Running 'Cause I Can't Fly 2

Sunday, January 4, 2026

"This Is The Part Of The Story That Leads To War With Russia And China"

"This Is The Part Of The Story That

Leads To War With Russia And China"

by Michael Snyder

"The dramatic events that just occurred in Venezuela have shocked the entire world. But almost everyone is missing the bigger picture. A very tense geopolitical game of chess is playing out right in front of our eyes, and the stakes are incredibly high. The Trump administration would love to push the Chinese and the Russians out of the western hemisphere, and setting up a new western-friendly government in Venezuela would be a huge step in that direction. Most people do not realize this, but Venezuela actually has more proven oil reserves than anyone else on the entire planet, and that includes Saudi Arabia. President Trump and his team are gambling that the Chinese and the Russians will stand down and allow them to do whatever they want with Venezuela. But what if they don’t? The Chinese and the Russians have both spent decades developing very deep ties with Venezuela, and now they are both absolutely furious.

Over the past two decades, the Russians have sold the Venezuelans approximately 20 billion dollars worth of military equipment, and they just signed a major strategic partnership agreement on May 7th. The Chinese have lent the Venezuelans approximately 60 billion dollars over the last couple of decades, and China has been purchasing more oil from Venezuela than the rest of the world combined.

An emergency session of the UN Security Council has been called for Monday, and I am sure that the Russians and the Chinese are both going to have plenty to say…"The United Nations Security Council is due to meet on Monday after the US attacked Venezuela and deposed its long-serving autocratic President Nicolas Maduro, a move that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres views as setting “a dangerous precedent.” Colombia, backed by Russia and China, requested the meeting of the 15-member council, diplomats say. The UN Security Council has met twice - in October and December - over the escalating tensions between the United States and Venezuela."

Venezuela had essentially become a full-blown economic colony of China, and it took a great deal of time for the Chinese to accomplish that. So if you look at things from a Chinese point of view, it is easy to understand why they are so upset. A foreign ministry spokesperson has announced that China “strongly condemns” what the U.S. has just done…"China said it’s “deeply shocked” by the US’s military strikes on Venezuela and its capture of President Nicolas Maduro.

China “strongly condemns the US’s blatant use of force against a sovereign state and action against its president,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement late Saturday. “Such hegemonic acts of the US seriously violate international law and Venezuela’s sovereignty, and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region. China firmly opposes it.”

And the Chinese are also demanding that Nicolas Maduro and his wife be released immediately…"Beijing’s stinging rebuke expressed “serious concern over their transfer out of the country”. It claimed the military operation was “in clear violation of international law and the basic norms in international relations and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter”, adding: “China calls on the US to ensure the personal safety of President Maduro and his wife, release them at once, stop toppling the Government of Venezuela, and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.”

Of course that isn’t going to happen. Now that President Trump has Maduro, he is never going to let him go. What makes all of this even more embarrassing for China is that a Chinese delegation actually met with Maduro just hours before he was grabbed by U.S. forces Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro received a Chinese government representative at the presidential palace in Caracas on Friday, hours before US President Donald Trump claimed Maduro had been captured following American military strikes.

Maduro met Qiu Xiaoqi, special representative of the Chinese government on Latin American affairs, at the Miraflores Palace. “I had a pleasant meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi, Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping,” Maduro said on Telegram. “We reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas for building a multipolar world of development and peace.”

Can you imagine how we would feel if the roles were reversed? To the Chinese, Venezuela is not just another country. It was supposed to provide large amounts of oil for China’s growing economy for decades to come, and the Venezuelans currently owe the Chinese tens of billions of dollars…"Venezuelan oil takes an unconventional route to end-users in China. Transport typically takes more than two months and involves multiple ship-to-ship transfers to mask the origin of the cargo. Close to half of the tankers storing Merey are sitting in waters off China and Southeast Asia, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, public data supports estimates that Beijing lent upwards of $60 billion in oil-backed loans to Venezuela through state-run banks until 2015, reaching a level of diplomatic and financial investment unmatched elsewhere in Latin America and perhaps the world."

By making a move to take control of Venezuela, we have essentially punched the Chinese in the face. Our relationship with China will never be the same after this. For years, experts have been talking about a coming war with China, and the U.S. military is actually “working around the clock” to prepare for such a conflict…"Across sleepy and remote islands in the Pacific, U.S. military engineers are working around the clock to revive strategically important airstrips that American troops first built under fire over 70 years ago during World War II.

The reconstruction effort is being led by a designated office within the U.S. Air Force, whose Agile Combat Employment, or ACE, doctrine has identified dozens of airfields that will be used to house and launch fighter jets, aerial refuelling tankers and weapons during a war with China. A trilateral force of the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force is now converging with a single goal in mind: re-establish a presence on the airfields once used to deliver decisive combat power for the United States during the last great power war."

The Russians are also extremely upset about what has just transpired in Venezuela. In fact, Russia’s Foreign Ministry says that what we just witnessed “warrants condemnation”…"The US committed an act of armed aggression against Venezuela, which gives rise to deep concern & warrants condemnation. The pretexts used to justify these actions are untenable. Russia reaffirms its solidarity with the Venezuelan people."

And Russia’s Foreign Ministry is also calling for the immediate release of “the lawfully elected president of a sovereign country and his wife”…"Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday called for the release of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife from U.S. custody after President Donald Trump announced that they were captured during military strikes on the capital city of Caracas. “We firmly call on the U.S. leadership to reconsider this position and release the lawfully elected president of a sovereign country and his wife,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, stressing the need to resolve the dramatic confrontation through diplomacy." In a separate message, the ministry said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone to Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez Gomez, during which he expressed his “solidarity with the Venezuelan people in the face of armed aggression.”

After what we just witnessed, how are the Russians supposed to trust any promises that we are making about Ukraine? I just don’t see any possible way that there is going to be lasting peace with Russia now. I think that the “peace plan” that the Ukrainians and the Europeans have been working on will eventually be presented to the Russians, and the Russians will immediately reject it because it is filled with provisions that the Russians could never possibly accept. Once the Russians have rejected the “peace plan”, we will be told that there is no choice but to escalate the conflict in Ukraine. Needless to say, that will put us in very dangerous territory.

As for Venezuela, there is a possibility that the U.S. Senate could step in next week and prevent President Trump and his team from taking any further military action…"The Senate will vote next week on a bipartisan war powers resolution to block President Trump from continuing military action against Venezuela - a vote that takes on heightened importance after U.S. forces attacked the South American nation and arrested President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday.

The resolution to block the administration from engaging in further hostilities against Venezuela is privileged, which means Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) cannot stop it from coming to the floor. The measure is sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

It will be very interesting to see how that vote goes. Several Republicans will need to back that resolution in order for it to pass. Of course President Trump will be extremely displeased with any Republicans that choose to do so. But even if this resolution passes, the U.S. has still crossed a line that will never be able to be uncrossed. We have reached the part of the story that will eventually lead to war with both Russia and China, and that should deeply alarm all of us.

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

"The Hollow Men"

(read by Tom O'Bedlam)

by Craig Boehman

"I’ve been experimenting with several of the AI platforms, attempting to learn all that I can about how the systems work and how to produce the best images from the prompts that I provide. My favorite platform is Midjourney, which is what I used to create the images for this poem. It’s a relatively straight-forward process over all, but there is a bit of learning when it comes to some of the finer aspects of telling AI exactly what it is that you want. Whether then AI can actually provide you with your desired results is another issue altogether, as I’ve discovered first-hand over the past week.

Which brings me to "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, my favorite poem. I thought what better way to put Midjourney’s AI to the test? Surely, not even artificial intelligence can handle all of Eliot’s lines in a cohesive manner. I found this to be true. But in some cases, the visuals came pretty close to matching a visual interpretation of the lines. I’ll let you be the judge though.

For each of the images below, the corresponding lines from the poem were fed into the bot as prompts, exactly as written, no other commands given except to make the images all in a 3:2 ratio. Other than that, you’re seeing only the results from Eliot’s own words."

- https://craigboehman.com/blog/

"The Hollow Men"

We are the hollow men,

We are the stuffed men,

Leaning together,

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless,

As wind in dry grass,

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without color.

Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom,

Remember us - if at all - not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men.

The stuffed men.

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death’s dream kingdom,

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging,

And voices are

In the wind’s singing,

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer

In death’s dream kingdom.

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field,

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer -

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom.

III

This is the dead land,

This is cactus land.

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man’s hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this

In death’s other kingdom,

Waking alone,

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness,

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

The eyes are not here,

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars,

In this hollow valley,

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech,

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual starm

Multifoliate rose

Of death’s twilight kingdom,

The hope only

Of empty men.

Here we go round the prickly pear,

Prickly pear prickly pear,

Here we go round the prickly pear,

At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea

And the reality,

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow.

For Thine is the Kingdom.

Between the conception

And the creation,

Between the emotion

And the response,

Falls the Shadow

Life is very long.

Between the desire

And the spasm,

Between the potency

And the existence,

Between the essence

And the descent,

Falls the Shadow.

For Thine is the Kingdom.

For Thine is,

Life is

For Thine is the...

This is the way the world ends,

Not with a bang but a whimper."

- T. S. Eliot

"Mundus Vult Decipi, Ergo Decipiatur"

"Mundus Vult Decipi, Ergo Decipiatur"

"Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur," a Latin phrase, means "The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived." The saying is ascribed to Petronius, a Roman satirist from the first century, CE. "The pontifex maximus Scævola thought it expedient that the people should be deceived in religion; and the learned Varro said plainly, that "There are many truths, which it is useless for the vulgar to know; and many falsities which it is fit the people should not suppose are falsities." Hence comes the adage "Mundus vult decipi, decipiatur ergo."

"The Trick..."

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable,

or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

- Carlos Castaneda

"Venezuela Attack Just Killed International Law Forever"

Intel Watch, 1/4/26

"Venezuela Attack Just Killed International Law Forever"

"Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who watched the international order emerge from WWII ashes during his 27-year career, reveals how the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuela's president represents the public execution of international law and the birth of a lawless world where might makes right. He exposes how this operation eliminates sovereignty protection for any government, forcing every nation to choose between submission to American hegemony or alliance with alternative power blocs capable of collective defense. McGovern warns that the Venezuelan precedent accelerates global polarization as China, Russia, and even traditional U.S. allies recognize they need protection from American military intervention that can now occur without legal constraints. This isn't just regime change - it's the transformation of international relations from law-based diplomacy to pure military competition where nuclear weapons become the only guarantee of sovereignty. Learn why someone who helped maintain global stability during the Cold War believes we've crossed the point of no return toward international anarchy and potential nuclear confrontation."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com

Global Lens, 1/4/26

"Yanis Varoufakis: The World Just Turned on America -

Trump's Venezuela Disaster"

"Trump's dawn attack on Venezuela triggered unprecedented global condemnation: Russia calls it "armed aggression," China "deeply shocked," Brazil crossed "unacceptable line," Mexico violates "international law." Maduro kidnapped, Congress bypassed, constitutional crisis erupts as Democratic lawmakers denounce "rogue state actions" while Trump announces US will "run Venezuela" indefinitely. Universal international opposition reveals America's dangerous isolation under authoritarian military adventurism that threatens post-WWII order and accelerates multipolar transition away from US hegemony toward alternative power structures designed to constrain American lawlessness."

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