Allen Dulles and his Nazi Pals in Ukraine 🇺🇦

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

John, with all due respect, I think using William's name and 'intelligence' in the same sentence may be highly inappropriate. He is nothing short of embarrassing in this thread. He can't even answer simple questions. I know a lot of highly intelligent people. 

What's truly embarrassing is the poor reading comprehension skills of some participants on this thread.

I'll ask again, for the (?) fourth time.

Is Putin currently open to negotiating a peaceful end to his brutal invasion and decimation of Ukraine?

Yes or no?

If so, I'm all for it.  Let him have his Russian naval base in Crimea, and full geographic access to it, (which he already had one year ago when he launched this criminal invasion of Ukraine.)

Unfortunately, Putin's longstanding goal-- in accordance with Aleksander Dugin's 1997 playbook-- has been the total annexation of Ukraine.  That process began in 2014, with his illegal annexation of Crimea.

You two gentlemen seem to have difficulty grasping the concept that I want what is best for the Russian and the Ukrainian people.

Putin's war and his totalitarian police state ain't it.

[Paul Rigby]

The meeting between the Bungmeister and the Cokehead in CIA-occupied Kiev presumably focused on such important matters as which country has the most political prisoners*; and how to leg it to the airport with suitcases stuffed with cash. To follow, the funniest and most pointed take on this meeting of the global far-right that I've so far seen:

Until the last Ukrainian

TAMÁS PILHÁL

https://magyarnemzet.hu/ahelyzet/2023/02/az-utolso-ukranig

US President Joe Biden unexpectedly arrived in Kiev yesterday. It was so unexpected that the person concerned could certainly have been thoroughly surprised by his own arrival to who knows where. But then, I think, he was told that the people he sometimes confuses with Iranians live here. As they used to say, they show the poor guy where to find the microphone, the exit stairs, where to try to get around the boxwood. It can be really exciting to live like this. Every minute of every day is full of surprises and unexpected encounters. “Hey, who are they? And where am I anyway?”

You can laugh at him, of course, except that he is the leader of a world empire that is armed to the hilt, stationing soldiers in every corner of the Earth, scanning every square meter with spy satellites, becoming increasingly paranoid, and dangerous to life even when he is drunk.

It's not at all funny, it's rather ominous that this uncle who stumbles here and there and goes back and forth has the atomic codes.

In principle, with him - in practice, perhaps more with those who push him around like a fern, and who write his increasingly blood-steamed, World War II-smelling speeches. These are the warmongers who previously forced the indiscriminate bombing of Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria ("democracy export"), and now they are beating the table for more weapons, demanding an even longer war, and not wanting to hear about a cease-fire or peace.

That is why the already half-finished peace plan was drilled last spring. Because they decided: they will make Ukraine fight until the last Ukrainian sitting on the arm. There is no stopping, even the one-legged and the three-eared are rounded up and sent to the front. Although they know: this will doom this young state drawn on a desk. And why? It's no secret, it has been said many times, most recently by former US Defense Minister Mark Esper: the Ukrainians will do the "dirty work" of weakening Russia instead of them. This is their goal, they subordinated everything to it. It doesn't matter how many people die from it. They overturned the status quo adopted in 1991, broke their promise that NATO would not expand towards Russia, and forcibly pushed into the Russians' innermost sphere of interest. All the provocations of the past two decades—the Orange “revolutions,” the five-billion-dollar Nuland coup, the systematic persecution of nationalities, the Bandera cult, the threat of joining NATO and the rest - all aimed at this. To make it a war. Became.

Yesterday, the old man was sent to speak to the penis pianist so that the show, the war, would definitely continue.

- Today I am in Kiev to meet with President Zelensky and to confirm our unwavering and unwavering commitment to the democracy, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine - Joe Biden said yesterday. As we know, sovereignty and territorial integrity belong to everyone - unfortunately, not everyone does. Those who are well placed in the West will have it, but the others will have to put up with Samantha Power... Another interesting observation is that those who are now the most vocally concerned about the borders of Ukraine, were the ones who redrew half the world in the last century without any inhibitions or decency, throwing a fit over ethnic relations . This is what the United States is up against: how dare anyone push the boundaries without its permission? That's our way - at least that's what they imagine.

* The Cokehead lost, as his uniformed nutters have a deplorable tendency to murder their prisoners.

[Paul Rigby]

John Helmer, the journalist who has the honour of being denounced as a KGB agent by the world’s least convincing Social Democrat*, has the following excellent take on where Hersh is coming from, and what his informants seek to achieve. This in an extract only:

SEYMOUR HERSH DEFENDS CIA IN PLOT TO ATTACK BIDEN RE-ELECTION – HERSH ALSO ATTACKS INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS WITH HIS OWN PLOT TO FEED THEM “CRUMBS”

http://johnhelmer.org/seymour-hersh-defends-cia-in-plot-to-attack-biden-re-election-hersh-also-attacks-investigative-journalists-with-his-own-plot-to-feed-them-crumbs/

By John Helmer, Moscow, and George Eliason, Donetsk

  @bears_with

Seymour Hersh, a US journalist, has just broadcast his defence of a plan by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to sabotage President Joseph Biden’s re-election campaign before it gets under way.

In a German video podcast from Germany, Hersh has made a string of telltale mistakes of fact at the same time as he has attacked those journalists who have been following up his report of February 8, investigating errors Hersh has been asked to correct in his follow-up. Instead, according to Hersh’s new publication, he and his sources have “le[ft] enough breadcrumbs for them to be able to write as a couple already have, ‘Oh this couldn’t have happened because…’ So we took care of them.” Click to read:   Min. 14:45.

The reporters whom Hersh took care of, those who have published endorsements of his initial report, have been misled.

Hersh concluded the new interview with his personal endorsement of CIA sources who, he reports,  have criticized Biden and his White House and State Department allies “for choosing to keep you [Germany] cold for their short-range political [re-election goals]… That horrified [them].” Hersh added:  “I’m talking about people who are intensely loyal to the United States. Intensely loyal. And they understand – and in the CIA it is understood… even in that community it’s appalling that he [Biden] chose to keep Europe cold” (Min 31-32).

Hersh published a story he entitled “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline” on February 8.  The first analysis of Hersh’s errors appeared on February 10; click to read. 

In the TNT Radio War of the Worlds broadcast on February 11, Hersh heard a fresh account of his mistakes of commission and omission, including his failure to identify the British, Polish,  and Ukrainian roles in the Nord Stream bombing operation. Click to listen.  

Three days later, Hersh and his quoted source corrected their mistake in calling the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) and the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) by the 45-year old anachronism PFIAB dating from the Carter Administration, in an interview published in the Berliner Zeitung on February 14. 

Hersh and the same German reporter, Fabian Scheidler, have repeated this correction in a second videotaped interview. Hersh reiterated several of his original mistakes and added new ones. He also opened an attack on other investigative journalists, intimating that he intentionally included in his text a trail of “breadcrumbs” to deceive them. 

Watch the full Hersh-Scheidler interview here.  The CIA loyalty pledge appears from Minute 30…

Helmer & Elliason discussion: https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/war-of-the-worlds-18-february-2023/

* William Niederhut

[Guest]

14 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

If so, I'm all for it.  Let him have his Russian naval base in Crimea, and full geographic access to it, (which he already had one year ago when he launched this criminal invasion of Ukraine.)

William, are you suggesting Ukraine should cede the Donbass as part of a deal to stop the conflict? Would you bring Russia back to the economic table? Or, continue the sanctions? 
 

14 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Is Putin currently open to negotiating a peaceful end to his brutal invasion and decimation of Ukraine?

Yes or no?

I never have any issues answering your questions but, there is a quid pro quo in debate, its reciprocal. It has been embarrassing that you haven’t answered the question repeatedly for fear of being judged or betraying the conflict cheerleaders. 
 

My honest answer to your question is that I don’t know in this moment. You’re asking a question that none of us know with certainty. He (Putin) has seemed open to negotiation throughout the conflict, most notably when Boris Johnson scuppered the peace talks. I expect he’ll want some concessions and guarantees. Are we to trust his speeches and public announcements? He has a massive mistrust for the west and I think for good reason.  
 

14 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

That process began in 2014, with his illegal annexation of Crimea.

After the US backed coup and removal of a democratically elected leader. 
 

14 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

You two gentlemen seem to have difficulty grasping the concept that I want what is best for the Russian and the Ukrainian people.

So, finally after a zillion comments you agree with John and I, you’d like a detente, rapprochement and a long lasting peace accord. Alleluia.
 

Thanks  
 

 

[Matthew Koch]

 

[W. Niederhut]

On 2/20/2023 at 5:12 PM, W. Niederhut said:

What's truly embarrassing is the poor reading comprehension skills of some participants on this thread.

I'll ask again, for the (?) fourth time.

Is Putin currently open to negotiating a peaceful end to his brutal invasion and decimation of Ukraine?

Yes or no?

If so, I'm all for it.  Let him have his Russian naval base in Crimea, and full geographic access to it, (which he already had one year ago when he launched this criminal invasion of Ukraine.)

Unfortunately, Putin's longstanding goal-- in accordance with Aleksander Dugin's 1997 playbook-- has been the total annexation of Ukraine.  That process began in 2014, with his illegal annexation of Crimea.

You two gentlemen seem to have difficulty grasping the concept that I want what is best for the Russian and the Ukrainian people.

Putin's war and his totalitarian police state ain't it.

Well, I'm relieved to see that our Russian propaganda dupes have finally taken the time to read my fourth re-post in response to their question about putative peace negotiations for Ukraine.

Yet, none of our dupes has answered my old question on this thread.

Is Putin open to negotiating an end to his invasion of Ukraine?

[Guest]

3 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Well, I'm relieved to see that our Russian propaganda dupes have finally taken the time to read my fourth re-post in response to their question about putative peace negotiations for Ukraine.

Yet, none of our dupes has answered my old question on this thread.

Is Putin open to negotiating an end to his invasion of Ukraine?

I answered you, William - How are your reading and comprehension skills? 🙈

In today’s news; seems like China are about to enter the fore to ‘help’ resolve the situation in Ukraine. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Chris Barnard

[W. Niederhut]

U.N. countries overwhelmingly vote to tell Russia to leave Ukraine

One year into Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, more than 140 countries in the United Nations voted for a resolution calling on Moscow to end its invasion.

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/ukraine-war-anniversary-united-nations-vote-rcna72098

February 23, 2023

[W. Niederhut]

[Guest]

@Paul Rigby @John Cotter @Paul Brancato @W. Niederhut @Matthew Koch

A friend forwarded this article from Chinese media earlier today. It addresses the USA in a way not too dissimilar to the way that Russia does. Of course, in the trilateral world of super-powers, they all manufacture propaganda for the consumption of their own citizenry, as well as for those they wish to acquire the minds of in the international community.

Do you guys have any thoughts on the following? 
 

—————————————————

 

U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils

Source: Xinhua

Editor: huaxia

2023-02-20 15:03:15

  

BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils

February 2023

Contents

Introduction

I. Political Hegemony -- Throwing Its Weight Around

II. Military Hegemony -- Wanton Use of Force

III. Economic Hegemony -- Looting and Exploitation

IV. Technological Hegemony -- Monopoly and Suppression

V. Cultural Hegemony -- Spreading False Narratives

Conclusion

Introduction

Since becoming the world's most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.

The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage "color revolutions," instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a "rules-based international order."

This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.

I. Political Hegemony -- Throwing Its Weight Around

The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.

◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries' internal affairs abound. In the name of "promoting democracy," the United States practiced a "Neo-Monroe Doctrine" in Latin America, instigated "color revolutions" in Eurasia, and orchestrated the "Arab Spring" in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.

In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an "America for the Americans," what it truly wanted was an "America for the United States."

Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.

The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of "color revolutions" -- the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine and the "Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a "central role" in these "regime changes." The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called "People Power Revolutions."

In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.

◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization "supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization's "bias" against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.

The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries' activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing "a world free of chemical weapons."

◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an "Indo-Pacific Strategy" onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.

◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of "democracy versus authoritarianism" to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first "Summit for Democracy," which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another "Summit for Democracy," which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.

II. Military Hegemony -- Wanton Use of Force

The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world's total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.

According to the book America Invades: How We've Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were "spared" because the United States did not find them on the map.

◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, "Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019," the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.

Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.

◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.

The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.

The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the "Kabul debacle" in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as "pure looting."

In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.

The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.

III. Economic Hegemony -- Looting and Exploitation

After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including "approval by 85 percent majority," and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar's status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting "seigniorage" from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America's political and economic strategy.

◆ The United States exploits the world's wealth with the help of "seigniorage." It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.

◆ The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon's secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that "the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem."

◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America's strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.

◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America's strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called "three lost decades."

◆ America's economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and "long-arm jurisdiction," the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world's population. "The United States of America" has turned itself into "the United States of Sanctions." And "long-arm jurisdiction" has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.

IV. Technological Hegemony -- Monopoly and Suppression

The United States seeks to deter other countries' scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.

◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.

In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan's semiconductor industry, the United States launched the "301" investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.

◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.

The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China's high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.

The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.

◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the "chips alliance" and "clean network," the United States has put "democracy" and "human rights" labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China's 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the "5G clean path," a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect "cyber security." The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.

◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an "empire of hackers," blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.

U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as "Prism," "Dirtbox," "Irritant Horn" and "Telescreen Operation" are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that "do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules."

V. Cultural Hegemony -- Spreading False Narratives

The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.

◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.

There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world's market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.

◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in "direct intervention," but also in "media infiltration" and as "a trumpet for the world." U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.

U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter's public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler's directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a "white list" to amplify certain messages.

◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.

◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate "peaceful evolution" in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.

The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.

Conclusion

While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.

Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries' internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices. 
 

Link:

https://english.news.cn/20230220/d3a4291d44f2499ea20710ae272ece72/c.html

 

[Guest]

PSYOP-WW3 Update: One Year Into The Ukraine War

2nd Smartest Guy in the World

 

Feb 24

115

37

 

As the old saying goes, the first casualty of war is truth.

The perfectly timed Ukrainian invasion happens to most conveniently serve as an effective catalyst for discharging the untenable debt supercycle, justify the coming global financial collapse that will make 2008 look like a Disneyland outing, exacerbate the global supply chain breakdown narratives, distract from the “vaccine” induced surging mortality, and so on and so forth. Also, this was and continues to be an excellent driver and cover for the monumental black ops money laundering.

The second casualty of war is dead human beings. 

In today’s ongoing global depopulation program dead white Christian Ukrainians and Russians are not just a net positive check for the One World Government neo-Malthusian technocrats that orchestrate these bogus wars, but a hugely important mission objective. This kind of race specific Eastern European culling was always the plan, well before the CIA executed their 2014 Ukraine coup.

Living through the “trust the science” socially engineered post-truth world was just the setup for all of the other psyops currently in play; despite this, the facts may still be arranged into an accurate picture of reality. Circumnavigating the Mockingbird Media, “fact checkers,” and the various “experts” and going straight to the people with with vast experience and real world knowledge like Colonel Doug Macgregor allows us to see exactly what is being perpetrated.

According to Col Macgregor:

• Putin has now amassed forces in the east that will be deployed at any moment, and will rapidly crush what is left of the Ukrainian forces

• Putin has warned that all NATO cells comprised of operates that are not in military uniform will be targeted and eradicated

• NATO nation states are in disagreement over this proxy war, and the institution is fracturing

• The Biden regime is waging a proxy war without the necessary Congressional vote

• The Biden regime travelled to Ukraine (not Ohio) for optics ahead of Putin’s speech — this gesture backfired

• The Ukrainian army is daily suffering severe losses, with soldier morale imploding

• Biden’s guarantee of hundreds of tanks, weapons and ammunition is a blatant lie

• Putin has postponed the nuclear treaty, but is open to revisiting it when NATO aggression ceases. 

The Ukrainians military, their stay behind National Socialist networks like the Azov battalion and their gay actor CIA-installed puppet president are finished. But that is incidental to the sociopathic central planners, because to them the longer the war drags the greater the depopulation and the more the money (human life force [i.e. work productivity and wealth]) is laundered; therefore, the illegitimate Federal government that is waging a full spectrum soft war against We the People will continue their partial proxy spectrum kinetic war against Ukrainians and Russians alike until the very bitter end. 

Wall Street Silver @WallStreetSilv

Nothing to see here! Everyone go home ... 🤡 🌎

 

5:05 PM ∙ Feb 24, 2023

---

2,618Likes638Retweets

And the Mockingbird media assets continue to shill hard:

Jimmy Dore @jimmy_dore

War Pig Rachel Maddow will never tell her audience the CIA instigated a Coup of Ukraine in 2014 & installed a puppet aligned with actual National Socialists & then blew up the Nordstream Pipeline. Instead she lies about Peace activists so her audience stays Pro-War:

5:03 PM ∙ Feb 21, 2023

---

18,382Likes5,683Retweets

Let’s not forget what Bidenenko & co. perpetrated against their NATO “allies” and Russia:

 

 

Reality is anything you can get away with.

They want you dead.

 

Do NOT comply.

Link: https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/psyop-ww3-update-one-year-into-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&fbclid=IwAR2Jg00r0j1LczC2qq8UcXUVzzRcbeX2xpshKLkSRXYvhA8S9VzqcTcoQB8

[John Cotter]

9 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

@Paul Rigby @John Cotter @Paul Brancato @W. Niederhut @Matthew Koch

A friend forwarded this article from Chinese media earlier today. It addresses the USA in a way not too dissimilar to the way that Russia does. Of course, in the trilateral world of super-powers, they all manufacture propaganda for the consumption of their own citizenry, as well as for those they wish to acquire the minds of in the international community.

Do you guys have any thoughts on the following? 
 

—————————————————

 

U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils

Source: Xinhua

Editor: huaxia

2023-02-20 15:03:15

  

BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils

February 2023

Contents

Introduction

I. Political Hegemony -- Throwing Its Weight Around

II. Military Hegemony -- Wanton Use of Force

III. Economic Hegemony -- Looting and Exploitation

IV. Technological Hegemony -- Monopoly and Suppression

V. Cultural Hegemony -- Spreading False Narratives

Conclusion

Introduction

Since becoming the world's most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.

The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage "color revolutions," instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a "rules-based international order."

This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.

I. Political Hegemony -- Throwing Its Weight Around

The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.

◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries' internal affairs abound. In the name of "promoting democracy," the United States practiced a "Neo-Monroe Doctrine" in Latin America, instigated "color revolutions" in Eurasia, and orchestrated the "Arab Spring" in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.

In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an "America for the Americans," what it truly wanted was an "America for the United States."

Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.

The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of "color revolutions" -- the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine and the "Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a "central role" in these "regime changes." The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called "People Power Revolutions."

In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.

◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization "supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization's "bias" against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.

The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries' activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing "a world free of chemical weapons."

◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an "Indo-Pacific Strategy" onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.

◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of "democracy versus authoritarianism" to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first "Summit for Democracy," which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another "Summit for Democracy," which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.

II. Military Hegemony -- Wanton Use of Force

The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world's total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.

According to the book America Invades: How We've Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were "spared" because the United States did not find them on the map.

◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, "Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019," the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.

Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.

◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.

The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.

The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the "Kabul debacle" in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as "pure looting."

In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.

The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.

III. Economic Hegemony -- Looting and Exploitation

After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including "approval by 85 percent majority," and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar's status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting "seigniorage" from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America's political and economic strategy.

◆ The United States exploits the world's wealth with the help of "seigniorage." It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.

◆ The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon's secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that "the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem."

◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America's strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.

◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America's strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called "three lost decades."

◆ America's economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and "long-arm jurisdiction," the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world's population. "The United States of America" has turned itself into "the United States of Sanctions." And "long-arm jurisdiction" has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.

IV. Technological Hegemony -- Monopoly and Suppression

The United States seeks to deter other countries' scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.

◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.

In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan's semiconductor industry, the United States launched the "301" investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.

◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.

The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China's high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.

The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.

◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the "chips alliance" and "clean network," the United States has put "democracy" and "human rights" labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China's 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the "5G clean path," a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect "cyber security." The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.

◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an "empire of hackers," blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.

U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as "Prism," "Dirtbox," "Irritant Horn" and "Telescreen Operation" are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that "do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules."

V. Cultural Hegemony -- Spreading False Narratives

The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.

◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.

There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world's market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.

◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in "direct intervention," but also in "media infiltration" and as "a trumpet for the world." U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.

U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter's public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler's directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a "white list" to amplify certain messages.

◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.

◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate "peaceful evolution" in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.

The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.

Conclusion

While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.

Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries' internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices. 
 

Link:

https://english.news.cn/20230220/d3a4291d44f2499ea20710ae272ece72/c.html

 

Chris,

That Chinese article is a devastating critique of US global hegemony.

Needless to say, the two other great powers, Russia and China itself, are no angels, but as the saying goes, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Accordingly, the unrivalled power the US has wielded since at least as far back as 1945, has corrupted the US to a degree unrivalled by any other country.

Insofar as the article is merely a factual description of this state of affairs, its contents cannot be gainsaid. What’s truly pernicious is the degree to which the majority of people living in the shadow of this US hegemony are oblivious or resigned to their servitude.

The latter – those who are resigned to the servitude – are typically self-styled highly “educated” high status well-paid liberals who rationalise their obsequious mentality by such arguments as “It would be worse if we had to kowtow to the Chinese or the Russians rather than the Americans”.

This means that for these “liberals”, servitude, or more precisely “kissing up and kicking down”, is the only mode of existence they envisage for themselves. They have traded their freedom for their high salaries.

In other words, they have sold their souls – the ultimate corruption.

Edited February 27, 2023 by John Cotter

[Matthew Koch]

Now that this idiot got Russia to do what he said wouldn't happen in the clip and due to that the world is now starting to trade off the dollar. This fool is going to go down in history next to Woodrow Wilson as one of the worst Presidents America and the West has ever had.. 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Chris,

That Chinese article is a devastating critique of US global hegemony.

Needless to say, the two other great powers, Russia and China itself, are no angels, but as the saying goes, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Accordingly, the unrivalled power the US has wielded since at least as far back as 1945, has corrupted the US to a degree unrivalled by any other country.

Insofar as the article is merely a factual description of this state of affairs, its contents cannot be gainsaid. What’s truly pernicious is the degree to which the majority of people living in the shadow of this US hegemony are oblivious or resigned to their servitude.

The latter – those who are resigned to the servitude – are typically self-styled highly “educated” high status well-paid liberals who rationalise their obsequious mentality by such arguments as “It would be worse if we had to kowtow to the Chinese or the Russians rather than the Americans”.

This means that for these “liberals”, servitude, or more precisely “kissing up and kicking down”, is the only mode of existence they envisage for themselves. They have traded their freedom for their high salaries.

In other words, they have sold their souls – the ultimate corruption.

It is rather scathing. The Chinese have a long history, unlike the USA, and it’s hardly the first empire that they’ve seen fall or become saturated with corruption. You refer to those who are oblivious or resigned to their servitude. I think its a result of a long period of prosperity, internally propagandising the population, people not knowing they are in servitude and being stuck with the only thing they know. The alternatives are probably too frightening, they’d rather cling to illusion than face the terror or uncomfortable nature of uncertainty. 
 

I agree. They have sold their souls for monetary reward, cheers consumerism, comfort and perceived safety. Weak men create tough times. 
 

Didn’t JFK say something like, a democracy can’t be maintained at home, if you emulate tyrants whilst abroad?! I forget the exact words. Its that sentiment. 
 

 

[Matthew Koch]

He's basically talking about William..