I think Mike Brock is absolutely right. Trump is creating an Oz distraction. “Pay no attention to that man behind the Epstein curtain.” I wonder what Fox News and other right wing outlets are saying about the USS Gerald Ford sailing into the Caribbean. Cheerleading, probably. Mike Brock will never be on Fox News or a right wing broadcast.
The days of Cronkite finding the pulse of America are gone. What did LBJ say when Cronkite reported that Vietnam was a quagmire, that we should get out of Vietnam? LBJ said something like “If I have lost Cronkite, I have lost America.
We don’t have a Cronkite right now, but if we did, I wish it were Mike Brock. He knows true north and I am grateful.
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions." (Robert Wilson Lynd)
What I've seen of Machado, meanwhile, is that she quite possibly knows exactly what she's doing. It's plausible to me that she doesn't want proper democratic governance in Venezuela; she wants to replace the left-wing authoritarian regime of Chávez and Maduro with her own right-wing authoritarian regime.
EDIT: “The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching; & will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, & the final expulsion of England from the American continent.” (Thomas Jefferson)
Jefferson wasn’t wrong about the British at the time. William Lyon Makenzie staged the Upper Canada Rebellion for similar reasons as the Americans. What happened was the British, fearing Canada would fall, offered the “responsible government” compromise to quell revolt.
Jefferson was wrong insofar as he thought taking the remaining British colonies would be "a mere matter of marching" (https://www.nps.gov/articles/a-mere-matter-of-marching.htm); the local British forces and the colonists (many of whom, especially in Upper Canada, had fled the rebellious colonies decades prior because they wished to remain under the British Crown and had no desire to be forcibly subsumed into the United States, or were the descendants of such) held them off for a time, and once British forces were no longer needed in Europe because Napoleon was in his first exile, they came over to North America and did things like torch Washington, DC (in revenge for the burning of York in Upper Canada by the Americans earlier in the war), and the whole thing ended in a stalemate with no territorial changes. The Americans thought it would be a short, victorious war, as exemplified by that Jefferson quote, because the British were focused on Napoleon (indeed the commander of the British forces in Canada at the start of the war, Isaac Brock, considered the assignment something of an exile and wanted to be in Europe fighting Napoleon), but they underestimated the resilience of the local forces and militias, and the brutality of Canadian terrain and weather, and instead very little changed outside of a lot of dead bodies and burned cities.
(The War of 1812 is sometimes called Canada's War of Independence--not independence from the United Kingdom, with whom, though political control has been fully abolished for over forty years and practically abolished for over ninety, we remain in personal union to this day, but from the United States.)
Papineau and Mackenzie were dissatisfied with the control the corrupt local elites and the British governors, answerable to British ministers, had over the colonies (especially in Lower Canada where the anglophone minority held significant control over the francophone majority), exercised in part because one of the going theories about the American Revolution at the time was that it occurred because those colonies had been given too much autonomy, and after those rebellions were forcibly quashed and many leaders convicted of treason, and as more moderate voices emerged as the primary standard-bearers of the colonial reformers, the British sent over John George Lambton, Earl Durham (a radical Whig reformer) to study the state of affairs in the colonies and give recommendations to prevent future revolts.
Lord Durham filed an extensive report (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Report_on_the_Affairs_of_British_North_America) on the matter of which, at least at first, only some recommendations were adopted. For instance, his recommendation for responsible government took some time to be enacted, eventually taking root between 1848 and 1855 in the various Eastern colonies (Vancouver Island and British Columbia, before and after unification, never had it in any meaningful sense before joining the Dominion of Canada), long after the rebellions (and, for that matter, Lord Durham's death in 1840), whereas his recommendation that Upper and Lower Canada be unified (to suppress and eventually eliminate French influence and culture; Durham is despised in Quebec to this day) was implemented almost immediately.
(And, of course, responsible government is hardly incompatible with republicanism in the sense of having a head of state selected through democratic means, though I am personally not a republican in that sense though my position on the question is also not strictly monarchical; witness most republics in Europe, with Cyprus and Türkiye, to the extent they are European at all, being the primary exceptions there that I can think of.)
“We are watching the calculus of two converging desperations play out in real time. Trump faces metastasizing scandal—the Epstein files documenting connections that cannot be explained away, among mounting other crises. He needs distraction.”
Not just a distraction for Epstein. By bringing the USS Ford to the Caribbean, they are weakening NATO’s defenses. And Russia is ramping up their missile attacks on Ukraine as a result.
Between the economic crippling tariffs I. Europe and moving military resources to the Caribbean, he’s going to allow Russia to bomb Ukraine with impunity.
It’s also become obvious that he cares little for Ukraine or Europe (supporting right-wing candidates affiliated with Putin), and is more interested in consolidating in all of the America’s into our sphere of influence.
This also creates more opportunities to keep the press focused everywhere, but under the hood, where they are consolidating power and finalizing the coup. IMHO…:)
It occurs to me that one of the reasons for these boat killings may have been to provoke some reaction in Venezuela against American targets which would be a pretext for war. Didn’t work, so screw it, he decides. The media doesn’t seem to need a pretext, so let’s just bomb the shit out of them.
We have no idea if those boats were filled with drugs and drug dealers. That’s the problem. There was No due process. Just death. They could’ve been drug dealers, or they could’ve been just out boating. Or, they could’ve been fishing. Or they could have been drug dealers. But we just don’t execute drug dealers with United States Navy firing rockets at them or whatever weapon they used. We haul them into a court and present evidence and put them on trial. We don’t execute first and ask questions later. That’s the whole fucking point. Or am I missing yours, sir?
When one country deliberately sabotages another country through drug running, that is war. We finally have a President who believes that is a problem and complacency is not the right solution.
You want to pass the problem off to a corrupted judicial system that won't even deal with murder? That problem is going to take longer to fix, if it can be fixed.
What's in the boats? Not wedding parties. I prefer to mourn the loss of our own citizens to the drug trade and be thankful for the President's actions. Do I wish we lived in a world that didn't require such action? Yes, I do. We don't.
What happened to all that “personal responsibility” conservatives pretend to value? Drug trade & deaths are caused by demand, not supply. Besides, fentanyl doesn’t move through Venezuela.
I think Mike Brock is absolutely right. Trump is creating an Oz distraction. “Pay no attention to that man behind the Epstein curtain.” I wonder what Fox News and other right wing outlets are saying about the USS Gerald Ford sailing into the Caribbean. Cheerleading, probably. Mike Brock will never be on Fox News or a right wing broadcast.
The days of Cronkite finding the pulse of America are gone. What did LBJ say when Cronkite reported that Vietnam was a quagmire, that we should get out of Vietnam? LBJ said something like “If I have lost Cronkite, I have lost America.
We don’t have a Cronkite right now, but if we did, I wish it were Mike Brock. He knows true north and I am grateful.
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions." (Robert Wilson Lynd)
What I've seen of Machado, meanwhile, is that she quite possibly knows exactly what she's doing. It's plausible to me that she doesn't want proper democratic governance in Venezuela; she wants to replace the left-wing authoritarian regime of Chávez and Maduro with her own right-wing authoritarian regime.
EDIT: “The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching; & will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, & the final expulsion of England from the American continent.” (Thomas Jefferson)
Jefferson wasn’t wrong about the British at the time. William Lyon Makenzie staged the Upper Canada Rebellion for similar reasons as the Americans. What happened was the British, fearing Canada would fall, offered the “responsible government” compromise to quell revolt.
Jefferson was wrong insofar as he thought taking the remaining British colonies would be "a mere matter of marching" (https://www.nps.gov/articles/a-mere-matter-of-marching.htm); the local British forces and the colonists (many of whom, especially in Upper Canada, had fled the rebellious colonies decades prior because they wished to remain under the British Crown and had no desire to be forcibly subsumed into the United States, or were the descendants of such) held them off for a time, and once British forces were no longer needed in Europe because Napoleon was in his first exile, they came over to North America and did things like torch Washington, DC (in revenge for the burning of York in Upper Canada by the Americans earlier in the war), and the whole thing ended in a stalemate with no territorial changes. The Americans thought it would be a short, victorious war, as exemplified by that Jefferson quote, because the British were focused on Napoleon (indeed the commander of the British forces in Canada at the start of the war, Isaac Brock, considered the assignment something of an exile and wanted to be in Europe fighting Napoleon), but they underestimated the resilience of the local forces and militias, and the brutality of Canadian terrain and weather, and instead very little changed outside of a lot of dead bodies and burned cities.
(The War of 1812 is sometimes called Canada's War of Independence--not independence from the United Kingdom, with whom, though political control has been fully abolished for over forty years and practically abolished for over ninety, we remain in personal union to this day, but from the United States.)
Papineau and Mackenzie were dissatisfied with the control the corrupt local elites and the British governors, answerable to British ministers, had over the colonies (especially in Lower Canada where the anglophone minority held significant control over the francophone majority), exercised in part because one of the going theories about the American Revolution at the time was that it occurred because those colonies had been given too much autonomy, and after those rebellions were forcibly quashed and many leaders convicted of treason, and as more moderate voices emerged as the primary standard-bearers of the colonial reformers, the British sent over John George Lambton, Earl Durham (a radical Whig reformer) to study the state of affairs in the colonies and give recommendations to prevent future revolts.
Lord Durham filed an extensive report (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Report_on_the_Affairs_of_British_North_America) on the matter of which, at least at first, only some recommendations were adopted. For instance, his recommendation for responsible government took some time to be enacted, eventually taking root between 1848 and 1855 in the various Eastern colonies (Vancouver Island and British Columbia, before and after unification, never had it in any meaningful sense before joining the Dominion of Canada), long after the rebellions (and, for that matter, Lord Durham's death in 1840), whereas his recommendation that Upper and Lower Canada be unified (to suppress and eventually eliminate French influence and culture; Durham is despised in Quebec to this day) was implemented almost immediately.
(And, of course, responsible government is hardly incompatible with republicanism in the sense of having a head of state selected through democratic means, though I am personally not a republican in that sense though my position on the question is also not strictly monarchical; witness most republics in Europe, with Cyprus and Türkiye, to the extent they are European at all, being the primary exceptions there that I can think of.)
“We are watching the calculus of two converging desperations play out in real time. Trump faces metastasizing scandal—the Epstein files documenting connections that cannot be explained away, among mounting other crises. He needs distraction.”
Not just a distraction for Epstein. By bringing the USS Ford to the Caribbean, they are weakening NATO’s defenses. And Russia is ramping up their missile attacks on Ukraine as a result.
Between the economic crippling tariffs I. Europe and moving military resources to the Caribbean, he’s going to allow Russia to bomb Ukraine with impunity.
It’s also become obvious that he cares little for Ukraine or Europe (supporting right-wing candidates affiliated with Putin), and is more interested in consolidating in all of the America’s into our sphere of influence.
This also creates more opportunities to keep the press focused everywhere, but under the hood, where they are consolidating power and finalizing the coup. IMHO…:)
Man for a dead man Epstein has done the impossible : scare Donnie and make sure he continues making mistakes.
It occurs to me that one of the reasons for these boat killings may have been to provoke some reaction in Venezuela against American targets which would be a pretext for war. Didn’t work, so screw it, he decides. The media doesn’t seem to need a pretext, so let’s just bomb the shit out of them.
“Meanwhile the Constitution sits collecting dust.” No, it’s being burned to ash.
Trump =
Graft
Incompetence
Over confidence (double way way)
Petulance
Greed
Bullying
Lying
Spite
Hatred
Racism
Retaliation
Orwellian double speak
If Trump says anything is a hoax, it’s true, so believe the opposite.
You offer no alternative to acting against the drug trade except to mourn the dead.
We have no idea if those boats were filled with drugs and drug dealers. That’s the problem. There was No due process. Just death. They could’ve been drug dealers, or they could’ve been just out boating. Or, they could’ve been fishing. Or they could have been drug dealers. But we just don’t execute drug dealers with United States Navy firing rockets at them or whatever weapon they used. We haul them into a court and present evidence and put them on trial. We don’t execute first and ask questions later. That’s the whole fucking point. Or am I missing yours, sir?
When one country deliberately sabotages another country through drug running, that is war. We finally have a President who believes that is a problem and complacency is not the right solution.
You want to pass the problem off to a corrupted judicial system that won't even deal with murder? That problem is going to take longer to fix, if it can be fixed.
What's in the boats? Not wedding parties. I prefer to mourn the loss of our own citizens to the drug trade and be thankful for the President's actions. Do I wish we lived in a world that didn't require such action? Yes, I do. We don't.
What happened to all that “personal responsibility” conservatives pretend to value? Drug trade & deaths are caused by demand, not supply. Besides, fentanyl doesn’t move through Venezuela.
Drug trade and deaths are caused by both demand and supply. I don't know anyone who mentioned fentanyl.