Pages

Thursday, January 22, 2026

22: Naidu

Courageous Carney vs. Demented Donald Canada’s leader is a sane adult. America’s leader isn’t. .............

Canada is filing for divorce from the Pax Americana

........... more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. ........... You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination. ............... he urged other nations ... the nations of Europe in particular — to join Canada in a new alliance of democracies no longer willing to take orders from an abusive hegemon .............. [T]he middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu. .............. Canada’s population lies almost entirely within a narrow band on top of the U.S. Back when I was writing a lot about economic geography, I used to joke that Canada was closer to the United States than it was to itself. ........... Canada is arguably more exposed to the consequences of Trumpian wrath than any other nation. .......... democracies can no longer maintain close ties with the U.S. The day after Carney spoke, Donald Trump showed why. ................ I listened to Trump’s Davos speech with fear: How much damage will this demented, vindictive individual do to America and the world? I also felt a deep sense of shame: What is wrong with my country, that we put someone like this in a position of unprecedented power? ............. As the whole world watched, the president of the United States (God help us) repeatedly referred to Greenland, which he is willing to blow up NATO to acquire, as Iceland. Don’t dismiss this as trivial: if any previous president had been that befuddled, the whole press corps would have been howling about senility and demanding that he step down. ............... In reality, China accounts for almost 40 percent of total world generation of electricity from wind power, substantially more than Europe. ........... The whole Trump team seems to have gone to Europe with no goal other than to belittle and insult their hosts. ........... On Tuesday evening Howard Lutnick, the Commerce secretary, spoke to a private dinner at Davos — at which he belittled European economies and their lack of competitiveness. He was reportedly booed, and Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, walked out. ................ Trump devoted much of his speech to portraying Europe as a hellhole, its economy destroyed by renewable energy and its society destroyed by immigration. .......... Official speeches aren’t supposed to be rants that provide red meat to your political base. They’re supposed to influence people who aren’t your supporters, in ways that serve the national interest. ......... Carney had a clear purpose: To rally other nations into solidarity against U.S. economic blackmail. .................. Trump, on the other hand, just wanted to swagger, whine, and mostly hear himself talk. And all he accomplished was to turn suspicions that he’s gone off the deep end into certainty. .............. There will be much more of this. American power and influence have always rested, much more than many people realize, on the perception of American trustworthiness. We didn’t always do the right thing, but we honored our agreements and were the least greedy imperial power in history. ......... That’s all over. At Davos, Mark Carney called for giving up hope that the Pax Americana can be restored, and Donald Trump proved him right.

Seriously, what can we do about the fascist now loose upon America? We’re in a far more dangerous and violent stage of Trump’s regime. What should we do to stop it? ............ ICE agents have kidnapped a 5-year-old child to use him as “bait” to arrest his parents. The child and his father are now in a detention center in Texas, although no one knows their exact whereabouts. They were in America legally. ............ All this is being done in our name — the United States of America — with our authority, our tax dollars, and, seemingly, our acquiescence. ............ 1. Target a few Republican senators and House members to switch parties and thereby give Democrats a congressional majority in at least one chamber. ............ Republican majorities are razor-thin in both chambers, but as long as they’re in the majority, it’s extremely difficult to stop Trump. Yet some Republicans represent purple districts and states and are struggling to keep their Republican supporters behind them. They’re also struggling with their own consciences in continuing to support Trump’s authoritarian fascism. They’re “gettable,” I’m told. ............. I recall in 2001 when Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords became an independent and caucused with the Democrats — thereby giving Democrats control of the Senate. Jeffords was a principled man who thought George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were destroying the GOP. Trump is far worse than Bush and Cheney. .......... 2. Undertake the largest demonstration against Trump in American history, aiming for at least 10 million marching in the streets, along with a national strike. ................. Some of the people I spoke with believe that the two No Kings demonstrations last year generated a powerful wave of solidarity and that a third, far larger, would shake the GOP and Trump to the core. They also cite research showing that when 3.5 percent of a population takes to the streets, even the most intransigent regimes begin to fold. ...................... They also recommend that such a demonstration be coupled with a general strike, lasting perhaps several days or a week, during which no one goes to work (if necessary, they call in sick) and no one purchases anything (stocking up in advance). .................. (Several people and groups in the resistance are aiming for May 1.) ................. 3. Let Trump overreach to the point where Americans are so disgusted they overwhelmingly repudiate him in the midterms — resulting in a Democratic takeover of both chambers of Congress by wide margins, which severely limits what he’s able to do after January 2027.

AI In Global Education
The Technologies Behind Agentic AI
Agentic AI: Set To Explode In 2026
The Convergence Age: Ten Forces Reshaping Humanity’s Future
Liquid Computing: The Future of Human-Tech Symbiosis
Velocity Money: Crypto, Karma, and the End of Traditional Economics
The Next Decade of Biotech: Convergence, Innovation, and Transformation
Beyond Motion: How Robots Will Redefine The Art Of Movement
ChatGPT For Business: A Workbook
Becoming an AI-First Organization
Quantum Computing: Applications And Implications
Challenges In AI Safety
AI-Era Social Network: Reimagined for Truth, Trust & Transformation AI And Robotics Break Capitalism
Musk’s Management
Corporate Culture/ Operating System: Greatness
CEO Functions

AI In Global Education
The Technologies Behind Agentic AI
Agentic AI: Set To Explode In 2026
The Convergence Age: Ten Forces Reshaping Humanity’s Future
Liquid Computing: The Future of Human-Tech Symbiosis
Velocity Money: Crypto, Karma, and the End of Traditional Economics
The Next Decade of Biotech: Convergence, Innovation, and Transformation
Beyond Motion: How Robots Will Redefine The Art Of Movement
ChatGPT For Business: A Workbook
Becoming an AI-First Organization
Quantum Computing: Applications And Implications
Challenges In AI Safety
AI-Era Social Network: Reimagined for Truth, Trust & Transformation AI And Robotics Break Capitalism
Musk’s Management
Corporate Culture/ Operating System: Greatness
CEO Functions

at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)