A US jet destroyed a Chinese weather balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, with US officials saying the balloon had engaged in espionage as it flew over US airspace over the past several days. Beijing insists the dirigible was just a meteorological research balloon that drifted off course.
On Thursday, Soylu condemned the closures as an attempt to meddle in campaigning for Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for 14 May. The Turkish interior minister and other officials also suggested that the Western states had issued the security warnings in order to pressure Turkey to tone down its criticism of the sacrilegious move and resolve the NATO dispute.
Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for May 14 are fast approaching—angry rhetoric from the Erdogan regime, designed to nationalistically rouse its core vote, is no surprise. Nor are angry interventions from US politicians who dislike the unreliability of Turkey as a Nato ally, but at the same time stop short of anything that could irretrievably wreck relations with a country crucially located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
…
Brian Nelson, the US Treasury Department’s top sanctions official, visited Turkish government and private sector officials on February 2 to urge more cooperation in disrupting the flow of goods that Russia can put to use in persisting with its war on the Ukrainians.
In a speech to bankers, reported by Reuters, Nelson said a pronounced year-long rise in exports to Russia left Turkish entities ‘particularly vulnerable to reputational and sanctions risks‘, or lost access to G7 markets.
Eine der TOP-News der britischen Presse: Außerirdische hörten Putin während seiner Rede in Wolgograd aufmerksam zu, dass Russland auf Bedrohungen nicht mit gepanzerten Fahrzeugen, sondern mit etwas Ernsterem reagieren würde. Dies sind die heutigen Daily Star-Berichte. Verstanden, oder? Sogar die «Planeten» hören auf unseren Cäsar, und Ihr Johnson ruft ständig dazu auf, nicht auf ihn zu hören und nicht auf «nukleare Bedrohungen» zu achten. Also!
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has pardoned or commuted the sentences of a large number of Iranian prisoners arrested during the recent foreign-backed riots in the country.
und psychologischer Widerstand: analysiere deinen Gegner und nutze schamlos seine Schwächen aus! Eltern kennen das, weil Teens das nutzen, auch kleine Kinder finden instant die Schwächen der Eltern und nutzen das aus, um ihre Interessen zu sichern, sie übertreiben es dabei gerne. Jede Regierung schult ihre Menschen-Herden-Führer in der Kunst der Massen-Steuerung, haben die alten Griechen doch eine fundierte Grundlage dazu gelegt und die modernen Fachleute können klassisch oder á la Mindcontrol arbeiten. Aber nicht jeder will Teil einer Elite-HERDE sein, und daher drehen wir den Spieß einfach um.
Die Perser haben Ägypten erobert, weil sie Katzen einsetzten, die heilig und unantastbar und anbetungs-würdig sind.
Die Perser, denen man ebenfalls schwarze Könige nachsagt, hatten mal ein Reich das Nord-Ägypten miteinschloß.
Katzen waren heilig, mußten geschützt werden und lösten bei den Kämpfern Lähmung und stimmten ihre Kriegsstimmung auf Heiligkeit um.
Die Deutschen werden aktuell psychologisch manipuliert, indem alles, was nicht gewollt wird, mit diesem Symbol behaftet wird. Und? Es funktioniert (noch) !
Es geht nicht um Schuld, sondern um eine antrainierte Lähmung, die zur INSTANT Schwächung und Gefolgsamkeit führt. (psychologische Kriegsführung)
Welche Schwächen haben unsere Land-Leute-Wohlstands-Friedens-ZERSTÖRER, die mit allen Mitteln (+ Gifte-Küche) arbeiten?
Das sind doch gute Nachrichten! 🙂
Mit der Rhetorik verhält es sich wie mit einem Medikament: der Gebrauch entscheidet darüber, ob es sich um etwas Gutes oder um ein Gift handelt. Die Rhetorik hat in Deutschland nicht gerade einen guten Ruf, der sicherlich mit der rhetorischen Praxis des Naziregimes zusammenhängt. Seitdem gilt die Rhetorik als ein Mittel, andere Menschen durch die Sprache böswillig für die eigenen Zwecke zu manipulieren. Doch es gilt obiger Satz über die Medizin: der Gebrauch entscheidet, ob die Rhetorik ein Mittel zur Durchsetzung guter oder schlechter Ziele ist. Klick für Artikel
💡Das Verteidigungsministerium der Russischen Föderation kündigte die Vorbereitung des ukrainischen Militärs an, den Komplex des Central City Hospital of Kramatorsk zu untergraben, um Russland der Begehung von Kriegsverbrechen zu beschuldigen
Video Der ukrainische «Militär-Blogger» Yuriy Madyar hat ein Video gepostet, das chemische Munition zeigt und «angedeutet», dass die Streitkräfte der Ukraine den Einsatz verbotener Munition auf Objekte in Artemivsk (Bakhmut) vorbereiten.
Zuvor veröffentlichte „Madyar“ Aufnahmen darüber, wie er und Mitglieder seiner Bande an der Herstellung von Drohnen mit mehrfarbigen Zylindern beteiligt waren. Damals war nicht genau bekannt, was ukrainische Soldaten in ihren provisorischen Bomben verwendeten, aber jetzt hat der Blogger unabhängig bestätigt, dass sich chemische Waffen in den Containern befinden.
Abbildung aus der Broschüre „Geschlechtliche Vielfalt in der Kinder- und Jugendhilfe, inter* und trans*Kinder, 0-6 Jahre” (Quelle: Paritätischer Gesamtverband, Link im Artikel)
Jeden Tag kann man Dutzende Nachrichten lesen, die die Aussage der Überschrift bestätigen. Das neue Normal ist, was bis vor wenigen Jahren als pure Idiotie angesehen wurde. Dagegen wird heutzutage alles bekämpft, was bis vor kurzem noch als „gesunder Menschenverstand“ galt. Dieses Phänomen gilt für praktisch ausnahmslos alles, was ideologisch gesteuert werden kann – egal ob es sich um Themen wie Migration, Pandemie, Krieg oder, worauf ich nachfolgend vor allem eingehen möchte, um Geschlechter und Kinder handelt.
Warum wird dieser Irrsinn so ausgiebig betrieben und von den Mainstreammedien propagiert? Handelt es sich um eine neue Form spätrömischer Dekadenz oder um einen gezielten Angriff auf die freien westlichen Gesellschaften? Dieselbe Entwicklung sehen wir nämlich mehr oder weniger in allen westlichen Ländern. In keinem anderen Land allerdings richtet sich dieses destruktive Verhalten so gezielt gegen die eigene autochthone Bevölkerung wie in Deutschland.
Kinder als Verbrechen
Da wird jungen Menschen von „Aktivisten“ der „Letzten Generation“ eingeredet, dass Kinder klimaschädlich seien, ja dass es ein Verbrechen sei, Kinder in diese Welt zu setzen. Allerdings gilt das nur für Biodeutsche, die sowieso schuld sind an allen Katastrophen dieser Welt. Migranten dagegen sind die Opfer unseres Daseins – und daher ist es legitim, dass sie millionenfach ins deutsche Sozialsystem einwandern und ihre wachsenden Großfamilien vom Steuerzahler alimentieren lassen. Die Mehrheitsgesellschaft würde auch nie die Rolle der Frau in den Migrantenmilieus in Frage stellen, die dort häufig zur Gebärmaschine degradiert wird. Deren Kopftuch darf auch keinesfalls als das Unterdrückungssymbol benannt werden, das es faktisch ist; im Gegenteil wird es uns als Ausdruck eines modernen Feminismus, als selbstbestimmte Entscheidung dieser Frauen propagiert. Wer es wagt, die Fakten zu benennen, ist islamophob, Rechter, Nazi. Die Toleranz, wie sie solch patriarchalischen Strukturen in unserem Land, das doch einst die Gleichberechtigung von Mann und Frau in seiner Verfassung festgeschrieben hat, entgegengebracht wird: Man sich sie umgekehrt vergebens gegenüber autochthonen Deutschen, die sich nicht mainstreamkonform verhalten.
Ein ganz besonders beklopptes Zeitgeistphänomen ist der Genderwahn, der einem inzwischen tagtäglich aufoktroyiert wird. Die seltsam abgehakten Wörter, die Nachrichtensprecher und Politiker beim Gendern verwenden, sind in erster Linie hochgradig lächerlich und werden – hoffentlich – irgendwann als peinlicher Auswuchs einer vorübergehenden gesellschaftlichen Verirrung angesehen werden. Andere Entwicklungen jedoch, wie der Hype um die Transsexualität, sind da weitaus bedenklicher und gefährden den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt inzwischen elementar.
Die Kriminalisierung von Fakten
Da wird von sogenannten „Transfrauen” die Existenz von zwei biologischen Geschlechtern – derer es unbestritten bedarf, um Kinder zu zeugen – heftigst negiert und fast alle etablierten unterstützen diesen Irrsinn, denn kein Journalist möchte als „transphob” beziehungsweise „.” betitelt werden oder riskieren, seine eigene Karriere zu gefährden. Eine junge Doktorantin der Biologie, Marie Vollbrecht, bekam dies mit unvollstellbarer Vehemenz zu spüren, als sie letzten Sommer in einem Vortrag wissenschaftlich fundiert darlegen wollte, dass es nur zwei biologische Geschlechter gibt, nämlich das weibliche und das männliche. Ihr Vortrag an der Humboldt-Universität in Berlin wurde seitens der Universitätsleitung angeblich wegen „Sicherheitsbedenken“ zuerst abgesagt und dann, unter dem Eindruck der anschließenden medialen Diskussion über die Meinungs- und Redefreiheit, zwei Wochen später unter großen Sicherheitsmaßnahmen nachgeholt.
Im Grunde ging es Frau Vollbrecht um sprachliche Genauigkeit: Im Englischen gibt es das Wort „sex” für das biologische Geschlecht und den Begriff „gender” für soziale Geschlechterrollen. Im Deutschen, so Vollbrecht, würde beides oft verwechselt. Dabei gäbe es nur zwei biologische Geschlechter: männlich und weiblich. So banal und richtig das für jeden klar denkenden Menschen ist, so sehr führte dies zu einem dauerhaften hasserfüllten Shitstorm gegen die junge Akademikerin, der weiterhin unvermindert anhält. Dabei werden alle Register einer Rufmordkampagne gezogen. Und was taugt dazu besser, einen Menschen gesellschaftlich zu ruinieren, als ihn in als „rechts” zu brandmarken? So wurde Vollbrecht in sozialen Netzwerken – meist durch linke oder offen transsexuelle Accounts, häufig unter falschem Namen agierend – unterstellt, sie leugne oder relativiere die Verbrechen des Nationalsozialismus; wohl wissend, dass dies die in Deutschland effektivste Art ist, einen Menschen zu diskreditieren und gesellschaftlich zu vernichten. Vollbrecht wehrte sich juristisch dagegen – und gewann.
„Transfrau” gegen Biologin
Aber das schreckte diese kranken Hirne nicht ab, weiter gegen sie als Frau und Biologin Stimmung zu machen. Zuletzt unterstellte ihr ein 60-jähriger biologischer Mann, der sich jetzt als „Transfrau” Janka Kluge nennt, dass Frau Vollbrecht „Trans-Menschen” mit „rostigen Gartenscheren kastrieren“ wolle. So durchgeknallt das auch klingen mag, so war es nur ein weiteres Mosaik eines Vernichtungskrieg gegen eine kluge, junge Frau, die letztendlich als Stellvertreterin aller biologischer Frauen zum Hassobjekt wurde. Denn eigentlich richtet sich dieser Kampf inzwischen gegen alle biologischen Frauen und er wird geführt von biologischen Männern, die als „Transfrauen” ihren Hass auf wirkliche Frauen ausleben. Da werden Frauen, die für Frauenrechte eintreten, abfällig als Terfs („Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism”) verunglimpft – Jan Böhmermann sprach sogar gleich von „Turds“ (Scheißhaufen) -, und nicht selten lässt man diesen gegenüber in sozialen Medien schlimmsten Gewaltphantasien freien Lauf.
Ein prominentes Opfer dieses Hasses ist die Autorin der Harry-Potter-Romane, J. K. Rowling, die sich über den Begriff „menstruierende Menschen“ lustig machte, als sie schrieb: „Ich bin sicher, dass es früher ein Wort für diese Menschen gab. Kann jemand helfen?“ Der Shitstorm, der sich über sie ergoss, weil sie Frauen als Frauen bezeichnen wollte, spottet jeder Beschreibung. Und als ob das nicht alles schon schlimm genug wäre, bekommen „Transfrauen” Rückendeckung von großen Teilen der Mainstreammedien und werden sogar indirekt durch Steuergelder in ihrem Irrsinn bestärkt: Niemand Geringeres als die ominöse Amadeu-Antonio-Stiftung, die mit Millionenbeträgen aus Steuergeldern finanziert wird, hat die Rufmordkampagne gegen Frau Vollbrecht durch die Transfrau Janka Kluge nach deren eigener Aussage finanziell unterstützt.
Auch die Amadeu-Antonio-Stiftung darf nicht fehlen
Und selbst nachdem Frau Vollbrecht sich auch gegen die wirren Behauptungen von Janka Kluge juristisch gewehrt und gewonnen hatte, twitterte diese „Transfrau” ohne jegliche Einsicht in ihr widerliches Verhalten: „Ich möchte mich beim Sheroes Funds der Antonio Amadeo Stiftung (sic!) bedanken. Durch ihre unkomplizierte Hilfe kann ich die fast 2000 Euro Anwaltskosten tragen, die mich das juristische Vorgehen von Frau Vollbrecht gegen mich bis jetzt gekostet haben.“ Da sich Kluge natürlich als Opfer und nicht als Täter sieht, findet sie das nur legitim, da nach ihrer Aussage „der Funds ausdrücklich trans* Personen unterstützt, die im Kampf für eine besserer und gerechtere Welt vor Gericht gezerrt werden.“ Eine gerechtere Welt kann in deren irren Denken wohl nur eine sein, in der allein „Transfrauen” bestimmen, wer eine Frau ist und was diese zu denken und zu fühlen hat.
Es reicht den Kämpfern für Transsexualität allerdings nicht, nur Frauen den Transwahn aufzuzwingen. Man vergreift sich immer öfter auch schon an den Schwächsten der Gesellschaft: Den Kindern. Der Deutsche Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband hat sich zum Sprachrohr dieses Wahns gemacht und propagiert in Druckschriften und Vorträgen, bereits Kinder mit dem Genderschwachsinn zu indoktrinieren. So wurden hierzu drei Broschüren für verschiedene Altersstufen entwickelt, die der Schulung des pädagogischen Personals von Kindergärten und Schulen dienen sollen. Darin steht ein schier unfassbarer Unsinn – wie etwa der nachfolgende, entnommen ersten Broschüre „Geschlechtliche Vielfalt in der Kinder- und Jugendhilfe inter* und transKinder 0-6 Jahre”, wo es wörtlich heißt: „Kindern zu vermitteln, dass es nur Jungen oder Mädchen gibt, ist sachlich nicht korrekt. Inter oder trans*Kinder zwingend vor die Wahl zwischen Mädchen- oder Jungentoilette zu stellen, verletzt sie in ihrer Würde. Kindern oder Jugendlichen zu verweigern, den von ihnen gewählten Namen oder das als passend beanspruchte Pronomen zu verwenden, verletzt ihre Selbstbestimmung und ihr Recht auf Diskriminierungsfreiheit.“ Dazu finden sich dann – neben Abbildungen wie über der Einleitung dieses Textes – dann auch solche (man beachte die in ihrer Gleichzeitigkeit völlig unrealistische und kontrafaktische Darstellung von Hautfarbe, Religion und Transidentität):
(Quelle: Paritätischer Gesamtverband, Link im Artikel)
Die zweite Broschüre behandelt Transsexualität bei Kindern im Alter von 6 – 12 Jahren. Wenn man das liest, erhält man den Eindruck, dass es sich hierbei um ein weit verbreitetes Phänomen handele; richtig pervers aber wird es, wenn es um medizinische Eingriffe bei Kindern geht: „Was körperliche Entwicklungen angeht, können transKinder bis zum Erreichen der Pubertät erst einmal befreiter aufspielen. Daher wird auf diesen Aspekt mehr als hier in der Broschüre eingegangen, die Jugendliche zum Thema hat. Ab einem Alter von ca. 9 bis 12 Jahren, je nach körperlicher Entwicklung und in en- ger Abstimmung zwischen Kinder- und Jugendpsychotherapeutinnen, spezialisierten Behandlungszentren, Kind/Jugendlichen und Eltern, ist nach eingehender Diagnostik an die Einnahme sogenannter GnRH-Analoga, d. h. Hormonblocker zu denken. Damit kann eine körperliche Entwicklung aufgehalten werden, mit der trans*Kinder sich umso weniger identifizieren können, je deutlicher ihr Körper sich in eine Richtung entwickelt, in der sie sich selbst gar nicht sehen.“
Die körperliche Unversehrtheit von Kindern scheint im Transwahn also keine Rolle mehr zu spielen. Und damit die pädagogischen Fachkräfte auch im Alltag wissen, wie sie Kinder indoktrinieren können, gibt es sogar ganz konkrete Anleitungen: „Die folgenden Handlungsempfehlungen sind aus der Handreichung ‚Murat spielt Prinzessin, Alex hat zwei Mütter und Sophie heißt jetzt Ben‘ für Berliner Kindertageseinrichtungen (SFBB und Queerformat, 2018) sowie der Praxishilfe „Queer-inklusives pädagogisches Handeln‘ für Berliner Jugendeinrichtungen (SFBB und Queerformat, 2021) zusammengefasst und adaptiert. Sie wurden um weitere trans– und inter-relevante Empfehlungen ergänzt und unterstützen Fachkräfte und Teams, die mit Kindern und Jugendlichen arbeiten, bei der konkreten Umsetzung eines inter– und trans-inklusiven und sensibilisierten pädagogischen Handelns.” Was speziell Murats Eltern dazu sagen, wenn ihr Sohn Prinzessin spielt, würde mich allerdings wirklich brennend interessieren…
Entmündigte Eltern
Die dritte Broschüre behandelt dann die Transsexualität von Kindern zwischen 12 und 18 Jahren. Auch hier wird die Gabe von Hormonblockern in Erwägung gezogen und nicht davor zurück geschreckt, Eltern hierzu, wenn nötig, ihre Rechte als Erziehungsberechtigte zu entziehen: „Ab einem Alter von ca. 14 Jahren, je nach körperlicher Entwicklung, können unter sehr hohen Auflagen gegengeschlechtliche Hormone substituiert werden, damit sich die transJugendlichen stimmiger in ihren Körpern fühlen. Für beide Schritte, Hormonblocker und gegengeschlechtliche Hormone, sind jeweils zwei Gutachten nötig, um die entsprechende Behandlung be- ginnen zu können, was für transKinder das Problem aufwirft, dabei von trans-kompetenten Kinder- und Jugendpsychotherapeutinnen abhängig gemacht zu werden, wenn sie, z. B. auf Grund geographischer Entfernung, nicht gerade spezialisierte Stellen (z. B. am Universitätsklinikum Münster oder im Endokrinologikum Berlin) aufsuchen können. Trans-Beratungsstellen unterstützen auch hier bei der Suche nach geeigneten Fachkräften. Für transJugendliche heißt das, unterstützt durch ein Netzwerk aus trans-kompetenten Beraterinnen / Behandler*innen sorgfältig abzuwägen, um informative Entscheidungen (bis zur Volljährigkeit mit z. Zt. erforderlicher Einwilli- gung der Eltern) treffen zu können.”
Auf die irreversiblen Folgen (besser: bleibenden Schäden) dieser Eingriffe wird ebenfalls hingewiesen – aber nur, um ihnen die weit schlimmeren Folgen einer unterlassenen Geschlechtsangleichung gegenüberzustellen: „Während die Effekte von pubertätsverzögernden Blockern, die etwa den Eintritt eines Stimmbruchs verzögern, nicht unumkehrbar sind, werden mit Start einer Hormontherapie (HRT) mit gegengeschlechtlichen Hormonen irreversible körperliche Veränderungen eingeleitet; genauso irreversibel sind jedoch auch körperliche Entwicklungen, die ausgelöst würden, wenn entgegen dem Wunsch desder transJugendlichen auf gegengeschlechtliche Hormone verzichtet würde, und der Körper sich daher in eine für sie falsche Richtung entwickelt.”
Des Kaisers neue Kleider
Die eigentlichen natürlichen und gesetzlichen Vormünder und Garanten des Kindeswohls, die eigenen Eltern, sollen hier im Konfliktfall ebenfalls nichts mehr zu melden haben: Weigern sie sich nämlich, so die Broschüre, „zu einer vom Jugendlichen gewünschten und aus der Perspektive der Behandler*innen indizierte Behandlung“ zuzustimmen, sei „sorgfältig zu prüfen, ob in das elterliche Privileg der Erziehung punktuell eingegriffen“ werden müsse. Unter Berufung auf wissenschaftliche „Experten“ heißt es wörtlich, der elterlichen Entscheidung sei „in solchen Konstellationen nicht automatisch der Vorrang” zu geben.
Das alles ist so abstrus, dass man es nicht glauben will – aber es ist tatsächlich alles wirklich ernstgemeint. Was man unseren Kindern hier antut, ist unfassbar und gruseliger als jeder Horrorfilm. Wohin bewegt sich diese Gesellschaft? Wann kommt der Aufschrei der großen schweigenden Mehrheit, die ahnt oder intuitiv genau weiß , dass dieser perverse Irrsinn unsere Gesellschaft zerstören wird? Ich denke dieser Tage oft an Andersens Märchen „Des Kaisers neue Kleider“, in dem der Kaiser nackt durch die Straße geht und jeder die nicht vorhandene Kleidung bewundert, aus Angst als dumm zu gelten, wenn er ausspräche, was doch Fakt ist – nämlich dass der Kaiser nackt ist. Erst als ein kleiner Junge laut ausrief, dass der Kaiser doch nackt sei, fingen alle erleichtert an zu lachen und stimmten ihm lauthals zu – woraufhin der Kaiser beschämt davonrannte. Wann wird auch in unserer Zeit der Wahnsinn als solcher benannt? Wann gewinnt die Rationalität wieder die Oberhand? Es liegt an jedem von uns, laut nein zu sagen und Mut zu zeigen, damit dieser gemeingefährliche Irrweg wieder verlassen wird.
This year is promising to be a most consequential watershed in world history.
The reckless warmongering ambitions of the Western powers know no bounds. Just as Washington and its imperial minions in the NATO axis are escalating the war in Ukraine against Russia with the utmost deranged folly, the Western rulers are also pushing ahead to bait China with provocations and threats. The psychopathic behavior of the collective Western so-called leaders shows beyond doubt that the Ukraine conflict is but one battlefield in a bigger global confrontation.
This week saw the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on a tour of East Asia where he boasted about coordinating nuclear forces with South Korea and Japan in a provocative and wanton show of strength towards China (under the guise of standing up to North Korea). Austin repeated baseless propaganda claims accusing China of threatening security in the Asia-Pacific hemisphere. The audacious inversion of reality distorts the fact that it is the United States and its allies who are militarizing the region with warships and missiles. Just this week, the U.S. announced the opening of four new military bases in the Philippines for the explicit purpose of launching a future war on China.
In tandem with the Pentagon chief, the NATO alliance’s civilian head Jens Stoltenberg was also touring East Asia where he warned that Russia and China posed a threat to international peace and security. Stoltenberg claimed that if Russia was not defeated in Ukraine then China would be the next problem. He urged South Korea and Japan to work with NATO to confront Russia and China.
In an address in Tokyo, Stoltenberg held forth: “What is happening in Europe today could happen in East Asia tomorrow. China is not NATO’s adversary [sic]. But its growing assertiveness and its coercive policies have consequences. For your security in the Indo-Pacific and ours in the Euro-Atlantic. We must work together to address them. Beijing is substantially building up its military forces, including nuclear weapons, without any transparency. It is attempting to assert control over the South China Sea, and threatening Taiwan.”
The same message was delivered this week to the Atlantic Council in Washington by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Johnson who is a notorious liar and waffler who claimed preposterously in a BBC documentary aired this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally intimidated him with assassination, called for more weapons supply to Ukraine in order to decisively defeat Russia because otherwise, China will be an additional threat. According to Johnson, who was forced to step down last summer as prime minister owing to his incorrigible lying and intrigues in Downing Street, Chinese President Xi Jinping is watching Ukraine closely with a view to invading Taiwan.
This week thus saw an extraordinary public bracketing of Russia and China as a common enemy that, Western powers assert, needs to be confronted militarily by the United States and its NATO minions. Defeating Russia is a prelude to defeating China, according to the Western powers.
The madcap drive for war among Western imperialists has taken on a global dimension. U.S. military commanders are publicly warning that a war with China may be only two years away, and this is while the NATO powers are currently waging a dangerously explosive war against Russia in Ukraine.
This incredible outbreak of psychopathy among American and European elites is directly related to at least two historic developments. Firstly, there is a systemic collapse in the Western capitalist economies. Widespread endemic poverty and mounting public unrest are severely challenging the conventional authority of Western governments which are locked in failed dead-end policies. This empirical desperation for the ruling elite to avoid social meltdown and revolution – “peering down the abyss” as our columnist Alistair Crooke this week – is manifesting in the age-old recourse to militarism and war as a way to resolve deep-seated and insoluble contradictions in the capitalist system.
Secondly, the Western powers are hellbent on preventing the emergence of a multipolar international order that supplants their erstwhile global dominance. In an interview for Strategic Culture Foundation this week Pepe Escobar presented a big-picture analysis of why the U.S. and its associated cabal of Western rulers are pushing the war in Ukraine against Russia. It is all about trying to shore up a failing U.S.-led unipolar world order, one that is bankrupt and corrupted from decades of criminal imperialist warmongering. Russia, China and other nations of the Global South subscribing to an emerging multipolar order based on international law, equality, cooperation and common security is anathema to the U.S. supremacist view of the world.
This is what’s really at stake in the year-old military conflict in Ukraine. This is not merely an isolated war to do with “defending democracy and freedom” of Ukraine, as the Western media absurdly confabulate. The Nazi regime in Kiev was built up deliberately since the CIA-backed coup in 2014 with the strategic objective of eventually confronting Russia after eight years of low-intensity aggression against the Donbass and Crimea.
However, after Russia, if it were to be defeated, China is the next target in a geo-strategic move by the Western powers to gain hegemonic control over the Eurasian hemisphere. The U.S. imperial and NATO mouthpieces are making the stakes clearer than ever with their own self-indicting arrogant words.
The bankrupt capitalist West can only but drool at the prospects of conquering Russia’s vast natural wealth and gaining neocolonial control of China in another would-be century of shame. Eurasia is the key to global dominance, as Western imperial planners have long noted.
It seems appropriate too that this week saw the 80th anniversary of the historic Soviet victory at Stalingrad over the Nazi Third Reich. That turning-point victory in February 1943 led to the defeat of Nazi Germany and its criminal imperialist ambitions. If that heroic battle had not been won, the history of the world would have followed a very different path.
Likewise today in Ukraine there is another historic battle going on, one whose outcome threatens the world with expanded global war and perhaps even nuclear catastrophe if the warmongering NATO imperialist machine is not defeated. Washington’s Reich Syndrome (also known as “exceptional narcissism”) which has reigned since the end of World War II and which has subjected the world to endless wars and relentless financial looting must be finally extirpated.
This year is promising to be a most consequential watershed in world history.
Japan’s economy does not require a prophet or crystal ball to tell you what lies ahead in its very near future: that is, that Japan has become the ticking time bomb for the world economy.
In case you haven’t been able to hear under all the media thunder of doomsday prophesying by so-called “experts” on China’s future economic performance (which has been going on for close to a decade and is more akin to wishful thinking than economic analysis), Japan’s economy does not require a prophet or crystal ball to tell you what lies ahead in its very near future: that is, that Japan has become the ticking time bomb for the world economy.
According to NIKKEI Asia, in an October report, Japan’s “yen weakened past 150 against the dollar reaching a new 32-year low as the policy gap widens between the Bank of Japan and the U.S. Federal Reserve…The Fed has repeatedly raised interest rates to tackle inflation, while the Bank of Japan maintains its ultraloose monetary policy to support the economy.
The Fed’s hawkish monetary policy, along with persistent inflation expectations, has pushed the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield up to 4%. The Bank of Japan, meanwhile, is continuing to hold the 10-year Japanese government bond yield near zero. The Japanese central bank conducted a bond-buying operation for the second straight day to keep the yield within its implicit range of -0.25% to 0.25%.
The yield gap is prompting investors to invest in dollars rather than yen, exerting strong downward pressure on the Japanese currency.” [emphasis added]
In response to this the Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided to maintain its “ultraloose monetary policy” as BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda “highlighted downside risks to the economy and indicated his willingness to accept a weaker yen.” By mid-November it was reported that the Japanese economy shrank for the first time in four quarters as inflation and the weak yen hit the country. “Japan has a history of having suffered from extreme yen strength,” Kuroda added, suggesting that excessive weakness is easier to bear than a too-muscular currency.
By mid-November, NIKKEI Asia reported “Bank of Japan’s ultreasy policy under pressure as inflation hits 40-year high,” with food prices increasing by 3.6% on the year in October, well above the 2% target. Governor of the BOJ, Kuroda responded “The bank will continue with monetary easing, aiming to firmly support Japan’s economy and thereby achieve the price stability target of 2% in a sustainable and stable manner, accompanied by wage increases.”
By mid-January Japan had reported a record low in annual trade deficit of $155 billion USD for 2022.
This is not a sudden outcome for Japan’s economy but rather has been a slow burn over a 12 year period. Alex Krainer writes: “Over the ensuing 12 years and several rounds of ever greater QE [quantitative easing], the imbalances have only worsened and in February last year, the BOJ was forced to go full Mario Draghi, all-that-it-takes, committing to buy unlimited amounts of JGB’s [Japanese Government Bonds]. At the same time however, the BOJ capped the interest rates on 10-year JGBs at 0.25% to avoid inflating the domestic borrowing costs…Well, if you conjure unlimited amounts of currency to monetize runaway government debt, and you keep the interest rates suppressed below market levels, you are certain to blow up the currency.”
Not unrelated to this unfolding of Japan’s economy was the meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Tokyo, Japan for their 50th anniversary this past November.
For those who are unaware, the Trilateral Commission was founded in the wake of the Watergate and oil crisis of 1973. It was formed under the pretense of addressing the “crisis of democracy” and calling for a reshaping of political systems in order to form a more “stable” international order and “cooperative” relations among regions.
“The commission was co-founded in July of 1973 by David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski and a group of American, European and Japanese bankers, public officials and academics including Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker. It was set up to foster close cooperation among nations that constituted the three-block architecture of today’s western empire. That ‘close cooperation’ was intended as the very foundation of the empire’s ‘three block agenda,’ as formulated by the stewards of the undead British Empire.”
Its formation would be organised by Britain’s hand in America, the Council on Foreign Relations, (aka: the offspring of the Royal Institute for International Affairs, the leading think tank for the British Crown).
Project Democracy would originate out of a Trilateral Commission meeting on May 31st, 1975 in Kyoto Japan, where the Trilateral Commission’s “Task Force on the Governability of Democracies” findings were delivered. The project was overseen by Trilateral Commission Director Zbigniew Brzezinski and its members James Schlesinger (former CIA Director) and Samuel P. Huntington.
It would mark the beginning of the end, introducing the policy, or more aptly “ideology”, for the need to instigate a “controlled disintegration of society.”
However, it appears certain participants of this Trilateral Commission are starting to catch on that this alliance between the United States, Western Europe and Japan for the restructuring of regions (à la League of Nations) is not what they so naively thought it would be, that is, that it would not be just about the disintegration of competing economies but would include their very own.
In the end, all would be expected to bend the knee in subservience to the head of a new world empire. As one of the attendees of this latest Trilateral meeting joked “some…say that all the significant events in the world have been predetermined by the Trilateral Commission,” he said to laughter from the veteran attendees, however, “we don’t know who’s in, what they are saying!”
Interestingly, three reporters from NIKKEI Asia were invited to observe this 50th anniversary gathering of the Trilateral Commission, the first time that press has been allowed entry into the notoriously secretive meetings. The meeting began with Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, delivering his remarks in a speech titled, “Democracy vs. Autocracy: You are going to see 2022 as an Inflection Point in the Success of Democracy.”
Interestingly, it seems that the Asian delegates weren’t too impressed.
NIKKEI Asia reported: “…the press has been invited to highlight a rift that may be emerging between Asia and the other wings of the organization. ‘We feel that the U.S. policy toward Asia, especially toward China, has been narrow-minded and unyielding. We want the people in the U.S. to recognize the various Asian perspectives,’ said Masahisa Ikeda, an executive committee member of the Trilateral Commission. Ikeda has been named the next director of the Asia Pacific Group [of the Trilateral Commission], and is scheduled to assume the position next spring.
…A new sentiment has now emerged from the Asia Pacific Group: Without proper steering, the U.S.-China rivalry may lead the world into a dangerous confrontation.” [emphasis added]
The U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel was quoted as saying while democracy is “sloppy” and “messy,” “the institutions of the democratic process, the political stability of the United States, NATO, the European countries, have held.”
However, there were many attendees who disagreed with Emanuel’s pro-U.S., pro-NATO, anti-China stance. “What is the ambassador saying?” a former Japanese official said on background. “We must engage China. If we force countries to choose sides, the Southeast Asian nations will choose China. The key is to not force them to choose,” he said.
“I feel very much embarrassed and disappointed to see the complete void of Chinese participation in this meeting,” said a former Japanese financial official. A veteran member from the Philippines agreed, saying there is no point talking about Asia without the participation of the region’s largest country and expressed concern about dividing the world into two camps. “When two elephants fight, the ants get trampled. And we’re feeling it. When two elephants fight to the death, we will all be dead. And the question is: What for?” [emphasis added]
A South Korean professor told Emanuel in the Q&A period that there are concerns in Asia about the zero-sum thinking in U.S. foreign policy toward China. “We have to develop some deliverable strategy to persuade and engage un-like-minded countries as well.”
NIKKEI Asia also reported “There were also members who noted how the liberal international order that Washington advocates is different from the original liberal order that was formed after World War II. ‘The original order, led by the U.S., sought a multifaceted extensive international system based on multilateral institutions and free trade among the democratic bloc,’ a South Korean academic said. The Six Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons was one such example of the original order, the academic said, noting that the U.S., China and Russia were all at the table.” [emphasis added]
The NIKKEI Asia report ended with a veteran of the Trilateral Commission – a former Philippine cabinet minister – who stated “Just in the past week, we edged toward a nuclear confrontation,” referring to the missile blast in Poland, that was initially suspected to be a Russian-made missile, but was more likely a Ukrainian air-defense missile that landed in NATO territory ‘by mistake.’ “And we edged toward that because of the type of zero sum games that us elders are playing. Is this what you want for your future? You don’t want a situation in the future where everybody’s edging toward the cliff and being macho about it without realizing that this is a zero-sum game that could wipe out the planet. It is beyond climate change,” the veteran said.
Japan’s “Shock Therapy” as a Response to the “Crisis of Democracy”
The Trilateral Commission is a non-governmental body, its members include elected and non-elected officials scattered throughout the world, ironically coming together to discuss how to address the “crisis of democracy” in the most undemocratic process possible. It is an organisation meant to uphold the “interests” of its members, regardless of who the people voted into political office.
On Nov 9th, 1978, Trilateral Commission member Paul Volcker (Federal Reserve Chairman from 1979-1987) would affirm at a lecture delivered at Warwick University in England: “A controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate object for the 1980s.” This is also the ideology that has shaped Milton Friedman’s “Shock Therapy”. By the time of Jimmy Carter’s Administration, the majority of the government was being run by members of the Trilateral Commission.
In 1975 the CFR launched a public study of global policy titled the 1980’s Project. The general theme was “controlled disintegration” of the world economy, and the report did not attempt to hide the famine, social chaos, and death its policy would bring upon most of the world’s population.
The study explained that the world financial and economic system needed a complete overhaul according to which key sectors such as energy, credit allocation and food would be placed under the direction of a single global administration. The objective of this reorganization would be the replacement of sovereign nation states (using the League of Nations model).
This is precisely and demonstrably what has occurred to Japan’s economy over the past four decades, as showcased in the Princes of Yen documentary based off of Richard Werner’s book by the same title. As Werner demonstrates, Japan’s economy was purposefully put through multiple economic crises throughout the 80s and 90s in order to push through massive structural reform despite their economy having been one of the world’s top performing before foreign tampering.
As Werner insightfully remarked, the best way to have a crisis is to manufacture a bubble, that way, nobody will stop you.
To understand the incredible significance of this, we will need a quick review of what occurred to Japan’s economy over a 40-year period.
Japan’s Offering to the Gods on the Altar of “Free Trade”
By the 1980s, Japan was the second biggest economy in the world next to the United States and was a leader in the manufacturing of consumer technology products to the West, including the United States. Due to Japan’s investment in automation tools and processes, Japan was able to produce products faster and cheaper than the United States that were also superior in quality.
One of the examples of this was competition between the two in the memory chip DRAM market. In 1985, there was a recession in the United States in the computer market, resulting in the biggest crash in over ten years for Intel. Complaints from certain quarters in the United States began criticizing Japan for “predatory” and “unfair” trade practices despite the recession in 1985 being a demand problem and not a competition problem.
Long story short, President Reagan, who was supposed to be all about free markets, in the spring of 1986 forced the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement with METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan).
Part of the conditionalities of this agreement were that the American semiconductor share in the Japanese market be increased to a target of 20-30% in five years, that every Japanese firm stop its “dumping” into the American market and the Americans wanted a separate monitoring body to help enforce all of this.
No surprise here, the Japanese companies refused to do this and METI had no way of forcing them to do so.
The Plaza Accord was signed in 1985 by Japan, Germany, France, Britain and the United States. The agreement depreciated the United States Dollar against the Japanese Yen and the German Deustche Mark in an effort to improve the competitiveness of American exports. How very “free market”!!! (Refer here for the story of De Gaulle and Adenauer’s attempt to form the European Monetary System which was sabotaged by Anglo-America). Over the next two years after the signing of the Plaza Accord, the dollar lost 51% of its value against the yen. Japan entered the Plaza Accord to avoid having its goods tariffed and locked out of the American market.
The Yen’s appreciation plunged the Japanese manufacturing sector into recession. In response to this, the Bank of Japan loosened monetary lending policies and lowered interest rates. This cheap money was supposed to be funneled into productive efforts. Instead, it went into stocks, real estate, and asset speculation. This is when Japanese real estate and stocks reached their peak price level.
Between 1985 and 1989, stocks rose in Japan by 240% and land prices by 245%. By the end of the 80s the value of the garden surrounding the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo was worth as much as the entire state of California.
Although Japan is only 1/26th of the size of the United States its land was valued at four times greater. The market value of a single one of Tokyo’s 23 districts, the Central Chiyoda Ward exceeded the value of the whole of Canada.
With asset and stock prices rising inexorably even traditional manufacturers could not resist the temptation to try their hand at playing the markets. Soon they expanded their finance and treasury divisions to handle the speculation themselves. The frenzy reached such proportions that many leading manufacturers, such as the car maker Nissan, made more money through speculative investments than through manufacturing cars.
The Princes of Yen documentary explains: “Many credited the boom in Japan’s economy to high and rising productivity. In reality, Japan’s stellar performance in the 1980s had little to do with management techniques. Instead of being used to limit and direct credit, window guidance was used to create a giant bubble. It was the Bank of Japan who had forced the banks to increasing their lending by so much. The Bank of Japan knew that the only way for banks to fulfill their loan quotas was for them to expand non-productive lending.”
Between 1986 and 1989, Toshihiko Fukui was the head of the Banking Department at the Bank of Japan and would later become the 29th Governor of the Bank of Japan. This was the department that was responsible for the window guidance quotas.
When Fukui was asked by a journalist “Borrowing is expanding fast, don’t you have any intention of closing the tap of bank loans?” Fukui replied “Because the consistent policy of monetary easing continues, quantity control of bank loans would imply a self-contradiction. Therefore, we do not intend to implement quantitative tightening. With structural adjustment of the economy going on for quite a long period, the international imbalances are being addressed. The monetary policy supports this, thus we have the responsibility to continue the monetary easing policy as long as possible. Therefore, it is natural for bank loans to expand.”
In Japan, total private sector land wealth rose from 14.2 trillion yen in 1969, to 2000 trillion yen in 1989.
The Princes of Yen documentary reported: “At his first press conference as the 26th governor of the Bank of Japan, in 1989, Yasushi Mieno said that ‘Since the previous policy of monetary easing had caused the land price rise problems, real estate-related lending would now be restricted.’ Mieno was hailed as a hero in the press to put a stop to this silly monetary policy that was responsible for the increasing gap between the rich and the poor. However, Mieno was deputy governor [of the Bank of Japan] during the bubble era, and he was in charge of creating the bubble.
All of a sudden land and asset prices stop rising. In 1990 alone, the stock market dropped by 32%. Then in July 1991, window guidance was abolished. As banks realised that the majority of the 99 trillion yen in bubble loans were likely to turn sour, they became so fearful that they not only stopped lending to speculators, but also restricted loans to everyone else. More than 5 million Japanese lost their jobs and did not find employment elsewhere. Suicide became the leading cause of death for men between the ages of 20 and 44.
Between 1990 and 2003, 212,000 companies went bankrupt. In the same period, the stock market dropped by 80%. Land prices in the major cities fell by up to 84%. Meanwhile, the Governor of the Bank of Japan, Yasushi Mieno, said that ‘Thanks to this recession, everyone is becoming conscious of the need to implement economic transformation’.”
Between 1992 and 2002, ten stimulation packages worth 146 trillion yen were issued. The thought was domestic demand had to be boosted by government spending and then loan demand would also rise. For a decade the government executed this approach, boosting government debt to historic levels.
Richard Werner remarked “The government was spending with the right hand, putting money into the economy, but the fundraising was done through the bond market, and therefore it took the same money out of the economy with the left hand. There was no increase in total purchasing power, and that’s why the government spending couldn’t have an impact.”
By 2011, Japan’s government debt would reach 230% of GDP, the highest in the world. The Ministry of Finance was running out of options. Observers began to blame the Ministry of Finance (despite the clear sabotage by the Bank of Japan’s actions) for the recession, and started to listen to the voices that argued that the recession was due to Japan’s economic system.
In Japan, the authorities and the Bank of Japan argued, as did the Western powers almost two decades later, that the taxpayer should foot the bill. However, taxpayers have not been responsible for the banks problems, therefore, such policies have created a moral hazard (a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk).
According to the Princes of Yen documentary, Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa had turned to the Bank of Japan asking it to help stop deflation, or fight deflation at least. The Bank of Japan consistently defied calls by the government, by the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister of Japan, to create more money to stimulate the economy and end the long recession. At times the Bank of Japan even actively reduced the amount of money circulating in the economy, which worsened the recession. The Bank of Japan’s arguments always came to the same conclusion, namely that the blame lay in Japan’s economic structure.
It should also be noted that a whole generation of Japan’s economists were sent to the United States to receive PhDs and MBAs in U.S. style economics. Since neoclassical economics assumes that there is only one type of economic system, namely, unmitigated free markets, where shareholders and central bankers rule supreme, many Japanese economists quickly came to regurgitate the arguments of U.S. economists.
By the late 1990s, Japan’s economy was heading for the rocks. Ira Shapiro who worked as a U.S. ‘negotiator’ of U.S.-Japan talks during this period stated “Primary sector deregulation is needed to overcome the entrenched interests of large insurance companies, life and non-life, and the Ministry of Finance bureaucracy.”
On Shapiro’s Federalist Society biography page, he is described as playing “a central role in the negotiation and legislative approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the multilateral Uruguay Round that created the World Trade Organization and the current trade rules.”
These U.S.-Japan talks needed to reach an agreement by a deadline decided by the United States. If no agreement were met after the declared deadline, then the U.S. had threatened to impose trade sanctions.
Richard Werner clarified what would be the consequences of Shapiro’s demands to the Japanese; that securitisation of the real estate was being pushed however, in order to have meaningful securitisation we need deregulation, and to get deregulation you have to reduce the power of the Ministry of Finance. This in turn would allow the Bank of Japan, who was under the purview of the Ministry of Finance, to gain power.
From the mid 1990s onwards the Government began to dismantle much of the power structure of the Ministry of Finance. The Bank of Japan, on the other hand, saw its influence grow significantly. The Bank of Japan was cut loose from the Ministry of Finance pretty much making it independent.
Soon after his retirement from the position of governor of the Bank of Japan in 1994, Mieno embarked on a campaign, giving speeches to various associations and interest groups. He lobbied for a change in the Bank of Japan law. His line of argument was to subtly suggest that the Ministry of Finance had pushed the Bank of Japan into the wrong policies. To avoid such problems in the future, the Bank of Japan had to be given full legal independence.
In 1998 monetary policy was put into the hands of the newly independent Bank of Japan.
In early 2001, a new type of politician was swept into power. Junichiro Koizumi became the Prime Minister of Japan. In terms of his popularity and his policies he is often compared to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. His message was simply: no recovery without structural reform.
Princes of Yen remarked: “During 2001, the message of no economic growth without structural reform had been broadcast on an almost daily basis on the nation’s TV screens. Japan was shifting its economic system to a U.S. style market economy, and that also meant that the centre of the economy was being moved from banks to stock markets. To entice depositors to pull their money out of banks and into the risky stock market, reformers withdrew the guarantee on all bank deposits, while creating tax incentives for stock investments.
As U.S. style shareholder capitalism spread, unemployment rose significantly, income and wealth disparities rose, as did suicides and incidents of violent crime. Then, in 2002, the Bank of Japan strengthened its efforts to worsen bank balance sheets and force banks to foreclose on their borrowers…Heizo Takenaka [the new Minister for Financial Services] was supportive of the Bank of Japan’s plan to increase foreclosures of borrowers…Takuro Morinaga, a well-known economist in Tokyo, argued forcefully that the Bank of Japan inspired proposal by Takenaka would not have many indigenous beneficiaries, but instead would mainly benefit U.S. vulture funds specialising in the purchase of distressed assets…[When Toshihiko] Fukui’s support for the bankruptcy plan was voiced… [he] was an adviser of the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs, one of the largest operators of vulture funds in the world.”
Richard Werner remarked: “Mr. [Toshihiko] Fukui [29th Governor of the Bank of Japan], and also his mentor Mr. [Yasushi] Mieno [26th Governor of the Bank of Japan], and his mentor Mr. [Haruo] Maekawa [24th Governor of the Bank of Japan], and you’ve guessed it, these are some of the Princes of the Yen that the book is all about. They have said on the record in the 80s and the 90s, ‘What is the goal of monetary policy? It is to change the economic structure.’ Now how do you do that? Well, you need a crisis. They made a crisis in order to change the economic structure.”
The department responsible for the window guidance quotas at the Bank of Japan, was called the Banking Department. The man at the head of this from ‘1986 to ’1989, was Toshihiko Fukui. Mr. Fukui thus directly helped create the bubble. When Fukui had become governor of the Bank of Japan, he would say “While destroying the high-growth model, I am building a model that suits the new era.”
Richard Werner remarked: “They have succeeded on all counts. If you look at the list of their goals, destroy the Ministry of Finance, break it up, get an independent supervisory agency, reach independence for the Bank of Japan itself by changing the Bank of Japan law, and engineer deep structural changes in the economy, by shifting from manufacturing to services, opening up, deregulating, liberalising, privatising, the whole lot.”
[Part 2 will discuss what caused the Asian Crisis of the Tiger Economies, the American 2008 crash and the European Debt Crisis, as well as the relevance of Shinzo Abe’s assassination in shaping today’s world economic and geopolitical situation. The author can be reached at https://cynthiachung.substack.com.%5D