“US presidents rarely look to make waves with speeches to the annual United Nations General Assembly, but President Joe Biden’s nearly 40-minute talk Tuesday actually challenged global leaders … to stay awake.
The world, Biden lectured, needs to “act together.” This is a “decisive decade.” We must work to prevent pandemics and fight climate change. “We stand at an inflection point in history,” have a “shared future” and can only meet “the challenges” we face by … “looking to the future.”
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Biden also worked in his domestic slogans — his “Build Back Better” theme made a prominent appearance. But mostly it was empty claims like: We’re “rebuilding alliances,” he insisted, even as allies across the world are furious at being shut out of the planning that produced his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. And after France just withdrew its US ambassador in protest after Biden announced a security deal with Australia that sank a $66 billion plan for the French to sell Canberra 12 submarines.”
Comment: Yeah. It was awful. I watched for a while from a sense of obligation to the phalanx of turcopole pilgrims, but after a while it was just too much and I departed Bidenworld.
It was a mish-mash of the kind of slush that highschoolers or grad students say to each other when experimenting with the idea that a world socialist empire of goody goodies might be built. It was confirmation of the existence of a committee of silliness that “runs” Joe Biden.
What a dangerous time we live in. pl
https://nypost.com/2021/09/21/joe-bidens-vacuous-platitudes-at-un-wont-fix-his-global-image/
I think the only big takeaway from Joe’s speech was the repetitive and dull emphasis on protecting Democracy at home and abroad and that the ‘world’ is faced with the critical choice of either siding the the U.S.-led pro-Democracy camp or the repressive/undemocratic regimes, e.g. authoritarian China, Russia, etc…
In a sense it reminded me of Dubya’s “either you’re with us or with the terrorists!” ultimatum, but with no oomph. I found the speech somewhat pathetic and toothless, especially coming from an old corrupt senile man in Biden (btw, where was Dr. Jill at all this time?). I think in recent years, Trump’s “Rocket-Man” speech at 2017 UNGA still tops all of Obama’s and now Biden’s first. It was both amusing and somewhat robust. I still believe that 2017-Trump was the best Trump. It was different and that everyone listened to what the ‘Don’ from the Queens as an outsider had to say about the state of the world, etc…
It would have been exciting had Biden in fact proclaimed support for freedom, rather than democracy, called out China as Totalitarian rather than authoritarian and put the nonsense ‘democratization’ rhetoric crap in a tight lid as if it is just what everybody needs these days…:(
PJ
Call out China? You know he can’t do that. They might “drop a dime” on him.
Oh I’m convinced now colonel that them sleazy CCPs have Joe by you know where…
Left and right he’s doing crap that actually benefit both China and Russia.
* XL pipeline= Russia
* NordStream pipeline= Russia
* France’s humiliation+ weakening of NATO= Russia & China
* Pro Antifa/BLM/the Squad= Russia+ China
* Climate agenda= China
*Open borders= China+Russia
* Keeping sanctions on Iran= China
*Ambivalence on the Izzie’s Haifa Port deal= China
*Afghanistan pull-out & intentional and orchestrated humiliation of the military= China+Russia
*Bagram abandonment= China+ Turkey/Qatar (Mulsim B.)
*Giving zero ‘f’s to India and not upgrading U.S.-India ties in the “QUAD” format=China
*giving a pass to Pakis= China
…
The list goes on and on
PJ
The pro-democracy vs authoritarian dichotomy is become more irrelevant by the day. Many Western countries, while still technically democracies, are rushing headlong into repressive authoritarianism. The trend is particularly pronounced in the Anglosphere, the US included – although Australia is currently leading the way.
Another, more useful way to characterize the divide I think is the following: The coalition of neoliberal states where wokism has taken hold (“Globohomo” is an useful shorthand I’ve seen used for this) vs nationalist states intent on defending their culture. Russia and China are in the later category and though repressive, their leaderships are manifestly interested in defending their political & cultural sovereignty – against Globohomo. Other examples in the second category are Brazil and Hungary. Trump’s America was in this camp too. Biden’s regime on the other hand is actively destroying US sovereignty – viz. the southern border, and by promoting woke ideology it is starting to erase American history and the very culture itself. This administration is also in thrall to lunatics who want to collapse the Westphalian order altogether and bring about a World government.
This is the defining issue over which coming wars will be fought.
The Party of Davos already has control of all levers of power in western societies. Xi will be happy to “work” with them. In any case he’s bought most of them. Ray Dalio and Blackrock are suggesting western “capital” which is mostly credit, triple down on the CCP. Xi in his neo-Mao consolidation of power is moving away from their Golden Goose that Deng unleashed. Putin on the other hand stands on his own. He’s got the military deterrence and has used the sanctions well to re-shore.
A century from now historians, philosophers and scholars will ponder why the American people ceded their sovereignty and the key principle of their founding which is unique in world history voluntarily, with nothing to show for.
BP
I’ll be happy if a century from now we still have historians, philosophers and scholars. Orwell predicted they’d be gone by 1984 and even if we go by Huxley’s timescale in Brave New World we’ve only a few years left. The destruction of statues (predicted by Huxley) woke historical revisionism and censorship of dissident views are signs that the “campaign against the Past” [BNW] has already begun. We’re gonna need to fight to avoid Orwell’s prescient description of the end state; “an endless present in which the Party is always right”.
Barbara Ann,
I agree with your analysis and yes the Authoritarian vs. democratic framework might be obsolete for you and I, but not for the Borg, the “power elite”-to borrow from C. W. Mills’ namesake book- because there is no other ‘framework’ that they are comfortable enough to use to justify their top-down policies. There is a Marxist arc to the U.S. policies that always categorizes matters in authoritarian vs. democratic framework. If it’s a Dem-led administration it is a socialist agenda and everything that is attached to it, and if it’s a (modern) Republican administration only the methodologies would differ but the end result is the same.
I wouldn’t go too far to attach neoliberalism with the ‘globohomo’ agenda simply because of the history of this neo-classical economic school. This was simply a new macro economic tool that the ‘Chicago Boys’ i.e. Milton Friedman and the economists at the Chicago University developed in order to motivate economic growth, market-reform, and liberalization of state-owned assets of the formerly Communist third-world crap-holes who had undergone U.S.-led coups and were needed to get on the economic ‘re-vitalization- track to block the Soviet expansion during the Cold War. What John Rawls -the guy who made neoliberalism ‘uncool’- proposed was to use this simple tested & tried neoliberal reform tool used in pro-U.S. traditional authoritarian states in the 70s and 80s for ideological reasons. In other words, he ‘ideologized’ the tool and made it so that those nations who pursued it under U.S. ‘guidance’ would ultimately had to have a socialist government at the end when the reform is done. It was tweaked to do something akin to the “Great Society” programs. The Rawlsian neoliberal model argues that it was ‘unethical’ for the U.S. to topple Communist dictators and replace them with pro-U.S. abusive dictatorships and reward them with economic benefits just because they are anti-communist, thus they need to get something out of them in return in terms of human-rights, social welfare and justice in due time. In sum, even the idea of market reform became conditional to the U.S. ultimately at some point pushing the same governments (sanctions/pressure?!) for enforcement of wokism (e.g. in the 90s democratization agenda). Robert Kaplan, Larry Diamond, Ikenberry, Fukuyama are notable proponents of this crap and most beltway think tanks operate based on this foundation, albeit with different methodologies .
I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but Biden at the USGA repeatedly said that the U.S. is not seeking to stoke ‘Cold War’ against China. Well this was meaningful in the sense that Biden et.al do not view the world from the Cold War pov based on which China is totalitarian vs the U.S. as a liberal. Had Biden called out China as totalitarian, then it was gonna be forced to do what it did back during the Cold War and perhaps even emulating Reagan’s doctrine, e.g. using freedom fighter proxies, coups in key socialist battlegrounds, pushing for limitation of human-rights (in a progressive sense) trajectory among allies and partners, snubbing UN and its hapless organizations, skyrocketing GDP-to-military budget levels, more involvement in the ME for obvious reasons, etc… so since Biden neither seeks any of these, nor has the capacity, public support and rationale to start another Cold War, it caved and simply downgraded the Chinese threat to an authoritarian one that his admin wants to address using ‘democratization’ and elections yada yada. In all honesty, Biden even if it wanted to could not have waged a Cold War against China, because of the nature of today’s global commerce, supply-chain, and deep integration of every nation with China’s 1.2 billion population. Long story short, I think judging by Joe’s recent UNGA speech, authoritarian vs. democratic and totalitarian vs. liberal framework still exists inside the brains of the Borg and we just saw one notable example of it.
At one level they were vacuous platitudes, but at another the spectacle at the UN was extremely alarming. Joe is right about one thing; we do stand at an inflection point in history.
Of course “Build Back Better” is anything but a domestic slogan. It originated at the WEF and every Anglophone government on the planet has adopted it and the agenda behind it. That agenda is about bringing forth a world socialist empire run by selfless* technocrats. Highschool or grad student slush is certainly what it is. I suspect the many leftist naïfs who believe this nonsense are merely useful idiots under the influence of the ruthless global elite who hold the real power. Their conception for the revolution is more of a rotation. One which leaves them very much in power.
* Thank goodness such perfect human beings can be found (sarc)
Today Joe had his COVID-19 Virtual Summit. I managed to listen to his 12 minute intro which was mostly about Vaxxing the World and “get[ting] shots in arms”. The second of the summit’s 4 sessions was moderated by Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. Readers may be interested in Shah’s recently published COVID Charter. It is nothing short of a Utopian manifesto for a world “..free from fear and want”. Shah is probably one of the useful idiots. It is a long read but worth it IMO as it is about as closest thing I’ve yet seen to a road map for the Great Reset.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2021-08-24/covid-charter
Barbara Ann
I thought you were good enough at this to see that I am being ironic about Joe Joe. In addition to his dementia he is a mean son of a bitch.
He’s going to teach us all a lesson even if he has to destroy the Republic to do it.
Nonsense
Completely delusional
Dementia Joe’s handlers have no excuse for such drivel.
At least Biden has cognitive impairment to hide behind.
“What a dangerous time we live in.”
Indeed. And given how the comment train’s turn is developing perhaps, dropping this in here might be appropriate:
https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy-systemic-collapse-and-pandemic-simulation/