Back to Monroe????

It was US President Monroe who said, in 1823, that the US would control the Western Hemisphere.

Back in 1823, the US were too weak to control the entire Western Hemisphere, but by 1898, the US could and did neo-colonise most of  Latin America.

But things change. Logistics meant the US armed forces had a huge logistical advantage over European armed forces if the US were fighting the Europeans in the Western Hemisphere, an advantage the US used to make most of Latin America into a US neo-colony.

But now, the PRC have the power, but not the interest, to engage in a long war with the US.

The US press say that Xi intends to re-take all of Taiwan before the end of 2027, just about two years away. Not clear what, exactly, Xi meant. The West cutting off the civil war.

But now, it looks like the Emmi award sea shoes. 

Trump Contradicts Himself. Frequently.

Most US presidents say one thing when they are running, something that they hope will get them elected, no matter how much they hate the idea of America actually doing what they promise the voters, then say something else after the election (let's face it, the US President doesn't do anything, he just gives the orders, like any other CEO, so voters foolishly assume that the US President will give the same orders he promised to give as a candidate, and are then sorely disappointed when he gives the opposite orders).

Trump ran on an America First/Make America Great Again platform, but then he was told, 'You must read the Teleprompter,' and the Teleprompter said, 'I order the US military to go into Syria and transform the evil dictatorship into a Democracy with Freedom and Justice for All.'

So Trump ordered all the US troops out of Syria. Twice.

Then someone had a little chat with Trump, so the third time the Teleprompter said, 'I order US troops into Syria to bring Freedom and Democracy,' Trump said, 'I order US troops into Syria to steal all the oil, so this won't cost US taxpayers 1¢, the US will make a big profit from this.'

So Trump managed to make it through his first term, only to lose his first bid for re-election.

After which, it was President Biden who ordered all US troops out of Afghanistan, an order executed with US Afghan allies clinging to and falling from the US planes leaving Afghanistan that refused to let them board. US troops trying to guard the only airport were killed by a terrorist attack. The withdrawal did not go well, but the Democrat US media all said, 'Biden got the US out of Afghanistan, something every president tried and failed to do for 20 years!' The Republican media all said, 'Biden made a complete mess of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.'

Running for re-election, Trump promised to get the US out of the Ukraine, to stop spending all that money on foreign projects that should instead go to Making America Great Again. After winning, on 19 January 2025, Trump reiterated that the US had to get out of the Ukraine or the cost of the war would destroy the US economy.

But then on 21 January 2025, Trump said the US would make sure that Russia left the Ukraine or the US would destroy Russia.

What happened? Obviously, the men in dark suits, dark glasses, and carrying dark briefcases (and no telling what's in those briefcases) had another little talk with Trump, and explained that abandoning the Ukraine to Russia was not an option, unless Trump wanted to be the next JFK.

For most of my life, US Presidents have been far more consistent that Trump, consistently wrong for the most part, but at least consistent. 

But Trump keeps changing his course 180º on a rather regular basis.

The US: Mostly anti-Colonialist

In 1823, President Monroe said that the Americas, i.e., the Western Hemisphere, was all American, the European Imperialists had better stay out. The US were not very strong in 1823, but they got stronger and stronger. Spain and Portugal lost most of their Latin American colonies as the US provided Latin American countries with money and weapons to end their status as colonies and become US neo-colonies.

The European Imperialists marched into a country, defeated the military, killed off the rulers, and put a European governor or viceroy as resident Head of State, and with the European Imperialist Head of State as the ultimate Head of State. They also put in a government with all the top officials Europeans.

The US gave money and weapons to a small group so they could overthrow the European Imperialists and make one of themselves the Head of State, with members of the group holding all the senior government positions, and the country was, officially, a free, independent nation. But, if the government did not do everything the US wanted, that government would be overthrown and replaced with a government of Citizens of the country who would do what the US wanted. Meaning (mostly) the US got all the bananas for the cost of good pay for the group forming the government and not much for anyone else, so the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the country were very poor, but the small, select group the US put in to run the country,  all Citizens of the country they were running, got paid fairly well. This is neo-colonialism. No American was in the government, no American was named governor or viceroy or got a senior position in the government, the American agent just told them what they had to do if they wanted to remain as rulers of their own country and get paid very well, i.e., whatever the US told them to do.

The US raged against colonialism for 75 years, but then in 1898, someone told the US President McKinley that every Great Country must have colonies, so the US declared War on Spain and took all the Spanish Colonies and made them US Colonies. They killed off all the colonials who resisted colonialism, and killed, by mistake, people who were not even resisting, but at least no one could say the US was still a minor power because they had no colonies.

The US rapidly decided that it really didn't like Imperialism, and 'freed' the Philippines and Cuba, going back to having them as US neo-colonies, with the governments all native citizens of the Philippines and Cuba (for as long as those governments did whatever the US told them to do).

But then Castro took over Cuba, and got enough support from the USSR that the US did not overthrow the Cuban government, they just embargoed Cuban products. Cuba's economy was mostly selling sugar and cigars, and, since the US was closest, it was easiest to sell just about all the Cuban sugar and cigars to the US. With the US market cut off by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, Cuba had a hard time for a few months, but then the world discovered a cheap source of good sugar and great cigars, and started buying from Cuba until the US put up a blockade (many years later) and pretty much killed the Cuban economy.

(Plus the US uses a US military base in Cuba to imprison all the terror suspects that can't be legally tried in a US mainland court.)

For some reason, the US still has a few colonies, but the grimy details of exactly why they still have colonies when they say they don't want them isn't clear.

In any case, the fierce US antipathy toward Colonialism meant almost all of it ended after WWII, with only a few places still colonies (but lots of places are now neo-colonies, mostly US neo-colonies). 

Finishing off Russia, and then…

The US/UK/EU leadership all know that Russia is not much of a threat. All of the US/UK/EU news media reliably report that the illegal and unprovoked Russian invasion force that attacked the Ukraine has been almost completely destroyed, while (according to the always completely reliable Ukrainian media), only about 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded.

Russian propaganda has AI photos of the Russian returning thousands of Ukrainian dead while the Ukrainians have only returned a few hundred Russian dead, but just because the Ukraine do not bother preserving the bodies of the invaders doesn't mean they weren't killed and the bodies disposed of.

So the US figures that, with all the EU terrified of Russia, and for good reason if you read Mein Kampf about how terrible all the Slavs are, the US can provide the Europeans with the weapons they need to cleanse Europe of all the Slavs who once led the evil Soviet Dictatorship and were a menace to World Peace.

The good Ukrainian Aryans taking over the Ukrainian government and expelling all the Slavs from the government were doing the Right Thing to make the Ukraine a true Democracy, since no nation can be a true Democracy if even one Slav is allowed to be in the government.

After taking over the Ukrainian government (with a lot of help from the US, organised by Victoria Nuland) the Aryans knew they had to start the important project of ethnically cleansing the Ukraine of all Slavs, and, of course, they are very grateful to Presidents Obama and Biden for providing the help they needed to expel all Slavs from the government, and then provided the weapons, training, and intelligence they needed to complete the essential ethnic cleansing that will eventually leave absolutely no evil Slavs in the Ukraine, but only good Aryans and a few Jews. The Ukrainian Aryans can't possibly be considered Nazis, except in Russian propaganda, since they allow Jews, and the definition of a Nazi is someone who dislikes Jews and tried to kill all the Jews. Some people who fought with the Wehrmacht in WWII got standing ovations in Canada since they had killed lots of evil Slavs, but not a single Jew.

International Law say that only the ethnic cleansing of Jews is illegal. Also, the legal definition of genocide is killing all or part of a recognised religious-ethnic group, so killing even one Zionist Jew is genocide under International Law, while the Zionist Jews killing every Arab in West Asia is not genocide but just self-defence.

So the US/UK/EU are hoping that, with more shipments of better NATO weapons, the Ukrainians will easily prevail over the evil Russians, whose worst crime was not just invading the Ukraine, but stealing all the US oil in Russia. 

All that oil belongs to America, and Russia stealing it then selling it is one of the most heinous crimes ever committed. Saddam and Qaddafi were both executed for that exact same heinous crime, and the whole world is hoping Putin will be next, and very soon, and all that oil will be returned to the rightful owners, US oiligarchs.

And when that happens, the world will be very grateful to all those Ukrainian Aryans.

What to do now?????

The Russian military seem to have taken a small additional area of the Ukraine, and are claiming that they can easily take all of the Ukraine, but they are willing to stop with just 5 oblasts, none of which they completely control, all of which have most of their citizens desperate to be rid of the murderous Russian war criminals.

All the US/UK/EU media rely on the Ukraine to report what is really happening in the Ukraine, and they tell us that the Russians have lost millions of their soldiers, sent to die by Putin in his totally unprovoked invasion. The Ukraine tell us that they have only lost about 50,000 soldiers, but the Russians have killed millions of Ukrainians, almost all unarmed civilians the Russians found undefended in villages like Bucha.

The Western media all report that the massacre in Bucha has been irrefutably confirmed to be true, and anyone who says otherwise is just swallowing Russian propaganda: it is proven that Russia murdered all the villagers who were living in Bucha!

The Western media reiterate that Russia thought they could take all of the Ukraine in a few days, not knowing that NATO had supplied the Ukraine with the most advanced (non-nuclear) NATO weapons, while the Russians only had Soviet weapons from WWII and Czarist weapons from WWI that the Russians had patched with parts from washing machines, but those mostly home-appliance-parts weapons systems were no match for the ultra-advanced NATO weapons that had been supplied to the Ukraine and have completely destroyed almost the entire Russian invasion force, but only 'almost', so NATO need to give the Ukraine a lot more money and weapons or there is a chance that Russia could win the war, a chance NATO must not take, since that would be worse than Chamberlain at Munich.

It's a good story, with a happy ending, and it is constantly repeated in all the Western mainstream media, along with the warning that everything else is just Russian Propaganda.

Farming, then and now

In the US about 110 years ago, farmers used oxen and/or horses to pull the plow. They had some tools to help with planting, fertilising, and harvesting. Farms for crops couldn't be very large since there was only so much a farmer could do with a few oxen or horses. Of course, farms for cattle could be huge, since the cattle farmer could manage a lot of cattle and needed lots of grass for those cattle.

In China, only the richest farmers could afford an ox (they used both male and female oxen, used mainly for helping with the farming, pulling the plow or turning the pump that watered the crops). Most Chinese farmers had to do everything manually with primitive tools, so work was backbreaking and production was limited. Farms for livestock were few, most Chinese only got meat for Chinese New Year, if then.

In the US, about 50 years ago, most farmers had tractors to do the plowing and help with planting and fertilising. This meant farms for crops could be larger than with oxen or horses since a tractor could do much more than a team of oxen or horses. Farms for livestock got smaller, since the livestock were mostly fed packaged feed and kept from moving around much so they'd fatten up quicker than walking around looking for grass.

In China, not much had changed.

I saw a video about a modern American farmer, a rather elderly man, who took a book with him and got into his tractor, which had a compartment for a human driver that had A/C for hot weather and a heater for cold weather, and maybe space for a passenger/companion for the driver, but the driver wasn't really needed, the tractor could do everything all by itself, but, having had to drive a tractor for many years, sometimes the old farmer just liked to get in his modern, fully automatic tractor and ride as it did the plowing, planting, fertilising,  harvesting, and just about everything else that needed to be done to raise the crops for which it was designed.

And now the Chinese farmers have similar or even better tractors. The job of the modern farmer is to sit in the control room for the farm and push the appropriate buttons, turn the appropriate knobs, and type the appropriate commands into the computer that is running the farm, and this is true in the US and the PRC.

Both the PRC and India have packed about 1.4 billion people into a tiny area, both countries have only one time zone, so about a quarter the size of the CONUS (well, actually the PRC and Indian time zones are somewhat larger than a US time zone, but still, only one time zone in each country, while Russia have 11 time zones and the United States have a total of 6).

The PRC now have enough money to buy a lot of their food from countries that sell food cheaply, so that includes the US on and off, depending on what obstacles the US government put in that help or hurt the US farmers (who don't have all that many votes, so what they want isn't a top US government priority). The PRC is looking at Brazil, the Antipodes, Africa, just about anywhere they can buy food. Meat is everywhere. I saw a Chinese character that wasn't in my 1990 Oxford Chinese-English Dictionary, the character 串 (chuàn) which now, on a restaurant sign, means kebab, and there are a lot of kebab shops in China now, something that wasn't there in 1990. The character originally meant, 'string together' and someone decided that a kebab means that someone will string together some meat to make the kebab.

The Chinese oxen were tiny, bred to eat as little as possible, so the cows produce barely enough milk for the calves. So, fifty years ago, China had no dairy products. Now, there is milk in the PRC, not a lot of it since older Chinese never had it before, and figure it is mostly for children. Just 50 years ago, most PRC children had barely enough to eat and no dairy, so not much calcium or protein. So one thing I notice is how much taller the younger Chinese adults are than the older Chinese. 

Twenty years ago, pizza had just gotten to China. It was too expensive for most Chinese, but the upper class Chinese wanted to show me their pizza back then.

Now, ordinary Chinese can afford pizza, and like things like durian pizza, which is an acquired taste, and is preferably eaten when one has a bad cold, since durian can have a rather strong 'aroma' (to use the polite term).

Quite the change in farming over the last 50 years in the US and the PRC, but the change is much more noticeable in the PRC. In the US, farmers went from old tractors that the farmer had to drive to modern tractors that drive themselves, while Chinese farmers went from mostly manual farming to tractors as advanced, or even more advanced than those used by modern American farmers.

Is the PRC really the top economy????

If one accepts the PRC official size of the economy, in 元·and converts that to US$, the PRC economy is around $18 trillion, or a little more than about half the size of the US economy.

However, at PPP, the PRC economy is about 30% larger than the US economy.

How can that be when most of those in the PRC are farmers, farming a tiny plot with primitive implements?

Which was certainly true when Pearl Buck wrote The Good Earth in the 1920s. When the rains failed, many died of starvation.

In 2001, the PRC still had a lot of farmers. The Chinese governments had always designated most citizens as 'farmers' who were supposed to farm, since the Chinese governments were afraid of famines coming because the PRC didn't have enough farmers working to provide a margin of safety in case of droughts or floods that reduced crop output, but actually, most of the work was done by electric machines that greatly reduced the manpower requirement. I saw many farmers, forced to be farmers by government policies, sitting around playing cards while the machines did most of the work that had once meant all day, every day of backbreaking labour that, in bad years, produced less food than the calories required to produce it. Not any more! By 2001, 90% of farmers had electricity and electric machines to do a lot of the work (I was unable to make it up to places high in the remote mountains where the Chinese government was still unable to provide electricity.)

And those farmers, forced to sit on their farms with not much to do, managed to sneak off and work in towns, in factories and offices and universities. They had to pay a penalty for not being at their farm every day, and they resented that, but their jobs paid enough they could afford the penalty for not being on the farm.

That was 20 years ago. Now those farm have almost no farmers, machines do all the work.

The US regularly reports of the poor Uyghur slaves in Xinjiang who have to pick cotton, just like American slaves before 1865. And here's a photo of one of those poor slaves hard at work:

 

As anyone can see, those slaves have a very hard life picking cotton: "When dem cotton balls get rotten you can't pick very much cotton in dem old, cotton fields back in Xinjiang."

(Actually, the PRC does have some people who pick cotton by hand, it's a very expensive kind of cotton that is not suitable for machine harvesting, and it is not very easy to get one of the very high-paying jobs picking that expensive cotton; I understand that, 30 years ago, all those high-paying cotton-picking jobs went to Han Chinese, the once favoured majority ethnic group before equal rights suddenly made their way into the Chinese government leadership, so now most of those jobs go to the Uyghurs who are the majority of the population of Xinjiang.)

Some farms are full of greenhouses producing strawberries all winter long. Also automated.

And one can see the sad state of how the poor Chinese have to get around:

 

So life is very hard in the PRC, having to go out and look for rickshaws to get around, like the ones provided by that rickshaw outlet in the photo (I believe the owner of that rickshaw factory is German, as is the name, but the rickshaws are produced in the PRC with some of the parts formerly shipped to the PRC from Germany before Germany lost access to cheap energy and had to move most of the German production to other countries).