Retribution Politics: UpDate
Already the crimes and stupidities of the Trump Administration and its congressional enablers (the majority), not forgetting actual, unprovoked and threatened devastation of entire countries and the looting of their wealth, are so humungous that, in common with Zelenskiy and his neonazi band and their passionate European cheerleaders, and genocidal Zionists in Palestine, their members cannot possibly consider voluntarily relinquishing power without the expectation of retribution.
Both 2026 mid-terms and 2028 presidential elections are in grave danger.
The willingness of the Supreme Count to protect the nation’s citizenry seems tenuous (though apparently, and for the moment, stopping at least before allowing extraordinarily flagrant presidential abuse of congressional authority with respect to tariffs - which, by the way, have done nothing to reduce the national deficit nor to incentivize re-industrialization, something which requires a totally different approach to policy) as though the outright killings of US citizens by federal agencies, of which at least one strikes resonances of secret armies and the Gestapo, just doesn’t cut it as important enough for emergency judicial intervention at Supreme Court level.
Stirrings throughout the nation hint at embers of moral and political indignation sufficiently stoked and whispering counter revolution against the revolutionary overthrow of the US constitution. But dont mock time gazing in the direction of any of the nation’s conventional leaders. Two main things stand in the way of deliverance: military and corporate complicity on the one hand (unless perhaps the corporations don’t retrieve the $130-$200 billion spent on illegal taxes/tariffs imposed by Trump on imports - but forget about the consumers who eventually paid them), and, on the other, the proto-fascist multitude, their voices long disdained by the authoritarian liberal class, whose turn now it is to delight in the revolution’s anarchy and violence, especially when it comes with perks like the procurement of new luxury aircraft (double bedroom included) for “agency” use.
As for Zelenskiy, rather less talk of elections and a lot more raving about a forever war or, at least, a war for three more years (the time Germany’s chancellor Merz fancies it will take to re-arm and ready German youth for slaughter - Merz fancies - in epic confrontation with an otherwise bemused Russia), because Zelenskiy knows that free elections will be the end of him, and European intelligence can possibly offer him sufficient protection from CIA assassination (Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam, November 2 1963, comes to mind - just three weeks ahead of Kennedy’s assassination on November 22nd) for another good while. It is not even certain that Ukriane will continue to participate in the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi and nothing much has been achieved there; worse, they have involved the assassination of the deputy to the leader of the Russian delegation, not to mention the US-backed Ukrainian attack on Putin’s Valdai residence and nuclear control and command center that sparked them off in the first place.
Even as Zelenskiy insanely claims that Ukraine is winning the war, Russia is gaining territory at the rate of about one hundred or so square miles each month and Ukraine’s economy is a farce. This is not to say, let’s be honest, that Russian conquest isn’t the slowest known to man. This may be due primarily to the impact of drone warfare; or, more likely because Russia has been fighting the entire political West for four years. Russia is still winning nonetheless. Russia has recently devastated Ukraine’s energy system; Hungary and Slovakia are helping, by denying diesel supplies to Ukraine, in retaliation for the failure of Europe to put pressure on Ukraine to repair the Druzhba pipeline that ferried Russian oil to European clients. These dissident Europeans are also refusing to sign the EU’s 20th sanctions package against Russia and are rejecting the call to commit to a total 90 billion euros loan to see Ukraine through 2026 and 2027.
Western propaganda supports the incessant Bell narrative of a declining Russian economy (which is actually far more resilient than its critics like to admit), while most of Western Europe (Poland a notable exception) stagnates or declines (notably exemplified by Germany), and that of the US fails to impress with a falling growth rate and deepening trade deficit.
Should Trump manage to secure a promise from India to cease all purchases of Russian oil, or impose a Graham&Blumenthal sanctions package against Russia then yes, perhaps, the Russian economy will be unsettled. I am expecting far more resilience to such pressures from China and India, and Brazil and Russia, than Washington imagines possible.
While pap-fed masses suck up Hegseth’s non-revelations (at Trump’s request) of alien visitors, the main distraction from the ongoing crimes and threats against Venezuela, Palestine, Cuba, and Greenland will be a yet bigger crime, throwing the entire Middle East and likely the whole world into a long period of turbulence. The factors that make this almost certain are (1) the sheer size and concentration of US forces in the Indian and Arabian seas that make it difficult for Trump to do anything other than set a match to the touch paper that he has prepared; (2) frenzied pressure from Netanyahu on Trump to attack Iran so that Trump’s Zionist backers will realize their long-salivated dream of a Greater Israel from Egypt and Somaliland to Iran without having to worry any longer about resistance from Iran; so much for the agreement only last December that neither country would attack the other without provocation; (3) a fanatically brainwashed Congress (on Iran just as on Russia and China) that lusts, again, for the destruction of a country of which it knows nothing and cares less.
Factors that just, just,.might stay Trump’s hand include (1) fear of the global economic and trade consequences of the closure of the straits of Hormuz, especially as these might impact energy prices - presumably boosting prices for Russian oil, incidentally; (2) fear of the damage that Iranian hypersonic and ballistic missiles would inflict on Israel and on US regional bases; (3) fear of other destabilizing regional factors that could topple the Gulf States and/or compel either Saudi Arabia or Iran or both to seek protection under the Pakistani nuclear umbrella; US ambassador Mike Huckabee’s recent moronic statement to Tucker Carlson endorsing Zionist Greater Israel ambitions on the basis of biblical interpretations has only infuriated the Arab street; (4) realization by Trump of the very easy off-ramp he has that would allow him to claim victory on account of some concession of the many that Iran has previously canvassed that would, in effect, see limits accepted to the extent to which Iran enriches its uranium or the extent to which Iran itself in involved in that process. Note that we expect some kind of offer from Iranian “hard man” Larijani within the next day or so which might conceivably be so self-humiliating that even Trump will have to accept it. I don’t expect this. In practice, Israel continues to pressure Trump to make it so much more than the nuclear issue, to include even destruction of the machinery used to enrich uranium, and elimination of Iran’s missile armory. And (5) even if we don’t know exactly what they are providing, but Russia and China are extending a lot of help to Iran to prepare it for war. The FT reports that Russia and Iran agreed last December to deliveries of advanced hand-held Russian air defense systems though this was to be over three years.
A war, if it does break out, will be among the least necessary ever engaged by the US. As long ago as 2015, in my book for Sage on Media Imperialism, I presented a short history of the outrageous Israeli-spun lie that represented Iran (which, as a signatory to the NPT, had then and has now no nuclear weapon) as a “nuclear threat,” forever on the verge of weaponizing its nuclear energy facility, while Israel, which is not a NPT signatory, has hundreds of nuclear warheads (and is therefore a threat to world stability), and I will not rehearse it again here. As I have indicated above, Trump has a very easy off-ramp but one which probably can appease neither Netanyahu nor the likes of Senator Lyndsey Graham. Nor do we yet know with certainty what exactly it is that Mossad has on Trump. We can be sure that whatever is in the full Epstein files, it is all neatly and already catalogued somewhere in Israel, without the burden of having to wade through millions of the files, released and unreleased by the Department of Justice, to find what it needs. It knows exactly where the jewels are hidden and what they are.
As for the rest, we have wept and will weep more for Gaza, feed our rage on the awfulness of the BOP, crouch in apprehension for the West Bank, salute Cuba through its coming agony, mourn the Bolivarian revolution, recall dreams of an Arab nation, and fear for the people of the USA.