Hi Mark - a question - in the Age of Oligarchs, are Trump and Putin the prime oligarchs, or are the tools of hidden hands - your article seems to take both views…
100% agree. And it really irritates me that the media is calling them “migrants” when the vast majority returned to Morocco of their own volition. The word feeds the Right Wing narrative. Which is the point.
Wars are no longer won or lost by force, though force plays a part. It is one of the reasons why Trump is drowning as his only card is force. He can't understand that the terms of warfare have changed. He still thinks he calls the shots, when it is plain to see that he really is a puppet.
What you say, and the way you draw different strands of disruption of the rules-based world order, is certainly interesting and persuasive. However, I suspect that while the different parties and gang leaders (Trump, Putin) have a commonality in seeking to undermine the rule of law, and democracy, and to enrich themselves, they cannot hold together for any time. Enriching Putin, the capo di capi, are his oligarchs, individual gang leaders. There is conflict between the gang leaders, among themselves and between Putin and individual gang leaders. In the case of Trump, it is hard to identify who his gang leaders are; though we can clearly see the organisations and individuals one or two steps further back (in the shadows) who are manipulating him. So a parallel between Putin and his power structure on the one hand, and that of Trump and his puppet-masters on the other, is hard to argue. Trump has a worship of Putin as a strongman, as he worships other strongman leaders such as Xi Jinping, though the two are not ruling in the same way, or for the same purposes. There may be a similarity between Trump and Putin, in that they seek personal enrichment (and the associated possibility that this buys eternal life) and power. However, they are not alike in what they seek for themselves. Putin may seek eternal life, to go on forever in some form, getting richer and more powerful, but it is apparent that Trump is a walking corpse. If he has any awareness of his mortality (behind his almost solipsistic narcissistic psychopathy), he sees immortality and not through personal survival, but through his family. And while Trump has no concern for the USA, of which he is supposedly leader, Putin is devoted to Mother Russia and rebuilding a Czarist Empire. In this sense, Putin is more akin to Stalin than to Trump. I could go on, but the Trump/Putin correlations, and the many other correlation you theorise, between Israel, Iran, the wider Middle East, right-wing movements in Europe, or in South America, become increasingly tenuous the further you cast your net. It is true that "everything is connected", but as the chains of connection stretch further and more widely, each individual point of connection rapidly acquires a less than 50% chance of holding. Each connection can hold or fail. The longer the series of links, the weaker the whole chain becomes. The level of chaos the world has reached is not sustainable for much longer. A wider societal collapse, hastened not least by accelerating climate change, cannot continue for much longer without the collapse of leading players, leading nations. The authors of the destruction of order will be unable to continue without a volte-face, and a move towards order and structure. Logically, the rules-based world order since 1945 has been to the advantage of the gangs. It facilitates looting in some areas, while the global order survives and holds all together. The outlook for freedom, democracy, and civil rights for the many is poor, but the survival of an overall order is essential. A collapse would not be a third World War, but an atomising of human civilisation, where the atoms are individually consumed by flame, by floods, by drought.
And where does Israel fit in all this - the world's most powerful pariah state? It's influence and lobbying tentacles are everywhere, backed by vicious threats from Mossad when the lobbying fails. It too is trying to take down the international rules, particularly the ICC, or anyone trying to hold it to account. It also seems to be genuinely obsessed with territory as it relentlessly pursues its Greater Israel ideology.
Hi Mark - a question - in the Age of Oligarchs, are Trump and Putin the prime oligarchs, or are the tools of hidden hands - your article seems to take both views…
They’re both. Enriching themselves but also manipulated, or directed, by others.
I think the recent events in Ceuta are part of this global effort. There is no way this was not an organised provocation.
100% agree. And it really irritates me that the media is calling them “migrants” when the vast majority returned to Morocco of their own volition. The word feeds the Right Wing narrative. Which is the point.
Wars are no longer won or lost by force, though force plays a part. It is one of the reasons why Trump is drowning as his only card is force. He can't understand that the terms of warfare have changed. He still thinks he calls the shots, when it is plain to see that he really is a puppet.
On many levels Trump is still locked in the eighties. Absolutely incapable of realising the world has changed.
What you say, and the way you draw different strands of disruption of the rules-based world order, is certainly interesting and persuasive. However, I suspect that while the different parties and gang leaders (Trump, Putin) have a commonality in seeking to undermine the rule of law, and democracy, and to enrich themselves, they cannot hold together for any time. Enriching Putin, the capo di capi, are his oligarchs, individual gang leaders. There is conflict between the gang leaders, among themselves and between Putin and individual gang leaders. In the case of Trump, it is hard to identify who his gang leaders are; though we can clearly see the organisations and individuals one or two steps further back (in the shadows) who are manipulating him. So a parallel between Putin and his power structure on the one hand, and that of Trump and his puppet-masters on the other, is hard to argue. Trump has a worship of Putin as a strongman, as he worships other strongman leaders such as Xi Jinping, though the two are not ruling in the same way, or for the same purposes. There may be a similarity between Trump and Putin, in that they seek personal enrichment (and the associated possibility that this buys eternal life) and power. However, they are not alike in what they seek for themselves. Putin may seek eternal life, to go on forever in some form, getting richer and more powerful, but it is apparent that Trump is a walking corpse. If he has any awareness of his mortality (behind his almost solipsistic narcissistic psychopathy), he sees immortality and not through personal survival, but through his family. And while Trump has no concern for the USA, of which he is supposedly leader, Putin is devoted to Mother Russia and rebuilding a Czarist Empire. In this sense, Putin is more akin to Stalin than to Trump. I could go on, but the Trump/Putin correlations, and the many other correlation you theorise, between Israel, Iran, the wider Middle East, right-wing movements in Europe, or in South America, become increasingly tenuous the further you cast your net. It is true that "everything is connected", but as the chains of connection stretch further and more widely, each individual point of connection rapidly acquires a less than 50% chance of holding. Each connection can hold or fail. The longer the series of links, the weaker the whole chain becomes. The level of chaos the world has reached is not sustainable for much longer. A wider societal collapse, hastened not least by accelerating climate change, cannot continue for much longer without the collapse of leading players, leading nations. The authors of the destruction of order will be unable to continue without a volte-face, and a move towards order and structure. Logically, the rules-based world order since 1945 has been to the advantage of the gangs. It facilitates looting in some areas, while the global order survives and holds all together. The outlook for freedom, democracy, and civil rights for the many is poor, but the survival of an overall order is essential. A collapse would not be a third World War, but an atomising of human civilisation, where the atoms are individually consumed by flame, by floods, by drought.
Exactly! Thank you.
And where does Israel fit in all this - the world's most powerful pariah state? It's influence and lobbying tentacles are everywhere, backed by vicious threats from Mossad when the lobbying fails. It too is trying to take down the international rules, particularly the ICC, or anyone trying to hold it to account. It also seems to be genuinely obsessed with territory as it relentlessly pursues its Greater Israel ideology.