Brian Berletic, a former U.S. Marine now residing in Thailand, believes something bigger might be at play with Trump’s foreign policy agenda. The talk of foreign policy restraint vis-a-visa Russia is merely a facade. Berletic pointed out that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “division of labor” framework during his February 2025 address in Brussels will only increase tensions with Russia.
There are many bootlicking simps for the US empire. It’s not entirely their fault; the empire has the most sophisticated propaganda machine ever devised and most westerners have been marinating in its influence their entire lives. But it does happen, and it’s good to bring awareness to it.
“We have much to learn from our counterparts in these countries, including how to confront disinformation and violent threats to our democracies,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), pictured in April, said of the delegation to Brazil, Chile and Colombia. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
The agenda (which has not yet been made public) is expected to include meetings with Presidents Lula da Silva (Brazil), Gabriel Boric (Chile) and Gustavo Petro (Colombia) and parliamentary representatives. The legislators will also meet with civil society organizations that work “on the frontlines of ecological transitions, democratic transformations and peace negotiations in the countries,” the delegation explains in a joint statement. The trip seeks to “promote a U.S.-Latin American relationship based on mutual respect, understanding and a commitment to cooperation.”
Ocasio-Cortez, a key figure in the Democratic Party’s most progressive wing, and Misty Rebik, Sanders’s chief of staff (sent on behalf of the 81-year-old veteran senator), will be joined by four congressmen: Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar (both from Texas), Nydia Velázquez (New York) and Maxwell Frost (Florida), who is the youngest congressman in the House of Representatives at 26. Castro is a member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, which is part of the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee. He recently spearheaded a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to pressure Peru’s President Dina Boluarte over human rights violations occurring in that country. Casar is in his first term as a congressman and belongs to the Progressive Caucus, while Velazquez became the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress in 1993.
…
The defense of democracy is another ideal that guides the trip. According to the congresspeople, the “twin” insurrections on Capitol Hill, on January 6, 2021, and in Brasilia (on January 8, 2023) “made it clear that the fate of democracy in the United States is closely tied to that of its southern neighbors. “[Our] democracies,” they believe, “not only share the challenge of defending their institutions from political violence, disinformation and other forms of anti-democratic intervention; they also share the challenge of restoring confidence in the ability of those institutions to meet citizens’ fundamental needs.”
Ocasio-Cortez highlights another goal of the trip: exploring how to “confront disinformation and violent threats to our democracies.” The charismatic congresswoman adds that “it’s long past time for a realignment of the United States’ relationship to Latin America. The U.S. needs to publicly acknowledge the harms we’ve committed through interventionist and extractive policies, and chart a new course based on trust and mutual respect.”
The largest, most historically influential progressive non-profit radio network in America, Pacifica Radio, faces a takeover attempt by Democratic Party elements. Will Pacifica embrace the pro-war logic it was created to oppose?
Today’s Trump-inspired “America First” faction cannot be counted on to be consistently noninterventionist and antiwar. That it may lean that way because its chief rival faction is so enthusiastic about foreign adventurism is hardly a firm assurance that it will remain antiwar in the future.
Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
In interview with a British journalist, Morales says the U.S. uses NATO to provoke wars and sell weapons. U.S./UK-backed coup against him in 2019 was undertaken for lithium and because his government advanced an alternative economic model to the neoliberal “Washington Consensus”
A recent interview with former Spanish politician José Manuel Otero has revealed further details regarding his country’s entry into NATO and attests to the double-dealing politics of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
You must be logged in to post a comment.