Critical Moment to Pause for Insightful Truth telling

Beware

Age

of

Nothingness

A “typical politician” is a person without principles, ideas, or values. A panderer aka a politician does not govern. A panderer “has clientele with private interests” (to which he or she is beholden): 

“a lobby for the poor who want personal benefits”

“a lobby for the wealthy who want to continue having leniency to do shady business” writes Historian of philosophy Bruna Frascolla about conditions in another America but which rings true for North America's USA.

Frascolla, Bruna January 22, 2025 “What neo-Pentecostals and drug dealers have in common” … “Their victory… consisted of being wealthy.” https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/01/22/what-neo-pentecostals-and-drug-dealers-have-in-common/
Translated from Portuguese (Brazil) to English: Bruna Frascolla is a historian of philosophy, PhD from UFBA, and essayist.


“What really matters is access (or not) to wealth,” João Carlos GRAÇA writes. 

In the United States of America, “the ability to make any subject a topic of political debate as well as the capacity to make any opinion prevail in this regard… are directly dependent on economic influences or on the weight of wealth.” 

Affluence “can transform its concerns into a topic of debate and usually manage to make its dominant opinion succeed in (that) debate.” Those who are “not rich” are simply stymied.

NON-Democracy

From the pen of 

Lisbon University Professor of Sociology 

João Carlos Graça

The United States of America is “not substantively a democracy,” wrote Lisbon University Professor of Sociology João Carlos Graça in a mid-January 2025 article.

Like it or not, this is a reality that is “imperative to recognize and from which it is necessary to start.”

The United States of America is “not substantively a democracy”; nor is the USA — in any way — a propagator of democracies, liberal or otherwise.…”

This understanding must be thorough, in-depth, and comprehensive to enable effective action, “whatever that may be.”

Made in the USA (Stateside) 

The United States of America is, “in essence, a plutocracy” (defined as a controlling class of the wealthy, a government by the wealthy). 

“Universal suffrage… “for the lower house of the legislature and for the presidency,” stretching back to the “1830s,” was (inherently, “legally”) an exclusive privilege; not “universal” “suffrage” (i.e., inclusive of or covering all, a whole collectively, distributive without limit or exception…, suffrage available without exception to all members of a society). 

Cemented in America, while inaccurately named “democracy,” a mantra often heard across the land, is a political system comprised of (as Professor João Carlos Graça puts it): 

• Weak ideologically defined dominating duo, i.e., two partnering tyrannical political parties
• “Gross promiscuous … relationship between parties and economic power…
• “Absence of limits to private funding and the full legalization of lobbying…
• Weakened “state institutions in the face of the so-called ‘civil society’ making the political system less a true res publica” (a republic, serving the general welfare) and more “… a condominium of the rich…
• “Majority electoral system in the first round (first past the post), preventing effective multi-party rule (or substantive participation) and instead inducing a de facto (two-party exclusive) domination…
• “Arbitrary definition of constituencies (gerrymandering)…
• “Impossibility of … any possible third parties’ … access (blockading or otherwise obstructing their access) to the media…
• “Fragmentation and precariousness of the systems of electoral registration and control of the counting of votes….” (among other clear illustrations of US plutocracy)

Yet, “from a formal point of view,” this “does not prevent” the USA “from being classified as a ‘democracy… even if admittedly suffering from countless weaknesses and diseases.” (emphasis added)

Made in the USA (Abroad)

Notwithstanding the prevailing mantra to the contrary, “US foreign policy …” is not guided by “the spread of democracy.” 

The foreign policy of the United States of America, “far from being doctrinally inspired by any ideas more-or-less remotely founded on a democratic or Enlightenment ideology, seems to be thinkable rather as an illustration of the powerlessness of reason in universal history.”

The Americas

U.S. relations with neighboring Latin America… indicate a systematic sociological affinity … with … the exact opposite (of) democratic forces or tendencies (even if merely formal) …

Small independent countries (usually of the tropics) “are markedly oligarchic in their deep social texture and very little inclined toward effective democracy… largely as a consequence of (US) malevolent influence, inducing the systematic destruction of any inclinations through which Latinos might (or may) be tempted to threaten the domination of the respective oligarchies, usually leaning toward the patronage of the northern Big Brother” (USA).

Acts often at odds with what may be “considered a minimum of decency,” the US hides its hand (essentially approves) “through an operation of radical symbolic distancing of North America from the set of societies south of the Rio Grande” all the while conveniently picking and choosing among and partnering with those “other” “undesirables.”

The Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia, Mediterranean Sea

In the “so-called Middle East…,” there has been a “capitulation of one republican and secular regime after another, accompanied by the near disappearance of socialist tendencies, the same going for the pan-Arabist ideals.” 

In the Palestinian Territory exists “a medium- and long-term reinforcement of the … Zionist ethnocracy, the Israeli Rassenstaat (racial state) remaining untouchable in its enterprise not only of consistent ethno-racial discrimination”; but illegal, immoral, self-interestedly sadistic “extermination and/or expulsion of the (indigenous, original inhabitants of the land).”

Particularly regarding US foreign relations with countries within this region of the world, there exists “something fundamentally analogous, in the results,” to US foreign relations in the Americas — “though not necessarily in the deep motivations.” 

Some examples are found in US-orchestrated forced failures of “republican and secular regimes” together with the “collapse of state institutions.” (an interesting phenomenon evident also stateside USA)

• The Severing “of the secular and socialist republic of Afghanistan” 20th into 21st century
• The Severing “of the secular state of Iraq” 2003
• The Devastation of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 2011
• The Severing of the Syrian Arab Republic 2024

Graça concludes that recent events in Syria represent perhaps “the closing episode of a cycle” but the story is “unfinished”: 

a story of the United States’ “arrogant” and dangerous “pretense” in domestic and foreign affairs — masquerading as emblem, exemplar and preeminent champion “of human rights, secularism, enlightenment, and democracy all the while undermining and working to destroy all possibility of these.

Independent geopolitical analyst and journalist Pepe Escobar concludes in the same headline news window in which loose talk and quotes are flying high in and around the new or rather warmed-over regime on the Potomac. 

“In this new golden era” embracing “the new, brutally benign Empire” …, “the land of the free home of the brave… will be ‘far more exceptional than ever before.’”

Says Escobar “Never underestimate” the unspeakable audacity of “this year’s model” … to “rebrand a genocide (as) a great real estate opportunity in a ‘phenomenal location’.” “Welcome to Interplanetary Exceptionalism. Embrace the new, brutally benign Empire. Or else.”

Sources

Graça, João Carlos. January 22, 2025, “Kant versus Khan: the events in Syria and U.S. foreign policy… The U.S. is unquestionably a very effective destroyer of states that it considers enemies: Immanuel Kant; but definitely Genghis Khan.” https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/01/22/kant-versus-khan-events-syria-and-us-foreign-policy/

Escobar, Pepe January 22, 2025. “The age of interplanetary exceptionalism… Only the U.S. can rebrand a genocide into a great real estate opportunity in a ‘phenomenal location’”
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/01/22/the-age-of-interplanetary-exceptionalism/

###

PROLIFIC SOUTHERN-BORN AMERICAN WRITER DR. CAROLYN LADELLE BENNETT focuses on People, Press, Politics USA; Domestic and Foreign Affairs (no copyright claimed in direct quotes and individual image)

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West aggresses Eastward, East progresses Upward and Westward

A country neglects its own, A germ escapes a laboratory

One professor takes the view that the Coronavirus is an “offensive biological warfare weapon” that leaped from the Wuhan BSL-4 laboratory— in a world of Western “bio-safety” laboratories and a long, documented history of bio-warfare.   

V

irus Labs (biocontainment or biosafety laboratories)

• ·       Lowest biosafety levels: regular hand-washing, minimal protective equipment.

• ·       Higher biosafety levels: airflow systems, multiple containment rooms, sealed containers, positive pressure personnel suits, established protocols for all procedures, extensive personnel training, and high level security to control access

BSLs

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designations of lowest to highest BSL-1 -4 / biosafety levels 1 – 4; sometimes designated P1-P4 for Pathogen or Protection level “is a set of biocontainment precautions (containment levels) required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility.

Total labs USA — U.S. Government Accountability Office as of October 4, 2007 reported across the United States

• ·       BSL-3 facilities (registered): 1,356 CDC/USDA

• ·       BSL-3 labs: 36 percent (est. ) in higher education institutions

• ·       BSL-4 facilities: 15 identified (including 9 at federal labs)

BSL-4 facilities worldwide locations extending at least to 1928 (Hamilton, Montana, United States Rocky Mountain Laboratories NIAID laboratory; focus on vector-borne diseases):

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Geelong, Victoria, Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais, Brazil, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Wuhan, Hubei, China, Těchonín, Pardubice Region, Czech Republic, Lyon, Metropolis of Lyon, France, Franceville, Haut-Ogooué Province, Gabon,  Berlin, Germany, Hamburg, Germany, Isle of Riems, Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, Marburg, Hesse, Germany, Budapest, Hungary, Pécs, Hungary, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, Hyderabad, Telangana, India, Pune, Maharashtra, India, Rome, Lazio, Italy, Musashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa, Solna, Stockholm County, Sweden, Geneva, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, Canton of Zurich, Switzerland,

National Defense University, Taiwan, Camden, Greater London, United Kingdom, Colindale, Greater London, United Kingdom, Mill Hill, Greater London, United Kingdom, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, Addlestone, Surrey, United Kingdom, Pirbright, Surrey, United Kingdom, Porton Down, Wiltshire, United Kingdom, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, Georgia, United States, Georgia State UniversityAtlanta, Georgia, United States, Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas, United States, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, United States, Fort Detrick, Maryland, United States, Boston University Boston, Massachusetts, United States, Hamilton, Montana, United States, Galveston, Texas, United States, San Antonio, Texas, United States, Osong, North Chungcheong Province, South Korea

D

r. Francis A. Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law Francis (AM, PhD Harvard University, JD Harvard Law School, AB University of Chicago; Expertise Areas: Constitutional Law (U.S. Foreign Affairs), Human Rights, Jurisprudence, U.S. Foreign Affairs; Professor, College of Law, Professor, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory

Some of Professor Boyle’s published works: The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence (2013); Destroying Libya and World Order: The Three-Decade U.S. Campaign to Terminate the Qaddafi Revolution (2013); World Politics and International Law (2012);  Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (2009); Breaking All The Rules: Palestine, Iraq, Iran and the Case for Impeachment (2008);     Protesting Power: War, Resistance and Law (2007); Biowarfare and Terrorism (2006); Destroying World Order: US Imperialism in the Middle East Before and After September 11 (2004).
 

P

epe Escobar quoted Dr. Boyle in his February 21, 2020 article “No Weapon Left Behind: The American Hybrid War on China.”

Although there is … “‘no legitimate scientific reason to have BSL-4 labs,” the “‘United States, Europe, Russia, China and Israel” possess and use these labs to “‘research, develop, and test biological warfare agents.’”

His research shows that these labs and their “scientists” total in the thousands at costs in the hundreds of billions.

Professor Boyle takes the opinion, regarding the Coronavirus (aka 2019-nCoV or “Novel coronavirus” or “SARS-CoV-2) that the Chinese government covered up the germ leak until it was out of hand.

He also suggests, as other reports have suggested, that the World Health Organization has been compromised by private interests and cannot be trusted. 

The WHO, he said “‘works in cahoots with the CDC” (the U.S. government, though the CDC has also been compromised by private interests) and “‘in cahoots with Fort Detrick,’” the last “a cutting-edge bio-warfare lab (and) previously a notorious CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) den of mind control experiments.’”
 

C

hina rising

The People’s Republic of China in 2013 lays out a global development strategy involving infrastructure development and investments in nearly 70 countries and international organizations in Asia, Europe, and Africa.” It is called the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI or B&R).

• ·       Many nations of the Global South sign on to BRI (completion planned for 2049) and Chinese companies sign contracts totaling upwards of “$128 billion in large-scale infrastructure projects in dozen of nations.”

• ·       China is the key hub of the global economy and the leading trade partner of nearly 130 nations.

• ·       By 2014, the Chinese economy had overtaken the U.S. on purchasing power parity (PPP) and as one decade closes and another opens, the U.S. finds its “share of the global economy shrinking as China’s increases,” Pepe Escobar writes.

In May 2015, China’s Premier Li Keqiang and his cabinet issued “Made in China 2025,” a strategic plan to upgrade Chinese industries’ manufacturing capabilities into a “more technology-intensive powerhouse” — from being “the ‘world’s factory’ (producing cheap, low-quality goods due to lower labor costs) to producing higher-value products and services.” China is

• ·       Beating the U.S. on patent filings

• ·       Producing annually at least 8 times as many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) graduates as the United States

• ·       Earning the status of top contributor to global science.

All the while U.S. officials have been engaging in governance and statecraft by blame and complain; corruption benefiting private interests; and neglect of American’s public health, education and welfare, and their foresight and great potential for innovation and progress. 
 

C

hina USA-Western cannot abide.

Pepe Escobar writes that after the People’s Republic of China managed “to reroute trade supply chains across Eurasia to its own advantage and to hollow out the American Heartland” leaving the Western elite “staring into a void … and the void staring back, it became clear that the “‘West’ led by the USA was faced with “irrelevance.”  And dirty ops were indicated.

The USA “system leader,” starting with stirring trouble across the periphery of Eurasia – from Ukraine to Syria to Myanmar— has refused to accept China’s advancement. And a pattern of bio-warfare research deeply etched in memory—from Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Korea, Vietnam and Fallujah— is a possible tool. The United States government has never blinked “when it comes to unleashing weapons of mass destruction on innocent civilians,” Escobar recalls.  

The U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), whose annual budget in 2019 was estimated at $3.427, has been in operation since the 1950’s. And it has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on developing new technologies for offensive military uses— including, in Escobar’s words, “a fortune on researching bats, coronaviruses and gene-editing bio-weapons.”

Going tough, Results Rough

“…The targeted assassination of Maj. Gen. Soleimani plus coronavirus (the Wuhan flu) set the stage for the ‘Raging Twenties’”, Escobar concludes. And in view of the historic pattern, it seems —

instead of COVID-19 or 2019-nCoV or “Novel coronavirus” or “SARS-CoV-2” virus designation —

a better choice should have been “WARS – Wuhan Acute Respiratory Syndrome,” thus exposing “the game” for what it really is: “a War against Humanity” – regardless of where it originated.

Sources

Strategic Culture Foundation “No Weapon Left Behind: The American Hybrid War on China” by Pepe Escobar February 21, 2020 https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/02/21/no-weapon-left-behind-the-american-hybrid-war-on-china/

Francis Boyle https://law.illinois.edu/faculty-research/faculty-profiles/francis-boyle/

Wikipedia

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019

Wikipedia Biosafety level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level

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