Pretty definite stance here from Pompeo. Gonna get wild soon if it's gonna get wild.
The imagery of having Mike "regime change" Pompeo say this is quite stark.
Idk if it's just what 4 years of every potential bourgeois opposition being utterly useless and incapable has done to my brain, but I always get the feeling Trump is gonna be able to pull something off when people laugh and say he couldn't possibly.
The weird snark he does at end of saying this is beyond textual representation. Could mean anything. Take your pick.
Does it matter if you announced the coup ”ironically”?
There's actually a second big thing he said:
"The world should have every confidence that the transition to make sure the State Department is functional today is successful today and is successful with the President who's in office on January 20th..."
One thing Trump could do and Pompeo would love is launch the war on Iran he's promised since 2018, which both the UAE arms deal Pompeo announced alongside the coup and today's affirmation from Iraq and Saudi Arabia that they 100% commit to OPEC and OPEC+ makes not too impossible.
IMAGINE how pissed Europe's imperialists would be.
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Biden's political project is to attempt to not resolve any contradiction in any direction for as long as he can. A hollowed out interregnum, with continuously escalating police, far-right and imperialist violence and no vision but the grey of quietly stated margins.
The violence of US imperialism - even its fascist "excesses" - will continue unabated. Its police departments will riot when they please. Fascist terrorism is already normalised to the point of being an electoral stance capable of winning around half the electorate.
What remains is a split bourgeoisie atop a decaying empire that has no route to stop its fall. Trump forced confrontations over these contradictions; Biden's entire job is to prevent "embarrasment" - that is to find what bourgeois unity can be built among the blood of decay.
Trump's lame duck Presidency (the bit after a new President is elected) kicks off with a purge of the Defence Secretary. Always a good sign that wannabe dictators totally don't do.
Replaced with the recently appointed and now former head of counterterrorism, Christopher Miller, a “yes man” in Esper’s words.
Look, I don’t think this is coup territory or anything yet, but man, that is a *posture*.
The highest turnout since 1900 to vote between overt fascism and a man who’s campaign was “I am not like him in a personal sense shhhh about policies”.
Bourgeois dictatorship gone terribly senile.
The real winner this election was the military industrial complex. Would you believe it, it won 100% of the vote.
In terms of where we're at: Trump's base suddenly seem a lot less violent prone. I think this probably the result of not having clear direction. They can't do a coup unless Trump manages to shift something dramatically in his "lame duck Presidency" (and HE WILL TRY).
That the coronavirus has reduced air pollution, water pollution and so on DOES NOT demonstrate that "wE'Re tHE ViRus", people are the problem or any other number of absurd eco-fascist conjecture.
Capitalism is shutting down. It demonstrates that capitalism is the problem.
If you accept these eco-fascist lines, you are paving the way for the largest programme of eugenics this planet has ever seen. It is already in motion ("only the vulnerable will die" = fascist apologia).
Not one death is acceptable.
Not one step forward for the reactionaries.
The idea that this is "just people's fault" is demonstrated as absurd when one examines the observation being used to support it here.
Coronavirus has not eliminated humanity in these places. It shut down capitalist production and consumption.
The US Navy has deployed a low yield nuclear warhead. This gives concrete form to the US' approach to the use of nuclear weapons, and marks a serious escalation in its global campaign to maintain dominance. #SocialismorExtinctionfas.org/blogs/security…
Firstly, we must ground this in contemporary US nuclear policy. As was revealed last year, the US now considers nuclear arms not only viable, but a potential at every stage of military planning. This gives a broad contexr.
The thinking behind this is derived from Herman Kahn. It is the idea that nuclear arms can be used in a limited way and that this need not escalate to all out nuclear confrontation. The US now even believes that a limited strike may "restore strategic stability".
The "hybrid" and "greyzone" US approach to Iran continues. This will continue to escalate, and the US will make more moves. #HandsOffIran
There were only three big moments in Trump's rambly nonsense:
(a) the *demand* that Britain, Germany, France, Russia and China *must* abandon the JCPOA (which is already dead) is a more aggressive iteration of what the US is trying here anyway. It may backfire spectacularly;
(b) the hypersonic missile mention was an attempt to show that the US can deter Russia - it can't because the US missiles aren't operational;
(c) "we do not need middle east oil" confirms US objectives in the region are about getting other exporters off the market now.