Scumbags Trudeau and Freeland's Pro-Fascist Foreign Policy

 

Via Jacobin, the excellent Yves Engler lays out the failure of Justin Trudeau's and Crystia Freeland's pro-fascist foreign policy in Latin America:

Justin Trudeau’s Latin American strategy is in tatters.

From the beginning of his time in office, Trudeau has launched attacks on what remains of the left-wing governments that came to power in Latin America over the course of the past two decades. His party has supported the overthrow of leftist governments in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. But socialists remain in power in Venezuela, and leftists in the region have won a series of national elections. Progressive forces have defeated right-wing politicians in Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, and elsewhere. The push for regional integration is being rekindled.

Read the whole thing.  But I want to emphasize the parts where Engler describes Trudeau and Freeland actively supporting and praising fascist scumbags:

Meanwhile, Ottawa actively backed the ouster of Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president, providing significant support for the OAS’s effort to discredit Evo Morales’s 2019 election. This in turn fueled opposition protests that served as justification for the coup. Protests by social movements would, however, force the coup government to hold another election, handing Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo a second win. This turn of events greatly discredited the OAS and other coup supporters.

...

As an alliance of wealthy white supremacists, Christian extremists, and North American interlopers overplayed its hand in Bolivia, Trudeau’s anti-socialist ally in Chile was weakened by a popular uprising. Two weeks into the October 2019 demonstrations against Sebastián Piñera’s government, Trudeau held a phone conversation with the remarkably unpopular president, who had just sent the Chilean Army into the streets. At the time of the call, nineteen people had already died — and dozens more were seriously injured — in protests that began against a hike in transit fares and morphed into a broader challenge to economic inequality.

According to a published report of the conversation between the two premiers, Trudeau criticized “election irregularities in Bolivia” — used to justify removing Morales — and discussed the campaign to remove Venezuela’s president. A Canadian Press story noted that “a summary from the Prime Minister’s Office of Trudeau’s phone call with Piñera made no direct mention of the ongoing turmoil in Chile, a thriving country with which Canada has negotiated a free trade agreement.”

...

Inspired by their Chilean counterparts, protesters put far-right Colombian president Iván Duque on the back foot in late 2019. After Duque won a close election, then minister of foreign affairs Chrystia Freeland congratulated him and said, “Canada and Colombia share a commitment to democracy and human rights.”

In August 2018, Trudeau tweeted, “Today, Colombia’s new President, Ivan Duque, took office and joins Swedish PM, Norway PM, Emmanuel Macron, Pedro Sánchez, and others with a gender-equal cabinet. Iván, I look forward to working with you and your entire team.”

A month later he added, “Thanks to President Ivan Duque for a great first meeting at UNGA this afternoon, focused on growing our economies, addressing the crisis in Venezuela, and strengthening the friendship between Canada & Colombia.”

...

While they made dozens of statements criticizing irregularities in Venezuela, the Trudeau government remained silent about the equally murky impeachment of Rousseff, and was unfazed by the persecution of the Left more broadly.

Canada began negotiations to join the Brazilian-led MERCOSUR trade bloc (just after Venezuela was expelled). They also held the Canada-Brazil Strategic Dialogue Partnership. In October 2018, Freeland met her Brazilian counterpart to discuss, among other issues, pressuring the Venezuelan government. She tweeted, “Canada and Brazil enjoy a strong friendship and we are thankful for your support in defending the international rules-based order and holding the Maduro regime in Venezuela to account.” Under Bolsonaro, Brazil would join the Lima Group.

In 2018, the openly sexist, racist, and stridently anti-environmentalist Bolsonaro won the presidential election — largely because the front-runner in the polls was in jail. Former Workers’ Party president Lula da Silva, who ended his second term with an 83 percent approval rating, was blocked from running due to politically motivated corruption charges.

The Trudeau government was publicly silent on Lula’s imprisonment. The night before the Supreme Court was set to determine Lula’s fate, the general in charge of the army hinted at military intervention if the judges ruled in favor of the popular former president. Not even this development was criticized by Ottawa. The courts have since annulled the convictions against Lula and polls suggest he will trounce Bolsonaro in the presidential vote scheduled for October.

After backing numerous failed and dubious contenders, it still remains unlikely that Trudeau’s Liberals will change their Latin American geopolitical strategy. Canada’s policy in the region has long been shaped by Washington and the economic interests of Canadian capitalists. It suits Canada’s banks, mining companies, and other corporations to crush efforts that seek economic and political independence from US empire. 

Any simpleton, self-described "progressive" who swoons over these two assholes is a fraud.

The Anti-Vaxx Trucker Convoy and "Fake News"

 

Canadian Cynic has been doing a great job of chronicling the tale of the convoy of right-wingers who are ostensibly protesting mandatory vaccine mandates for Canadian truck drivers re-entering the country from the USA.  I say "ostensibly" because nobody that I know of has explained how they can be so upset since they need to be vaccinated to enter the USA in the first place.  Another reason why I'm using the word "ostensibly" is because, as this editorial from Policy Options points out, besides containing long-time anti-vaxxers of the Hippie persuasion, and individuals who have suffered genuine economic costs from our governments' mishandling of lockdowns, the majority of people in this protest movement are the same right-wing, racist, authoritarian, nutbars who constituted the Canadian "Yellow-Vest" movement and all of the other moronic, hypocritical, whining cry-baby political cults in Canada for decades.

The anti-lockdown/anti-vaccine movements have had nearly two years in which to network, reach new audiences and test their messages to improve their outreach. These well-networked individuals may continue to stay in touch with extremists as they move to new issues – whatever those may be.

These new grievances will likely be along the lines of previous far-right extremist preoccupations, such as the promotion of anti-immigration, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views, policies and violence. They may also manifest through a youth-driven culture war that seeks to “take Canada back” from what is seen as a coalition of socialists, progressives and globalists. Conspiracy movement adherents, such as those in the QAnon movement, may seek to tie their beliefs to anti-government extremism, posing a serious threat to public order.

In his latest post Cynic discusses the grossly inflated numbers of convoy participants provided by its cheerleaders (as opposed to the much smaller numbers that have been verified) and reflects upon how these shameless hypocrites have been shrieking about "Fake News" for years and years.  I once attempted to discuss the appearance of the term "Fake News" here at the Schoolyard:

Right now I think it needs to be said that the first time I really noticed the term "fake news" was when Donald Trump kept using it to condemn any and all negative coverage of himself and his presidential campaign. Of course the concept behind "fake news" has always been around. We called it "propaganda," or "lies" or "bullshit" or "deceit," or any number of terms. Perhaps even "fake news" once in a while. FOX News was a notorious source of false facts, sins of omission, slanted editorials and other crimes against truth.

...

But, again, the real popularization of the specific term "fake news" appears to have come from Trump. And this is interesting, because Donald Trump is a shameless con-artist. He's a liar. A fraud. He's a flim-flam man.

...

The reflexive defense mechanism of a liar/con-artist is to deflect attention away from their own lies and to go on the offensive against their accusers.

...

So, Trump has to call critical coverage of his failings as "fake news" or, IOW "lies" as a means of self-defense, since he's a total fraud. To do this he resorts to the whole idea of a corrupt "liberal" media that right-wing hypocrites and morons so love to wail about.

Unfortunately for us (and fortunately for Trump) his target (the "liberal media") is an easy one. Here are some complaints we on the Left share with many Trump supporters:

1. The media lies. (see: "Iraq", "Russiagate", protest movements)

2. The media is slanted.

3. The media is elitist.

4. The media serves the powerful.

Obviously the denizens of Trumpland and "Ford Nation" and "InfoWars" and Ezra Levant's "Bigotry Cruises" have their own spin on what they consider to be lies. These are such people as to notice that a sympathetic portrait of a Black person, or a First Nations person in the news is not 100% indifferent (and therefore "neutral") and choose to rail against that. But they share with us a disdain for the media's craven worship of "free trade." (At least we used to condemn corporate free trade deals. Alas, Trump Derangement Syndrome has got many leftists defending NAFTA.)

Basically the corporate media espouses the neo-liberal corporate agenda. It's inevitable. It's what they do. It's in their DNA. The problem for them is that the corporate neo-liberal agenda has fucked so many ordinary people over that left-wing and right-wing are turning against it in its entirety. "The center cannot hold." The elites cannot paper-over the shitty outcomes enough to hide the stench.

So, the issue isn't "deceitful right-wingers hypocritically claim that corporate news is biased against them."  Corporate news is biased.  It is blatant propaganda.  But we have to place corporate news in its proper place in our political-economic cultural environment.  The corporate or mainstream media is a creature of capitalism.  It is owned by capitalists and funded by capitalists.  In a country like Canada an institution like the CBC functions within a capitalist eco-system and is funded by politicians who mainly serve capitalism and is administered by bureaucrats who have endeared themselves to these mainly pro-capitalist politicians.  

How does the media relate to the right-wing?  Well, we all know how the vast majority of Canada's newspapers infamously endorsed the stephen harper Conservative Party of Canada after said party's serial abuses of all aspects of our parliamentary pseudo-democracy.  So they're right-wing. And major television network news (Global TV and CTV) are ridiculously right-wing. But they're corporate right-wing. And, culturally, they're also mostly liberal on social issues.  (Social issues are one way that capitalist elites can give some ground.  For instance, there might be a lot of structural reasons behind the higher levels of poverty among Blacks in the USA, and there might be reasons why US capitalism would like there to be a distinct minority that can be the first to be shed during economic downturns (thus sparing the majority and avoiding a larger political backlash); but to the extent that a talented Black person could make them money, to that extent will US capitalism reject racism and embrace diversity.  Capitalism is a political-economic system.  It isn't inherently race-based, or religious, or heterosexual.  Capitalism isn't even sex-based.  Patriarchy is a separate system.  An actually larger one in which (or besides which) capitalism operates.  So while men might organize to keep women down, capitalism itself doesn't care about female CEO's or female Presidents of the United States, so long as they are committed to promoting profit over everything else and serving the capitalist system as a whole.

Whether or not the mainstream media reports something accurately or not depends upon how much accurate reporting impacts capitalism either negatively or positively.  (And these cost-benefit analyses are always done based on short-term thinking.  Capitalism has been destroying itself for decades now.  Like a parasite killing its host.)

I have to buy groceries, wash dishes, do laundry, do push-ups, and work on my cartoons.  I'm going to try to wrap this up quickly.

So, who is organizing this convoy? They are primarily far-right Canadians of mostly less-than oligarch status.  They are racist conspiracy theorists.  They are morons who believe in a moronic conceptualization of "individual freedom."  The are arrogant narcissists.  They are proudly ignorant.  They are a lunatic fringe of the general population.  They are the sort of people who can (for example) blame all the violence of the Trump orchestrated January 6th, 2021 Washinton D.C. riots on Antifa one second while praising the event and the rioters to the skies the next second without skipping a beat or feeling even a twinge of embarrassment.

But notice that they've received individual donations, some as large as $25,000.  Who has $25,000 to throw at something so stupid and useless?  Rich people.  Capitalists.  To the extent that any capitalist has problems with the lockdowns, or [especially in the case of the oil industry] with the imposition of any regulations on their doing business, or with the tepid, reality-based policies of the Liberal Party of Canada (as opposed with the Conservative's willingness to ignore all reality if it serves capital), to that extent will the corporate media cover the convoy properly.  But to the extent that the convoy participants reject free trade, or the exploitation of minorities who can be paid less than white people, or any other ideas they have that offends capitalism, to that extent will they be derided or at least ignored.  And ponder this:  The extent that anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers contribute to the prolongation of the pandemic and to the demonization of the pharmaceutical industry, is a big factor in how those capitalists who acknowledge reality about the pandemic and who are aware that it is in their interests for it to stop, will ally with the pharmaceutical industry in opposing these stupid yahoos.

I'm not going to say that I agree with everything "progressives" have to say about all of these issues.  But I'm tired of typing this post so I shall end it here.

A Couple of Good Essays About the Fabricated Ukraine "Crisis"

Bugsky Gard National Park - The Ukraine

 Gary Leupp's "Isn't It Obvious?"

No context. No knowledge. No insight. Just more traditional tribalism, with the most sophisticated people expressing the most naked, often racist, arrogance whenever they talk about the big world in which we live. Thus after the U.S. spends five billion dollars to interfere in the Ukrainian political process to topple a democratically elected president who rejects NATO membership and place a neonazi-backed puppet in power, that post-coup regime becomes the one that REALLY represents Ukraine. Ukraine calling on us to help it versus (more) Russian aggression!

Isn’t it obvious?

...

One has the feeling this “crisis” in Ukraine (based entirely by media reports that Russia is about to invade, which the Russians have for their part dismissed, not that it matters) is a test of “U.S. leadership” (which is to say, ability to arm-twist Germany in particular and get everybody on board risking war with Russia). Biden wants to look strong. His supporters want him to look strong. CNN and MSNBC join Fox in criticizing Biden’s apparent suggestion that the U.S. could tolerate a small incursion but not full-scale invasion. How quickly did the White House respond with a correction!

And Caitlin Johnstone has two recent articles.  This one about a bullshit UK/USA "intelligence" report:

Now if you are hoping to be provided with some sort of evidence for these incendiary claims, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you, because get this: the journalists reporting on this story have not seen any evidence. Apparently they’re just passing on unverified government assertions made by unknown spies to their readers because they were told to, which I guess is something journalists can do now?

I know, I know, I was a little surprised when I learned that too. But here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth:

“The British communiqué provided no evidence to back up its assertion that Russia was plotting to overthrow the Ukrainian government,” the Times reports.

You will be reassured however to learn that despite the actual evidence of the actual Russian nefariousness being kept invisible to us, anonymous officials within the US government have reviewed the intelligence gathered by anonymous British spies for us and concluded on our behalf that the evidence is solid.

“In Washington, officials said they believe the British intelligence is correct. Two officials said it had been collected by British intelligence services,” The New York Times informs us.

You see that? These claims about a devious Russian conspiracy have been confirmed by anonymous government operatives in both the US and the UK. That’s two separate, completely unconnected governments independently verifying that these claims are true. That’s called independent corroboration, gentlesirs. Basically the same as ironclad proof.

And this one about lunatic pundits trying to prepare the public's mind for nuclear war.

This massive claim should be treated very seriously. It should be treated seriously not because it’s well-founded (Moon of Alabama explains that Moscow has no good reason to launch an unprovoked attack on Ukraine and war is entirely avoidable, and Kiev is telling the public to stop worrying about a Russian invasion), but because there’s no way for this claim not to be a big deal.

Think about it. If Vindman’s claims are true then we should all be running around like our hair is on fire demanding our governments move heaven and earth to prevent this horror from being unleashed upon our world. If his claims are not true then a US news network just aired brazen disinformation about a matter of unparalleled importance, and ironically did so right after the US State Department published a lengthy report on the dangers of Russian disinformation on RT and Sputnik (which was in turn ironic because, as The Dissident explains, the report is itself packed full of disinfo).

That's the thing: Nuclear war is a serious thing.  We should get rid of these weapons.  Especially since, in the hands of the rotten political culture that spewed out something as ridiculously repulsive as Joe Biden, we could all be killed over a hypocrisy-filled, imperialist sham-crisis.  And that is all on top of the crises of the pandemic, global heating and capitalist humanity's murdering of the eco-system.

The Absolutely Stupid, Complete Waste of Time, Fabricated Ukraine "Crisis"

 

I had this to say about this nonsense about a week ago:

I'll just leave off by saying it is nauseating that in this era of REAL world crises (especially COVID and Global Warming) that Biden (or whatever is pulling his strings) sees fit to waste our time with this bullshit.  That he's able to posture like this despite his supporting the holocausts in Yemen, and Iraq, as well as the crimes against democracy across the US empire.  And the fact that there are millions of idiots who are stupid enough to take all this garbage seriously.

And I get increasingly disgusted with it everytime Biden or Blinken continue to babble on about it.  We, the human species, dominated by the anti-human political-economy of capitalism, have very real problems to deal with.  Global Heating and a worldwide viral pandemic and mass extinctions of other lifeforms (caused by us) to name only a few.  And yet, to the extent that his age-deteriorated brain (never a top-of-the-line model to begin with) is capable, Joseph Robinette Biden genuinely expects us to care about his totally manufactured Ukrainian crisis.

Yes. It's a complete fabrication.  I've said it over and over again at this blog: Vladimir Putin does not want war with the USA or anyone else because his country cannot afford a war.  Not because Putin is an angel.  Putin is not a saint.  He is not a puppy dog.  He is not a great statesman.  He is a guy who has stayed at the top of the Russian state longer than anyone else since the fall of the USSR and he probably wants his country to succeed because it would make him look good.  Ordinary Russians see him as infinitely preferable to the sort of person who would be acceptable to the maniacs in Washington, given their experience with Washington's former puppet Boris Yeltsin.

Russia clearly wanted to join the US-led "international community."  Unfortunately for them, Washington has always hated continued Russian claims of independence.  More importantly, the USA's military-industrial complex needs enemies to "justify" its grotesque theft of US taxpayers' dollars and maintain its profit levels.  These two issues are the reasons behind Biden and Blinken's phony concerns for the people of the Ukraine. Russia doesn't want war and it doesn't want to conquer the Ukraine because it can't afford to do either.

[O]f course, we absolutely do not need to fight for Ukraine to the last Ukrainian, we certainly do not want to fight there. All this squealing about the fact that we are going to capture Kiev, it is about nothing. Yes, our military is standing at the Ukrainian border, but only so that on the other side it does not occur to anyone to break into the Donbass. And the capture of Ukraine in our military plans, I'm sure, is not included. If only for the reason that capturing a country that is castrated economically, morally and intellectually, a country with a destroyed infrastructure and an embittered population is the worst-case scenario. The worst thing America can do for us is to give us Ukraine in the form they brought it to.

It's non-stop with the New Cold War against Russia (which has a GDP smaller than Canada's).  Putin destroyed the USA's non-existent democracy by stealing the 2016 election from Saint Hillary Clinton and giving it to his puppet Trump.  (False. False.)  Putin paid bouties to the Taliban to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. (False.)

And what's worse than a fabricated, bullshit international crisis?  One that's built on a mountain of hideous hypocrisy.  Why the fuck are we supposed to think that Biden, or Trudeau, or anyone else pushing this crapola cares about the people of the Ukraine?  Trudeau doesn't care about Canada's First Nations. He doesn't care about the Palestinians.  He doesn't care about Yemenis.  He's still selling weapons to the monarchical dictatorship misogynist genocidal government of Saudi Arabia.  Biden and Blinken hate Black people. They hate Palestinians. Biden has the blood and trauma of millions of Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians, and others on his hands.  Biden has bragged about his involvement in the policies of several Latin American countries even though all those policies produced has been atrocities.  (It's possible that Biden is too stupid, arrogant, ignorant and delusional to grasp this reality, but even if that were true, who thinks he would give a shit were someone to strap him down, gag his stupid mouth, and force-feed him the truth?)

At fifty-five years of life, and a few decades of following the news, I've come to the conclusion that one must never, never, never ever listen to our elites when they're crying over some horrible tragedy in some foreign country.  The only time they ever do this is when they want to crush and official enemy just for being an official enemy.  Give the scumbags in Washington, London, Brussells, Ottawa any respect for their lies just leads to the Vietnam War, the destruction of human rights in Latin America, horror and bloodshed in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria.  

Are Russia and China governed by saints? Of course not.  But being foreign governments you have zero ability to impact their decision-making processes.  If you want to criticize their more egregious crimes, feel free to do so.  But NEVER get behind the assholes leading our governments and their hypocritical campaigns against them.  Because then you're just being a stupid patsy.  You should spend more time going after your own governments.  You should spend more time telling them to STFU about Venezuela, Russia, Nicaragua, Iran, etc., ... and to stop with the murderous sanctions and the support for death squads and the land-theft and apartheid in Palestine and the depredations of Canadian mining companies in the LDC's. Look! Our rulers don't even care about us? Why would you think they care about other ordinary people thousands of miles away?

Trudeau on Left-Wing Cynicism

 Apparently our shit-head prime minister Justin Trudeau is distressed by the "casual cynicism of the left."  We affect him more than the far-right crazies who want to hang him for "treason."

"Cynicism" the moron says.  He probably doesn't understand the meaning of the word.  Justin me boy!  Did you think you could brazenly break your promise to end our antiquated and anti-democratic First-Past-The-Post electoral system and not make people cynical?  Did you think forming the LIMA Group with fascists like Brazil's Bolsonaro, the Death Squadders in Colombia and the Honduran Mafioso to target the people of Venezuela with deadly sanctions over the alleged human rights abuses of their government wouldn't endgender cynicism? Did you really believe that it wouldn't make people cynical to pull billions of dollars out of thin-air to bail-out an oil pipeline project?  Did you think that signing the UN Declaration on the Rights on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and while not accepting the obligations that entailed wouldn't make people cynical?  (On top of your continued serial abuses of the First Nations?)

I can't imagine the intellectual and moral debasement of those who practically swoon over this stupid asshole Justin Trudeau.  I do know that normal people regard both the man and his fans with contempt.

Nature Trying to Get Rid of Us?

 

Sometimes you read about natural systems, like fungi, or whatever, ... feedback loops, ... nature keeping things balanced.  Too many herbivores leads to starvation, so predators keep their numbers low.  A delicate balance that has been thrown-off by humans.  Maybe the virus is stage-1 of the Earth trying to get rid of us.  It's not a conscious thing.  But it's genius nonetheless.  

One the one hand, we are the most "intelligent" lifeform that we know of in the entire universe.  I don't think dolphins are aware of the vastness that is the universe.  And if we get snuffed, ... well the universe will continue to wind its meaningless way without us.  And animal consciousness will thereafter be limited to seeking food on limited grazing/hunting ranges on this planet.  And it won't matter because we're a stinking, ugly, stupid, boorish, arrogant, moronic species.

The Snivelling Hypocrisy of Justin Trudeau

 

Justin Trudeau, our air-head pretty-boy prime minister, has decided to continue Canada's almost century-long tradition of toadying to the USA's insane, imperialist and morally bullshit foreign policy.  Remember: Justin Trudeau is the sort of piece of shit who decided to use Canada's very first National Day For Truth and Reconciliation to take a beach vacation!  As prime minister!  When it was also, just that year, that the First Nations obtained physical proof of what had been known for a long time; that there were mass graves of Aboriginal children buried under the grounds of many former Residential Schools. MASS. GRAVES.

Justin Trudeau then, is either a really, really, stupid air-head or he's a callous racist prick.

Anyhow, what I want to talk about today is Trudeau's brainless, morally bankrupt siding with the USA and NATO against Russia.  The Biden government hates Russia for the same reason the permanent Deep State/foreign policy hive-mind has always hated Russia (and China): Because Russia and China are countries with enough power to resist total US hegemony. That's it. 

I'm starting a new paragraph to emphasize something. Let's put aside for a moment whether China really wants to conquer Taiwan or whatever and let's put aside Putin supposedly wanting to invade the Ukraine.  What is US hegemony?  Is it a benevolent, "rules-based international order"? No. Because it is neither "benevolent" nor "rules-based."  The US-led hegemonic international order is a social order where individuals in the "core" countries (the USA, UK, Japan, France, and many others including Canada) are treated simultaneously as "consumers" and "workers."  As "consumers" we are as valuable as our disposable incomes.  And our disposable incomes (or more accurately, our credit limits) are there to be exploited for short-term benefit by the capitalist system.  We are to be compelled to spend as much as we can on things that we don't need.  If this requires going into unsustainable debt, so be it.  We will have put up assets as collatoral which can be seized.  And if we go bankrupt, ... well Joe Biden himself did what he could to remove bankruptcy protection from US-American households.  Including bankruptcy for debts incurred by having to pay for medical care through private health insurance.

Sigh. I always do this.  Start talking about a specific topic but end up talking in great deal about something only tangentially related.  But I truly believe that the evil of US-led capitalist imperialism is that it is part of a whole of something else.  For instance; I was going to eventually point-out that Justin Trudeau is imposing sanctions on Russia for a non-existent troop build-up on the Russia-Ukraine border while continuing to sell armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia while that country continues to conduct a genocidal air campaign and blockade against Yemen.  But the big question would remain: WHY do our leaders do these things?

And that brings me back to how we're treated as consumers to be fleeced on the one hand, and on the other hand, as workers, or "inputs" to production, which is to say "costs" to be "minimized."  If we could be replaced by machines we would be (and obviously are).  Until we can be replaced by machines we are treated like machines. Worked for as long as possible with the minimum of maintenance and upkeep until we breakdown.  It it is cheaper to replace us with a new machine then we are replaced.  And don't forget: This is all short-term thinking.  If an employer sees more short-term profit from replacing an experienced older worker with an inexperienced newer worker, they will do so, and simply push the newer worker to match the productivity of the experienced worker until they either fail utterly or stumble along at some acceptable rate of semi-success, learning along the way.  Regardless, the point is to continue to make the price all inputs, the costs of production as little as possible, while extracting the maximum of output and profit from them in the short-term.

The same thing goes for the material resources of the production process.  Raw materials are to be extracted as cheaply as possible, as much as is necessary, regardless of the ability of the planet to absorb this gouging.  And the waste products of production (from carbon emissions, to toxic chemicals, to mountains of debris) are to be sloughed off onto the eco-systems of the community (the "society" that the cretinous Margaret Thatcher said did not exist) with the minimum of compensation from the polluting capitalists.  Hence we have global warming; mountains and seas of plastic garbage; the toxic abandoned sites of the oil industry in Canada. 

So you might ask what this has to do with Russia and China. Especially since Russia is now capitalist and China (despite retaining a strong administrative state) is now fully integrated into the international capitalist economy. I'd say the primary reason is that the military-industrial complex is a huge part of the USA's political economy.  This is guaranteed, publicly financed, high-profits.  As well, this revenue stream helps to enforce the domination of international capitalist order.  For the USA, this meant the destruction of the autarchic German (and Naziism) and Japanese (primarily under the military) economic blocs. Did Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan want what was best for the countries they planned on incorporating into their orbits? Of course not. But that wasn't what was pissing the ...

You know what? Fuck it. I thought about venting. So I vented. But I'm not going to waste an entire morning constructing yet another world-historical essay putting the bullshit of Biden's manufactured "Ukraine Crisis" into its proper context and then trashing the clown Justin Trudeau's latest attempt to slurp shit out of some US president's asshole while trying to preen like a "statesman."  I could wipe the floor with an asshat like Terry Glavin, both intellectually and physically, but my viewpoints don't serve Western imperialism whereas Glavin's do. So Glavin makes a living from his writing and I don't.

I'll just leave off by saying it is nauseating that in this era of REAL world crises (especially COVID and Global Warming) that Biden (or whatever is pulling his strings) sees fit to waste our time with this bullshit.  That he's able to posture like this despite his supporting the holocausts in Yemen, and Iraq, as well as the crimes against democracy across the US empire.  And the fact that there are millions of idiots who are stupid enough to take all this garbage seriously.