The era of international gangsterism has arrived
The American-led international system that emerged from the Second World War, prevailed in the US Cold War, and led the world forward into an epoch of unrivaled human progress ended in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with an immoral surrender and dishonorable handshake on February 18, 2025.
The era that just ended was forged in sacrifice and American death. These words by General George C. Marshall expressed a sentiment that became the North Star of American policy.
They were imperfectly heeded by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden. Some tremendous miscalculations were made along the way, but the fundamental spirit of Franklin Roosevelt’s titanic vision for world peace was preserved.
We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.
Then it was lit on fire by Donald Trump, and Americans will rue the day.
Now there is only power, detached from American values, and stripped of connection to freedom.
A new era has begun. It will bring shame and dishonor to the United States because it will unleash repression, hopelessness and fear all around the world.
The era of international gangsterism has arrived, and Donald Trump has announced himself as the “Boss.”
He has discarded America’s allies and security partners with a stab in the back. He is just getting started.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk don’t aim to take over the world by jackboot, but rather keystroke.
They are gangsters in league with fellow gangsters who see the world as theirs. Below them are serfs who exist at the edges of empires, and the fever dreams of their leaders, whose lies have strangled a great truth, which was spoken in Berlin by the 35th president of the United States on June 26, 1963:
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner."
It is the people of Ukraine who have stood on the front lines of freedom for the last three years.
They have paid the price.
Over the weekend, President Zelensky told NBC that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and some 380,000 wounded. More than 12,500 civilians have been killed, and some 28,400 others have been wounded.
More than 20,000 children have been stolen and taken to Russia.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, 262 men, 104 women, as well as 12 children have been raped by Vladimir Putin’s criminal army.
The United States has spent more than $175 billion to preserve Ukraine’s freedom, and preserve it they have done.
Ukraine remains free, vibrant and alive.
Let us dispense with the lie that Ukraine has lost the war. Nonsense.
The Ukrainians have imposed a tremendous cost on Russia, which includes casualties of more than 850,000 troops. This has crippled Russia’s armed forces, while sanctions have isolated Putin’s oligarchs and wrecked the Russian economy.
Now, without a single concession being made by Vladimir Putin, the United States has let him off the hook.
The sanctions will be gone, diplomatic relations fully restored, and soon, no doubt, Donald Trump, an American fascist, will be standing next to Vladimir Putin, a Russian fascist, who will be standing next to Chinese president-for-life Xi Jinping at the May 9 victory parade in Moscow, to mark 80 years since European fascism was crushed and the Cold War began.
Poof! Just like that, America stands as a great empire, made great by the man saved by God to usher in America’s golden era.
We are strong again.
My friends, this is a lie, and Donald Trump is a cancer.
Yet, everywhere there is silence and acceptance.
The Democratic Party is lost and pathetic.
They have settled into a form of appeasement that calls for their colleagues to take a slow and tepid approach to Donald Trump — to pick their shots, and avoid using maximum leverage, to avoid what exactly no one is quite sure, but that is the strategy. It combines all of the best qualities of doing almost nothing at all, while maintaining the fiction of doing barely something in the name of winning a majority to stop Trump from doing what he is doing now — two years from now.
Trump has been president for 30 days.
He has gutted enforcement of the nation’s ethics laws.
He has allowed the richest man in the world, a defense contractor, to access the most sensitive private information of every American citizen.
He has demolished the independence of the Department of Justice. The assault is ongoing.
He has released 1,500 January 6th criminals from prison, which will form the foundation of his street thugs and gangs. They will be used to intimidate and threaten opposition.
He has appointed — and the fallen US Senate has confirmed — the most comically and cosmically inept, incompetent, extreme and dangerous cabinet in American history.
He has threatened to annex Greenland, Canada, and Panama, while threatening military strikes on Mexico.
He has authorized the opening of a concentration camp for upwards of 30,000 immigrants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He has broken the Atlantic Alliance, stabbed Ukraine in the back, and gifted a victory to Vladimir Putin that will be paid for in American blood in an unnecessary war that will be Trump’s legacy.
The American people, fed up by politics and politicians, chose to break completely what needed to be reformed, not smashed.
It is too late now.
The moment was not met.
The catastrophe was not averted. Instead it has arrived, and soon it will be felt. The snake is coiling around us all, and soon he will squeeze.
The resistance to this moment will require direct action by the American people.
It will require Americans in greater and greater numbers to arrive in their nation’s Capitol, and stay there.
It will require Americans to shut down the madness by shutting down the country.
The stakes will increase as the temperature increases. Donald Trump is destabilizing the economy, and as he does, he will seek more political control in the name of dealing with the emergency of fixing the economy, border or whatever.
Trump and his allies substantially — but not completely — control the flow of information to the American people. They hold an overwhelming advantage in this area. Yet, they cannot hide the price of eggs, or the chaos and disorder.
They can’t hide the threats either. They are everywhere.
There is a Trump administration official on every corner it seems, screaming about something they are going to do to some American citizen somewhere. Tom Homan, the lowbrow mumbler, is a pristine example. Each appearance brings a new threat against someone who has dared speak out.
All in a month.
I wonder what America and the world will look like in another.
Little Marco knows he has been compromised and will be known to history in the same way as Neville Chamberlain. You can see it on his face. He's scared and he's in over his head with these thugs. But American voters asked for this, all because of the price of eggs. It's our turn on the wheel of history. It will be bloody and painful for the world, and especially for the working class in the US who will lose their social security benefits, their Medicaid and whatever shred of respect they thought they had. Trump and his criminal cabal of investors and loyalists will lose in the end, as will Christian Nationalism in the US, but it will be a fight. A long fight.
When you have 77 million Americans who voted in favor of cruelty, what we are seeing is no surprise.