Category: Japan

Smedley Butler Wasn’t Kidding, by David Swanson

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

by David Swanson

Writer, Dandelion Salad

Let’s Try Democracy

February 4, 2022

Smedley Butler is generally left out of U.S. history. If you bring up a guy who prevented a Wall Street coup against FDR, you do real damage to the tale of peaceful respect for government from the beginning of time up through January 6, 2021. If you mention the scandal that erupted when he recounted how Mussolini had run over a little girl with his car, it’s hard to leave out the U.S. government’s friendly relations with Mussolini.

Smedley Butler Wasn’t Kidding, by David Swanson

Previously:

Why Smedley Butler left the imperialist front despising ‘Gangsters of Capitalism’

The Retired General Who Stopped a Wall Street Coup

Smedley Butler on Interventionism

What Kind of Threat Is China?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Book review of “America and the China Threat: From the End of History to the End of Empire” by Prof. Paolo Urio

The “brutalist philosophy” of the US was made public (曝光) by Robert Daly, a former US diplomat stationed in Beijing, in 2015. Currently, he is the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. No diplomatic niceties here, Daly frankly states the policy of the US: China must never reach the level of the US.

What Kind of Threat Is China?

China offers to help rebuild Tonga after volcanic eruption

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The tsunami triggered by a massive underwater volcanic eruption off Tonga rarely seen in 30 years has neither caused deaths or injuries of Chinese nationals nor brought disastrous effects to China’s coast so far, but its impacts on the whole Pacific region are being closely watched by China as people worry whether the natural disaster would catastrophically inundate the low-lying Tongan islands and affect the global climate.

China offers to help rebuild Tonga after volcanic eruption

Related:

Tonga Cut Off From World After Volcanic Eruption, Global Leaders Pledge Aid

Meanwhile, countries around the world are pledging to help the country rebuild. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted condolences to the country online. Although the U.S. has promised to aid Tonga, there has been no word on what that aid will entail.

Is the China Threat Real?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Is the China Threat Real?

Imagine living in the world’s richest country but finding yourself in worse conditions than your “backyard”. Third world countries you’ve always considered underdeveloped, where historically poor, uneducated, cheap, undocumented workers and many refugees come from, are starting to look like a good place to return for a better life. A better life than the US can offer.

That is the real threat to US national security. The day citizens of the United States start to realise the truth that the current generation of Chinese citizens already have, and the next generation of Latin Americans, will have more opportunities and better prospects than they themselves do. It is the fear of this truth USA’s ruling elite would like to avoid because, at that moment in time, the people of the US will demand more of them, their country and their leadership.