Can You Feel The Earth Shaking?
Wow! Lots going on—or so it certainly seems.
Yesterday I was listening to the guys at The Duran, who brought up the topic of Zhou’s recent jaunt to Kiev and Warsaw. Citing articles at the WSJ and NR (which they didn’t link) they stated that Eastern European countries—by which they mean Poland and the Baltics—are “freaking out”. Yes, Zhou read from his note cards the usual memes about “as long as it takes”, but apparently what the Eastern Euros heard privately caused them to flip their wigs. The impression they got, according to the guys at The Duran, was either that 1) Zhou and his regime have no actual plan—it’s, maybe this will work, maybe that—or 2) Zhou may have let slip that the US is about to bail on Ukraine. True it is that the collective West understands that Ukraine is reaching the end game—the weapons cupboard of the collective West is largely bare, for all the yakkety yak about “arms packages”, which now mostly amount to “the checks in the mail”. If Zhou’s trip was intended to shore up support for the US war on Russia, it had exactly the opposite effect. The Poles and Balts are about to learn a very brutal lesson about trusting Neocon assurances.
Zhou’s trip was followed by what Alexander Mercouris terms Olaf Scholz’s “highly mysterious” trip to DC to talk directly to Zhou. Apparently there were no aides present and there was no follow-up press conference. Mercouris believes this extraordinary trip and confab may very well have had to do with China—the US ruling class is now talking up war with China, apparently no later than 2025, after which date even Neocons concede that such a war would be unthinkable for the US. The Germans fear that, having gone along with the US sanctions war on Russian and having had their economy heavily damaged as a result, US pressure to now join in sanctions on China would complete the demolition of Germany.
The problem is obvious. The Neocons were convinced that their “shock and awe” sanctions war on Russia would collapse Russia, leading to regime change and colonization of Russia. That would serve to intimidate China into subjugation to the West—meaning, the US. This was always about preserving and extending the American Empire. Instead, as with all Neocon schemes, this grand scheme has collapsed—not Russia—and the US and its vassals find themselves in a corner with no plausible way out. Bluster doesn’t work with Putin and his foreign minister, Lavrov. The ruling classes of the collective West find themselves in a precarious position, as Michael Vlahos summarizes:
@Michalis_Vlahos
Do you want – A full and total synthesis of our ultimate domestic and foreign war fate? This is – pardon me – an actual must listen [tell me if I am wrong!]:
"The American ruling class is very close to losing societal and political cohesion in the us itself and civil war is not out of the question"
"This proxy war is looking like the dazzling failure of a descending meteor ..."
"The US sought to counter China through a demonstration involving Russia over Ukraine, which has not only backfired, but is on the verge of humiliating collapse ..."
"Yet even in defeat, creating a new Cold War will be a fallback for NATO, in which the forever fear of Russia will keep nato loyal as subservient vassals .."
As if to confirm all the above, the NYT has come out with an audacious bit of BS today. This story tells us two things: 1) The Nordstream terror attack is coming back to roost in DC, and Europeans are increasingly upset, and 2) the US may be preparing to cut and run. First these tweets:
A “pro-Ukrainian group”? That would be the US government, right? Looking for the punch lines?
This is almost too ridiculous for words—the idea that a “group”, rather than a highly advanced State military—could accomplish the feat of sabotaging this pipeline is beyond laughable. It took hundreds of pounds of high explosives to do this, and required digging below the seabed to get at the pipeline. Aaron Mate may well be right—this could signal that the US is preparing an exit ramp, fragile as it may be in terms of plausibility. And yet another election cycle is rapidly approaching in the US. Zhou desperately needs an exit strategy from this disaster. Amid the repeated chants of “as long as it takes”, we keep hearing leaks that summer is the end of the line for Ukraine.
Today at The Duran there was a lengthy panel discussion (very highly recommended) that included Brian Berletic and Gonzalo Lira. Although lengthy, it’s a very substantive discussion. In the course of it the question came up: Did Trump’s 2016 win somehow delay the start of the Neocon’s war of world conquest—as sketched out by Michael Vlahos, above? My take on this is that Trump’s election didn’t really have that effect. Mere presidents are no longer able to derail the US Deep State’s plans, and Trump was no exception. There were several preparatory actions before the war on Russia could be launched in Ukraine.
First, and perhaps most important, was the attempted regime change in Syria. This was important because success would have enabled an alternative energy pipeline from the Middle East to Europe, under US control. It would have greatly facilitated the war on Russian energy supplies to Europe. Assad held on long enough for Russia to come to his aid. Now Russia has become the protector of Arab interests in the Middle East and the US is increasingly marginalized—that is, beyond its military reach, which is now being contested by Russia.
Defeat in Syria was a serious blow to the Neocon grand strategery. It was followed by two more regime change defeats that were intended to tighten the noose, to isolate Russia and, perhaps, even induce regime change in Russia. Those two defeats were in Kazakhstan and Belarus. We may also be able to include in that list the attempted overthrow of Erdogan in Turkey. In all three of these instances Putin acted decisively to defeat the Neocons.
The result is that the entire Neocon imperial adventure appears to be in smoking ruins, as James Howard Kunstler eloquently expresses:
Imagine that on an April evening in 1912, the captain of the RMS Titanic had announced a grand ball at which the male passengers were asked to wear their wives’ clothing and vice-versa…. That was approximately the condition of Western Civ verging on springtime in 2023: preoccupied with silliness while the iceberg awaits.
But who would have thought the sinking of civilization would occur with such fantastic comic ornamentation? Men, in more ways than mere costuming, pretending to be women… incompetence honored, feted, even worshipped… intellect reduced to anti-thinking… anything of value thrown overboard in some weird post-modern potlatch ceremony of twisted moral righteousness…? But the hour is late, the party is near its end, and the iceberg is struck. The rest of the story will be you holding onto a few valuables, including your life, while the lifeboats get lowered.
From here forward, things get pretty interesting. And from here on, nobody is really in charge. The vacuum of leadership we’ve been living in becomes impossible to ignore, and nature (it’s rumored) hates a vacuum. For the moment, circumstances are in charge, not personalities.
Look no further than the fiasco in Ukraine, engineered by geniuses of the US foreign service in some daft exercise to show the world who’s who and what for. And, remind me: what was the basic idea there? To hamstring and hogtie Russia so badly that her people would overthrow the only rational head-of-state in Christendom [Putin], a figure who makes the presidents, chancellors, and prime ministers of Western Civ look like a troop of gibbering mandrills, with painted faces and blue butts, the ass-clowns of geopolitics.
Something tells me that this gang will not make it to the lifeboats. ...
We’re waiting for financial markets, banks, and monies to blow, as an engine will when submerged in water. It can’t not happen, though every known device has been deployed to keep up appearances.
Waiting for financial markets, banks, and monies to blow? Yes, that’s part of what Luongo’s Theory of Everything is about. And, as if on cue, Jay Powell went to Capitol Hill today and totally flipped off the Senate guardians of the Deep State:
Powell's 'Hawkish' Remarks Spark Cross-Market Chaos, Rate-Hike Odds Soar
Luongo has been saying—more rate hikes are coming. Davos is losing.
Catherine Austin Fitts also weighs in on the war that Luongo has described:
There is a monster fight behind the scenes between commercial banks and central banks.
CAF explains, “You have bubbled an entire economy, and now you are bringing out something (CBDC) that could shrink the bubble dramatically, and it can put a lot of banks out of the game and out of the business..."
As if all that isn’t enough of a seismic effect on geopolitics, at the same time that the Neocons’ excellent adventure against Russia is turning into an almost unparalleled debacle—which will most likely entail the collapse of NATO—American saber rattling against China—including open talk of war within two years, as well as the stationing of a “trip wire” force on American troops on Taiwan, i.e., on Chinese territory according to our One China policy—the Neocons have managed to drive the still somewhat hesitant Chinese into a full embrace of Russia. Count on it, if the Neocons launch our depleted military against China, that will become a war with Russia as well. The Chinese know that the US still aims to defeat them both. And so today the Chinese issued a remarkably unnuanced warning:
In an unexpectedly sharp escalation of diplomatic rhetoric, China's foreign minister said that the US should change its "distorted" attitude towards China or "conflict and confrontation" will follow, while defending the country's stance on the war in Ukraine and defending its close ties with Russia.
…, Foreign minister Qin Gang took an uncharacteristically direct swipe at the US, and said that the U.S. had been engaging in suppression and containment of China rather than engaging in fair, rule-based competition.
"The United States' perception and views of China are seriously distorted," said Qin, a trusted aide to President Xi Jinping and until recently China's ambassador in Washington. "It regards China as its primary rival and the most consequential geopolitical challenge. This is like the first button in the shirt being put wrong."
The U.S. says it is establishing guardrails for relations and is not seeking conflict but Qin said what that meant in practice was that China was not supposed to respond with words or action when slandered or attacked. ...
...
"If the United States does not hit the brakes, and continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailment, which will become conflict and confrontation, and who will bear the catastrophic consequences?"
We may be beyond earthquakes. Tectonic plates may be shifting. But just maybe Powell and the Fed may be able to quash the madness.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/over-40-americans-think-ww3-imminent
Wow. Just wow. You have hit all the main issues here. Just one point, a Civil War is highly unlikely, but without it we will never function as a country. Washington has lost control over the people of this country. Permanently. Yes, there are the sheep who go along, and those who are totally dependent on Washington, but the rest of us have zero confidence in the regime, and even the rule of law. They can shut us up, and we will continue to pay taxes, but we couldn't care less if any of Washington's initiatives or even wars succeed. Call us deplorables, proles or even domestic terrorists, but they have succeeded in alienating all the most productive elements in America.