An Era, a Comrade, a World Leader Remembered

The Honorable Jiang Zemin was China’s top leader at the start of the ending of the Cold War and at the belligerent beginning of Washington’s declaration of unipolarity and impunity.

 Troubled Period

The William Jefferson Blythe III (Bill Clinton) government in 1999 ordered the bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, that left three Chinese nationals dead and ignited protests in China against the United States of America.

The George W. Bush government in 2001 committed aggression from the skies violating China’s sovereignty (i.e., the PRC’s exclusive economic zone based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and China’s claim to the Paracel Islands). On April 1, 2001, a United States Navy EP-3E ARIES II signals intelligence aircraft and a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) J-8II interceptor fighter jet collided in mid-air causing an international crisis.

The “Hainan Island incident” caused

• the death of J-8 pilot Lt. Cdr. Wang Wei (whose widow was later sent a “personal letter of condolence from U.S. President George W. Bush”); and

• the capture and detention of 24 US crew members (21 men and 3 women) who were released following a “US- issued ‘letter of the two sorries’ to the Chinese.”

Under foreign provocations and diplomatic crises, Jiang Zemin was said to have remained calm and pragmatic despite eastern critics and western opportunists. While condemning the actions of Washington, he counseled his fellow citizens to 

“focus on economic development and ‘sleep on brushwood and taste the gall’”: take the insult, while retaining “focus on the long-term goal.”(Emphasis added)

Jiang Zemin

General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party 1989-2002
President of the People’s Republic of China 1993-2003
Chairman of the Central Military Commission (Party Commission 1989-2004; 

State Commission 1990-2005; Deputy 1993- 2003) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Zemin

The legacy of former President Jiang Zemin, to paraphrase other reports, will be found in his display of dignity and courage; his loyalty to and defense of sovereignty, country and countrymen, fundamental principles, institutions, and a particular culture or way of being. His was an uncommon courage and confidence, a sense of shared humanity that permits a leader to reach across the chasm of hostility to a younger nation—an often reckless unipolar aggressor.

Early in life, Jiang Zemin was “a passionate student of foreign languages” who, reportedly, “learned English by studying the speeches of United States presidents Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.” At university, he studied electrical engineering. In the 1950s, he worked in Moscow. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was a deputy director of a state-owned machinery institute in Shanghai; a department chief at the Ministry of Machine-Building Industry in Beijing; and in the 1980s Shanghai mayor and later party chief in charge of Shanghai.

He married and stayed married for 73 years. He and his wife had two sons.

Jiang Zemin was married in 1949 to Wang Yeping. Their sons are Jiang Mianheng, president of Shanghai Tech University; and Jiang Miankang, former director of the Shanghai Development Information Research Centre.

Respectfully Remembered

Condolences from the President of the Russian Federation

“The name of this outstanding statesman is inseparably linked with an important period in China’s modern history, marked by great achievements in economic and social development and the consolidation of international positions. 

“As a sincere friend of our country, Jiang Zemin made an invaluable contribution to developing Russian-Chinese relations and bringing them to the level of trust-based partnership and strategic interaction. The Treaty of Good-Neighborhood, Friendship and Cooperation, which we signed with Jiang Zemin in 2001, laid the foundations for the qualitative development of the entire complex of bilateral ties. 

“The fond memories of such an authoritative politician and remarkable person will forever remain in my heart. Please convey my sincerest sympathy to the bereaved family and friends, and to all the friendly people of China.”

(Kremlin “Condolences to President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping,” November 30, 2022: “Vladimir Putin sent condolences to President of the People’ Republic of China Xi Jinping on the death of former President of the People’s Republic of China and General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Jiang Zemin, http://en.special.kremlin.ru/events/president/news)

 
Remembrances
Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China announcing the death of Jiang Zemin

Excerpt  

‘From the people, To the people’

“(Jiang Zemin) made outstanding contributions to upholding and developing the Party’s basic theory, line, platforms and experience. … [B]y pooling the wisdom of the whole Party, Jiang formulated the ‘Theory of Three Represents,’ advancing the Party’s guiding principles in line with the times once more. …

“The Theory of Three Represents highlights that the Party always represents the developmental demands of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation for China’s advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the greatest possible majority of the Chinese people.

“The theory follows the universal laws of development and progress in human history, and complies with the development trends of the times and the demand for social development and progress in China. It reflects the interests and aspirations of Chinese people of all ethnic groups, and holds the key to enhancing the Party’s governance capacity, consolidating its governing status and accomplishing its governing mission under new circumstances.…

“We must stay true to our fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly, maintain a people-centered mindset, and carry out the mass line. We must respect the pioneering spirit of our people and ensure that we are acting for the people and relying on the people in everything we do. We must follow the principle of ‘from the people, to the people,’ and maintain a close bond with the people. We must breathe the same air as the people, share the same future, and stay truly connected to them.

“We must conscientiously study the Theory of Three Represents; learn from Jiang’s revolutionary spirit and demeanor, as well as his scientific attitude and creative spirit in applying Marxist stand, viewpoints and methods to studying new circumstances and solving new problems.

We must strive in unity to build our country into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful.”

Source

Xinhua “Jiang Zemin passes away,” Editor: huaxia November 30, 2022 “Jiang Zemin passed away due to leukemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai at 12:13 p.m. on Nov. 30, 2022, at the age of 96, it was announced on Wednesday. The announcement was made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), the State Council of the PRC, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and the Central Military Commissions (CMC) of the CPC and the PRC.” https://english.news.cn/20221130/4ec6705052f648ca8e4890025eb8c003/c.html


Source

South China Morning Post “Jiang Zemin: the president who took China from Tiananmen pariah to rising power” November 30, 2022, Stella Chen in Hong Kong, Cary Huang in Hong Kong, Jun Mai in Beijing, “Jiang is hailed for mending ties with the West, the handover of Hong Kong, modernizing the Communist Party at home and a successful bid to host Olympics,” https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3201571/jiang-zemin-president-who-took-china-tiananmen-pariah-rising-power


No Statement from Washington at White House website, The White House November 29 and 30, 2022, Statements and Releases, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/

“Eternal glory to Comrade Jiang Zemin!”
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC)

 

Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images
Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett
Author’s links: www.BennettsAmericanEpitaph.com; https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett; https://insightbeyondtodaysnews.blogspot.com/; https://www.xlibris.com/en/search?query=Carolyn+LaDelle+Bennett;
https://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/828689-epitaph

US Betrayal of Homeland, All Lands

Unprincipled men their Bluster and Bombs have Nothing Constructive to offer 

 

US Leaders and their friends and paymasters have destroyed the US workforce, destroyed its educational institutions; destroyed its major labor intensive industries, spouted nonsense about one trend after another (as if constantly in virtual space or a world of video games) without preparing a solid workforce to move from one era to another while retaining a life supporting center.

 

The United States of America flooded with unprincipled leaders lacks core (basic) moral, ethical, political, social, cultural principles on which to stand.

One after another politician or a whole series of politicians are elected to office (or allowed remain in office far past their usefulness or competence). One after another holds forth with one after another scheme or harebrained idea, or under-the-table deal beneficial to their friends—without any care or concern for the real needs of the USA and its people of the substantive advancement of the homeland.

The word of America is worthless because the word of its leaders is worthless—lacking in credibility, integrity, honesty, respectfulness for self, the United States and other countries.
Neither world nations and peoples nor the US citizens can trust the cabal entrenched in high office and slithering in out and around state capitals and the Washington Beltway.

When government officials (officeholders, public officials) should been thinking and writing and negotiating and diligently working (off camera and off media platforms) with coworkers and leaders of US municipalities and leaders of other countries and governments—they were pandering to narrow interests and padding their pockets and campaign chests.

US leaders today copy the same pattern their ilk has used for generations in the Americas, in West and Southeast Asia, in Africa, South, Central and Eastern Europe …

 

Afghanistan Bolivia Brazil Burma Chile Colombia Congo Cuba Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Ethiopia Georgia Guatemala Haiti

Honduras Iran Iraq Japan Korea Lebanon Libya Nicaragua Pakistan Panama Romania Somalia Sudan Syria Ukraine

USA (Dukes County vs. Gulf of Mexico; Midwest vs. Mississippi Delta; Pacific Northwest vs. Appalachia; Colonial through Civil War continuing Mason-Dixon line: Northeast vs. South battle)       Yugoslavia

 

 

 

 These leaders have pushed one U.S. state against another, one American against another American, effectively destroying all sense of neighborliness, cooperativeness and societal productiveness.

I like these lines from an old B-movie. After those believing themselves to be the victors make a toast to one they believe to be the vanquished, the latter asks the villains: “May I, in the depth of my defeat, offer a toast” (before tossing the glass to the floor, he toasts) …

“To men who have lost all sense of honor
“To men who have disgraced the countries that gave them birth
To you, gentlemen” 

The US leaders have betrayed not just treaties; but, even worse, they have broken promises and betrayed trusts; broken crucial, cultural bonds between and among nations and regions; and between states of the United States and people who inhabit those states and municipalities. They widened and deepened gulfs between mountain hollows and hills, coalfields, canneries, and rust belts.

They have reduced America’s young men (as well as America’s medical men) to pushing dangerous and addictive drugs and calling it an honorable work, a proper means of making a living—until US authorities’ roulette-wheel quota of blame stops on them. Drug pushers who have lost all luck can be seen in the circle of wildfires out west or chained in gangs down south “Making America Great again” and “Building America Back Better.”




News prompting my thoughts

Press TV news programming Economic Divide November 24, 2022 edition “US using ASEAN to counter China,” https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/11/24/693278/U-S--using-ASEAN-to-counter-China

Film: Colonel J.A. Nielson (H.B. Warner) in “Bulldog Drummond in Africa” (1938) directed by Louis King; writers Garnett Weston (screen play), Herman C. McNeile (novel “Challenge”)

Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images
Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett
Author’s links
www.BennettsAmericanEpitaph.com
https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett
https://insightbeyondtodaysnews.blogspot.com/
nolandanisland@hotmail.com

Hemorrhaging West to East Returns Home: man’s War profiteering means Immeasurable Loss

The President’s War in Eastern Europe, and Questionable Currencies

October ending Congressional Research Service Reports

Excerpted Data Estimates

For FY2023
Congress established a PDA funding cap of
$3.7 billion via P.L. 117-180

For FY2022
Congress increased a special authority (22 U.S.C. §2364) used to overcome PDA caps
From $250 million to $500 million via P.L. 117-103 and
Up to $1 billion via P.L. 117-128

Estimated Totals
2014-October 14, 2022
Estimate reported $20.3 billion
Including estimated $17.6 billion committed by the Biden Administration


Congressional Research Service Reports
Presidential Drawdowns for Ukraine
FY2021-FY2023 (in millions of dollars)
 

# Authorized Value # Authorized Value

#1	Aug 27, 2021	60.0 13	June 23, 2022	450.0
#2	Dec 28, 2021	200.0 14	July 1, 2022	50.0
#3	Feb 25, 2022	350.0 15	July 8, 2022,	400.0
#4	Mar 12, 2022	200.0 16	July 22, 2022	175.0
#5	Mar 16, 2022	800.0 17	Aug 1, 2022	550.0
#6	Apr 5, 2022	100.0 18	Aug 8, 2022	1,000.0
#7	Apr 13, 2022	800.0 19	Aug 19, 2022	775.0
#8	Apr 21, 2022	800.0 20	Sep 8, 2022	675.0
#9	May 6, 2022	150.0 21	Sep 15, 2022	600.0
#10	May 19, 2022	100.0 22	Oct 4, 2022	625.0
#11	June 1, 2022	700.0 23	Oct 14, 2022	725.0
#12	June 15, 2022	350.0

 

sub Total 10,635.0
Sources: Department of State and Department of Defense.

WAR matériel 2022 as of October 14 

 

· 20 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and ammunition (+18 more via longer-term procurement);

· 2 National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) (+6 more via longer-term procurement);

· 1,400+ Stinger anti-aircraft systems;

· 8,500+ Javelin anti-armor systems and 32,000+ other anti-armor systems;

· 700+ Phoenix Ghost Tactical UAS, 700+ Switchblade Tactical UAS, and other UAS;

· 142 155 mm and 36 105 mm Howitzers with more than 1 million artillery rounds;

· 20 120 mm mortar systems and 115,000 mortar rounds;

· 1,500 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles, high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs), and laser-guided rocket systems;

· 20 Mi-17 helicopters;

· hundreds of Armored Humvee Vehicles and 440 mine resistant vehicles;

· 200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;

· 10,000+ grenade launchers and small arms; and

· Communications and intelligence equipment

ADDITION: The Biden Administration has authorized third-party transfers of U.S. defense articles and equipment from several NATO and EU members to Ukraine.

 

For FY2022 Congress increased Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) funding cap (22 U.S.C. §2318(a)(1)) from $100 million

Up to $200 million via P.L. 117-70

Up to $300 million via P.L. 117-86

Up to $3 billion via P.L. 117-103 and

Up to $11billion via P.L. 117-128.

For FY2023
Congress established a PDA funding cap of
$3.7 billion via P.L. 117-180

For FY2022
Congress increased a special authority (22 U.S.C. §2364) used to overcome PDA caps
From $250 million to $500 million via P.L. 117-103 and
Up to $1 billion via P.L. 117-128


Estimated Total
2014-October 14, 2022
Estimate reported $20.3 billion
Including estimated $17.6 billion committed by the Biden Administration

Source: IN FOCUS “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine,” Congressional Research Service, Update October 21, 2 022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040

November Hard News

Washington Times (The): “House Republicans call for Ukraine aid audit,” by Joseph Clark November 18, 2022, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/nov/18/house-republicans-call-for-ukraine-aid-audit/

“A group of House Republicans calling for more scrutiny over U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to Ukraine as Congress takes up a White House request for an additional $38 billion in support to Kyiv.”

In October an open letter was released in which several “liberal” Members of Congress had “urged” the president “to push more assertively for peace talks”; however under “intense pressure from “party leaders,” the liberals succumbed to pressure, essentially saying we really don’t want peace, peace talks, or nonviolence in the region; we prefer a war between nuclear power, thus global annihilation.

Though legislators affiliated with the other side of the uni-war-party have thrown around “no blank check” for Ukraine rhetoric and even more voted nay on a 40 billion dollar package, lawmakers have shown themselves to be all in for furthering aggression and bloodshed, and deepening debt and impoverishing ordinary Americans and essential institutions.

 Florida Press: “Mills Demands Audit of Ukraine Funds in First Congressional Press Conference,” by Grayson Bakich, November 18, 2022, https://floridianpress.com/2022/11/mills-demands-audit-of-ukraine-funds-in-first-congressional-press-conference/

“The soon-to-be Republican majority in the House of Representatives is on the warpath.”

Floridian Publisher Javier Manjarres cites the rhetoric flying from the jaws of MOC-elect Cory Mills:

“‘Why are we allowing this to grow and become some warmongering, military-industrial complex buildup that only benefits who… Not the American people. … Americans deserve transparency … Will you (the Congressional leadership) commit to a 100% audit of Ukrainian funds so the American taxpayers know where their money is going?’”

Decrypt “SBF’s Alameda Moved $89 Million Worth of Crypto into a New Wallet: 

The now- defunct and bankrupt trading desk moved $2.7 million worth of Serum, FTX, and Uniswap tokens into the wallet yesterday, on-chain data shows,” by Stacy Elliott November 14, 2022 https://decrypt.co/114610/alameda-89-million-crypto-new-wallet

Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm, founded in 2017 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Tara Mac Aulay (currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy), its CEO Caroline Ellison, is headquartered in Hong Kong on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China

“

We don’t know exactly how much money was raised for Kiev and how much of it reached its intended destination” (RT News). “On March 14, FTX launched a new online portal for cryptocurrency donations (‘Aid for Ukraine’) in partnership with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. Through this, crypto traders, both large and small, could donate bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which FTX would convert into cash for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to spend on weapons and other war-related expenses.” 

RT international news headlines: “Is there a link between ‘Aid to Ukraine,’ the US Democratic Party and the suspicious collapse of the FTX Crypto exchange?” November 18, 2022 https://www.rt.com/news/566626-ftx-and-ukraine/

“Breaking news throughout the first half of November has been dominated by coverage of the sudden collapse of FTX, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges.… Much of the money taken out of FTX by its founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has disappeared completely. … Official investigations into FTX and Bankman-Fried have only just begun. …

“The US Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission” are investigating whether “stolen client deposits were used, in any way, to prop up Alameda, the FTX exchange sister company into which Bankman-Fried “secretly and illegally moved billions.”

Bankman-Fried is a very well-connected figure in US politics who “has boasted of meeting policymakers in Washington ‘every two or three weeks for the last year.’ Over 2022, this has included multiple audiences with senior government officials and top Biden advisers at the White House. These meetings escalated in volume around the time that the Ukraine conflict began…” In early March 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother (his political operations director), Gabe Bankman-Fried, visited the White House along with Jenna Narayanan, a Democratic strategist who once worked for the Democracy Alliance, which has been called the “most powerful liberal donor club” in the US. …

In April and May, “concurrent with his donating $865,000 to the Democratic National Committee,” Sam “Bankman-Fried himself … visited the White House on numerous occasions.”

The peoples of Europe and Asia and Africa are not enemies of the United States of America. 

REPEAT that: 

Peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa are NOT enemies of the USA or enemies its people.

Therefore, powerbrokers in and around the United States and their various and variously connected partners should not be legislating, ordering, executing, bribing and bartering for, or acquiescing to wars and other acts of aggression against countries abroad; or against the homeland of the United States of America: its institutions, and against its people.

Acts of aggression committed (or caused to be committed) by U.S. agents or entites abroad are inseparable from acts of aggression against the homeland. People who believe otherwise are living in a separate universe, a cave of distraction, an altered state, a state of delusion, a dimension that is separate and apart from human and societal reality.

Make no mistake about it. The crises, cries, and painful consequences of war are felt, simultaneously; and they are felt in multiple sectors and dimensions.

War abroad is abandonment at home. Though profiteers and grafters may profit, the nation and its thousands, perhaps millions will languish in some degree of want and suffering, and in a state of smoldering resentment.

War abroad sets off the ricochet. In some shape or form, the rocket is sure to touch down one day.

War provokes antagonists (adversaries, enemies, ill-wishers) where there were none.

 War instills irrational fear and division among neighbors, near and far; and seeds the ground, in ripple effect, for rash (careless, injudicious) self-harming action.

 War takes. It never gives.

 War sickens society all over the world.

Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images
Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett
Author’s links
www.BennettsAmericanEpitaph.com
https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett
https://insightbeyondtodaysnews.blogspot.com/
nolandanisland@hotmail.com