It is clear that negotiations between the United States, Israel, and Iran were not conducted in good faith.

Iran was attacked twice in less than a year while negotiations were underway. Third-party observers, along with the United States’ own intelligence assessments, indicated that Iran was prepared to negotiate seriously and make concessions that were already on the table.

Yet while the language of diplomacy was being spoken, the machinery of war was already in motion.

We can speculate about why the United States and Israel chose to attack, but speculation is less important than consequence. The consequences are already visible. The evidence suggests that this was a profoundly bad strategic decision, one whose repercussions will reshape the future of energy and shipping throughout West Asia.

Early in the conflict, U.S. radar systems and military installations in the region were struck and rendered unusable. For decades we were told that the American military presence across the Gulf Cooperation Council states was the guarantor of order and stability. That is the mythology of empire.

When those systems fail, the mythology cracks. What now appears is something different: a military network that is be more of a liability than an advantage. And so the balance of power shifts.

At the same time, reports that the United States has been redirecting military resources from other theaters into the Gulf raise serious questions for its allies elsewhere. Countries that rely on American security guarantees are watching closely. They see equipment moved, interceptors redirected, priorities reshuffled.

They see what every smaller nation eventually discovers: the American security umbrella is not a permanent shield. It appears and disappears according to Washington’s interests.

Combine that with the perception that Iran was attacked while negotiations were still underway, and the damage to American credibility becomes severe. Diplomacy requires a minimal level of trust, even among adversaries. If negotiations can be abandoned midstream while bombs are already being prepared, then why should any adversary trust the next round of promises?

That leads to the central question: how do you end hostilities with an opponent that you believe will not honor agreements?

From Iran’s perspective, the answer is simple. You do not rely on promises. You rely on leverage.

Geography provides one of the most powerful forms of leverage available. Iran sits astride the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most critical oil shipping routes in the world. A substantial portion of global energy flows through that narrow corridor. If Iran can influence access to that passage, it possesses a powerful instrument for shaping the behavior of other states.

Under that logic, oil shipments may continue to move while access is selectively influenced by political alignment. Countries perceived as opposing U.S. military expansion in the region might encounter fewer obstacles. Others may discover that the risks of passage have increased.

For the United States and Israel, the options for altering this dynamic are limited.

One option is escalation.

The other is narrative management.

And narrative management is already underway.

We see it in the headlines. Media coverage routinely frames Iranian actions as isolated aggression rather than part of a wider war involving multiple actors.

Consider a headline such as:

“Iran’s unrelenting attacks on Mideast shipping and energy infrastructure send oil prices up again.”

Now compare that with a more accurate description of events:

“War in the Gulf disrupts shipping and energy infrastructure, pushing oil prices higher.”

The difference is not merely stylistic. It is ideological. One assigns blame to a single actor. The other acknowledges that a broader conflict is shaping the global energy system.

This is how public perception is managed. You simplify the story, isolate the villain, erase the context, and repeat the narrative until it becomes common sense.

When fear-based narratives dominate the media environment, reality becomes distorted. And once reality is distorted, populations can be persuaded to consent to policies that they would otherwise reject.

We have seen this pattern repeatedly. Major U.S. military interventions have been justified in the language of humanitarian concern or regime change. Yet the historical record tells a very different story.

Libya remains fractured after the 2011 intervention. Iraq endured years of devastation following the invasion of 2003, and millions of civilians were killed. Somalia and Syria continue to struggle with the consequences of prolonged instability and foreign involvement.

You cannot invade, sanction, or embargo a country into a more fair and democratic government.

It's not rocket science.

But invading, sanctioning, or embargoing a country reinforces power and wealth. That's why it's done.

Power is adaptive. As people begin to recognize these patterns, those who hold political and economic power refine the techniques used to shape public opinion. The contradictions remain in plain sight but somehow, nothing changes.

Even when public support for war falls below twenty percent, military operations can still proceed if the institutional checks on power have been weakened enough. The rhetoric of democracy may remain, but the mechanisms that once constrained the exercise of power quietly erode.

And so these things continue to happen.

They happen because societies allow them to happen.

Recognizing propaganda is not radical. Questioning official narratives is not extreme. Thinking critically about war and the use of violence should be a normal expectation in a democratic society.

But when critics raise these questions, they are often dismissed as extreme or irresponsible. Opposing civilian deaths is labeled unrealistic. Questioning military escalation is called naive.

And that reaction reveals something important.

It reveals discomfort.

And sometimes discomfort is the first sign that the conversation is beginning to break through the boundaries that power prefers to keep firmly in place.

Power wants you to complain about Trump and hope for the best at the midterms. And do nothing else. Say nothing else. Pipe down. Don't wreck it for the democrats.

They are full of shit.

Pipe up. Use your brain. You are being sold a bunch of contradictions and the only thing that makes sense is that power is looking after itself. Nothing will change if you keep looking the other way.

"The U.S. public loves to imagine itself as one election away from redemption.

That fantasy is one of the empire’s most useful products.

It allows every crime to be reclassified as temporary deviation instead of structural expression.

Four years later the bombs continue, the sanctions continue, the vetoes continue, the bases remain, the myth survives, and the public gets to feel disappointed instead of implicated.

That cycle is not democratic self-correction.

It is imperial emotional management."

This is huge but is not really being covered in the news. Today:

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said neighbouring countries will no longer be targeted unless an attack originates from there, as the war launched by the United States and Israel, which triggered sustained retaliation from Tehran across the Gulf and beyond, enters its second week.

Pezeshkian said the Iranian interim leadership council approved the motion to stop attacks on neighbouring nations. In remarks carried by Iranian media, the president also apologised to neighbouring countries for the strikes that took place in recent days.

Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also weighed in.

“Following the statements of the president, the armed forces once again declare that they respect the interests and national sovereignty of neighbouring countries and, up to this point, have committed no aggression against them,” an IRGC statement carried by state media said.

“However, should the previous hostile actions continue, all military bases and interests of criminal America and the fake Zionist regime on land, at sea, and in the air across the region will be considered primary targets and will come under the powerful and crushing strikes of the mighty armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Pezeshkian later clarified on X that Iran hadn’t in fact attacked any of its neighbours but rather “targeted US military bases, facilities, and installations in the region”.

Tehran’s commitment to good relations with its neighbours, he said, “does not negate Iran’s inherent right to defend itself against military aggression by the United States and the Zionist regime”.

This is different than what is widely being reported. But it makes sense to me and this comes from trusted sources.

Iran is reported to have suffered over 787 killings while the numbers are much lower for US and Isreal allies.

That's because Iran is targeting and reaching military targets. The message is not that Iran is in conflict with neighboring nations, only that Iran will not tolerate cooperation with US military forces.

As a result of this war, I predict that at a minimum, the U.S. will be pulling out of the region almost completely.

This war was not only unjustified but a huge tactical mistake. Not only will it be very difficult to "win," but such a win would take years.

And twice in a row, the USA and Israel attacked Iran during negotiations, unprovoked.

There is news that the U.S. reached out to negotiate after the first day of the campaign and Iran refused. The U.S. has proven that they are untrustworthy, and this will not only impact its reputation in this scenario but in negotiations with Russia or any other conflict.

Therefore, this war will result in regime change in the U.S., but not in Iran.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor (retired)

"All of the ports that we habitually use to replenish our naval forces and to reload our naval forces with missiles and rockets and so forth, all of those have been destroyed. We’re forced to fall back all the way to India, which is quite a distance from the region. We can fall back to Italy at this point. I think Crete may be just out of reach. But the point is that everything that we were accustomed to doing now has to change.

War has become a much more arduous task for us. We can’t manufacture missiles at a sufficiently fast rate to keep up with their expenditure. And we have been supplying vast numbers of missiles to Ukraine. Now we’re beginning to feel the pain because so much of that is gone.

They’ve not only shut down the Strait of Hormuz, they’ve also shut down the Suez Canal for all intents and purposes because they’ve shut down the Red Sea. So the commercial picture is grim. The military picture is problematic.

It won’t be long, perhaps a few more days, before we begin to more economically expend our missiles. And that means that you can’t shoot down most of what’s being shot at you. You’re talking about shooting at least two or three missiles at every incoming missile. And we still can’t target successfully and knock down hypersonic missiles. A lot of these missiles are coming in at Mach 3, 4, 5, and 6. Those speeds are beyond our technological capability to defeat."

Iran has mostly used older missiles in this conflict, but has still been effective due to sheer volume, saturation tactics, and the vulnerabilities of U.S. missile defenses. Its hypersonic missiles are a newer, more advanced capability, but Iran is likely saving them for critical moments or targets.

Because Israel’s been saying, “We’ll do it ourselves if we have to.” And instead of saying, “Okay, let’s slow this down,” the U.S. goes, “Wait! Don’t start without us!”

That’s not grand strategy. It’s like you and your buddy are drunk and come up with a really bad idea. Fuck yeah! Dumb and Dumber.

-The Pentagon is openly admitting stockpile strain.

-Saudi Arabia says no airspace.

-Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain all say, “Go away.”

-Britain blocks access to RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia.

-Europe does the polite cough and looks at its shoes.

-The American public is sitting there at under 18 percent support going, “Can we afford eggs?”

-And US sailors are flushing rope and t-shirts down the toilet to disable their own boats.

And Israel is telling the US "Fuck Yeah!!!"

If you’re going to start something this big, you better be ready for what comes after. Because the first strike is the easy part. The bill, the blowback, the retaliation, the oil prices, the slow bleed, that’s the part nobody chants about on day one.

Iran is not a threat to you. This is not your war. But your taxes will be paying for it. Instead of healthcare.

Today’s headlines are full of talk about Cuba’s economic collapse, blackouts, food shortages, and protests.

But this crisis is made in Washington. The U.S. blockade, tightened to strangulation under Trump and maintained ever since, is the real cause of Cuba’s suffering.

Any news story that omits this isn’t just incomplete. It’s lying by omission.

Cuba isn’t failing. Cuba is being sabotaged.

The U.S. has spent over 60 years waging economic war on the island, not because Cuba is a threat, but because Cuba refused to be a U.S. colony.

The blockade isn’t just a policy, it’s a crime. It’s designed to starve the country into submission, to turn the lights off, to empty the pharmacies, to make life unbearable. And then, when the suffering becomes undeniable, the U.S. points to the chaos it created and says, “See? Socialism doesn’t work.”

The U.S. has openly admitted its goal: to “wreak havoc” on Cuba’s economy, to “deprive the regime of resources,” to make the people suffer until they overthrow their government.

They’ve seized oil shipments, blocked remittances, threatened any country that dares to trade with Cuba. They’ve turned scarcity into a weapon. And now, as Cubans face blackouts and empty shelves, the same people who imposed this siege are smirking and saying, “Maybe now they’ll learn their lesson.”

But the world knows the truth. Year after year, the United Nations votes overwhelmingly to condemn the blockade. 184 countries against it, with only the U.S. and Israel in favor. Human rights organizations, even mainstream ones, have called it what it is: collective punishment. A violation of international law.

A humanitarian catastrophe manufactured in Washington.

And yet, you’ll read article after article today about Cuba’s “failed economy” without a single mention of the blockade. They’ll talk about “mismanagement” or “corruption,” but they won’t tell you that Cuba was doing just fine before the U.S. declared war on it.

They won’t tell you that Cuba, despite the siege, still has one of the best healthcare systems in the region, still sends doctors around the world, still educates its people better than most of its neighbors.

They won’t tell you that the real failure isn’t socialism, it’s imperialism.

So when you see a headline about Cuba’s crisis, ask yourself: Who’s really to blame?

The U.S. doesn’t just want Cuba to fail, it needs Cuba to fail, to prove that resistance is futile. But Cuba offers the US the biggest "Fuck You!" - After 60 years of blockade, Cuba is still standing.

The question is, how much longer will the world let this cruelty go on?

The blockade is the story. Anything less is a lie.

The recent cartel spectacle in Mexico with burning trucks, masked gunmen, highways transformed into war zones, looked like the apocalypse. But it wasn’t. There were no mass civilian killings, no indiscriminate terror. Just targeted disruption, designed to shock but not destroy.

The cartels could have slaughtered thousands. Instead, they torched OXXO stores (symbols of corporate Mexico), blocked gas stations, and paralyzed roads, not to terrorize, but to demonstrate power.

To create a disturbance that big and to not lose control is not just luck. That doesn't just happen.

Less than five civilians died, mostly from accidents or smoke inhalation. Just enough to dominate headlines, not enough to provoke all-out war.

What we saw in Mexico was a calculated demonstration of power and not a random event.

It’s strategic. And like most other demonstrations of power, a few people die. For example: Economic sanctions (where people starve or are denied life-saving medicine), coups (where chaos and confusion cause people to shoot one another), or resource grabs (where resistance is crushed just enough to keep things moving) all follow the same logic.

Those in power don't care about killing a few people.  But extreme violence is a last resort. The goal isn’t annihilation, it’s control.

Now that we’ve established this is not random, questions follow: So why now? Why kill El Mencho, head of the Jalisco Cartel, when Mexico has known where he was for years?

I don’t know for sure. But fear is political currency. Every government needs a boogeyman, a terrifying enemy to justify crackdowns, distract from failures, and keep the U.S. at bay. The cartels need the boogeyman too to remind everyone who’s really in charge.

In the end, 
El Mencho will be replaced.
The government will declare victory.
The U.S. will keep demanding action.
And the cycle will repeat because real change would mean dismantling the system that keeps everyone in power. And no one wants that.

The show goes on. Violence isn’t the problem, violence is the point.

But now we see it.

When we recognize that cartel violence, or economic sanctions, or coups, or resource grabs, are all calculated demonstrations of power and not justice, not chaos, not revolution, we stop being controlled by fear.

The burning trucks in Mexico, the starving civilians under sanctions, the chaos after a coup, aren’t accidents. They’re tools of control, designed to force compliance, justify crackdowns, or distract from the real game.

The spell breaks.

We understand that fear is the currency, and confusion is the weapon. And once we do, we can resist the manipulation.

We can demand real solutions instead of performative crackdowns. We can call out the hypocrisy of sanctions that starve civilians while regimes stay in power.

We can reject the idea that violence is inevitable, or that some people’s suffering is just the cost of someone else’s control.

That’s how they make us believe dehumanization is natural.

The system depends on our fear. But we can connect the dots and take back that power.

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Plus also: If you look upon these types of headlines and worry about *tourism*, that's some colonialist bullshit right there. Maybe reflect on that a bit. There are actual people living there.

Things look terrifying in Mexico right now,burning trucks, masked gunmen, highways turned into war zones. 

But here’s the truth: civilians aren’t the target. Cartels aren’t stupid; they live in these communities. They’re not out to massacre locals, they’re pissing off the government, turning the country into a spectacle of defiance. 

Businesses? Fucked. Flights canceled, shops looted, roads blocked. Regular people? Mostly just inconvenienced, like when your Wi-Fi cuts out and you’re forced to remember your family exists. 

The real danger isn’t to you, it’s to the illusion of control.

Cartels don’t threaten people, they threaten power. And power is something only certain wealthy people (and maybe the government) are supposed to have.

Let’s talk about drugs and power. 

You’ve got two crises: one caused by pharma execs in suits, the other by cartels with guns. 

The pharma execs like the Sacklers killed half a million people with OxyContin, made billions, and got a slap on the wrist. No jail. No seized yachts. Just a fine, like a parking ticket for mass murder. 

Meanwhile, cartels get drones, raids, and extraditions for selling fentanyl. 

Why? 

Because pharma execs fund politicians, while cartels defy them.

The government doesn’t care about saving lives, it cares about controlling power. If it did, we’d see CEOs in jail, drugs legalized to cut cartels out of the equation, and addiction treated as healthcare. 

But that would mean challenging the system, and the system isn’t here to help you. It’s here to keep you scared, distracted, and compliant.
 

The fires in Mexico aren’t a warning. They’re a revelation. They show you exactly who the government is willing to fight and who it’s willing to let get away with murder. 

The cartels are a nuisance. The pharma execs are partners. 

And you? You’re just part of the scenery, something to be managed, not protected. 

So the next time you see a headline about ‘the war on drugs,’ remember: Wars have winners. 

This is just business as usual.

Hold Your Applause: Again!

Yesterday, I argued that the arrest of Prince Andrew is not a victory for justice, nor is it a meaningful challenge to the structures of power that oppress the many for the benefit of the few. It’s just another dispute among the ruling class, a squabble over who gets to plunder with impunity.

The real crimes: sexual assault, colonialism, the extraction of wealth, the imposition of austerity, the maintenance of neocolonial domination all remain untouched.

The monarchy, like all institutions of inherited privilege, persists not because of its moral legitimacy, but because it serves the interests of capital and the state.

He didn’t get arrested for enabling a predator or propping up empire.

He got popped because he fucked with someone else’s profit. He shared investment secrets. 

That’s the crime that matters to them.

And now we see the same shit with Trump.

His tariffs, which threatened the profits of the corporate elite, were finally struck down by the Supreme Court. But his wars? His sanctions? His brutal immigration policies? His environmental deregulation? All of which have caused immeasurable human suffering. Those face no meaningful consequences.

The system moves only when the interests of capital are at stake. 

When it comes to the lives of ordinary people, especially those in the Global South, there is only silence, complicity, and the cold calculus of imperialism.

Consider the global impact of Trump’s policies (these are the things we urgently need to stop):

Military Aggression and Destabilization:
Escalated tensions with Iran, supported coups and interventions in Latin America, and expanded drone warfare in Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan, each of these actions reinforcing U.S. hegemony while inflicting devastation on civilian populations.

Economic Warfare:
Imposed crippling sanctions on Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, not to hold regimes accountable, but to assert U.S. dominance and punish nations that resist the dictates of Wall Street and the IMF. The result? Starvation. Medical shortages. The immiseration of millions.

Immigration Terror:
Weaponized ICE to terrorize immigrant communities, separated families at the border, and slashed refugee admissions, policies designed to scapegoat the vulnerable while reinforcing the racial and economic hierarchies that underpin capitalist exploitation.

Climate Sabotage:
Withdrew from the Paris Agreement, gutted environmental regulations, and accelerated fossil fuel extraction, all in service of corporate fossil fuel profit, while condemning future generations to ecological collapse.

Global Health Neglect:
Undermined international cooperation during a pandemic, hoarded vaccines, and defunded global health initiatives, exposing the brutal reality that, under capitalism, human life is subordinate to the accumulation of wealth.

In both cases, Prince Andrew’s arrest and Trump’s impunity, we witness the same dynamic: a system that polices the crimes of the powerful only when those crimes threaten the stability of the ruling class itself. The rest of the world’s problems? Not bugs in the system. Its features.

So, hold your applause.

Sit the fuck down.

This is not justice. It is the illusion of justice, a spectacle designed to pacify the public while the machinery of empire and capital continues its relentless march. The real struggle isn’t for the punishment of individual elites, but for the dismantling of the systems that produce and protect them.

Until then, we’re just watching the powerful rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic while the rest of us drown.
 

The arrest of prince Andrew is not a moment to celebrate justice, accountability, or the end of the British Monarchy.

Not one bit.

This isn’t about sexual assault or systemic abuse, it’s about theft between the wealthy.

We ought to address the horrors of colonialism, the ongoing economic siege of formerly colonized nations, and the selective outrage that only surfaces when the powerful turn on each other.

If we’re serious about dismantling inherited privilege, let’s start with the damage still being done in the name of empire, not just the scandals that conveniently emerge when billionaires squabble among themselves.

Justice delayed for the sake of spectacle isn’t justice at all.