You Are Being Trolled

You Are Being Trolled

In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows
discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,
[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages
in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room,
or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers ...

By Dmitry Orlov
Information Clearing House
June 27, 2019

The world is on the brink of war, again. And again.

And, yes, yet again.

And then it’s not on the brink of war any more… but wait,
there’s more!

Of course there’s more, there always is.

US aircraft carrier battle groups are steaming toward North Korea…
or not.

They are steaming about aimlessly, nowhere near North Korea,
but in a very threatening manner.

Then Trump and Kim Jong Un meet, get on great, sign a piece
of paper that means nothing and part friends.

Now the aircraft carriers are steaming about far less menacingly.

Then Trump and Un meet again, to sign some other meaningless
piece of paper, but then John Bolton shoots his mouth off and
the deal is off.

But Trump and Un continue to exchange love letters,
so the bromance isn’t dead.

In any case, war between the US and North Korea is not just
unwinnable, but unthinkable.

South Korea’s capitol is within striking range of North Korean
artillery and all US military bases in the region are within
range of North Korean rockets.

War with North Korea is definitely off.

Executive summary: nothing happens.

So, what was that all about?

Now it’s about Venezuela.

Its democratically elected leader is declared to be a usurper and
a suitable replacement is found by the name of Random Guy-doh.

American vassal states around the world are bullied into granting
him diplomatic recognition as Venezuela’s president even though
he’s just a random guy in an apartment in Caracas.

Some trucks get torched on a bridge between Columbia
and Venezuela.

They were carrying humanitarian goods such as spools of wire.

There is talk of military intervention, but it’s just talk.

The Bank of England confiscates Venezuela’s gold, the US freezes
Venezuela’s oil company’s bank accounts in the US and hands them
off to a bunch of shady Venezuelans who steal it.

That part makes sense; the rest of it? Meh!

In any case, a US military incursion into Venezuela is not within
the realm of possibility.

Venezuela has Russian air defense systems which make it a no-fly
zone for the US air force; also, fighting guerrilla action in
Venezuelan selva is not something the US military is capable of.

Executive summary: nothing happens, again.

Now it’s about Iran.

Trump pulls out of the carefully negotiated international deal
with Iran and says he wants to negotiate another one.

If you notice, that’s a truly idiotic move, along the lines of,
“I am never paying you back, so lend me more money.”

If a country is not honoring the deals it has already signed,
why bother negotiate any more deals with it?

That’s a rhetorical question.

Iran announces that since the US isn’t honoring the deal,
Iran won’t either.

A bunch of oil tankers get damaged and the US tries to
blame Iran for it, but nobody believes the US.

And so a couple more oil tankers get damaged and the US tries
to blame Iran for it again, but nobody believes the US again.

And so the US flies a drone into Iranian airspace shadowed by a
reconnaissance plane with an international crew on board, hoping
that Iran makes a mistake and shoots down the reconnaissance
plane.

But Iran shoots down the drone and it falls in the shallows in Iran’s
territorial waters, rather than in international waters 100 feet
deep, which is what the US claims to have happened, but nobody
believes it.

Iran swiftly fishes out and proudly displays the wreckage
of the no longer top secret drone.

The Americans spin a tale about wanting to attack Iran
but calling the attack off at the last minute.

Oil prices go up a bit.

The US oil patch is producing flat out but hemorrhaging
red ink like crazy.

It needs higher oil prices in order to avoid a huge wave
of bankruptcies.

That part makes sense; the rest of it?

Meh again!

In any case, a military attack against Iran is unthinkable.

Iran has the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping,
cutting off a third of all of the world’s oil exports and blowing
up the global economy, US included.

Executive summary: nothing happens, yet again.

There are various other non-events in other parts of the world.

NATO ships steam about the Black and Baltic seas, where they are
pretty much sitting ducks in case hostilities with Russia turn kinetic.

So what that tells us is that hostilities will not turn kinetic because
those ships are expensive and there is no money to replace them.

There are also NATO exercises in the Baltics, which are right
on Russia’s border.

They practice invading and slaughtering civilians in quaint medieval
villages staffed with Russian-speaking extras pretending to be
peasants eager to surrender.

(Technically, that should be categorized as a fantasy game rather
than a training exercise.)

The Russians remain unimpressed.

They want nothing to do with the Baltics, which used to be transit
states for Russian exports but now they aren’t needed for anything
at all (except as a NATO stomping ground.

In any case, talking about waging war against Russia with a straight
face is something that only extremely stupid people are capable of
doing.

Executive summary: nothing happens.

Do you notice the refrain?

(I am sure you do.)

What’s going on is that a has-been country, which can’t stop
squandering what little resources it has left on a useless but
ridiculously bloated military-industrial complex, is trying to
generate activity in order to justify continued lavish defense
spending.

All sorts of experts and pundits play along, claiming that the threat
of this or that war is very real and that therefore we should all be
paying attention to what’s happening.

But what’s happening is that you are being trolled.

There being nothing better for it to do, the US is trying very hard
to troll the whole world, but more and more the world is either
refusing to be trolled or trolling the US right back.

• When the US threatens to cut off access to the US financial
system, the world works on circumventing it.

• When the US imposes tariffs and sanctions, the world responds
by reworking its trading relationships to exclude the US.

• When the US threatens countries with military intervention, the
world responds by constructing new alliances and making security
arrangements that isolate the US.

But most importantly, the world simply waits.

The US is now running a budget deficit that is over a trillion dollars
a year and taking on debt at about the same rate as it was during
the height of the previous financial collapse.

What do you think will happen when the next financial
collapse hits?

(According to a lot of authoritative voices, it should hit
either this year or the next.)

Meanwhile, I hope that you enjoy being trolled because I am sure
there will be more trolling from the US, just, you know, to keep
busy, I guess.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51829.htm