Take the murder of Kim Jong-nam, for instance. The half-brother of the Beloved Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, was assassinated under rather curious circumstances in Malaysia. Two women from Indonesia and Vietnam, and one man from Malaysia have been arrested in Malaysia for the murder.
What grabs my attention is that the two women pulled off the attack, Kim was traveling under an alias (Kim Chol), and he was killed presumably by something sprayed in his face. The spray sounds suspiciously like ricin, though no autopsy results are as of yet unavailable, but just a few micrograms inhaled or injected can kill an adult rather quickly. Death is caused by more or less a lethal allergic reaction, and considering Kim died on the way to the hospital, that would likely be the scenario in ricin poisoning. It is not hard to make ricin, though it would take some expensive toys to purify it to a weaponized form.
Whatever the toxin was, the method was so unusual - why not just shoot, stab or otherwise physically assault the victim - as to draw attention to itself. This is one of those spy-game scenarios that used to occur during the Cold War, when defectors were hit with tiny pellets of ricin, slowly killing the victim over 4 or 5 days. In other words, this sounds like an organized and professional hit, rather than some homegrown political activists, and is obviously intended to send a message to Kim Jong-un.
The other curious story that is receiving quite a bit more attention is the increasingly obvious civil war being played out in the United States. The various factions within the federal government are increasingly open about their animosities and efforts to oust each other.
I tend to reduce this war to the Capitalists versus the Financiers. One could tack a lot of other names on to the two sides, but I view it as the Means of Production against the Financial Interests, or more simply Industrialists versus Bankers.
For those who are not yet aware, the United States is a corporation set up in 1871, under "An Act to Provide a Government for the District of Columbia." As the rest of the States were dragged into the corporation as assets, along with the population under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, this effectively placed the country under Administrative Law and negated the Common Law and Constitution. The latter is maintained as a showpiece, though is hardly worth the paper it is written on in US courts.
Like most corporations today, there is a constant battle between those who do the work, and those who play the odds. One side produces actual products and employs people, while the other shuffles assets, liabilities and revenues around for profit. If you've been keeping score, the Financiers have been winning the battle since more or less the time of the US Robber Barons.
The Financiers, a.k.a. Mercantilists, use equity and debt as weapons, harvesting the productivity of real work and products for their own profit, laying waste to everything in pursuit of the bottom line. Note that Mercantilism is often mistakenly called Capitalism, but it not, as the latter produces real, tangible products, while the former produces nothing and only leeches off the real economy.
The Financiers have run the US for well over a century now, sucking up vast sums of money while doing nothing and producing nothing. They simply lend money and buy equity, then profit from interest rates and playing high-low. Great job if you can get it.
Trump, on the other hand, represents the Capitalists. These folks have an adversarial relationship with Financiers, since they actually work and produce things while having to bow to the money folks who control the game with purse strings.
At least since Kennedy, the Financiers have enjoyed an endless stream of compliant occupants in the White House, who have simply enforced whatever regulations made the Financiers richer at the expense of the productive economy. Thus, the national debt has spiralled out of control, the Bankers have held the country to ransom - as in 2008 - to extort vast sums of unearned money, and created wars that required endless borrowing to maintain.
Trump has threatened the Financier hegemony over the nation by focusing on infrastructure, business climate, reduced taxes, and ending wars - all things the Financiers really hate to hear, as these efforts do not profit them.
Consequently, the Financiers (a la George Soros, et al.) have declared open war against the Capitalists, who somehow managed to subvert the system they have carefully built up over the past century. It is already a nasty war, and will get a lot worse. Trillions of unearned dollars are at stake, and if things get really nasty, then history tells us a lot of Bankers will be hanging from lampposts - at least metaphorically if not literally - in the near future.
This war also explains the animosity against Russia, who has spearheaded the effort to create an alternative to the Dollar-Dominated Global Financial System, by way of the BRICSA alliance (Shanghai Accord).
The war has only just begun, and it will get very ugly before it is over. The apparent tactic at the moment seems to be to keep the Trump Administration so busy with infighting and suspicions that it is rendered ineffective. Any effort left over must be focused on things like the Oroville dam and other emergency situations. In other words, keep starting fires to distract the enemy and tie up their time and resources.
Stand by...this is going to be a hell of a ride. As Bill Hicks would say, "The world is just a ride...it has ups and downs, thrills and chills, and is very brightly colored." Might want to buckle up before the first big drop.
Great post as usual Bernard.
ReplyDelete