The Axiom of “Our Western Capitalist Empire of Evil” : Why Most People Get It Wrong and Why those Believing in “America First”; and “Fortress America” are Naive

 

This is my second post in a really long time. I know this is a geopolitical forum, whereas my recent post was more about how to think. So, in this post, I will touch more on geopolitics.

 

The Axiom of “Our Western Capitalist Empire of Evil”

I have linked alongside this post a great podcast featuring Doomberg and Simon Dixon. Simon provided very interesting monologues that basically explain my axiom of “our Western capitalist Empire of Evil.” While, as always, I don’t agree 100%, I mostly agree with what he said, so here it is:

 

28:40

We’re probably coming at it from a different perspective. I don’t believe a country like America is a sovereign country. So this kind of ties into where we probably get back to the Bitcoin story in terms of self-sovereignty and stuff like that. But you as an individual could be sovereign in a country that is captured.

And so that’s the case in the West. The entire West is captured by what I call this financial-industrial complex, which is that the banks create the currency. All of the companies are public companies. The largest shareholder in all of them is BlackRock. BlackRock is a public company. All of the securities are created with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. The government debt is issued. The bond market, the stock market, and the commodity markets structurally have more paper claims than physical assets. The currency is always a tool for reallocating capital in financial power or waging wars.

So you’ve got commodities that are derivatives, essentially. Now you’ve got currencies that are really managed via a network of central banks—the members of the Bank for International Settlements. You have a stock market whose job is to take the value of the national debt and pump it into stocks. The bond market is simply: how long can you facilitate this debt? And obviously, in the unique case of the US, how long the banks are willing to use Treasuries as collateral. And it’s all managed by asset managers.

So when somebody says ‘the US,’ I ask: what do you mean by ‘the US’? The US is a corporate-captured government whose job is to take on national debt and pump it into the stock market. Every politician is effectively sponsored by a lobby. And that lobby is either, at its extreme, a blackmail network or just the funding mechanism for determining whether you can execute their policy. A politician’s value is how many people they can get to believe that what they’re doing is for them while servicing their lobby.

Trump’s a classic example. Look down the line: first, look at his financial interests. He’s deeply financialized into Middle Eastern, Saudi Arabian interests — you know, like Affinity Partners, his fund with $2 billion from Saudi Arabia. Then you look at his actual lobby financing at the top. It was Elon Musk — an important note, a private technical interest that relies upon China. Then you had the Mellon family, the second-largest funder — a previous banking dynasty. And the third was Miriam Adelson, which represents Israel, a node of military power. So he’s funded by Middle Eastern interests, technical interests, financial interests, and military interests. That’s the hierarchy.

So when I look at what Trump’s going to do: first, he needs to use his military to serve Saudi interests — that’s what he’s being paid to do. At the same time, the third funder is Israel. So Israel is what it looks like… Israel rules the world? Israel is simply a front for plausible deniability for military companies. So you’ve got him servicing that need for military companies in the two-front war unwinding of the forever war, and escalating European revenue, which then leads to him being pushed into a regional power.

But what happens with the rest? Well, China is the one that’s facilitating all of the sovereign wealth firms by purchasing this energy and having the world’s largest manufacturing base. So the UAE is dependent upon China, Saudi Arabia is dependent upon China, Qatar is dependent upon China — across the whole region, everyone is dependent on China. Now, look at the tech companies: as Elon says, you need batteries; you need the whole ecosystem. America can’t produce a weapon without China.

So can we stop pretending that there’s even a war between China and America? What there is, is a negotiation, just as there is right now. China is negotiating with the private power that controls America and controls the West. You might as well sit down with SpaceX and Larry Fink.

In fact, they did. When we were talking before about the meeting in Beijing, that was just Trump with his pool of real executives who represent the shareholders controlling the bond market and the stock market negotiating with Xi Jinping. Tim Cook is saying, ‘Please allow me to continue my factories. I need Huawei to copy off… while Huawei can copy it, we’ll keep our factories there, I need cheap labor.’ Elon is saying, ‘Please make sure the rare earths continue… we need to continue receiving those rare earths.’ The financial institutions are saying, ‘Look, we know we can’t penetrate your financial system, but maybe we could set up a multipolar world and have a financial center in Dubai and Riyadh. We can integrate those intercepts, and maybe we just create an alternative system altogether.’ This is circumvented with a network of central bank digital currencies via mBridge.

These are the real powers. There is no such thing as the United States of America as a nation-state. The military is simply an off-ramp militia for power. It is fully financialized and securitized. Now BlackRock wants to tokenize the whole country — every security, every share, every market, every currency. It will be a programmable stable coin. That is what America is: a control grid. Technical and military power are controlled by financial power, and that financial power is global in nature.

They can’t penetrate China, so they have to negotiate with China, because China’s military, financial, and technical power actually sits under the government. The U.S. government sits underneath financial, military, and technical power. So you’ve got the Chinese government negotiating with military, financial, and technical power, and they all know that there’s no such thing as World War III.

How do we change the order? You engage in negotiations that look like wars

Right now, the Iran war is about: how do we negotiate the fact that Iran (and probably a syndicate of interests within the region) is going to control the Strait of Hormuz? How do we get rid of the US bases with Iran? You blow them all up. Then Saudi Arabia and Yemen will resolve — you stop funding the militias, and we’ll enter into a political process and negotiation. We’ll do that across Lebanon, we’ll do that across Yemen, and eventually, Iran, you’re going to have to accept $300 billion of capital and you’ll get sanctions relief. We’ve got to determine how you’re going to price your oil — is it going to be in yuan? What happens with OPEC?

To me, this is military escalation in bounded negotiations to determine what the world order looks like at the end of this. Whatever happens in the Strait of Hormuz, however that is constructed — whether it’s a service fee or a toll — remember the deal that they signed for the memorandum of understanding (the 60 days where they were in charge)? That’s over on August 17th. So you get bounded escalation up to August 17th, a blowout of the bond market leading into that, and you get these trade setups. But oil and gold are telling us we’re not in World War III.

The markets are telling us, but we’re getting this stress in the bond markets. August 17th is when Iran said, ‘We’re going to be charging a fee.’ So now financial power, military power, and technical power are trying to get as much as they can, using Trump and the American military to put together a facade that looks like something else is happening here.

What do you need? A narrative. Weapons of mass destruction. ‘We care about women’s rights in Iran.’ But what we’re seeing right now is the pretense of the American empire wanting to do good being exposed. Really, it was just a captured state, run by the same Dutch Empire, British Empire, Federal Reserve financial power. It’s been a 400- to 500-year empire that’s coming to an end, and it will be regionally controlled now.

That involves Russia saying, ‘What’s the settlement with Ukraine?’ China saying, ‘What do we do with Taiwan?’ And Europe being completely destroyed so that it can be sucked up into privatization programs, where they can print a bunch of money and prop up the stock market.

That’s kind of the game as I see it right now. There is no such thing as the UK, there’s no such thing as the US, there’s no such thing as Germany. It’s just regime changes sponsored by different lobby powers. Every time you get a regime change, you get a new narrative for why they’re propping up the stock market and destroying the economy.

This monologue, in my opinion, is great, and I strongly agree with it. Now let’s look at my axiom of “our Western capitalist Empire of Evil “— sometimes I also write “our Western capitalist Empire of Evil led by America.” Why didn’t I write “American Empire”? Because, as the Simon says:

There is no such thing as the United States of America as a nation-state.

I agree with that, and that’s why in my axiom I use “the West” instead of “the US.” I was also criticized for stripping sovereignty and autonomy from so-called American allies, whom I call “American vassals.” Now Simon agrees with me, as he said:

There is no such thing as the UK, there’s no such thing as the US, there’s no such thing as Germany. It’s just regime changes that are sponsored by different lobby powers.

You could argue that I used the wrong word and should have written that American allies are not really American vassals, but vassals of international capital, of which America is the capital. Doomberg also said something similar in this video:

This is literally just a battle to relitigate the partitioning of global power and wealth in the post-World War II era. It’s no surprise that Europe is the big loser in all of this, because Europe was the most destroyed, most weakened former colonial set of powers in the aftermath of World War II.

When you see a fight to the death or a fight to reorganize — a scramble to reset the way the chairs are situated around the global table — the US is discarding Europe, vassalizing it in a way that I think is shocking to many European intellectuals and elites. But that’s what’s going to happen to Europe. When you have Kallas as your premier diplomat, you should expect to lose a few bouts with the Chinese and the Russians, that’s for sure.

Since I am more interested in geopolitics than Doomberg (who specializes in the economy and especially the energy market), and thanks to the fact that I started this experiment of listening to alternative sources in 2006 — whereas Doomberg only started during the war in Ukraine — I believe I am better informed regarding geopolitics. Now, Doomberg said something very important, something I wrote a whole post about, which is this:

46:27

But also, one has to be careful that any sort of modifiable statements of fact might be used to dismiss the entirety of the thinking, which is something we guard against. Like, ‘Oh, well, this person…’

I’ll give you a classic example—and I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I think it’s an interesting one. When I hear somebody that I otherwise respect on a podcast (and I probably consume about six hours a day of podcasts, just because we’re in the business, I need inbound information, I need to write articles, and it makes for great time-killing during walks) and they’re making good points, I find them to be interesting and I think, ‘Okay, great. For now, let’s put this person in this category.’

And then they talk about energy, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ Like, they just have no idea what they’re talking about. When I hear people talk about the U.S. running out of oil, I just want to scream into my AirPods. You know, like, you have no freaking idea what you’re talking about!

And it can be disqualifying. But it’s really important, I think, if you want to be a sovereign person capable of thinking for oneself, that you’re able to absorb the concept even if there’s a striking piece of information in the communication of that concept that you think is provably wrong.

While I highly respect Doomberg, sometimes when I hear him talk about geopolitics, it makes me want to scream into my headset. For example, he didn’t understand that what is happening now in Europe was engineered by American/international capital. I

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson confirms some of the things I’ve written, but he is still too naive. Another person who subscribes to the ‘Division of Labor’ theory is Paul Craig Roberts.

In this post, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson admitted America created ISIS, but he also admitted how they engineered today's situation in Europe:

We knew that, and we started major efforts. They're still ongoing in countries like... When did it start, and how was this done, these efforts? It started in 2002. It started in my administration, and it started with a vengeance with Jens Stoltenberg. We wanted Jens Stoltenberg to be the new Secretary-General of NATO, and we were absolutely committed to that. Why? Because we knew he was our man. We knew he was going to do what we wanted him to do. We knew he was in line with us about NATO expansion. We're talking about eventually, probably every country that we would say is geographically in Europe—no matter how small, no matter how criminal, no matter how undemocratic—every single country in Europe was going to be a member of NATO.

And we needed a whole new game with regard to those who were holdouts, either for neutrality or simply because they didn't have a population that wanted to be a member of NATO. So we started doing what we do in what we call color revolutions. They were orchestrated within the countries. Each country had its package, and that package consisted of everything from non-governmental organizations to QUANGOs (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations) to government organizations and political visits from senators and representatives—that was a big part of the campaign. And they focused all of these things clandestinely and openly—like the visits by Senate and House delegations—on those people within the country who wanted to comply with our wishes, who wanted their country to be a member of NATO no matter how long they'd been neutral (like in the case of some of the Scandinavians), and who wanted their country to be a vassal of the United States in order to get stars on their shoulders, tanks, F-35s, and all the other stuff. And it was very successful.

This is an example of what, in my opinion, Doomberg doesn't understand; he thinks Europe simply went crazy on its own because he doesn't fully grasp the axiom of "our Western capitalist Empire of Evil." He simply applied Hanlon's Razor, thinking that what was happening in Europe was not malice, but stupidity — whereas I write that we should look at the world through reverse Hanlon's Razor, even though I was criticized for saying so.

Now Doomberg, because of Hanlon's Razor, thinks what happened with leadership in Europe was bad luck, a mistake, and that Europeans simply picked bad people. However, when applying reverse Hanlon's Razor, I know it was not a mistake or stupidity, but malice. If it’s not stupidity or a mistake, but malice, then questions arise — specifically the question Michael Parenti always asked: Cui bono ("Who benefits?"). The answer is simply that America benefits, so America is probably responsible. I was convinced of this, but I had no proof until this confession by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson confirmed the conclusion I reached based on my mental model and reverse Hanlon's Razor.

Also, I used videos featuring Patrik Baab in my post, where he says:

Debate: Joel Rosenberg, a so-called intellectual living in a world of the naive, versus Glenn Diesen, who lives in the real world

I want to go back again to the year 2003, when Germany, the Russian Federation, and France refused to join the illegal attack against Iraq. This was a warning sign for Washington, and since that time, they have tried to enforce their control over European elites. You can do that through grants, invitations, study opportunities, PhD funding, involvement in transatlantic organizations, and so on. Washington hijacked many representatives of European elites through these transatlantic organizations.

In the year 2022, a secret paper from the RAND Corporation was leaked — a paper intended for the CIA and the White House. Written there is that the United States wanted to use the Green Party as a transmission belt for reinforcing the interests of the hegemon in Europe, especially in Germany, and to lead Germany into a conflict over Ukraine to create a reason for cutting the energy partnership with Russia. This was supported by many members of the German political elite.

Keep in mind that Chancellor Merz is a member of an organization called Atlantik-Brücke, and Finance Minister Lindner is also a member of Atlantik-Brücke. They made their careers with the support of American companies and transatlantic organizations. This has led to a situation of political self-enslavement under the interests of the hegemon.

Basically, both Patrik Baab and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson talk about the same thing. While Col. Lawrence Wilkerson tells us how it looked from inside America, Patrik Baab talks about it from outside America and what it feels like to be subject to it. Ursula von der Liar (Ursula von der Leyen), Kaja Kallas, Jens Stoltenberg, Annalena Baerbock, and the rest of those politicians whom we hate and are ashamed of in Europe were all handpicked by Americans.

Now, people like Alex Krainer — who believe in this "City of London" nonsense and "evil Europe vs. wonderful America" — claimed absurdities like the second Iraq War being waged in the name of Europe. They hold this view because they don't understand the axiom of "our Western capitalist Empire of Evil." Thus, they ignore facts I mentioned in my posts, such as France and Germany opposing the war, and Iraq selling oil in euros, which benefited Europe at the expense of America. In reality, the second war in Iraq was purely an American war that went against Europe's interests. As both Patrik Baab and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson noted, 2003 and the war in Iraq was the moment when America decided Europe was becoming too independent and needed to be reined in.

All this brings us to an example from a video I used before, in which Stephen F. Cohen talked about how Merkel told Washington to stop treating Putin so badly. Because Merkel stood up to defend German interests, she ended up being spied on by the NSA. If America created an environment where defending European interests gets you spied on by the NSA, whereas selling out European interests to benefit America gets you promoted, then we shouldn't be surprised that such incompetent sellouts are ruling Europe.

What is happening in Europe now is not really Europe's or Europeans' fault. There were people who wanted what was best for Europe, but they were destroyed by Americans, while those who sold out Europe were promoted. I heard that the entire European Union was created by Americans with the goal of establishing a superstructure that would strip national sovereignty and make it easier for Americans to control Europe. Thanks to the European Union, Americans only need to bribe and corrupt a single centralized apparatus in Europe; without the European Union, America would have to bribe and corrupt every national parliament individually. That’s why it makes me laugh when people talk about a "wonderful, good America" versus a "bad, evil Europe" — because that "bad, evil Europe" was created by Americans in the first place.

People Believing in "America First" and "Fortress America" Are Naive

This is something that really irritates me. The naive belief in "Fortress America" and "America First" is infuriating. I remember when Alexander was constantly expressing this view — and not just Alexander, but nearly 80% of the commentators I listen to spew this nonsense. It was a constant talking point, especially when Trump’s new National Security Strategy was released, and now so many people are talking about creating "Fortress America."

In contrast, Brian Berletic, John Helmer, and I were correct when we said "Fortress America" is total nonsense. We were right not because we are smarter than others, but because our mental model is grounded in the axiom of "our Western capitalist Empire of Evil." Understanding "our Western capitalist Empire of Evil" — and recognizing that it acts as one giant leech on the world — makes you realize that "Fortress America" cannot exist. You are literally talking about a parasite/leech, yet claiming it will willingly abandon the host it leeches from. But let’s set aside the fact that the West leeches on the world and pretend for a moment that it is self-sufficient and doesn't need a host.

Even assuming America were self-sufficient and not leeching off the whole world — which is untrue, but let’s assume it for the sake of argument — "Fortress America" is still impossible. To understand why, we need to talk about Halford Mackinder, whom I have been writing about (and I'm glad Glenn Diesen also frequently discusses).

 

Mackinder defined Afro-Eurasia as the "World-Island." Now, let’s look at the map:

Blue represents "Fortress America" (and we even included Australia for them), while yellow represents Mackinder’s "World-Island" (Afro-Eurasia). Do you see the flaw in "Fortress America"? Even if America retreats to the Americas and retains control of Australia, it remains smaller and weaker than the "World-Island." The same dynamic historically existed between Britain and continental Europe.

The British Isles were smaller than the rest of Europe, just as the American continent/islands are smaller than the World-Island. The greatest fear of the British was a unified Europe that could defeat and dominate Britain. If a small island nation like Britain wanted to dominate Europe, it had to ensure Europe would never unite. If Britain kept Europe divided — say, in half — whichever side Britain supported would win. Thus, the strategy was "divide and conquer."

Now Americans find themselves in the exact same position: because their American "island" is smaller than the World-Island, just as Britain needed to divide Europe to control it, America needs to divide the World-Island to control it. Apologies for my crude drawings, but I have used them before to visualize this:

RED line (No. 1): The new Intermarium separating Europe from the rest of Asia.

PURPLE line (No. 2): What is happening in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey.

BLACK line (No. 3): What is happening in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, as well as the war in Iran.

 

There are also lines running through Asia where they are trying to carve out regions, though I don’t know as much about those. Brian Berletic lives in Vietnam, if I remember correctly, so he knows far more about Asia than I do. As a European living in Europe, I am more focused on Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.

Regardless, "Fortress America" is impossible — even setting aside the financial system and the fact that America leeches off the world. Even if they were not leeching off the rest of the globe, they would still need to keep the World-Island divided to maintain dominance. Just as Britain could not simply ignore continental Europe and focus solely on the British Isles (because a unified Europe could defeat and dominate Britain), America is in the same position: it must divide the World-Island, or else the World-Island could unite and dominate America.

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

— Thucydides

Even if America asserted control over both South and North America and retained control over Australia, if the World-Island (Europe, Asia, and Africa) were to unite, America would be the weaker power and would be forced to "suffer what it must". Therefore, America cannot simply retreat into the American continent and stop meddling in global affairs. If it stopped meddling and creating divisions, the World-Island could unite, leaving America weaker by comparison.

If you understand that America acts as a leech on the global economy, you understand why it cannot stop meddling in world affairs: it must project power to continue leeching off the globe. But even if we ignore the economic reality of parasitism, America still cannot stop meddling because it cannot allow the World-Island to unite, which would lead to American subordination.

So all those people who believe America can simply retreat to the American continent, leave the rest of the world alone, and build a "Fortress America" are completely naive.

I will end this post with an ominous AI chat bot hallucination:

Just like in the quote from 1984:

"The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous. The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous. The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous. The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous. The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous. The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous."

Please, if I ask you all one thing, never forget that the war is not meant to be won. The whole world is one theater.

 

I will end it here. Thanks to everyone who stuck with me until the end. And, as always…

“Knowledge will make you be free.”

― Socrates

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“Knowledge isn’t free. You have to pay attention.”

― Richard P. Feynman

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“Freedom is not free; you need to pay attention.”

― Grzegorz Ochman

 

” . . .propaganda . . .eliminates anxiety stemming from irrational and disproportionate fears, for it gives man assurances equivalent to those formerly given him by religion. It offers him a simple and clear explanation of the world in which he lives – to be sure, a false explanation far removed from reality, but one that is obvious and satisfying. It hands him a key with which he can open all doors; there is no more mystery; everything can be explained, thanks to propaganda. It gives some special glasses through which he can look at present-day history and clearly understand what it means. It hands him a guideline with which he can recover the general line running through all incoherent events. Now the world ceases to be hostile and menacing.” 

― Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes

 

“For conditions even remotely comparable to those now prevailing we must return to imperial Rome, where the populace was kept in good humor by frequent, gratuitous doses of many kinds of entertainment — from poetical dramas to gladiatorial fights, from recitations of Virgil to all-out boxing, from concerts to military reviews and public executions. But even in Rome there was nothing like the non-stop distraction now provided by newspapers and magazines, by radio, television and the cinema. In Brave New World non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature (the feelies, orgy-porgy, centrifugal bumblepuppy) are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation…A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it.”

― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

 

“How numerous are the crowds that have heroically faced death for beliefs, ideas, and phrases that they scarcely understood!”

― The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind – Gustave Le Bon