MSM Compliance, And McCaul’s Embarrassing Taiwan Admission’
Too much interesting stuff happening in the life of the empire to cover in just one article today, so we’re doing a three-in-one wrap-up.
McCaul says war over Taiwan will be about controlling microchips — err, I mean, democracy and freedom.
Republican congressman Michael McCaul made a very interesting admission during a Sunday interview on MSNBC, which he hastily had to walk back after the host pointed out the implications of what he was saying.
MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asked the virulent China hawk McCaul to “make the basic case” for why Americans should be willing to go to war over Taiwan, and McCaul responded by saying it was about controlling the manufacturing of microchips. When Todd pointed out that this sounded a lot like justifications that have been made for US wars and militarism to control global oil supplies, McCaul hastily corrected himself and said that protecting Taiwan is actually about “democracy and freedom”…………………………………………..
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/today-in-empire-copbots-msm-compliance
Another Signpost of a Sinking World? An upside down World after the Great Flood?
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It is good [but not comforting] to know that i am not the only one asking if the United States will survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026 ~ 1,179 days from today. George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures concludes his just posted “The American Crisis Intensifies” as follows:
“I do not believe the situation will hold beyond the coming election. The brutal social issues, from race to gender to guns, create a public division that affects the functioning of government. Relations within the political system at all levels are increasingly venomous. The financial system has left an economic crisis. As forecast, the technological system will become increasingly inefficient, and the public appetite for its goods will be in decline. The financial system portends economic decline thatwill breed increasingly desperate and simplistic solutions, further drawing capital out of the financial system. For the first time in history, the institutional cycle and the social cycle will coincide. While wars tend not to influence domestic cycles, the impact of the Ukraine war will likely be magnified.
“The current political system cannot manage this situation. A solution must emerge now, to be presided over by the next president. It is impossible to explain all the details of a system failure or the need for a new political order. At this point, the only thing that can be said is that we are heading into failure, and a new president, filling everyone with joyous hope, will oversee what must be done. BUT WHAT MUST BE DONE REMAINS MURKY, TAKING ITS BEARING ONLY FROM THE BREADTH AND SERIOUSNESS OF THE FAILURE.”
Full article at https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-american-crisis-intensifies/ EMPHASIS ADDED
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“Lions Led by Donkeys:” The Irrevocable Decline in US Hegemony”
I’ve never owned stocks or bonds so I always looked at Markets as an outsider looking in.
I never saw this Matthew before, but how he describes current Market values, confirms what I saw on the way in more abstract terms. There’s no humming and hawing with him as he just tells it like it is.
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‘Full McCaul: ‘Best deterrence’ to Xi in Taiwan is failure for Putin in Ukraine’
Or as Caitlan Johnstone puts it, “McCaul says war over Taiwan will be about controlling microchips — err, I mean, democracy and freedom.”
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The video featuring McCaul was hilarious (in a dark way). Microchips! Whoops, I mean freedom and democracy. Have to admit, I laughed out loud.
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Additional info on this “leak” kerfuffle from Larry Johnson: UPDATE – A Controlled Leak and A 21 Year Old Scape-Goat?. Hard for the U.S. “intelligence” services to come off looking dumber than dirt yet again, but somehow the “Can’t Identify Anything” and “Furtive Bungling Imbeciles” crowds seem to manage it. On the other hand, the Interim Nazi Regime in Kiev does appear to have the Nazi-American Terrorist Op by the proverbial short hairs. Certifiable corruption certainly loves the company it keeps.
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