The Liberal World Order
Corporate chiefs, Wall Street heavies, Hollywood celebrities and other empty-headed jackassery...
(Source: Getty Images)
Bill Bonner, reckoning today from San Martin, Argentina...
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.
The US media is privately owned. But it acts an arm of the US government… which is itself an arm of the Entire Elite Establishment (EEE, aka the “liberal world order.”)
No surprise. Reporters go to the same schools, read the same newspapers, and believe the same things as Washington’s movers and shakers. They are not intentional propagandists; they just see the world in the same way. So,
they generally accept the whole agenda – equity, de-carbonization, racism, financial manipulation, military adventurism, neutral pronouns etc. – of the ‘liberal world order.’ In other words, they become cheerleaders for the powerful EEE, not critics of it.
Never has this been clearer than reporting on the war between Russia and the Ukraine. The war in itself is nothing remarkable. Russia insists that Ukraine remain a neutral buffer between itself and NATO. Ukraine – lured and spurred by the US – doesn’t want to do that.
The whole brouhaha should be of little interest to the average American. His problems are here at home – such as $5 a gallon gasoline – and they are being made worse by the US sanctions.
But every headline insists that he take an interest. And they tell him which side to support. Ukrainians are noble freedom-lovers (rarely are its neo-Nazis mentioned) and the Russians are brutes. Putin is compared to Hitler. The Russian army is accused of dastardly war crimes, etc. Last week, one ‘news’ item even featured an adorable stray puppy that had attached himself to a Ukrainian military unit. Are there no puppies among the Russians? Apparently not.
Much of the coverage is just puffery and claptrap. Some stories are actual lies – the Russians did not attack a nuclear reactor… Miss Ukraine is not actually fighting for her country. And some delicious details are hardly noticed; Zelensky really is a former clown/comedian who got elected after playing a teacher on TV who got elected president! Life imitates art… especially when the art is (allegedly) funded by George Soros.
But little attempt is made to observe, study or understand. Instead, the ‘liberal world order’ is on the field itself. Zelensky leads the home team. And the American media… along with the public, as gullible as ever… puts on its jerseys and flies its colors.
McUnhappy Deal
You can fool most of the people most of the time. And that’s plenty for government work. People want to be fooled. That’s what politicians, with their empty-headed jackassery, depend on. And corporate chiefs, Wall Street heavies, and Hollywood celebrities join in too… and share the glory of the winning team.
Leonard de Caprio said he has sent money to Ukraine. McDonald’s shut down its business in Russia. Wall Street is pulling out too. Business Insider:
Goldman Sachs is shutting down its operations in Russia, becoming the first major US bank to do so.
The company said the move was "in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements."
From the UK comes word that fans may not even be able to watch a soccer match. Because the team’s owner is Russian. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine is on the story:
The U.K. froze the assets of Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, as Boris Johnson’s government dramatically stepped up its sanctions against prominent Russians over the invasion of Ukraine.
Abramovich and six others face a full asset freeze and travel ban, and are prohibited from transacting with U.K. citizens or businesses, the Foreign Office said in a statement Thursday. The move effectively derails Abramovich’s plan to sell Chelsea, which plays in England’s highest soccer league, and raises major questions about the future of the club.
Chelsea won’t be able to sell new tickets for matches, including games in the European Champions League, and the club’s merchandise stores will be closed. Player transfers are banned, as are new contracts.
Speaking of Sanctions…
Even Switzerland is giving up a foreign policy that has served it well for centuries – neutrality – in order to pile on. The Swiss had protected American oil and metals trader Marc Rich for almost two decades, after he was accused of dealing with Iran (among other things). Legal scholars at Harvard and Georgetown later concluded that he had committed no crime; they advised Bill Clinton to give him a pardon, which he did. But henceforth, oligarchs, dictators, traders… Christians or Jews – none can depend on Switzerland to shield them from the long arm of the ‘liberal world order.’
Yes, dear reader, sanctions work! Look at what they are doing to Afghanistan. USA Today:
As a result of all this economic disruption, including the loss of billions of dollars of aid, 22.8 million people – more than half the population – are facing acute food insecurity. They include a million children under 5 "at risk of dying due to severe acute malnutrition," according to UNICEF.
It is not clear why the Biden administration has imposed such devastating sanctions on Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the Chinese look on. Tom Friedman believes they have a simple choice. They can stick with Putin. Or they can join the ‘western’ coalition against him. Seeing the awesome firepower of our weaponized money system, he thinks they will buckle under:
There are signs that China recognizes some of these new realities — that no country is too big to be canceled in the wired world.
Get it? The end of history. No country can stand against the ‘liberal world order.’ The wired world has been leveled after all.
And yet, the media never even asks the basic question: what does the fight between Ukraine and Russia matter to Americans? Why are we so keen to expand the ‘liberal world order’ onto the Eurasian steppes? What’s it really all about?
Or, to put it more provocatively, and borrowing from Country Joe and the Fish who asked the same question about the War in Vietnam, “it’s one, two, three…what are we fightin’ for?”
Tune in tomorrow...
Regards,
Bill Bonner
Ed. Note: Might food shortages be another “unintended consequence” of the global upheaval right now?
We’ve seen (and continue to see) rising prices at the pump and a squeeze on industrial metals. But while people are generally not too put out having to wait an extra week or two for their iGadgets and expendable luxury trinkets, going without wheat, corn, soy and other essential crops is a whole ‘nutha story.
Remember the Arab Spring? Imagine that… but impacting billions of people worldwide.
It’s just one more reason why BPR Investment Director, Tom Dyson, is adopting “Maximum Safety Mode” in his portfolio… and why you might want to consider doing likewise. There will be investment opportunities along the way, but first things first: Don’t get wiped out!
If you’d like to become a BPR member, which includes twice-weekly investment updates from Tom Dyson and Dan Denning, as well as in-depth monthly research reports and private Zoom calls with Bill’s network of analysts, consider joining us today, right here…
I agree with Bill's pov that no nation should wage war against other but in a less than perfect world both Washington and Moscow have waged war for reasons that did not involved a direct threat to their national security but appealed to the political hardliners and generals.
Nine decades ago another dictator rose to power promising to unit all the German speaking under a new Reich and to right the wrongs of the Treaty of Versailles. France and Britain did nothing for 7 years until 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. Had France and Britain acted sooner would Hitler have been able to wage war across Europe in 1940 - 1945?
Putin has stated that the fall of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical tragedy in Russian history and his goal is to recreate the USSR with all the Russian peoples living in the newly expanded Russian Federation. Had the world did nothing with the invasion of Ukraine would Putin be considering an attack on Eastern Europe or the Baltic states believing that Western Europe and the US would consider appeasement over WW3? What would be the global ramifications to world peace of such an event would occur?
For the sake of the Ukrainian people I pray that both sides will be able to agree to a cease fire and peace soon. If the war escalates beyond Ukraine/Russia our worst nightmares will not come close to the horrors that nuclear war will bring.
Keep in mind, Bill, that ordinary Ukraine people are simply trying to live their lives without being bombed, shot, or whatever. They, like us, want to just get up in the morning and go to a job and earn enough to support their families. Well, that is not happening. Russia is killing Ukraine's citizens. They are bombing and using artillery barages to wipe out everything in their path. They are cutting off humanitarian aid shipments. They are cutting off water and medical supplies and food. These Ukraine people are not pushing to be in NATO. They were not Russian haters...until now. They are just in the way of a killer. Too bad, you may say. That is their problem. Yes, it surely is. But I can almost guarantee that Putin will not stop at Ukraine. Why should he? He wants it all. All the lost USSR states. All the EU. All period. Full Stop.
When it comes to all-out war, China will side wtih Russia. Why? Because Russia has resources that China wants/needs. And China had a war with Russia, remember? The Sino-Soviet border conflict was a seven-month undeclared military conflict between the Soviet Union and China in 1969, following the Sino-Soviet split. Now they have a Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation (FCT) is a twenty-year strategic treaty that was signed by the leaders of the two international powers, Jiang Zemin and Vladimir Putin, on July 16, 2001.
WWIII and the Greater Depression? Connect the dots, Bill.
The world is not a safe place right now. Not for Ukraine and not for the U.S.A.