The End is Here

Escobar: How The West Was Defeated

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Ed. note: Pretty good analysis except for one fundamental question: Who are “THEY”?!

We want to know names and how they are managing all of this assault on the rest of us. We only see the designated, hired impersonators, the holograms (in Tucker Carson’s word) of the real villains. But who are the villains, some 267 families, or 36 families? Is there a Don Corleone at the head of the clan? If so, who is the Don Corleone of the cabal? What does the oligarchs’ organizational chart look like? Are the Rothschilds that powerful? Or the British Royal House ? How does Soros, the Rockefellers or Israel fit into this scheme?

Until we know that, anything else is just academic speculation, beating around the bushes.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Emmanuel Todd, historian, demographer, anthropologist, sociologist and political analyst, is part of a dying breed: one of the very few remaining exponents of old school French intelligentsia – an heir to those like Braudel, Sartre, Deleuze and Foucault who dazzled successive young Cold War generations from the West to the East.

The first nugget concerning his latest book, La Défaite de L’Occident (“The Defeat of the West”), is the minor miracle of actually being published last week in France, right within the NATO sphere: a hand grenade of a book, by an independent thinker, based on facts and verified data, blowing up the whole Russophobia edifice erected around the “aggression” by “Tsar” Putin.

At least some sectors of the strictly oligarch-controlled corporate media in France simply could not ignore Todd this time around for several reasons. Most of all because he was the first Western intellectual, already in 1976, to have predicted the fall of the USSR in his book La Chute Finale, with his research based on Soviet infant mortality rates.

Another key reason was his 2002 book Apres L’Empire, a sort of preview of the Empire’s Decline and Fall published a few months before Shock & Awe in Iraq.

Now Todd, in what he has defined as his last book (“I have closed the circle”) allows himself to go for broke and meticulously depict the defeat not only of the US but of the West as a whole – with his research focusing in and around the war in Ukraine.

Considering the toxic NATOstan environment where Russophobia and cancel culture reign supreme, and every deviation is punishable, Todd has been very careful not to frame the current process as a Russian victory in Ukraine (although that’s implied in everything he describes, ranging from several indicators of social peace to the overall stability of the “Putin system”, which is “a product of the history of Russia, and not the work of one man”).

Rather, he focuses on the key reasons that have led to the West’s downfall. Among them: the end of the nation-state; de-industrialization (which explains NATO’s deficit in producing weapons for Ukraine); the “degree zero” of the West’s religious matrix, Protestantism; the sharp increase of mortality rates in the US (much higher than in Russia), along with suicides and homicides; and the supremacy of an imperial nihilism expressed by the obsession with Forever Wars.

The Collapse of Protestantism

Todd methodically analyses, in sequence, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia and finally The Empire. Let’s focus on what would be the 12 Greatest Hits of his remarkable exercise.

1. At the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022, the combined GDP of Russia and Belarus was only 3.3% of the combined West (in this case the NATO sphere plus Japan and South Korea). Todd is amazed how these 3.3%, capable of producing more weapons than the whole Western colossus, not only are winning the war but reducing dominant notions of the “neoliberal political economy” (GDP rates) to shambles.

2. The “ideological solitude” and “ideological narcissism” of the West – incapable of understanding, for instance, how “the whole Muslim world seems to consider Russia as a partner rather than an adversary”.

3. Todd eschews the notion of “Weberian states” – evoking a delicious compatibility of vision between Putin and US realpolitik practitioner John Mearsheimer. Because they are forced to survive in an environment where only power relations matter, states are now acting as “Hobbesian agents.” And that brings us to the Russian notion of a nation-state, focused on “sovereignty”: the capacity of a state to independently define its internal and external policies, with no foreign interference whatsoever.

4. The implosion, step by step, of WASP culture, which led, “since the 1960s”, to “an empire deprived of a center and a project, an essentially military organism managed by a group without culture (in the anthropological sense)”. This is Todd defining the US neocons.

5. The US as a “post-imperial” entity: just a shell of military machinery deprived of an intelligence-driven culture, leading to “accentuated military expansion in a phase of massive contraction of its industrial base”. As Todd stresses, “modern war without industry is an oxymoron”.

6. The demographic trap: Todd shows how Washington strategists “forgot that a state whose population enjoys a high educational and technological level, even if it is decreasing, does not lose its military power”. That’s exactly the case of Russia during the Putin years.

7. Here we reach the crux of Todd’s argument: his post-Max Weber reinterpretation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published a little over a century ago, in 1904/1905: “If Protestantism was the matrix for the ascension of the West, its death, today, is the cause of the disintegration and defeat.”

Todd clearly defines how the 1688 English “Glorious Revolution”, the 1776 American Declaration of Independence and the 1789 French Revolution were the true pillars of the liberal West. Consequently, an expanded “West” is not historically “liberal”, because it also engineered “Italian fascism, German Nazism and Japanese militarism”.

In a nutshell, Todd shows how Protestantism imposed universal literacy on the populations it controlled, “because all faithful must directly access the Holy Scriptures. A literate population is capable of economic and technological development. The Protestant religion modeled, by accident, a superior, efficient workforce.” And it is in this sense that Germany was “at the heart of Western development”, even if the Industrial Revolution took place in England.

Todd’s key formulation is undisputable: “The crucial factor of the ascension of the West was Protestantism’s attachment to alphabetization.”

Moreover Protestantism, Todd stresses, is twice at the heart of the history of the West: via the educational and economic drive – with fear of damnation and the need to feel chosen by God engendering a work ethic and a strong, collective morality – and via the idea that Men are unequal (remember the White Man’s Burden).

The collapse of Protestantism could not but destroy the work ethic to the benefit of mass greed: that is, neoliberalism.

Transgenderism and the Cult of the Fake

8. Todd’s sharp critique of the spirit of 1968 would merit a whole new book. He refers to “one of the great illusions of the 1960s – between the Anglo-American sexual revolution and May 68 in France”; “to believe that the individual would be greater if freed from the collective”. That led to an inevitable debacle: “Now that we are free, en masse, from metaphysical beliefs, foundational and derived, communist, socialist or nationalist, we live the experience of the void.” And that’s how we became “a multitude of mimetic midgets who do not dare to think by themselves – but reveal themselves just as capable of intolerance as the believers of ancient times.”

9. Todd’s brief analysis of the deeper meaning of transgenderism completely shatters the Church of Woke – from New York to the EU sphere, and will provoke serial fits of rage. He shows how transgenderism is “one of the flags of this nihilism that now defines the West, this drive to destroy, not just things and humans but reality.”

And there’s an added analytical bonus: “The transgender ideology says that a man may become a woman, and a woman may become a man. This is a false affirmation, and in this sense, close to the theoretical heart of Western nihilism.” It gets worse, when it comes to the geopolitical ramifications. Todd establishes a playful mental and social connection between this cult of the fake and the Hegemon’s wobbly behavior in international relations. Example: the Iranian nuclear deal clinched under Obama becoming a hardcore sanctions regime under Trump. Todd: “American foreign policy is, in its own way, gender fluid.”

10. Europe’s “assisted suicide”. Todd reminds us how Europe at the start was the Franco-German couple. Then after the 2007/2008 financial crisis, that turned into “a patriarchic marriage, with Germany as a dominant spouse not listening to his companion anymore”. The EU abandoned any pretense of defending Europe’s interests – cutting itself off from energy and trade with its partner Russia and sanctioning itself. Todd identifies, correctly, the Paris-Berlin axis replaced by the London-Warsaw-Kiev axis: that was “the end of Europe as an autonomous geopolitical actor”. And that happened only 20 years after the joint opposition by France-Germany to the neocon war on Iraq.

11. Todd correctly defines NATO by plunging into “their unconscious”: “We note that that its military, ideological and psychological mechanism does not exist to protect Western Europe, but to control it.”

12. In tandem with several analysts in Russia, China, Iran and among independents in Europe, Todd is sure that the US obsession – since the 1990s – to cut off Germany from Russia will lead to failure: “Sooner or later, they will collaborate, as “their economic specializations define them as complementary”. The defeat in Ukraine will open the path, as a “gravitational force” reciprocally seduces Germany and Russia.

Before that, and unlike virtually any Western “analyst” across the mainstream NATOstan sphere, Todd understands that Moscow is set to win against the whole of NATO, not merely Ukraine, profiting from a window of opportunity identified by Putin in early 2022. Todd bets on a window of 5 years, that is, an endgame by 2027. It’s enlightening to compare with Defense Minister Shoigu, on the record, last year: the SMO will end by 2025.

Whatever the deadline, inbuilt in all this is a total Russia victory – with the winner dictating all terms. No negotiations, no ceasefire, no frozen conflict – as the Hegemon is now desperately spinning.

Davos enacts The Triumph of the West

Todd’s ample merit, so evident in the book, is to use history and anthropology to take Western society’s false consciousness to the couch. And that’s how, focusing for instance in the study of very specific family structures in Europe, he manages to explain reality in a way that totally escapes the brainwashed collective West masses lingering under turbo-neoliberalism.

It goes without saying that Todd’s reality-based book will not be a hit among the Davos elites. What’s happening this week in Davos has been immensely enlightening. Everything is out in the open.

From all the usual suspects – the toxic EU Medusa von der Leyen; NATO’s warmongering Stoltenberg; BlackRock, JP Morgan and assorted honchos shaking hands with their sweaty sweatshirt toy in Kiev – the “Triumph of the West” message is monolithic.

War is Peace. Ukraine is not (italics mine) losing and Russia is not winning. If you disagree with us – on anything – you will be censored for “hate speech”. We want the New World Order – whatever you lowly peasants think – and we want it now.

And if all else fails, a pre-fabricated Disease X is comin’ to get you.

Fabricated Narratives

Was 2023 Really The Second-Hottest Year Since 1884?

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Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,

According to the UK Met Office, 2023 was the second hottest year in the UK since 1884.

Quite obviously, this is complete nonsense.

Unless they are troglodytes that never venture out in daylight, why would anyone in the UK believe such absurd drivel?

The Met Office states:

2023 is provisionally the second warmest year for the UK according to mean temperature. [. . .] 2023’s provisional mean temperature of 9.97°C puts it just behind 2022’s figure of 10.03°C and ahead of 2014’s 9.88°C.

Right, it’s “provisional” drivel.

The UK summer of 2023—where I live—was a thoroughly miserable affair. We had a few weeks of decent sunshine in the spring and a couple of hot weeks of Indian summer. That was it!

The rest of it was cold, wet and comprehensively devoid of anything we might traditionally call “summer.” The winter preceding and following it wasn’t particularly cold, but nor was it unusually warm.

I’m knocking on a bit and can remember about 50 years of my life. I know, for a fact, that I have lived through many warmer years. Sure, this is anecdotal, but I haven’t completely taken leave of my senses and I still have a functioning memory. No way am I unquestioningly buying the Met Office’s silly claim.

Neither do I believe any of the legacy media reports trying to convince me that the Met Office’s preposterous assertion is evidence of an alleged climate crisis. It simply isn’t true, so it is not “evidence” of anything at all. Although it does suggest deception.

The Met Office—obviously unreliably—tells us “UK mean temperatures have been shifting over the decades as a result of human-induced climate change. [. . .] 2023’s provisional mean temperature of 9.97°C puts it just behind 2022’s figure of 10.03°C.”

For a start, “human induced climate change,” or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), is a questionable and unproven scientific theory, not scientific fact. This too is just another claim from the Met Office which it wrongly asserts as fact.

The Met Office also tells us that “sunshine was near-average for much of the UK.” If we have got this right, the Met Office is claiming that, with average hours of UK sunshine in 2023—which also seems pretty dubious to me—somehow, since 1884, the only year that has been “hotter” was 2022. Which doesn’t ring true either.

What’s going on?

What does the Met Office mean—pardon the pun—by “mean temperature”? It reports that its 2023 alleged “provisional mean temperature of 9.97°C” had been obtained via the HadUK-Grid data set. The Met Office also cites its 2023 rapid attribution study. It is from this that we can—eventually—glean how the “UK mean temperature” is calculated by the Met Office.

In its rapid attribution study, the Met Office states:

Observed values of the UK annual mean temperature are obtained from the HadUK-Grid dataset v1.2.0.0. The time series spans 1884 – 2023, with the 2023 values being provisional as of 2nd January 2024.

“Observed,” that’s what we want to hear. So what observations are reported in the HadUK-Grid dataset? The Met Office claims:

HadUK-Grid is a collection of gridded climate variables derived from the network of UK land surface observations.

If we look at the HadUK-Grid methodology, the Met Office adds:

The gridded data sets are based on the archive of UK weather observations held at the Met Office.

So far so good. The HadUK-Grid reportedly records real data, such as sunshine hours, rainfall and even temperature. We live in hope. Unfortunately, there is some caveats. The Met Office continues:

The methods used to generate the daily grids are described in more detail in [this] report.

OK. So beyond just recording real-world data, what are the “methods” outlined in said report?

[. . .] the Met Office climate data archive [. . .] contains a simplified version of the raw observations generated according to well-defined rules. [. . .] Mean temperature [. . .] is the average of the maximum and minimum temperatures.

At last we have a definition of the “mean temperature” the Met Office claims to be the second highest since 1884. Apparently, it is “generated according to well-defined rules.”

In Met Office speak “mean temperature” isn’t the actual arithmetic mean of daily temperatures but rather the “average” of minimum and maximum temperatures recorded between 09:00 and 21:00 on any given day. Begging the question how are the minimum and maximum UK temperatures “observed”?

Although the data ha[s] undergone some quality checking, the extent and effectiveness of this has changed through time since the 1960’s. [. . .] NCIC climate data analysis software was again used to create the gridded data. [. . .] The station data were normalised with respect to the monthly 1km x 1km gridded 1961-1990 climate normals described by Perry and Hollis (2005a).

So the minimum and maximum allegedly “observed” 2023 “mean UK temperature” wasn’t actually observed at all. It was calculated from normalised data using computers running software based upon the “climate normals” defined in Perry and Hollis (2005).

The related paper considered how to calculate long term averages (LTAs) and suggested a methodology by which “mean” temperatures could be calculated:

For air temperature, 1490 stations reported at some point between 1961 and 2000 but only an average of 560 of these were open at any one time. This gives an array which is 38% complete. [. . .] [T]he solution is to fill in the gaps using an appropriate estimation technique. [. . .] Once the gaps in the array have been filled, long term averages for the periods 1961-1990, 1971-2000 and 1991-2000 can be calculated for each station from the complete array. [. . .] The regression model parameters provide an estimation of [. . .] the UK climate, explaining between 29% and 94% of the variance in the data depending on the climate variable.

Potentially, up to 62% of the data forming the Met Office’s “Mean UK temperature” is “generated” by “fill[ing] in the gaps.” This is based upon an “estimation technique” which supposedly explains between “29% and 94% of the variance in the data depending on the climate variable.” This doesn’t mean that the estimated fill-ins are inaccurate but they cannot be called “observations” either.

We seem to be moving further away from empirical science. Surely the Met Office isn’t claiming that it knows what the average UK “provisional” mean temperature was in 2023 based upon such limited observations? With regard to how it interprets the HadUK-Grid dataset the Met Office states:

The HadUK-Grid dataset is produced on a 1km x 1km grid resolution on the Ordnance Survey’s National Grid. To facilitate comparison of the observational dataset with the UKCP18 climate projections [. . .]. All the gridded datasets use the same grid projection. The re-gridding is conducted through averaging of all 1km grid points that fall within each of the coarser resolution grid cells.

Whoa there! We already know that the “observational dataset” is created by “fill[ing] in the gaps”—around a 60% gap apparently—with computer modelled estimates. Now we are told some sort of “re-gridding” is necessary to “facilitate comparison” with UKCP18 climate projections. Why is that necessary?

The UK Met Office adds:

Area averages are also produced based on averaging the 1km grid [data] across a set of geographical regions to provide spatial statistics for country, administrative regions and river basins. The details of these areas can be found in the UKCP18 guidance notes.

Now we’ve got “spacial statistics,” instead of empirical measurements, based upon “area averages” that facilitate, for some unknown reason, comparison with “UKCP18 climate projections.” OK, so how are the “area averages” constructed in accordance with the UKCP18 guidance notes:

Before using [UKCP18 guidance notes], it is important to understand the assumptions made, the caveats and limitations and the appropriate use of the results.

Assumptions made, caveats and limitations! What bloody assumptions, caveats and limitations? Just measure the temperature and calculate some sort of meaningful average for crying out loud!

Let’s look at the caveats and limitations:

Our understanding and ability to simulate the climate is advancing all the time but our climate models are not able to represent all of the features seen in the present day real climate and there are still limitations in our ability to project 21st century weather and climate.

Why are the Met Office “generating” temperature datasets to “facilitate comparison” with climate models if those models “are not able to represent all of the features seen in the present day real climate.” Surely the models should be based upon the empirically observed and measured features of the “real climate,” as opposed to creating “area averages”containing “spacial statistics” to fit in with the models?

Almost unbelievably, this is evidently what the UK Met Office is doing:

The relative probabilities indicate how strongly the evidence from models and observations, taken together in our methodology, support alternative future climate outcomes. [. . .] The probabilities are conditioned on methodological choices and expert judgement. The results may change if a different methodology is used.

In essence, the Met Office uses a tortuous and unnecessarily convoluted methodology to make up the bulk of its UK “temperature” data. While the Met Office claims that the provisional UK mean temperature was for 2023 was 9.97°C it also states that its results might change “if a different methodology” was used.

What’s more, the data it uses is normalised, based upon a wide gamut of climate assumptions, in order to fit in with its own climate models. Again, it admits its so-called observations, of things like mean temperature, are “taken together in [its] methodology” expressly in order to “simulate the climate.”

Most of these modelling shenanigans are utterly superfluous if your objective is to calculate the arithmetic mean annual UK temperature. Of course anomalies, such as heat islands, need to be normalised in the data but the rest of the Met Office’s “methodology,” which doesn’t even attempt to calculate an arithmetic mean temperature anyway, is about as far removed from empirical science as it is possible to venture.

Inevitably, it produces completely meaningless pap. The problem with such allegedly “scientific” rubbish is that, rather than being laughed off, it is then taken seriously by millions—thanks the unquestioning propaganda reports of the legacy media—and used to advance policy agendas, such as Net Zero.

Apart from the fact that it is blatantly obvious, to anyone who has lived in the UK from more that a couple of decades, that 2023 was not a warm year, there are other notable reasons not to automatically trust the Met Office’s makey-uppy “climate science.” Its entire claim is reliant upon the HadUK-Grid dataset which is a project funded by the UK government. As is the Met Office itself.

Apparently, the UK government is irreversibly committed to UN Sustainable Development and the associated UK Net Zero policies. The Met Office’s alleged scientific “observations” suffer from an enormous financial conflict of interest. Providing any evidence that contradicts the notion of “unprecedented global warming” couldn’t be further removed from the Met Office’s and the UK government’s own declared interests.

There is absolutely no reason to believe any of it. As “science” goes, it’s complete junk. I’ve read comics with more credibility that the Met Office’s claim that 2023 was the second warmest year in the UK since 1884.

Pull the the other one, it’s got bells on it.

Military Affairs

Russia and Iran Agree to Sign a Bilateral Strategic Pact

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via The American Majority!

A significant development this week with respect to Iran. Russia has agreed to enter into a bilateral strategic pact with Iran.

Iran has been a target of U.S. and Israeli intelligence operations for several decades. These efforts appear to have accelerated over the last ten years because of shared Israeli and U.S. fears that Iran was edging towards becoming a nuclear power.

Both sides stressed their commitment to the fundamental principles of the Russian-Iranian relations, including unconditional respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which will be confirmed in the major intergovernmental treaty between Russia and Iran as this document is being finalised already.

After China, Iran became the next major “player” who signed such an agreement (or is about to sign). This is a huge development in world politics and will further shift the balance of power and influence away from the U.S. I cannot overstate how big of an impact this will have. It means that Israel and the United States will face the risk of going to war with Moscow if either openly launch a military attack on Iran. This puts a new arrow in Iran’s quiver. Iran already has an array of ballistic missiles – non-nuclear – that can strike Israel and many U.S. military bases in the region. In addition, Iran has been conducting joint military exercises with Russia and China for the last four years.

On Monday, the Russian Defense Minister, Army General Sergey Shoigu, held a telephone conversation with the Minister of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani.

I suspect a similar agreement is coming between Iran and China. That will create a group of three very strong states, looking for each others’ geopolitical interests. This is not an actual alliance (defensive or otherwise), but it shows just how far the “Global South” has come on their journey of mutual cooperation. This agreement, unlike the one Russia and Iran signed on mutual free trade, is a clear signal to the West and exists to counter the various Western infrastructures that exist to bully countries into obedience.

The question now is how will our State Department react. They can either continue on this path of self-destruction, or realize that the world isn’t what it used to be and they can no longer do whatever they want without consequences. My fear is that the former will be the case and our neo-cons will continue pushing for war with China and Iran, while the Democrats do the same with Russia, plunging us into an unwinnable, catastrophic war on three massive fronts. The time until the November elections will be critical. If Donald Trump is serious about disbanding NATO, he has my vote. It’s because it doesn’t exist as a “defensive alliance”, but rather as an instrument of our foreign policy which has been highly aggressive for decades and needs to end if any of us are to live peacefully. It’s not us who are defending ourselves, it’s everyone else who is defending themselves against NATO. It needs to stop.

The economic and strategic alliances to give countries an alternative to the the American post-war system will only grow. But while our system offers very little, theirs offers fair trade and no strings attached. All we offer is subservience for very little gain. If we want to stay relevant in this world, we need to fundamentally re-think our attitude towards everyone else.

We can either live and prosper in the new world, or die in the old, taking everyone else with us to hell.

Join The American Majority!

Cultural/Ideological Divide

Bannon Predicts Trump’s First 100 Days Will Set 50-Year Agenda

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Ed. Note: Yes from “Unipolar Globalism” to “Multipolar Globalism”.


Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, Steve Bannon laid out what the beginning of former President Donald Trump’s second term would look like if he is elected later this year.

“The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term will be the equivalent of the first 100 days of FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt],” said Mr. Bannon, the host of the “War Room” podcast.

“FDR, in his first hundred days, started the foundations of building the administrative state, the deep state. The first 100 days of President Trump, I think you’ll see the beginning of the deconstruction of that and the destruction of the deep state, along with dozens and dozens and dozens of other policy proposals,” he added.

Steve Bannon in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Sept. 18, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

How 2024 Differs from 2016

Mr. Bannon served on President Trump’s transition team in 2016 and then as the White House’s chief strategist.

He recalled that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had put together the future president’s first transition team.

Mr. Bannon dismissed the resulting work product as “a joke.”

“We reviewed it, but we threw that away,” he said. Mr. Christie was quickly replaced as the lead of the transition effort by the president-elect’s second in command, Mike Pence.

“During the first few days on the job, every hour felt like a race,” Jared Kushner, also a member of the transition team, recalled of the opening hours of President Trump’s time in office in his memoir, “Breaking History.”

Mr. Bannon and Mr. Kushner were among the big names who helped set the White House’s initial agenda. Reporting during the Trump administration often emphasized ways the two men did not always see eye to eye.

“President Trump does like to have the tension of different viewpoints and debating things—and the best idea wins. So that’s not a negative,” Mr. Bannon said, likening the dynamics in Trump’s inner circle of advisers to Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, which also included many clashing personalities.

He predicted “one difference” that would set that “Team of Rivals” dynamic in the second administration apart from what Americans saw between 2017 and 2021.

“You won’t have people that tend to be more globalist. I think you’ll see populist, nationalist people that are fully on board with the outlines and directionally on board with President Trump’s policies,” Mr. Bannon said.

Trump, he added, is “running an anti-globalist campaign.”

President Trump has said neither Jared Kushner nor his wife and President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, will be part of a future Trump presidential team.

“It’s too painful for the family,” the former president told Fox News’ Bret Baier in June 2023.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner attend a welcome ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London on June 3, 2019. (Toby Melville/Pool/Reuters)

‘A LinkedIn of MAGA’

Mr. Bannon said the first 100 days of the first Trump term also suffered because “we didn’t have a deep bench of MAGA-type people that had understood policy or had been in the government before.”

Eight years after 2024, Make America Great Again has a real institutional presence in Washington.

“You have groups like Heritage and others that have made a huge effort,” he said, citing Johnny McEntee, a young Trump insider who is now part of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, officially unaffiliated with any candidate, but seen by many as a blueprint for the second Trump White House with a stronger executive and weakened executive branch bureaucracies.

That slow, steady organizational work is yielding “a LinkedIn of MAGA,” according to Mr. Bannon.

The former White House strategist ran through a list of core Trump policies that President Trump has described in his campaign trail speeches: “Tariffs across the board, sealing our border, mass deportations, starting to rethink our geopolitical alliances.”

While he conceded that some of the president’s priorities would likely require cooperation from Congress, he argued that much of the president’s agenda could be enacted through executive order, or even simply a return to enforcement of the law as written.

Executing MAGA policies requires loyal, competent people.

The new MAGA-inflected institutions in Washington are “building up a cadre, a base of like-minded people that can step into the government and media.”

“I think President Trump’s first days will be very dramatic,” Mr. Bannon predicted.

He foresees an equally dramatic immune response from MAGA foes.

“They will come at him from every different angle, just like they do on the lawfare now,” he said.

Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom with attorneys Christopher Kise and Alina Habba during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Nov. 6, 2023. (Brendan McDermid-Pool/Getty Images)

MAGA Equivalent of New Deal Coalition

Mr. Bannon, a naval intelligence veteran who also previously worked in investment banking and Hollywood, returned to the theme of President Trump as an anti-FDR during his conversation with The Epoch Times.

FDR was elected to an unprecedented four terms, serving through the Great Depression and most of World War II. He ultimately died in office.

The New Deal coalition he forged was a political juggernaut for generations, setting a liberal tone to the national government for much of the next half century. The coalition only began to fragment with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” in which Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 42 years.

While a second Trump term could accomplish a lot through executive orders, the reversal of many Trump executive orders at the start of the Biden administration reveals the weakness of governance in that form. To stand a better chance of lasting, MAGA policies emanating from the top would need to be buttressed by MAGA laws promulgated by a friendlier Congress.

Republican skeptics of President Trump are quick to argue that the fruits of his political influence—for example, on the primaries ahead of the underwhelming 2022 midterms—show MAGA isn’t a formula for victory.

But Mr. Bannon envisions a MAGA equivalent of the New Deal coalition capable of implementing an agenda that lasts.

“If we do this right, it’s just the beginning, like FDR’s was, of 50 years of MAGA policies,” he said.

Military Affairs

Ukraine, 1st phase in the New Division of the World

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By Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the Valdai Club via RT

Relations between Russia and the United States have entered a prolonged phase that can be described as a “long confrontation.” If the interaction between Moscow and Washington were still the central process of international life, as was the case during the Cold War, this new phase might be considered temporary. But the Moscow-Washington confrontation is now one of many. More importantly, it is taking place in conditions that occur once every few centuries – a period of global redistribution of power and resource potential.

This process affects our country and the US only in part. Within a few decades, the center of global production and consumption will finally shift to Asia, and the center of world economic gravity will be on the border of India and China. In this context, the long-standing Russian-American confrontation will remain one of the main fault-lines, but certainly not the only one.

Why do I think this confrontation will be protracted? Despite significant resource advantages and strong positions in key areas, the US finds itself in a situation where its pursuers are catching up fast. Washington is faced with an increasingly dense international environment that poses obstacles to previously unfettered American action.

The four US strengths that underpin its offensive strategy are: first, its still-advanced military power; second, its central global financial system, which provides an international settlement infrastructure and a convertible currency; third, its strong position in a number of technological fields; and fourth, its ideology and values platform, which, together with the other three dimensions, provide what can be tentatively called a “pyramid of credibility” for American strategy in the world.

This pyramid exists in the economic and financial spheres as well as in foreign policy. Trust explains the irrational behavior of some European states. Incapable of a balanced analysis of the consequences of their decisions, for example on the Ukraine crisis, they are now forced to ask themselves, as the German magazine Der Spiegel does: “What if the United States has no permanent allies? Western Europeans trusted the logic offered by the United States, they literally ‘bought’ the proposal. It was that the West would deal Russia a quick defeat, a lot of economic resources would be freed up, and relations with Moscow would be rebuilt on a different platform, more favorable to the EU. The belief was that it would be an effective strategy.”

The US has one of the most advanced schools of strategic thought – the European classical school received its greatest impetus in the first half of the 20th century in American universities, research, and expert circles. Analysts such as Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger, and a few other native Europeans were able to systematically outline their ideas and then integrate them into the practice of US foreign policy. This inoculation of European strategic thinking fitted well with the classic American maritime strategy and bore fruit that enabled Washington to achieve its goals in the second half of the 20th century. Now, however, we see that this strategic school is faltering: sober, realistic thinkers are in the minority in the establishment. Is this the result of post-Cold War “giddiness,” the feeling that this brief moment of military and political dominance would be endless?

At the end of 2021, in the acute phase of the Ukraine crisis, the US made a big mistake, in my opinion, by deciding to apply a strategy to crush Russia instead of a positional strategy. In world history these have been the two classic military-political variants. The strategy of crushing is always based on significant material, power, and ideological advantages, the possession of the initiative, and belief in the rapid defeat of the opponent. This was the idea of Alexander the Great when he began his campaign: a very advanced army, possession of advanced military technology for the time, the principle of the phalanx developed by the Thebans and then adopted by the Macedonians, with strong cavalry units. They did not suffer a single defeat during the entire campaign. The main obstacle for the Macedonians was the confrontation with the Greek mercenaries from Athens, who used the classic positional strategy. What is the point of such a plan? It gives up the initiative, allows the other side to act, and relies on the need to mobilize and concentrate resources. It avoids a decisive battle for as long as possible and only engages in it when it is impossible to lose. From this description we can see the typical strategic behavior of Russia in different periods of war.

The US tried to crush our country while not possessing superior resources and misjudged the capabilities, both its own and those of its allies, to achieve its goals – which were to isolate Russia, to stimulate internal protests and undermine support for the government, to create major obstacles on the front lineand, as a result, to defeat the country as quickly as possible. Now the confrontation in the military sphere has entered a different phase and the Americans are forced to look for a way out of this situation.

US strategic culture is characterized by a transitional approach to allies, and it is to be expected that at some point the cost of owning ‘the Ukrainian asset’ will be too high for the Americans to continue to benefit from it.

The RAND Corporation’s paper Avoiding a Long War, published in January 2023, is very telling in this regard. It explicitly states that the relative benefits of owning the Ukrainian asset have generally already been realized, while the costs of maintaining it continue to rise. This does not mean that after the conditional end of the Ukraine crisis the US will stop trying to use an offensive strategy of crushing our country. For them, we are a key rival in determining the crucial question of the 21st century: will American hegemony continue, or will the world move towards a more balanced polycentric system? And while few of us expected to find ourselves in a military crisis so soon into the process of resolving this issue, it’s now accelerating developments.

The drama of “hegemony or polycentricity” will not be resolved in Ukraine, because there will be other points of tension in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and eventually the Western Hemisphere, where Russia and the US will be on opposite sides of the barricades.

Our confrontation with the Americans will last for a long time, although we will see certain pauses, which the US will use to propose issues of common interest for discussion. From the experience of the Cold War, we recognize a common responsibility for the survival of mankind, and I consider the risks of nuclear escalation in the confrontation to be relatively low. Russia’s task will be to create a network of relationships with like-minded states, which may even eventually include some from the West. The US strategy is to forcibly extinguish points of strategic autonomy, which Washington succeeded in doing in Western Europe in the first phase of the Ukraine crisis, but that move was one of the last successes in this regard.

Uncategorized

Will the Globalist Elites Ever Allow Trump Back Into the White House?

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by Emmet Sweeney

When the COVID hoax was sprung upon the world in early 2020, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh was not fooled: the primary purpose of the hysteria and the lockdowns that went with it, he said, was to prevent the re-election of Donald Trump. The lockdowns, said Limbaugh, were designed primarily to wreck the Trump economy and thereby stymie his attempt to remain in office later in the year. The present writer came to the same conclusion, at basically the same time; about the same day as the lockdowns began. Closing the world down over a coronavirus – a type of virus normally associated with the common cold – was an act of unprecedented irrationality that could only have some ulterior motive, and that motive was very evidently not public health.

There were other motives, in other parts of the world, for locking down, but it soon became obvious that an extremely important one in America was to damage Trump.

As it turned out, the wreckage of the economy, by itself, was insufficient to ruin the Orange Man’s re-election chances, and the Democrat establishment (which, since the advent of Trump, has become the main vehicle of corporate and globalist power), was ultimately compelled to steal the election in the most brazen act of political piracy ever witnessed in a modern democracy. Mail-in ballots, stuffed with fabricated Biden votes, continued to arrive at counting stations up to two weeks after the actual election day. When tallied up, the senile old pervert, who couldn’t attract more than half a dozen people to his pre-election rallies, was said to have garnered 81 million votes – twelve million more than the previous popular vote record held by Barack Obama. The establishment, having rubbed Trump’s nose in it by such a move, might reasonably have expected the latter to retire from politics. After all, if they could take the election from him in such a brazen way – one which he almost certainly won by a landslide – why would he even imagine that he could gain the White House again in a future ballot? But Trump has made a comeback, much to everyone’s astonishment (not least, perhaps, his own). To all intents and purposes he now looks set to win the election this coming November in an even bigger landslide than in November 2020, when he took 71 million votes.

Before moving on, it is perhaps necessary to say something about why the establishment loathes Trump so much.

The Orange Man is above all a performer: He made his name as a television reality show host. He is abrasive and he speaks his mind. But his bark is much worse than his bite. His inaugural speech, in January 2017, said to have been written by Steve Bannon, read like a declaration of war. To the excruciating discomfort of the assembled clutch of high class criminals around him, he had the effrontery to call the elites out on the very crimes they were actually guilty of. Hillary, Barack, and George W., who stood close by, must have wondered whether their day in court was fast approaching. Yet nothing (much to the disgust and fury of his “deplorable” followers) happened. Months, and finally years, went by, and still “the Swamp” remained undrained. On the contrary, Trump permitted most of the Swamp creatures in the FBI, CIA and other powerful institutions to hold onto their jobs, and he even employed a plethora of new Swamp creatures, such and Nikki Haley and John Bolton. In the meantime, radicals such as Steve Bannon were fired. It is said that Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her billionaire husband Jared Kushner were the main architects of his policies at this time, but that is irrelevant. The fact is, these were his policies as President and they defined him.

Meanwhile, the Swamp and its inhabitants were by no means inactive: a series of criminal conspiracies which accused Trump of “colluding” with Vladimir Putin of Russia, among other absurdities, were launched against him. One by one these cases were revealed to be fraudulent and illegal; yet nothing was done to bring the perpetrators to justice. Nor has the ousting of Trump during the 2020 coup d’état drawn a line under the attacks. These have continued unabated, both in the billionaire-owned media and in the billionaire-controlled law courts and regional legislatures, where repeated attempts have been made to criminalize The Donald and strike him off the electoral ballots. Lawyers and detectives have been employed to trawl through every detail of Trump’s business and private life in order to find something to charge him with or to disqualify him from standing in the next election. All of these procedures are unethical, mostly illegal, and entirely without precedent.

And speaking of things that are illegal we come, perhaps, to the reason behind the fear and loathing gripping the oligarchy. Over the past few years it has become painfully obvious, to anyone with a modicum of awareness, that there is a two-tier justice system in America: one for the rich and powerful, and another – and far more severe one – for everyone else. The elites, in short, are corrupt, criminal, and unaccountable. Impunity is their middle name. There is no need to go into the financial corruption, which is ubiquitous and brazen. The way in which the Clintons, the Obamas, the Pelosis, and the Bidens have employed their political positions to enrich themselves and their families is common knowledge. Yet it is in their private lives that the most dangerous and personally shameful criminality is perhaps to be found. The Epstein case, sensational and revealing as it is, is almost certainly only the tip of a vast iceberg. A short time ago a list of all those associated with Epstein, which read like a Who’s Who guide to the rich and famous, was released: virtually every celebrity, billionaire, and major political figure in America was revealed to have been an associate of the paedophile pimp. What was not released, however, and what will never be released as long as the elites remain in control, was the mountain of video tapes collected by Epstein showing his celebrity “clients” and friends cavorting with under-age girls. These tapes are allegedly still in the possession of the FBI.

Incriminating as such material might be, it is almost certainly but a small part of what the billionaire class and their friends get up to behind closed doors. Rumours alleging rampant paedophilia in Hollywood have been around for decades, and confirmed by several major Hollywood figures who have dared to break the unspoken code of silence surrounding the topic. And the Democrat Party tapes, released by WikiLeaks, which revealed people like Hillary’s campaign manager John Podesta using enigmatic code terms such as “pizza” and “pasta”, which are recognized by the FBI as cyphers used in paedophile child trafficking, have never been explained either by Podesta or his associates. These reveal a potential level of depravity much greater than anything in the Epstein case.

The release of the Democrat emails by WikiLeaks may, at least in part, explain the unrelenting persecution of Julian Assange, which continues to this day.

The elites, in short, have a lot to hide and a lot to be afraid of; a fact which may help to explain their almost pathological reaction to Trump. The Orange Man talks as if he means business, as if he really intends to clean out the Augean Stables that are the halls of power and privilege in the U.S. He didn’t do it in his first term, that is true; yet the way he has been hounded for eight years now has perhaps convinced the elites that this time round he might carry out his threats. As the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, the President has a huge amount of personal power; and the elites have a huge amount of criminal behaviour to hide.

They will not, therefore, in my opinion, permit him to re-enter the White House. Yet how to stop him? He is clearly, even in the opinion of the biased anti-Trump pollsters, the most popular candidate in the country. The attempt to stop him by legal action will almost certainly fail. The accusation that he planned or encouraged an “insurrection” on January 6 2021 is frankly laughable and will unquestionably be thrown out by the Trump-friendly Supreme Court. Another option, which will certainly be considered, is to once again steal the election. That course of action however carries its own dangers. The Democrats were able to get away with it in no small degree owing to the fact that the pre-election polls in 2020 had consistently put Biden ahead. Almost everyone knows that such polls are typically weighted in favour of the Democrats, yet the fact that such was the official prediction at least helped the Biden team argue that his victory was sort of plausible. This time round, that is not an option, as even the most biased anti-Republican polls put Trump well ahead. Stealing the election in November 2024 might perchance this time trigger the very insurrection they accused Trump of in 2021.

I am not a well-connected journalist with access to insider sources; I am a historian, and the job of the historian is a bit like that of a detective. Clues of every kind, very often providing no more than circumstantial evidence, are how the historian and the detective proceed. When a variety of types of evidence begin to point in the same direction, then the historian or the detective can offer a hypothesis about how events unfolded. And very often, the past repeats itself. As such, I would suggest the following as the route by which the elites will proceed.

Perhaps the safest way to keep Trump out of the White House would be to find a pretext for cancelling the election. This would require an almost unparalleled crisis, such as the appearance of a genuinely deadly and fast-spreading virus, a nuclear terrorism incident, or a world war. And there is very good reason to believe that the elites are planning, if not a world war, then a major regional war in the Middle East which will not be far removed from a world war and may even escalate into one.

There is no question whatsoever that the Hamas incursion into southern Israel on October 7 was permitted by the Israeli government to happen. The border between Gaza and Israel is one of the most secure and surveilled frontiers in the world. A mouse could scarcely cross the frontier without being detected. The Egyptian government warned the Israelis several times that a major attack was imminent. They even, as far as I am aware, told them when it would happen. All warnings were ignored. Furthermore, when the attacks did begin, the Israeli army took several hours to respond. Israel is a tiny country, roughly the size of Connecticut. You can drive across it in a couple of hours. Nonetheless, Hamas had several hours in which to wreak havoc in the southern part of the country. Clearly, the Israeli Government wanted the incursions to go ahead, almost certainly as an excuse to invade Gaza in force and “cleanse” the region of Hamas – and much of the Palestinian population.

At this point we need to call a halt. When we speak of the Israeli government we are really speaking of the power which stands behind it: That power is the globalist establishment or “Deep State” based in the United States. The Israelis are currently bombing Gaza with American bombs, and Israel would collapse in a few days without the continued massive military and economic assistance provided to it by the Unites States. In short, Israel’s planned attack on Gaza had to have been given the go-ahead in Washington. Furthermore, the powers that be in Washington must have had a reason for permitting the carnage to take place. That reason became obvious just a few days into the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The media in America and Europe began claiming that the Iranians were behind the Hamas attack, and that Iran was the primary source of all instability in the region. The same media began to warn that “Iran-backed” Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, would also be drawn into the conflict.

Sure enough, within a short time, Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire along the Lebanese-Israeli border. The controlled western media immediately proclaimed this as proof that Iran was behind everything.

All of this was and is perfectly in line with a narrative pushed by the Deep State in Washington for several decades; namely that Iran is the West’s and Israel’s major enemy in the Middle East, and that “regime change” is necessary in the country.

It is fairly easy to see that the slaughter continuing day by day in Gaza is intended by the Western elites to provoke Iran, as well as other Muslims in the region, into a major regional war. The recent expansion of that conflict into Yemen, where the “Iran-backed” Houthis are essentially blocking Red Sea shipping, can be seen as another stage in a pre-planned strategy. The elites want a war against Iran. They know perfectly well it will be a massive and potentially catastrophic conflict; moreover, one which is liable to draw in Russia on the side of the Iranians. If the Iranians blockade the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes about 60% of the world’s oil, then there will be a collapse of the world economy. But even that will be useful for the globalist banking and corporate plutocracy: As well as providing an additional reason to cancel the election in November, the collapsed economy will potentially be used as a smokescreen to hide the massive theft and criminality the rich and powerful have been guilty of for decades. (The COVID “crisis” also had this as one of its goals).

This then is how I see things developing in 2024. I could be wrong: I hope I am.

Emmet Sweeney is the author of several works dealing with a radical reassessment of the chronology of the ancient Near East. His latest book, In the Time of the Pyramid-Builders, was published by Algora in autumn 2023.

Anglozionism

Netanyahu: No Palestinian State, Ever!

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The Reckoning Day for Israel’s never ending charade of peace talks on the terms of a Palestinian state is coming. The lies and the double speak need to come to an end. Israel has always intended to go ahead with the genocide of the original inhabitants of the ancient Palestinian lands. It is high time to acknowledge the sickening 100-year-old plot.

AP News

by Najib Jobain, Jack Jeffery and Melanie Lidman

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he has told the United States that he opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of any postwar scenario, underscoring the deep divisions between the close allies three months into Israel’s assault on Gaza aiming to eliminate its Hamas rulers.

The U.S. has called on Israel to scale back its offensive and said that the establishment of a Palestinian state should be part of the “day after.”

But in a nationally broadcast news conference, Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the offensive until Israel realizes a “decisive victory over Hamas.” He also rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood. He said he had relayed his positions to the Americans.

Anglozionism

Lavrov: Nazi Genocide Doesn’t Give Israel Impunity

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Israel should not think that the suffering of Jews during World War II gives it free rein in foreign policy, particularly when it comes to the hostilities in Gaza, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking at a press conference on the results of Moscow’s diplomacy in 2023 on Thursday, Lavrov reiterated his support for the creation of a Palestinian state. The decades-long failure to do this is one of the key reasons for the current instability in the Middle East and tensions between Palestinians and Israelis, he added.

The foreign minister noted that Russia had immediately condemned the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7. However, after the hostilities began, some Israeli officials went so far as to call the residents of Gaza “animals” without facing any backlash from the West, he added.

Israelis can’t… now do anything they want because they suffered during World War II. Yes, there was the Holocaust, it was a terrible crime, but there was also the genocide of all peoples in the Soviet Union.

Lavrov added that the Soviet people had suffered no less as they were exterminated in the same Nazi concentration camps as the Jews, with both people dying from starvation side-by-side in besieged Leningrad.

“According to this logic, we can do whatever we want. That won’t work if we want to systematically uphold international law,”he added.

Military Affairs

British Defense: War Within 5 Years

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UK Defense Minister Grant Shapps said that in five years the British and their allies will wage a global war against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, so the time for peaceful investment is over, and it’s time to invest in the military-industrial complex and increase military spending whose weapons proved to be junk in Ukraine…

LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – This year must mark an “inflection point” to decide the future of British defence, minister Grant Shapps said on Monday, setting out steps to better protect the nation against threats posed by a number of conflicts that are “likely to grow”.
In a speech setting out his view that 2024 will see the world become more dangerous and require Britain and its allies to deal with “irrational” powers, Shapps said the government was striving to increase defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product – something he urged other democratic nations to follow.

“In five years’ time, we could be looking at multiple theatres including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Ask yourself … is it more likely that that number grows or reduces? I suspect we all know the answer. It’s likely to grow,” the defence minister said. “So 2024 must mark an inflection point.”
He said Britain was spending more money in cash terms on defence than it ever had, adding the government was increasing funds for modernising its nuclear deterrent and replenishing stocks and should continue to do so, while studiously refusing to call directly for additional funds.
“We’ve made the critical decision to set out our aspiration to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence and as we stabilise and grow this economy, we’ll continue to strive to reach that as soon as possible,” he said.
“But now is the time for all allied and democratic nations across the world to do the same thing and ensure their defence spending is growing too,” he said in reference to those NATO members, which are not reaching the goal of spending 2% of GDP.
Asked whether the government would go beyond current spending, a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was a matter for the finance minister but the government was expanding defence spending.
Keen to underline Britain’s engagement in the world, Shapps said Britain was committing 20,000 military personnel to serve across Europe in a major NATO exercise in the first half of this year, as well as warships and fighter jets.

He also said Britain had shown it will “step up to the plate when it is needed” through its strikes, coordinated with the United States, against the Houthis in Yemen to protect international shipping.
“We intended it as a single action and we will now monitor very carefully to see what they do next,” he said, adding such action was harder for other European countries to take.
“The United Kingdom is one of those countries which has always traditionally, and continues to, step up to the plate when it is needed.”

Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Andy Bruce Editing by Tomasz Janowski