A rather large Chinese weather balloon drifted over the U.S. this past week. The Chinese really had no control over where it would go exactly. It could as easily flown over southern Canada and wound up over Nova Scotia. 

This drift is quite normal however novel the incident was because winds high aloft usually flow from west to east. Washington called the big white balloon a dastardly effort to spy on the U.S. by the Chinese. One might readily suppose it was spying on the weather over the U.S., hit in recent days by an Arctic mass of very cold air said to mimic the temperatures seen on the planet Mars, a planet by the way named after the “god” of war. But in any case, the U.S. government went into a panic as the balloon drifted south eastwards over my home state, North Carolina, and the military finally shot it down over the coastal Carolinas for Allah knows how much-wasted fiat dollars. If the U.S. had really thought the balloon was “spying” it would not have waited until it crossed over the entire U.S. before the U.S military destroyed it. The wait was an attempt to build a case against China and the result was actually damaging to the Biden Administration's reputation and credibility, presuming it had much of that left to expire.

One has to understand the U.S. is in very bad shape, like utterly paranoid, when a darn balloon creates panic and becomes a geopolitical incident seized upon by the government as a means to call the Chinese an evil (or whatever) threat to the U.S. It’s all quite risible, a sign of the times when the world suffers at the hands of the warmongers in Washington.

But in fact the U.S. is not doing well. It’s deluded “leaders” are acting like petulant, spoiled children not getting their way — which they have become so accustomed to for decades that it has created blindness.

The Russians, for one thing, are said by the best observers to be “winning” the proxy war in Ukraine. And if and when Russia launches any suspected big offensive against the Zelensky regime it may spell the end of the war. The important Rand “think tank" which the U.S. “deep state” relies on for support and direction like few others, and which initially pushed the proxy war strongly, issued a paper recently which essentially indicated that Russia was gaining control and that it was time for negotiations with the Putin government. This constitutes a 180 degree turn in orientation by the Rand “thinkers".

With very few clear minds running the U.S. and its war machine, there exists at the margin and even in the Pentagon a few relatively enlightened souls who see REALITY which the Neocons, long in control of U.S. foreign policies, abandoned for bloody fantasies of perennial world domination.  And as well, there is chatter that the Biden gangsters could be aiming to abandon Clown-in-Chief Vladimir Zelensky and giving the nod to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who’s been commander of Ukraine’s decimated military. Word is that Zaluzhnyi and Zalensky despise each other, each blaming the other for battlefield losses. This inward turning against itself and peers is quite common wherever and whenever a regime is losing its marbles…or a war it provoked. Zelensky has been called crazy or crazed by those who heard a recent speech he gave.

The Russians, in any event, are likely to laugh at any U.S. gestures towards formal fresh accords over Ukraine. Since when has the U.S. not torn up treaties and accords like the JCPOA? Most of the world no longer trusts the U.S. government.

But more importantly, there is evidence that some erstwhile vassals of the U.S. are losing the scales over their eyes and beginning to show some courage and say “NYET” to the bullying the U.S. has largely been about since the end of World War 2 but especially in this century. This is a drift, like that drifting Chinese “spy” balloon, that reminds of what the great novelist Ernest Hemingway wrote a hundred years ago about how any bankruptcy occurs: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

The sudden part of a U.S. bankruptcy of confidence among other countries may be about to occur. And it’s beginning to dawn on others, too. Confidence is most of everything and once it has been lost, it’s gone forever. Instilling confidence, even in micro situations like in rearing children, is the most important thing that can be done by parents to insure at least some success in life. Iranian government “confidence” may be evident of late given reports that on the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Republic’s victory, Ayatollah Khamenei allegedly approved mass amnesty and commutation of sentences for detainees in the riots initiated by the death of Masha Amini and subsequently provoked by the U.S. and the MEK and others. On this matter of loss of confidence between nations one can cite recent comments:

— The Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu recently told the U.S. “get your dirty hands off of Turkey!” Clearly, Turkey, a member of NATO, is losing confidence in the U.S. and its diktats. Turkey may well think the vague threat of a color revolution is imminent. With better relations with Russia, energy and food security for Turkey could outweigh whatever benefits may be provided by Turkey’s inclusion in NATO.

— The top Hungarian diplomat, Peter Szijjarto, recently asserted that U.S. hegemony over the world is dying: “That era is over. The U.S. ambassador’s views on Hungary are irrelevant. Hungary is a sovereign country.” He accused the U.S. of trying to interfere in Hungary’s internal affairs, because Hungary is not cheerleading the proxy war mounted by the U.S. in Ukraine against Russia.

This above is just an indication of what is beginning: a kind of revolution against further U.S. bullying wherever. Consider that China has not dropped a bomb on ANY other country since it had a brief war with Vietnam north of Hanoi some 40 years ago, and the Chinese economy is going to surpass the U.S. economy in a few years if it has not already. But the U.S. has pummeled numerous countries with a total estimate of some 500,000 bombs in the past 30 or so years and killed an estimated 25 million civilians. And finally, most of the globe is voicing what it could only feel and keep silent about until recently: objections to the so-called “rules-based world order” where, in fact, there are NO rules of any merit except “do as the U.S. demands” or else the U.S. tries to overthrow the objecting governments. It’s long been for the U.S.: "our way or the highway".  

And this is a tragedy for the U.S., and especially for the American people who have seen the U.S. spend its treasure towards virtual bankruptcy. For example, all the Russians and Chinese have to do is declare the trade currency they are attempting to create will be resourced backed, even by gold, and the dollar, the lynchpin of U.S. dominance for almost 80 years, becomes instant toast.