A month after Donald Trump’s second inauguration and the geopolitical global upheaval that may be unprecedented, one thing is clear: The president is an American sovereigntist, not an isolationist. Once this is understood, Trump’s seemingly wild upturning of the geopolitical order actually makes sense.

Sovereigntists are illiberal internationalists. They came of age after World War I, preventing the US from joining the League of Nations (the predecessor of the United Nations). At the time, American sovereigntists regarded the league as a stalking horse for global governance, anti-colonial independence movements, black internationalists, left-wing political movements and liberal Christians.

Today’s sovereigntists aim to weaken non-Western international associations that seek a more democratic international order. They make common cause with similar forces; Giorgia Meloni of Italy and Hungary’s Viktor Orban, for example. Their aim is an illiberal international geopolitical order where domestic political systems resemble “competitive authoritarianism” – multi-party elections embedded in a rigged legal and political environment. Under this model, the media and the machinery of government are used to attack opponents and co-opt critics.

Trump wants the US, not China, to write the technical standards of the global economy. Control over these standards creates lock-in effects in finance, telecommunications, space, robotics, bioengineering, nanotechnologies, and advanced materials and manufacturing methods. That means full-spectrum rivalry with China. If economic control is not possible, the plan B goal is global economic separation from China.

For Trump to achieve these goals, there are three key frontlines: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Taiwan.

A Wave of Pessimism

February 14, 2025 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Una oleada de pesimismo (Google Translate)

“Keep calm. Hasty emotions are unnecessary today,” wrote yesterday Mykhailo Podolyak, one of the most belligerent members of the Ukrainian government, reacting to the wave of pessimism and, at times, hysteria that spread across the European continent throughout the day yesterday, focusing on analyzing the implications of the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump and the subsequent statements by the president of the United States. “The Trump-Putin conversation reduces tension, but at the expense of Ukraine,” stated the British BBC before the political spin managed to create a continental crisis from an initial conversation whose only agreement is to continue talking. Because despite the adjectives that are being used to describe the contact between the two presidents or the way in which it occurred, the result of the call was the mutual reaffirmation of the importance of peace and the implementation of the mechanisms to schedule a meeting between the two leaders, which will presumably be in Saudi Arabia, and begin a negotiation process.
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Socialists should back support for living not assisted suicide

January 21, 2025January 21, 2025 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The vote in favour of the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on 29^th November, proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, was welcomed with unalloyed enthusiasm by the bourgeois media. Photos featuring jubilant campaigners for voluntary euthanasia were plastered across web front pages. The real promise of this Bill is far from joyful for many. The Bill, which will now go to parliamentary committee with the opportunity for amendment, if finally passed into law, would represent a major political attack at a time of huge inequality and significant shortages in access to health care, social care, support for independent living, and end of life care, including adequate, high quality palliative care. Despite all this – and the loud opposition of disabled people’s organisations in particular – this measure is still mistakenly understood by some on the left as merely a matter of personal choice: an enabler rather than a threat.

Socialists should back support for living not assisted suicide

Biden Meets with Guaidó 2.0 + Commentary/Notes

January 7, 2025January 7, 2025 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Washington Post: Recognized by U.S. as Venezuela’s President-Elect, Edmundo González Meets With Biden

The encounter, a first for the two men, signals Mr. Biden’s desire to present a broad coalition of support for Mr. González, who met with the right-wing president of Argentina, Javier Milei, over the weekend, and will meet with other regional presidents in the coming days.
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Believers (Arab Spring)

January 6, 2025 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

SongFacts: Believers (Arab Spring) by Nelly Furtado

Furtado penned this song with San Francisco-based songwriter Rick Nowels around the time of the Libyan revolution and civil war. She explained to Artist Direct: “I was inspired by the rebels and the idea of people having to make really tough decisions in the eleventh hour. I was inspired by the idea of a young man or woman going into battle with one of their close friends. By the time the day is over, their friend has turned to the other side. That dilemma is something we could never imagine in the lives we lead. I found it inspiring people were going through those kinds of emotions the moment I wrote that song, so that’s what I wrote it about.”
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A reading from Mao Zedong on his birthday: “U.S. Imperialism is a Paper Tiger”

December 26, 2024December 26, 2024 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Communique of the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

A reading from Mao Zedong on his birthday: “U.S. Imperialism is a Paper Tiger”

Previously:

Some more Mao Zedong quotes

Foreign troops and peace

December 21, 2024December 21, 2024 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Foreign troops and peace (Google translate)
by @nsanzo

“The National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine supported the decision to appeal to the United Nations and the European Union on the “deployment of a peacekeeping and security mission in Ukraine.” This is not news from today, when the composition and size of a possible peacekeeping mission of European countries is being discussed after the possible ceasefire, but from February 18, 2015. Days earlier, in the Belarusian capital, after negotiations involving Angela Merkel, François Hollande, Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin, the only peace agreement of this war had been signed and a ceasefire was to begin, which was to be routinely violated, and the political process that would return Donbass to Ukraine under very specific conditions and with certain linguistic, cultural, political and economic rights that Kiev always considered unacceptable and never had the slightest intention of fulfilling. Ukraine, which had suffered the second major defeat in the Donbass war at Debaltsevo after Ilovaisk in September 2014, was at its lowest point, its army was at risk of being overwhelmed and it needed to stop the war in order to recover and become stronger while waiting for the next phase of a war that all parties were aware was not over.
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Declaration Berlin

December 17, 2024 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Declaration Berlin (translated)

Posted by @nsanzo

“European leaders are scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO chief Mark Rutte on Wednesday afternoon in Brussels to discuss peace plans and the possible deployment of peacekeeping forces in Ukraine,” Politico announced on Friday, confirming what was already known: NATO is leading the effort to coordinate what may happen in the coming months in the war in Ukraine, which on the ground will depend on European countries. “In addition to Rutte and Zelensky, invited participants include: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish President Andrzej Duda, European Council President António Costa, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen,” the outlet added, to show who the main actors are in preparing for the possibility of a significant reduction in the United States’ role in the day-to-day running of the war.
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Catfished?

December 11, 2024December 23, 2024 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Remember when I posted about Epieos? I looked up a couple of email addresses besides my own. That was after I used InfoTracer (a data broker). It was only $2 to do a search. Be sure to cancel right afterward, or you’ll end up paying a monthly fee. I still need to opt out so they don’t sell my personal data.

Do they really think that I’m stupid, though? I do online research for a hobby. The Substack subscription came the day after my article was published on Antiwar.com. My blog gets spammed every week, sometimes twice a week. Every week, someone tries to shut my blog down with a denial-of-service attack. This, ever since I started researching “Project Myoushu,” last year. Of course, I’m going to be suspicious!

This particular scam may be unrelated, but I’ve been suspicious ever since they contacted me. I’ve only told them what I’ve said here, in personal posts that are now private. No, I didn’t fall for the bullshit about me being interesting (or being beautiful), and them wanting to be in a relationship, when they don’t even know me!

Their email doesn’t come up with anything, except for their Google Maps and Calendar, which are both empty. Their IP is located at Google. The Dalles Google Data Center in Oregon to be exact (per InfoTracer). Google is registered with MarkMonitor (a U.S. government contractor).

A Giant of Journalism Gets Half its Budget From the U.S. Government

December 4, 2024December 4, 2024 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

A Giant of Journalism Gets Half its Budget From the U.S. Government

How Sullivan first caught the attention of the U.S. foreign policy officialdom is itself a window into the purpose of the organization. It begins with a coup in the Philippines. State Department official Michael Henning had previously been stationed there. In 2001, the non-profit outlet the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) exposed corruption by then-President Joseph Estrada, a nationalist with a standoffish relationship to the U.S. The exposé led to an impeachment inquiry, which fell short. But it also produced major street protests, leading to his ouster in a coup [EDSA 2]. The journalist’s pen was not just mightier than the sword, but less embarrassing to wield on a global stage in an era where overtly U.S.-backed military coups had gone out of fashion (if not entirely out of the toolkit). Henning was a major booster of PCIJ—which has been the beneficiary of grants from the National Endowment for Democracy—relaying its effectiveness to his colleagues.

The article refers to the Arab Spring and the Yugoslav Wars, but not how the U.S. was involved.