|
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-287
Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:
—
Other issues:
West Asia:
War on China:
Trade war on China:
Australia shooting:
Miscellaneous:
Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) thread …
It seems to me that short and easy comments calculated to appeal to lazy readers are unfortunately also generally too myopic and superficial. These comments can be nicely performative. Short comments low on information and argument can still convey the most important things, love of Trump, supreme hatred of Democrats (so that Trump is obviously great by comparison, goes without saying,) and hates all manner of cultural change that undermines the moral fiber of our ancestors. (See the satires of Juvenal to get an up-to-date sample of the last.) So, in response here is a slab of text, drawn largely from 2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf
This post covers the first six pages, in detail, God help you all. A letter from Trump boasting of his successes in saving the nation from its mortal peril begins the festivities. How anyone manages to get past this without thinking this is insane can be explained only by religious faith, or utter indifference to Trump’s depravities. Such indifference is to be expected from fellow fascist sympathizers and committed fascists.
The first sentence of the introduction starts
To ensure that America remains the world’s strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for decades to come,
This goal is the kind of hubris that justly gives patriotism a bad name. It is also a demonstration that the megalomania of Trump’s opening letter isn’t his personal pathology but a disease of his government. It is a program for world rule, except that it covertly, by omission, refuses to promise peace. The only plausible justification ever offered for empire has been so-called peace, an absence of war. (That’s why Trump’s letter lies about all the peace he’s making., to look good.)
After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country.
No sound strategy can be based on a pack of lies. First, the whole point of the Cold War was for American to dominate the world. Second, domination of the world was never in the best interests of our country but the ruling class (as understood by themselves with the assistance of their employees—the bourgeoisies is not especially creative and must outsource much of their thinking.) Third, if this is even to attempt to address the basics it needs to think about the dollar. Trump in other contexts has been very upfront about his intent to maintain American financial supremacy in the form of the dollar. This analysis is already dodging fundamental issues. Last, to be clear, this overall thrust toward command of the world by other means than colonies—-which imply some services being provided to the conquered, if only the absence of war!—has been a goal even during WWII.
They placed hugely misguided and destructive bets on globalism and so-called “free trade” that hollowed out the very middle class and industrial base on which American economic and military preeminence depend.
You cannot plan a rational strategy that gets it backwards. Globalism and so-called free trade was how the American ruling class cashed in. That’s why the basic structures of the IMF and World Bank and dollar supremacy were established as part of victory in WWII, not after the Col War. As the pervasive tendency of the rate of profit to decline, the financialization of the American economy undermined the industrial base. The internationalization of finance was how the American ruling class sought to preserve its profits. But it was the decline of profits driving the decline, not the decline driving the globalization etc.
In sum, not only did our elites pursue a fundamentally undesirable and impossible goal, in doing so they undermined the very means necessary to achieve that goal: the character of our nation upon which its power, wealth, and decency were built
Apparently it is possible to put lipstick on a pig. When these people say the goal of those dastardly traitors was undesirable, they are saying, peace is undesirable. Life is war apparently, so also impossible. This is what passes for thinking with fascists. The assertion that character, which would include decency (usefully vague word!) is the foundation of power and wealth is a charming fantasy I suppose. To me, it’s more likely power and wealth are antinomies to character and decency. Also, for the record, nation’s are not people, they do not have so-called character. There are only stereotypes, self-flattering or vicious (towards others.) This is flagrant superstition if sincere, empty rhetoric at best.
Part two of the introduction begins
President Trump’s first administration proved that with the right leadership making the right choices, all of the above could—and should—have been avoided, and much else achieved. He and his team successfully marshaled America’s great strengths to correct course and begin ushering in a new golden age for our country.
Is this a strategy document or a devotional? One has to wonder at the mindset of the people who managed to read this stuff and find Good Things here. Have they no critical capacity at all?
Part II addresses what America (or whoever these writers mean instead) should want.
First and foremost, we want the continued survival and safety of the United States as an independent, sovereign republic whose government secures the God-given natural rights of its citizens and prioritizes their well-being and interests.
Sovereign sounds good, though apparently it means the right to make war in a jungle where every other nation is an existential threat. Life is war, and we want to be winners, killers of the host of enemies who want to kill us. And by the way, God-given rights in today’s world suggests, for instance, property may be a God-given right, but all manner of things ordained by atheistic ideologies don’t count.
We want to protect this country, its people, its territory, its economy, and its way of life from military attack and hostile foreign influence, whether espionage, predatory trade practices, drug and human trafficking, destructive propaganda and influence operations, cultural subversion, or any other threat to our nation
Given that they have already said America is in peril of annihilation by other nations, it is hard to imagine what they could possibly believe to be a friendly foreign influence. It’s not even Canada, as tin God Trump has informed us. And frankly I have no idea what these clowns mean by predatory trade practices mean. Judging from practice, it means any successful foreign business that takes away the dreamed of profits God gave an American businessman (in a divine revelation?) As for propaganda and influence operations and cultural subversion, this is a declaration that the government is to open windows into men’s souls, control their thoughts or at least curtail their uttering them and generally enforce conformity. This being a fundamental strategy document, this is the place to spell out what this actually means. My guess is that it’s far too sinister for good PR. Indeed, it’s becoming very clear this is exactly that, a PR exercise. AKA propaganda.
We want a world in which migration is not merely “orderly” but one in which sovereign countries work together to stop rather than facilitate destabilizing population flows, and have full control over whom they do and do not admit.
In European feudalism, there was an institution called serfdom, where instead of the people owning the property, the property owned the people, who were forbidden to move away. The creatures who write this dream of a world with a new serfdom. And when changes in climate also leave some places less fit to support life? It’s not just serfdom, then it becomes exterminism. The Bahamas are inundated by sea level rise in the future? Let the Bahamians drown! These people are so far gone they don’t even realize how shameful their fantasies are. The problem is, their efforts to build their reactionary utopia can have real world effects.
We want a resilient national infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters, resist and thwart foreign threats, and prevent or mitigate any events that might harm the American people or disrupt the American economy. No adversary or danger should be able to hold America at risk.
The problem with “disrupt the American economy” is that these people are committed to a system where disruption is inevitable. And the disruption doesn’t come from foreigners, that’s fascist-style hatemongering, it’s from the wealthy who run this crazy system. Again, since everybody is an adversary, the demand that no potential threat could even be allowed to exist is a demand to control the world. It’s not being the policeman of the world, to be sure. A policeman is expected to follow the law, keep the peace. Not to inspect homes lest they have arms, not to rob the people whose money might make them the big shots. This is more like America is, what’s the phrase, capo di tutti capi? I suppose the Trump cultists will object. But what is the PRC except a threat to disrupt the American economy, cost the American ruling class money? Plainly it should not be able to do so, which rather implies not existing, not as it is. (This hostility has been fundamentally bipartisan save for a short period between the entry of PRC into the WTO and the so-called GFC….I think that’s because the US hoped for a full-fledged capitalist restoration, which they know hasn’t happened yet.) Nobody can guarantee a world, a life,, without risk and anybody trying to sell that is a swindler.
We want to recruit, train, equip, and field the world’s most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military to protect our interests, deter wars, and—if necessary—win them quickly and decisively, with the lowest possible casualties to our forces. And we want a military in which every single servicemember is proud of their country and confident in their mission.
You don’t need the most lethal in the world to deter. That’s just gibberish added on. The purpose of the most powerful is to force the American government’s will wherever it wishes. That’s why the immediate proviso, that this so-called we will win, and we don’t even have many casualties. Yes, well, if you’re a fascist, easy wins are great. But frankly the arbiter of war is the war itself, and bloodthirsty paragraphs in PR exercise don’t win wars. Nobody can guarantee victory. Also, not so by the way, the need for a totally indoctrinated military, not just a mercenary force but an ideologically committed team of modern day Myrmidons, is unAmerican. A citizen army was the American way, not latter-day Janissaries with Bibles instead of Qurans. Really such an army is desired just as much to be used against the people as against foreigners, maybe even more. Soldiers obey the laws, warriors make the laws. It is the Hegseths who are destroying what moral fiber is left in the officer corps.
We want the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent, plus next-generation missile defenses—including a Golden Dome for the American homeland—to protect the American people, American assets overseas, and American allies.
As noted before, when it comes to nuclear weapons, a defense against retaliation is implicitly a threat against the rest of the world. As for American assets overseas, I cannot imagine a much less explicit promise to risk America’s very existence to protect rich Americans’ property abroad. And frankly at this point it is entirely unclear who might count as an American ally. Greenland? The purpose of such weaponry is ultimately to be used and the only reason the US government hasn’t (so far) used nukes again is fear of retaliation. My belief is that a abolition of nuclear weapons is a better safeguard for the American people. Even a repudiation of first strike would be more helpful, strange though that may seem to the fascist obsessed with endless war against the world. Also, American assets abroad includes American bases. Unless you mean by America, the American empire, the worldwide chain of bases binding the world is unnecessary and doesn’t need nukes to protect these far-flung detachments of the imperial army.
We want the world’s strongest, most dynamic, most innovative, and most advanced economy. The U.S. economy is the bedrock of the American way of life, which promises and delivers widespread and broad-based prosperity, creates upwardmobility, and rewards hard work. Our economy is also the bedrock of our global position and the necessary foundation of our military.
The principle that a strong economy is the foundation of a good life for the people is correct. The rest is a pack of lies. Upward mobility has suffered for decades. This is especially true if you realize that when trillionaires become a thing, the rest of the nation is lower down the new scale! That’s descending, folks. A minor point of taste, the implication we exist to pay for the mightiest army on Earth is demeaning to us as a people. I find these fascist values disgusting.
We want the world’s most robust industrial base. American national power depends on a strong industrial sector capable of meeting both peacetime and wartime production demands. That requires not only direct defense industrial production capacity but also defense-related production capacity. Cultivating American industrial strength must become the highest priority of national economic policy.
This is BS. The superficial idea is correct, the thing is this government has done what it wants. Liberation Day and One Big Beautiful Bill simply are not reindustrialization. Biden’s Build Back Better was too little, too late, as you’d expect from President Band-Aid, the 21st century Buchanan. But Trump’s program is not even that. Further, the commitment to dollar supremacy is a commitment to America’s global financial empire. Financialization is the opposite of industrialism. The fact that the decay of capitalism must also breed finance capital means the system can’t be fixed, especially not by nonsense like this. What this government really wants has nothing to do with this high-minded pronouncement.
We want to remain the world’s most scientifically and technologically advanced and innovative country, and to build on these strengths. And we want to protect our intellectual property from foreign theft. America’s pioneering spirit is a key pillar of our continued economic dominance and military superiority; it must be preserved.
Intellectual property is a legal monopoly, and part of the financialization process to boot. Historically, it is the dissemination of knowledge, not it’s monopolization, that have contributed to growth. Of course, this is controversial in a country where every kind of property, including patents, copyrights, trademarks and logs, are held to be sacred. What cannot really be disputed is the role that foreigners have played in building up American scientific and technological prowess. And driving away foreigners will undermine that. This document claims to want good things that it works against elsewhere. Foreign scientists and technicians bring foreign influence, cultural subversion. There is no way to limit cultural influence to what is profitable to our owners!
We want to maintain the United States’ unrivaled “soft power” through which we exercise positive influence throughout the world that furthers our interests. In doing so, we will be unapologetic about our country’s past and present while respectful of other countries’ differing religions, cultures, and governing systems. “Soft power” that serves America’s true national interest is effective only if we believe in our country’s inherent greatness and decency.
What is this BS? A bunch of whining losers who want the world to forget that the US didn’t make war on Korea and Vietnam? Some assholes who want to pretend there was never slavery? Mealy-mouthed suckups who are upset that people’s criticisms of others rich and powerful people in other countries is far too close to them criticizing our own lords and masters? They don’t seem to be aware that a large part of the soft power was the idea that being like America was like being rich, and that was the main source of soft power. America under these people isn’t really interested in everybody becoming rich, they’re interested in explaining how masses of people somehow don’t count as people at all. A further part of the appeal, the soft power, was the idea of freedom, like for women and oh, wait, OMG, gays and all manner of nastiness these reactionary nitwits want to impose. They do not respect the ways of foreign nations, they respect the idea of enforcing conformity (not freedom) against the people at large. They want to imitate their bad habits abroad, here. The fascist trope is that the heroes have to fight decadence, with whatever means necessary.
Finally, we want the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health, without which long-term security is impossible. We want an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward to a new golden age. We want a people who are proud, happy, and optimistic that they will leave their country to the next generation better than they found it. We want a gainfully employed citizenry—with no one sitting on the sidelines—who take satisfaction from knowing that their work is essential to the prosperity of our nation and to the well-being of individuals and families. This cannot be accomplished without growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.
God help us all, we are in the hands of hysterics who think children are an endangered species! I do not understand transgender, but when I read this ignorant twaddle I reject the fear-mongering as the manipulation it is. Spiritual and cultural health are code for religious bigotry, masquerading sometimes with a fake secular cover, which pretends that only some of us count as us.
This is the end of Part I of the Introduction. There is not really much need to go on, though I could. (Yes, yes, you could call this anal, so what?) Again, the real issue is how anybody could see this as somehow good.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Dec 14 2025 18:02 utc | 25
|
