A Review of Phantom of Apocalypse

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhGcIYqoWlc

 

Twilight of the West (Part 2): Global Balance of Power from the Early Cold War to the New Cold War

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0voTR6Py4D8

 

Twilight of West and Asian World Order (Part 1): Introduction to Pre-Cold War World Order Models

 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbOVXSCJ8TM

RUSSIA THREATENS TO SEIZE FOREIGN ASSETS TO RETALIATE AGAINST WEST SEIZING RUSSIAN ASSETS

 One reason that Western banks and their lawyers lobbied Western governments not to engage in seizure of Russia assets is precisely because there is a great deal of Western capital in Russia and there is no end to this merry-go-round nonsense that the US has started in order to 'punish Russia' whose GDP this year will actually be at least half-a-percent higher than that of the US, according to the latest IMF projections.

Russia's entire economy is well integrated with the capitalist world economy and playing idiotic games with seizure of assets is a downward spiral. I am amazed that US lawyers at the Justice Department did not prevail in an administration whose foreign policy, as judged by results, so far is the worst of any president in postwar history, dragging down the US and world economy, as the latest US report shows on the new stagflation projections.

The US needs to focus on using the State Department to conduct diplomacy, as its mandate calls for, not as an extension of the Defense Department and the small circle of billionaire-supported neoconservative ideologues whose policy advice has sunk the country into domestic and international chaos without any prospect for resolving conflict through diplomacy.

The time has come to hire some professional foreign service people able to make clear-eyed rational and realistic decisions about the US role in the world, as current US economic and military power permit, and in relationship to both allies and rivals alike. The cowboy mentality that has prevailed in the White House and the halls of Congress has resulted in a $35 trillion public debt, rising social inequality, political polarization, and alienation from the vast majority of the world. Even if America's worst enemy were giving advice, this sort of chaotic mess would not take place, but the geniuses surrounding Biden have indeed managed to accomplish some nightmare scenarios in American foreign policy with very serious consequences at home.

WHY MASS GLOBAL PROTESTS AGAINST WESTERN-BACKED ISRAEL BUT NOT RUSSIA?

 

WHY MASS GLOBAL PROTESTS AGAINST WESTERN-BACKED ISRAEL BUT NOT RUSSIA?

More than two years of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and no global popular opposition, despite governments welcoming such protests and media constantly propagating against Russia. After all, much of the world was heavily indoctrinated to vilify Russia since the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), while Israel has enjoyed a rather favorable treatment since 1948, especially by the Western World.

One reason could be that the Russia-Ukraine war is a conventional conflict with US-led NATO behind Ukraine and Russia on the other. Another reason could be that the war in Ukraine is about the regional balance of power, and by extension a continuation of the old Cold War EAST-WEST rivalry. The rivals have been trying to settle zones of influence between NATO and Russia which NATO wants contained militarily and regimented, given that China is behind Russia.

Another reason could be that Russia has not targeted children and civilians, despite some civilian casualties including children. After a tw-year conventional war, it is estimated that 10,582 civilians killed, including 587 children. The majority have been killed by explosive weapons with wide area effects, and by mines and explosive remnants.

By contrast, Israel’s war between a conventional military and civilians in GAZA. In just six months, more than 42,000 civilians have been killed, with more than 14,000 children, while all of GAZA is demolished and waiting for reconstruction for which Israel fully expects the West and Arab nations to pay although it has also stated the region will be settled by Israelis.  

The ICJ has rendered a decision on Israeli genocide. No such decision has been handed down against Russia, despite efforts by the US and the West. While the overwhelming majority of governments in the world are on Russia’s side, the opposite holds true for Israel. While there have been no mass college student-faculty protests against Russia, or any other popular protests, the same is not true for Israel.

One could argue that the Western World is antisemitic and pro-Russian, except that public opinion polls do not support such a hypothesis, especially when considering that Jewish organizations and individuals have joined mass protests against Western-backed Israeli genocide. Could one reason for the anti-Zionist protests possibly be that the protesters identify Zionism with Western militarism and fault it as much for is taking place in Ukraine as in ISRAEL? Or, do the anti-war protesters express societal desire for peace and diplomatic solutions? Perhaps another reason could be that the mass protesters see on the part of Israel the glaring absence of observance of international law, human rights, and social justice, while they do not see the same for Russia which is hardly a favorite country for the West.

US SUPPORT FOR MUSLIM HUMAN RIGHTS IN XINJIANG, CHINA, BUT NOT PALESTINE

 It is indeed the case that China is hardly Norway when it comes to the issue of religious and political tolerance. This includes the 11 million ethnic Yugur minority in the northwest province of Xinjiang. China's lack of pluralism notwithstanding, here is the problem of credibility with any Western politician using the Xinjiang minority population issue, especially an American politician carrying the legacy of a racist institutional structure.

1. As of November 2020, the last 10 poverty-stricken counties of Xinjiang had all completely eradicated absolute poverty. By contrast, US poverty rate rose across the US from 10.5% in 2019 to 11.5% in 2023, and the poverty rate among AMERICAN MINORITIES averages 6 points higher than the general population.

2. The largest Western multinational corporations, mostly US-based, operate in Xinjiang province because of cheap labor and proximity to markets. While the hypocritical political rhetoric about Chinese repressed minorities makes Western headlines, a closer look reveals that the Western capitalist class makes huge profits exploiting those minorities. Whereas China has a social development policy intended to benefit the working class across the country, including Xinjiang, social development policy in the US has been eroding since the Reagan era.

3. The UN, and the ICJ have clearly made their positions known about Israel's genocidal war. By contrast, there has been no international court ruling on the Xinjiang province minority. The only country in the world trying to build such a case has been the US, but the evidence is lacking and the multinational corporations operating there are uneasy about having their operations exposed to the world.

Blinken is visiting China knowing that he is going to hear complaints about American destabilization of the Middle East, Eastern Europe-Eurasia, and South China Sea. Having no defense for America's FOREVER WAR policy, and lacking in diplomatic training and any sort of foreign affairs depth, he decided to follow the cheap rightwing American neocon road of propaganda regarding the Muslim minority in Xinjiang province, a fruitless strategy against the background of genocide and forced famine which the US has made possible in Gaza.

GLOBAL BALANCE OF POWER SHIFTS AND THE US

 Among the elites and the masses alike, there was so much hope that America would remain on top of the world when the Soviet Bloc disintegrated in 1990-1991 and President George W. Bush announced the US-based unipolar 'NEW WORLD ORDER.' American academics, including Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington became celebrities promoting theoretical models that would have the US remain at the core of the global power structure, recapturing some of the lost glory since Truman promulgated the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.

All of these assumptions were built on the assumption that because the Soviet Bloc had collapsed and China had embraced a mixed economy reintegrating with the capitalist world, America's hegemonic role was guaranteed. Rather than analyzing the merits of the capitalist world economy under the neoliberal model and the place of the US as a core country within that model, carefully examining the economically multipolar power structure, combined with domestic US policies and their impact on the political economy, the focus was on the absence of an enemy as a guarantee that PAX AMERICANA would live forever.

It is indeed unfortunate that the exact same delusional mindset and mental constructs of the 1990s regarding "End of History" vacuous theories continues to persist in the mid-2020s. National mythology is very important to keep the consensus in a nation-state and loyal to the institutional structure. However, it is dangerous because the farther away from empirical reality analysis of institutional structures, the greater the difficulty to solve possible crises. Even more dangerous, the search for enemies to blame for internal decline necessarily reinforces delusions of grandeur and refusal to address systemic domestic problems.

According to the latest Gallup poll, only one-third of Americans have no problem with America's position in the world, down from two-thirds in 2000. This is at a time that US income inequality, poverty and homelessness has been rising while the government is now spending more on defense than the next eleven largest defense spenders combined and there are two major proxy wars - UKRAINE AND ISRAEL - contributing the the $34 trillion public debt that the US hopes China-led BRICS does not undermine because the US has been weaponizing the dollar.

The article below asks whether America's downturn is another dip in a long arc of non-linear, yet essentially upward, progress, or the first phase of steep and irreversible national decline. A bit more research would have shown that the decline actually started in the second Eisenhower administration when the IMF warned the US government that the chronic balance of payments deficits and dwindling gold reserves has resulted in a trend undermining the dollar's stability as a reserve currency. Not inevitable that the decline must follow, current policies make it inevitable.

GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT AGAINST ISRAEL'S CAMPAIGN IN GAZA

 FROM NEW YORK TO CALIFORNIA, THE GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT, AS EXPRESSED ALL ACROSS AGAINST AMERICA'S COLLEGE CAMPUSES, IS AWAKENING THE POLITICAL, CORPORATE AND MEDIA ELITES TO THE MASS OPPOSITION OF US GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN ISRAEL'S GENOCIDE.

Just in case there were any doubt that the majority of the American citizens are against pro-Zionist genocide policies, the resounding electoral victory of SUMMER LEE over her opponent whose campaign was funded by super PAC Republican donor Jeff Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire and a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, signals that the vast majority of citizens are adamantly against US support for genocide and famine in GAZA.

History is not repeating itself as some have argued comparing the anti-Vietnam War movement to the current anti-Israel US-backed genocidal war. The US is carrying out a proxy war which involves ethnic cleansing, forced famine, war crimes and genocide in the 21st pro-Communist century when the enemy is the non-white Global South that the West refuses to admit into the ranks of the human race as equals to the "civilized" world. Driven by imperialist-Social Darwinist-supremacist ideology, militarist policies as leverage to perpetuate Western global hegemony and secure market share from globalist China, the US government has now turned against college students across the country and against anti-Zionist Jewish people opposed to genocide. College protesters are America's conscience which the sadistic elites are trying to crush back to submission so that they accept the apartheid status quo in Israel.

It is the height of decadence and immorality that the US government wants to crush the protesters against Zionism but refusing to endorse a UN independent investigation which requires the permission of Israel to examine the MASS GRAVES issue where war crimes have been committed. The US Senate approved massive defense aid to Israel on the same day that the 'UN called for an independent probe into the discovery of over 300 bodies in a mass grave at the Nasser Medical Complex following Israel’s siege on the hospital."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has made the public announcement about war crimes investigation, but the US remains an obstacle, thus Israel is unlikely to cooperate. Covering up war crimes while arresting citizens opposed to genocide is a manifestation of a society whose elites are entrenched on the road to mass destruction both at home and abroad for the sake of power and profit. Yet, the US media, politicians, and pundits insist on characterizing the country as well as Israel 'democratic' societies to be admired by the rest of the world.

NEW YORK POST HEADLINE: COLUMBIA SURRENDERS

 The NEW YORK POST headline 'COLUMBIA SURRENDERS' headline is a good study of analysis for a college course in journalism, assuming the faculty were not in the business of propaganda and had every intention of teaching undergraduates and graduates alike some very significant lessons in the methodology of journalism v. propaganda for ideological, political or socioeconomic reasons of one group to the detriment of other (s).

The headline is also useful to teach students the difference between social responsibility and the quest to make an impression on the mass reader with hyperbolic slogans so that the twin goals of achieving both sociopolitical conformity no matter the level of social injustice and making money are achieved. Not just local and national politicians, but businesses love such headlines, given their own ideological orientation.

The question remains whether this headline constitutes journalism, assuming that journalism's ultimate goal includes:

1. presenting all sides of an issue, unless the issue involves moral absolutes like mass killing of children and genocide;
2. informing the community with the aim of promoting its welfare and that of humanity in general;
3. presenting facts with the goal of human edification, not instigating destruction of group for the benefit of the other;
4. advancing civilization rather than contributing to its demise through the promotion of division and hatred among disparate groups.

BIDEN'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY, THE ECONOMY, AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY

 The question of the Democratic Party is how can it ask citizens to vote for it on an utterly disastrous record amid a weaker economy than both the government and the pro-Wall Street media have been advertising? Besides an absence of social development and erosion of the social safety net by a president who promised to protect it, the Biden militarist team has pursued a foreign policy rooted in a collision course with most of the planet over Ukraine, Israel, and South China Sea, merely because pro-Zionist and Wall Street corporate interests are deriving ephemeral benefits while realizing their ideological agenda.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US ranks number one in poverty rate among the world’s 26 most developed countries. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) statistics indicate that the US ranks second behind Mexico on “relative child poverty” when measured against 35 of the world’s richest nations. Based on statistics from World Inequality Report of 2022, the US ranks 71st out of 166 countries, right below Iran and right above Senegal, Africa, with the richest ten percent of its population owning roughly half of the entire wealth, while the bottom 50% own just 13%.

America no longer has a dream to which it once aspired under the Keynesian economic development model because the neoliberal experiment has transferred massive amount of wealth from the bottom 90 percent to the richest 10 percent without any prospect for reversal. Furthermore, not just the economy and Wall Street are rigged, as Senator Bernie Sanders often claims, but the entire institutional structure from government to media and education.

Like the decline of the Roman Empire and the British Empire, the decline of America is systemic owing to multidimensional causes mostly linked to domestic decadence brought about by the elites driving economic, social and foreign policy intended to strengthen capital at the expense of labor. This is not about to change because the social structure will remain as is, and the business and political elites driving policy will not alter course, as some hope.

A slow process, imperial decline is often defaulted to external factors when in fact, it is always owing to internal dynamics. Biden was chosen by Wall Street to manage the decline by protecting the privileged richest 10% against the 90% who continue to experience deterioration of their socioeconomic status and lack of upward mobility for their children. On the road to decline, the country will move increasingly toward authoritarianism and greater inequality with far greater social chaos and militarism as a solution to internal structural problems. Biden or Trump makes very little difference to the larger structural problem of a declining America and rising income inequality comparable to Senegal.

COLLEGE CAMPUS ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS AS A MANIFESTATION OF SYSTEMIC INSTITUTIONAL DECLINE

 The immediate cause of American grassroots mass protests have been triggered by the US military aid to Israel which has been carrying on a genocidal war and committing war crimes, according to many international organizations and governments. It would be hasty to conclude that underlying causes of these mass movements have not played a role. These broader causes are far more significant than what appears on the surface either on the side of the protesters or the side of defenders of militarism as a solution to political crises, and advocates of continuance genocide in the specific case of Israel.

American society has been experiencing systemic political problems because both parties represent the same Wall Street interests who own most of the wealth, while the bottom two-thirds have been experiencing steady socioeconomic downward mobility and rising personal debt. The fact that China has eliminated extreme poverty while US poverty as well as inequality has been rising, while all along both political parties keep promising for decades to improve living standards has left most people cynical and dispirited about the social contract in America.

The unequal socioeconomic system resembling a Third World nation, the corrupt pro-Wall Street 'uni-party ' system, the lack of prospect for a better future for the very students engaged in mass protests across America's campuses illustrates the magnitude of the problem in society. In addition, mainstream institutions, led by the mass media, in which people lack confidence, exacerbates the problem by undermining its own credibility due to manufactured and heavily biased news stories in the age of the internet allowing people to cross-reference the often blatant lies, at other times massaged coverage, and always pro-Wall Street, pro-military industrial complex coverage intended to indoctrinate for the benefit of the elites demanding social conformity.

College students are the ones who are more aware of the systemic institutional failures and a social contract that works for the richest ten percent while the rest are asked to conform, work, and pay their taxes to benefit the business sector and feed the global military network which in the case of Israel has entailed genocide. When Senator Bernie Sanders goes public with the accusation of US complicity in Israel's quest to eliminate the Palestinian people, there is something seriously wrong, not because he is Jewish and progressive, but because he sees that the status quo is in crisis and he is simply warning that much worse may be ahead for American society.

It is no secret that China is the world's strongest economy - measured in PPP - with the largest manufacturing and global trade base. Because the global balance of power has shifted in China's favor, many people lack optimism for the American Dream.

 

Analyzing the Western Media Approach to the Gaza Genocide

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAauWq8xNtE

 

Connecting Dots between Darwin's Evolution Theory and Atheism

 

 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM5SHVUqDII

 

 

Slaves to Gods and Demons: Analyzing Post-World War II Sociopolitical Turmoil of the Greek Society

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC9dWn0aC_c

 

How Kant's Enlightenment Influenced Religion, Politics and Society: A Detailed Overview

  

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKd1te4zfNQ