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A Tunnel in Time

Europe’s choice is to surrender or die.

By Rotislav Ishchenko at ukraine.ru.

(machine translation)

Alastair Crook, a retired British diplomat, has stated that the European Union is preparing a provocation on a scale comparable to Pearl Harbor, with the aim of drawing the United States into a war with Russia.

In principle, this is not news. We have been writing for two years that the British, realizing that Ukraine has failed and will be buried, have placed their bets on a pan-European war (under the auspices of the United States) against Russia. While Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was trying to figure out who he was and how he got here, the mechanism for expanding the war was clear: a provocation in the Baltic Sea (less likely in the Black Sea or on the Belarusian border), which would leave Russia with no chance of resolving the crisis without shooting, and an outcry about the “attack” to the country of the EU and NATO, a statement of military support (sending troops and equipment, but without a formal declaration of war against Russia) by the leaders of the EU. In the last act, the United States and Britain enter the scene, demanding that Russia cease fire and threatening to provide all possible support to their allies.

I would like to point out that the mechanism of provocation assumed that in all cases, Russia would initiate military action against a specific country. Moscow, on the other hand, was only faced with the choice of whether to attack the Baltic states, which had blocked Kaliningrad, or to hope for a miracle, sink the transports carrying French and German troops and equipment bound for the Baltic ports, or to express protests, attack the territories of the United States and the United Kingdom in response to their ultimatum, or to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations mediated by them. In the end, acquiescence inevitably led to capitulation (since as soon as one set of demands was met, the West would immediately set forth another), and escalation inevitably led to a global nuclear war.

It is no coincidence that Trump claimed that Biden was leading the country towards a nuclear armageddon. Whether Biden was aware of his actions or was being manipulated by his entourage, the decision-makers in the United States (as well as the majority of the British establishment and the European bureaucracy) believed that Russia would not engage in a nuclear conflict and would retreat. However, there were other politicians in the West who had no doubt that if Russia was pushed to the wall, nuclear mushrooms would grow all over the West – no one would leave without a share. These people came to power in the United States with Trump, and their supporters are gradually pushing back against the European left-liberal supporters of war.

As a result, the United States fell out of the scheme, and Trump openly stated that if Europe wanted to go to war with Russia, it could do so on its own, without the United States. It’s not that the Europeans were particularly eager to go to war, but rather that they couldn’t help but go to war with Russia, as acknowledging defeat in the Ukrainian crisis would completely undermine the left-liberal European elites. To understand why this is significant, it would have political, economic, and social implications on a scale similar to those that shook Russia after the October Revolution and before the outbreak of World War II. The Europe we know will disappear, and a new Europe will be born in agony, compared to which the 1990s in Russia were like a light rain during a summer picnic.

But the Europeans also can’t go to war with Russia. They don’t have the armies, the warehouses, or the ability to quickly deploy the necessary military production. Without the United States, the EU is a paper tiger. Although no, a paper tiger is scarier than the EU without the United States. This is why Alastair Crook emphasizes that the provocation must be so severe and widespread that neither Trump nor other American and European politicians who support de-escalation can avoid going to war with Russia.

By the way, as a loyal subject of His Majesty, Alastair Crook does not mention Britain’s leading role in developing this plan and preparing the provocation. The blame lies with the EU, which intends to drag the United States into a war with Russia, while the United Kingdom simply passed by.

It’s understandable. Most likely, the provocation is unavoidable. The British and the European bureaucracy can’t help but try to seize their last chance. I once wrote that nothing would stop them. They might even detonate a nuclear device in Kyiv to blame Russia. However, the Ukrainian government is not fully in control of the situation. The internal opposition to Zelensky, unable to oust him yet, is attempting to preserve at least some form of Ukraine by pushing Zelensky overboard.

In such a situation, the preparation of a large-scale nuclear provocation, which requires deep secrecy, is extremely difficult, as hundreds of people must be involved in its organization (transportation, storage of the relevant munition, its transfer across the border, security, and other activities cannot be carried out without the involvement of a large number of people). Even if you simply replace the customs officers and border guards at the border with trusted individuals, it will immediately become widely known that something large and secret is being transported.

However, recently, the Ukrainians and the British have started practicing a naval provocation, attacking tankers from any country carrying Russian oil. Russia has already begun responding to the Odessa port and the ships arriving there. In principle, the British Navy and its Ukrainian counterparts can organize a “Lusitania” (with influential Americans on board). However, it is more difficult to prove Russia’s “guilt.” As Poland’s experience shows, it is no longer enough to simply claim that Russia wanted to blow up railway tracks and cause a major disaster; convincing evidence is also required.

Actually, this is the catch: how to organize a provocation in such a way as to shake the imagination of “all people of good will”, and provide “convincing evidence” of Russian “guilt”, and not inherit anywhere, and leave the United States no choice? The task is difficult, but, as experience shows, it is solvable. If British diplomats (even retired ones) start issuing warnings and distancing themselves, it means that the preparations for some large-scale atrocity have entered the final stage or are basically complete, and the London warmongers only need to give the command to launch the operation.

In principle, the supporters of escalation don’t have much time. By March, even if the Armed Forces of Ukraine don’t completely disintegrate and Zelensky still controls some part of Ukrainian territory, Trump should withdraw the United States from the Ukrainian crisis and reorient towards the Indo-Pacific region and Latin America. Moreover, he has announced the beginning of a military operation against Maduro in Venezuela in the near future. If the British and European bureaucrats let the United States out of the Ukrainian crisis and allow it to get involved in others, it will be impossible to bring it back. Washington cannot afford to run around the world like a mad rabbit, and it cannot handle two or three major crises in different parts of the world, either organizationally, resource-wise, logistically, or financially.

In the West, they like to coincide political actions with traditional holiday dates. This way, they are better remembered and evoke more emotions. We are just entering a period of holidays: Catholic Christmas, New Year, Orthodox Christmas, and Epiphany. In general, from mid-December to the end of January, almost any day is suitable for the organizers of provocations. All they need to do is manage and dare.

After February, although the danger will not disappear (it will not disappear until a final global settlement is reached), it will significantly decrease, and the further into 2026, the lower it will be.

Michael Hudson: The Ceasefire Charade

With Nima:

This is a little older but given the charade that we are watching in terms of a Ukraine plan, it is a perfect day.  This is why Russia thanks the US because the US is part of the charade and Russia just does not have to do it.   Reminder, these negotiations are being done and advertised and leaders are making statements and flying to and fro while discussing this with a sham president that has no authority to even speak, let alone carry out anything.

NIMA ALKHORSHID: Hi, everybody. Today is Wednesday, November 26, 2025, and our dear friend, Michael Hudson, is here with us. Welcome back, Michael.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s good to be back.

⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: Please subscribe and hit the like button to help us reach more people. And you can see Michael Hudson’s website (below his name): michael-hudson.com. You can go there and follow Michael.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s michael, hyphen, hudson, dot, com (michael-hudson.com).

⁣⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, let me start with the [28]-point plan on the part of the United States. They have proposed [28 points]. It seems that they have reduced it, after the meeting [Marco] Rubio had in Geneva with Europeans and Ukrainians. They have reduced it, as Donald Trump mentioned. We thought that it would be 19 points, but Donald Trump today said that it’s going to be 22 points.

But after all, looking at the document, what is your take on what’s going on, with the document?

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: The important thing to realize is it’s not a peace proposal. It’s not a plan at all. It’s a bold attempt to shape the terms in which the public views the entire Ukrainian coup d’état at Maidan in February 2014, followed by the whole Ukrainian attack on the Russian-speaking population, and the last (almost three) years of war. It’s a fight to shape public opinion, and it’s (in that sense) a brilliant propaganda attack. President Putin and Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov have given speech after speech explaining the whole history, explaining how the Russians intend to end the war when they win and they create a new government — free of the Nazis, free of the Russia-haters — and disarm Ukraine, and prevent it from joining NATO.

What NATO and the Americans have done is, instead of just giving a different speech and saying, okay, here’s your narrative, here’s ours, they’ve encapsulated their answer, and their counter-argument, and their counter-narrative, in the form of a point by point, listing by listing — as if it’s a proposed articles of agreement [document]. And, of course, these articles will never be agreed upon. There’s no way in which either Russia or NATO (Europe, and the United States) — not to mention Zelensky’s government in Ukraine — can accept them.

So, the purpose is not to get any agreement at all. It’s to make people think in terms of: How do we view what’s happening? What’s the war all about? Who’s responsible for it? And these points have been crafted by propagandists, to sort of win the hearts and minds of the people, in support of the Maidan coup.

The aim has been sort of leaked to the press, going all the way back — to reverse the way of, how World War II ended. What Europe wants to do is say: We want to refight the end of World War II. And already in 1944, Churchill was saying: As soon as the war is over, let’s attack the Soviet Union. Europe said: Well, let’s go back to that point — 1944 — okay? That’s 80 years ago. Let’s see whether we can refight, at that point. Now we can attack Russia.

That’s really what it’s about, and it’s an outrageous trick. It’s been carefully thought out and propagandized. So the peace proposal is not intended to bring peace. It’s just a propaganda charade at pretending to negotiate peace. And it’s really a propaganda effort. In a word, the aim is to essentially obfuscate what is really happening.

By the way, Foreign Minister Lavrov said yesterday at a French news conference that Europe’s “elites opted for war and have staked their entire political careers on the slogan of inflicting what they call a strategic defeat on Russia.” [Dialogue F-R YouTube channel, Nov. 21, 2025]

Well, that has failed; so NATO realizes it’s lost the war. It doesn’t have the arms to fight. You’ve seen the Russian advance, accelerating day after day. So NATO says: Well, okay, we’ll lose the war. How do we win the peace? And that’s going to be: How is history (and current voters) going to look at what’s been happening? What is all of this about? And if you look at the U.S. press (the New York Times and the Washington Post) and the British press, it’s which side of the fight is analogous to the Nazis and [Adolf] Hitler? In the New York Times yesterday, you have [Thomas] Friedman talking about, well, how can Trump appease Hitler? Trump is “Putin’s puppet.”

These agreements are really Russia’s demands. (Well, of course, they’re not Russia’s demands before. You can read the Russian demand, and what Putin and Lavrov have said.) So, I think we can [discuss], if this were really an agreement to discuss: Where do we go from here, and how do we think about solving this fighting in Ukraine?

Article 1 should be: Were there any war crimes committed? That’s what it’s all about. And a basic issue is, well, if they were, by whom, and against whom? And who are the victims? And what were these crimes? Well, Russia has already announced that when it conquers Ukraine and installs a non-Nazi government, it’s going to hold a modern Nuremberg trial. It’s going to convict parties that have committed war crimes. That is what terrifies the NATO leaders, not to mention the kleptocrats in Zelensky’s regime that have enriched themselves and been embezzling the loans — from Europe, the United States, and, especially, the International Monetary Fund — to buy properties offshore, and Bitcoin, and the things that kleptocrats do to hide or conceal the money they’ve taken.

Well, for the Russians, it’s vitally important to establish the historical record, because that’s the key to what is going to be the body of international law following  on from all of this.

Again and again, President Putin and Lavrov have said: We thought that the Nuremberg trials had established the international law of war crimes. We’ve been attacked. Russia is not the attacker. The Maidan [the coupists] was the attacker. The Ukrainian attack on the Russian-speaking population — the civilian population — was a war crime, breaking the rules of war. We came in to protect the Russian speakers. The populations of Luhansk and Donetsk have voted to become part of Russia, which were, in practice, [Russian] all the time during the Soviet Union, when there wasn’t any real separate Ukrainian nation.

The Russians are basing their actions, and their intentions, on international law. To do this, they have to have a Nuremberg trial — a war-crime trial — to reiterate: What is the appropriate international law to deal with the situation, such as we’ve been fighting, for more than two years, in Ukraine? And the West says: Well, it was Russia that’s the attacker. Russia has committed the war crime. That’s the travesty of what’s happening.

But it’s the aim of the U.S. and NATO narrative to turn the war into a new Cold War propaganda weapon against Russia, aimed at turning the world against Russia and supporting Western Europe. So, in practical terms, it’s to protect the Ukrainians and neo-Nazis, and the European backers; to whitewash all the corruption that’s been occurring during this.

And a major aim of the Ukrainian Nazis has been to avoid punishment. They want to leave Ukraine with the money that they’ve embezzled, and stored away, and go to their British mansions and Mediterranean castles.

So, the U.S.-NATO proposal calls for blanket amnesty. And if there, indeed, were a war crime, then there shouldn’t be an amnesty for everyone. If a criminal breaks the law, then the criminal must be arrested, and put away, not merely to punish them for what they’ve done in the past, but to protect the present population from having them continue to commit crimes.

Well, that (committing crimes) is exactly what the NATO-West wants to do against Russia, against China, against Venezuela, against Iran, and against any country that is resisting the U.S.-dominated world order. So, all of this jockeying, for how do we determine the terms of peace? Is it all, we’re just going to forget everything? Are we going to blame Russia, or are we going to blame the United States and NATO? All of this is what’s at stake, in all of this.

I can elaborate. The original proposal called for Ukraine to investigate corruption. The Wall Street Journal, a few days ago, reported that the Ukrainians insisted on changing the language to say that all countries will receive “full amnesty for their actions during the war.” Well, the actions are not only the war crimes — staging false flags, like the Bucha staged [war crime] — but the crimes of embezzlement. The World Bank, the Europeans, all have agreed that NATO [Ukraine] is the most corrupt country in the Northern Hemisphere, and it has been ever since 1991 —

⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: You mean Ukraine is the most corrupt?

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Yes, what did I say?

⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: You said NATO.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: I’m sorry. Well, Ukraine is the most corrupt, although its corruption has been with the full participation and support of Europe. And I would imagine that any trial is going to involve the actions of [Emmanuel] Macron, and [Friedrich] Merz, and [Keir] Starmer (and the British — in breaking up the agreement that the Ukrainians and Russians had made to end the war all the way back in 2022 — the agreements that were all broken, and turned out to want a ceasefire just to rearm Ukraine with more NATO arms to go on fighting against Russia). That’s something that Russia is never going to fall for again.

So, the whole idea of a ceasefire, as if that’s what these proposals are about, there never was a possibility of that. And so, if that was never a realistic possibility, why are they doing it? It doesn’t have anything to do with creating an actual peace, as I said. It’s a way to shape the categories of how people think about this whole conflict between NATO and Russia, the whole expansion of NATO since the Americans had promised NATO would not expand, if Russia ended its military occupation of Central Europe and agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union. All of that has already happened, and I don’t think Russia has any intention of trying to trust the West again.

So, the reality is that any real peace agreement, logically, has to be created after the fighting stops — not before it stops — and especially not when one side is defeating the other overwhelmingly. Trying to freeze a conflict when Russia is overwhelmingly winning is trying to solve the Ukrainian problem by just making the loser set the terms of the peace.

NATO and the United States have lost the war that they started in Ukraine — hoping that the war would drain Russia’s economy; would create an economic crisis; would persuade Russian voters that we need a regime change, we’ve got to replace Putin for having started this war, and put in a new group. The idea of a “new” group is the same neoliberal kleptocrats that they put in in the 1990s — privatize Russia, ideally break it into parts (the whole strategy against Russia) — and that’s just a fantasy.

So, how can they, at least, try to convince the population that this fantasy is a realistic probability, and even a moral probability?

Their solution is to say (well, the big picture): Who are the counterparts to World War II’s Nazis in this? And we’re seeing a replay of the ending of World War II. And since Russia is organizing the peace, it’s in a position to hold these (what I call the new) Nuremberg trials.

And the NATO aim is to make people take seriously the idea that Putin is a modern Neville Chamberlain making peace with the Nazis — (I’m sorry, not Putin) to make Donald Trump look like a Neville Chamberlain — just surrendering to Russia. That’s what Friedman had written in the New York Times. It’s what the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and network television in the United States keep saying: We’re back in what started all of World War II, when Chamberlain did not protest against Russia’s moving into Czechoslovakia to defend the German population there.

Well, if trying to say that Trump is a Chamberlain means — you have the leaders of the Republicans in Congress, Mitch McConnell, especially, says there’s no way in which the U.S. Congress can possibly agree to even the proposal that Trump and his staff have put on the table. So Congress has already announced [that] any agreement is going to be a no-go. The Ukrainians have said: We absolutely will not cede any territory to Russia. Even though Russia has conquered it, even though we have no army to defend it, we’re not going to agree with that.

Well, the defeated party does not get the right to determine the terms of peace, and who won and who lost. That’s what war is about. As [Carl von] Clausewitz said, it’s a continuation of policy by other means — by military means. Russia has been obliged to use an enormous expenditure, and troops, to achieve this military policy of ending the NATO expansion towards trying to destroy the Russian economy, and hurt it in any way it can; especially by cutting off its trade with Europe in oil and gas, and other things; to seize Russia’s savings that it had kept in the West and [in] Euroclear (its foreign-exchange reserves that it was using).

That’s the first issue.

The second article up for discussion should not be put in terms of blaming one party or another. It should be: Who owes reparations to whom, and how are reparations going to be paid? Well, trying to frame the narrative, the current text says Russia owes reparations to Ukraine; but it’s Ukraine that should pay reparations; and Europe-NATO should pay reparations to Russia for initiating the war, for breaking the rules of war, for destroying enormous amounts of civilian property in the Russian-speaking portions of what was Ukraine.

And this is the cover story for the U.S. and Congress backing the NATO-Euroclear seizure of more than 200 billion euros (even more in dollars) of Russian assets. They say: Make these assets a loan to Ukraine. Well, Ukraine’s already broke. It’s unable to pay the IMF loans.

The IMF loans, in fact, were made — illegally — against the basic principles of the IMF, saying the International Monetary Fund will not make loans to a country at war, or to support a belligerent. The IMF said: This is not war. You know? This is … we’re defending ourselves. The war is … Russia, not Ukraine.

So the pretense that somehow [Russia] is liable? The hope [of the belligerents] is going to be that when Russia carves out its portions — of those Ukrainians that want to be part of Russia, and vote to become part of Russia — that the whole idea is to destabilize the next decade of legal argument, saying Russia owes money to the West. Well, if Russia would have thought of not giving speeches, but let us put a 28-point plan in, it would have said, how much does the West owe Russia? What’s going to be the cost?

There’s no question that Russia is going to spend more than 200 billion euros (and dollars), the equivalent in rebuilding all of the real estate that you’ve seen destroyed in the fighting that’s gone on so far — which is entirely on Russian-speaking land.

The way that the Trump administration shaped the agreement was: Well, alright, we’ll give 100 million of this (half of the money) to Donald Trump’s group, so American companies can come in, and they can rebuild Ukraine, and make enormous profits — Russia has no intention of letting American real-estate companies rip off profits, and emulate the Zelensky kleptocrats in just embezzling the money for themselves — and building the kind of shoddy building that Trump is known for, the shoddy Trump Tower, whose architects tell me he cut costs everywhere, and it’s just junk. The Russians build much stronger buildings, to last, and at less expense than Trump’s real-estate ripoffs that he made his career on building.

So, all of this, the phrasing of the peace agreement is designed to justify Trump’s, and the Americans’, and the Western Europeans’ attempt simply to grab what was Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves for themselves, and prevent Russia from having the resources to spend — the balance-of-payments drain — that it’s going to take to buy the raw materials, the equipment to rebuild the buildings with plumbing, all of the imported goods, the facilities that you need to make new apartment houses, houses — the vast amount of reconstruction that Russia is going to have to spend (and has promised to spend in Luhansk and Donetsk), and the other territories that it takes as it moves west, again, to those populations that want to remain part of Russia — leaving the Ukrainian West that does not want to be part of Russia isolated, demilitarized, denazified, and disarmed, not to ever again become a proxy battlefield for NATO, led by the United States and the neocons in their fight against Russia. It wants to prevent that permanently; not simply to have a short-term ripoff that is being proposed by the United States.

I’m amazed that the Russians have not been more vocal in calling a spade a spade in all of this.

You may have other points of the agreement that you’d want to bring up. And if you go over point by point, I’ll be glad to answer them.

But again, to me, the key is, Russia’s 200 billion in reserves is, the subject of this false narrative, of the premise: that Russia is the attacker — not NATO — and that Russia has attacked civilians — not Ukraine has attacked civilians.

Russia was very careful to focus on military targets, that extended to energy companies, to electrical systems. Russia had proposed a mutual agreement between it and NATO-Ukraine not to bomb each other’s energy; and President Trump said: No, no. We have to bomb Russia’s oil refineries because we want to block Russia’s ability to export oil. We want to create an oil crisis so that the United States can use oil as the key controller of American foreign policy. This is what you and I have discussed for the last few months on your show. So, of course, Trump said: No, no. Ukraine, don’t agree not to bomb energy systems.

So, Russia realizes that it’s energy that has been powering the NATO arms factories, that’s been powering the Ukrainian war machine, and that its basic military tactic is indeed to focus on destroying this military ability to fight; and energy is as much the key to military conquest as it is to Gross National Product. Energy is what makes the factories go; it’s what heats apartments; and it’s made life unlivable for much of Western Ukraine — and that was the choice of Trump’s foreign policy.

So, these are the two shaping narrative structures of the propaganda effort that’s been put in place. Do you have any questions you want to follow on to fill out this big picture?

⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, one of the crucial points in the [28] points is the size of the Ukrainian army, which was supposed to be (in the document) about 600,000. Then the Europeans changed it to 800,000. And right now, it seems that there is no limitation for that.

Who’s going to pay for this army? You know, it’s a huge army, if they go in that direction — because this army should be supported by someone, you know, other countries, Europeans, together with the United States — which literally means that NATO is going to arm this Ukrainian army, again and again, to fight Russians. The same attitude.

Do you think that Russia would accept that?

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: This is the opposite of demilitarizing the enemy.

Remember the end of World War II? The Morgenthau Plan in the United States was to say, make Germany never industrial again — make it an agricultural country, make it a theme park, but it won’t be an industrial country — so, that was [Henry] Morgenthau’s plan, and that was turned down by the United States. But the idea was for Germany, and also for Japan: Japan and Germany were to demilitarize and never be able to rearm, because they were incorrigible aggressors. And that is the principle (exactly the same principle) that Russia is trying to do [in Ukraine].

NATO says: We have to triple the size of what the Ukrainian army was when we began this war; and we have to leave the Nazis in control. There won’t be any war-crimes trial. We have to leave the Ukrainian government. It may not be [led by] Zelensky, it’ll be one of the [Stepan] Bandera followers. It will be the Nazi-led army so that, if we fail (so far), we can come again — and this time, we’re really going to hit you, with long-[range] missiles, and we’re still going to bring down the [Russian] government — until the Russian population says: It’s worth anything to surrender to the West and let them take over. We can’t fight anymore.

This is the evil fantasy that is being promoted.

Of course, Russia is going to say: We are the victors. We get to disarm the government. We get to put in place a post-war constitution of the restructured Ukraine (whatever is left of Ukraine), so that it will not have a standing army; it will not have Western weapons. And if the Western countries, if NATO or the United States provides weapons to [Ukraine], President Putin has already said: If a missile, or a weapon hurts the Russians, we will retaliate not simply against Ukraine; we’ll retaliate against the country that has supplied Ukraine with the weapons.

Well, Donald Trump has said, quite realistically: There’s no way Ukraine is going to win. It’s a black hole. We are not going to give weapons to Ukraine. It doesn’t pay —

We want to fight China. This is a race war. It’s the Anglo-Saxon West against the global majority; and China is the key, our long-term enemy. We want to do to China what we tried to do to Russia, and failed; so we’re not going to spend any money on arms on Russia, because we’ve depleted all of our arms, and NATO has depleted its arms. It doesn’t have any more —

We’ve got to prepare for the final conflict of civilization, the civilizational fight by the West, waged against the 85% global majority.

That’s Trump’s position; so Trump is not going to provide American arms to Ukraine. It’ll be the European countries. And it will be these countries, against which Russia will retaliate — and destroy not only their arms factories, but the political and military capitals, and ports, and power supply itself. The European NATO leaders, having agreed to fight to the last Ukrainian, are now saying: We’re going to fight to the last European, in an attempt to, somehow, hurt Russia, a little bit.

So, European history, essentially, is going to end, if this plan is put into operation — Russia has made that very clear. It says: There must be a better solution. Let’s just have nothing to do with Western Europe. Let it go its way. It can join the United States in some kind of political alliance — maybe France can become the 52nd state, Germany the 53rd state, you know, after Canada and Mexico. Right down the line. It doesn’t matter.

Russia wants to separate itself from the West and turn east. The West wants to move eastward, via Russia, towards its own fight against China. That is the long military dynamic — and it’s a crazy dynamic. It’s crazy because there’s no chance that the West has of winning. Its arms don’t work. The American ATACMS missiles that were just fired at Russia were all shot down by the Russian defenses. And then the Russians retaliated by a missile that killed the troops that were sending the missiles [their] way. I don’t know how you can get a clearer example of — this is a microcosm of what would happen if there are further NATO attempts to attack Russia.

But you can see that they don’t have the arms, they don’t have the money for the arms, and yet the  leaders — Macron, Starmer, Merz, the Dutch leaders — and the French general, last week, said France should be willing to sacrifice its youth of the future to fight Russia: We need an army to go into Ukraine towards Russia and invade it. Your children are going to die. It’s all worth it because we hate Russia, don’t you?

Well, how are they going to get the population, ever, to say: Okay, we’ll send our kids to war and they can fight to the last French infantryman, just like the Ukrainians are fighting to the last Ukrainian? Of course, we will agree that this is a moral fight against Russia?

I don’t see any way of convincing the French population of doing that. So far, you’ve had all of the yellow-vest protests against the Macron government. What more can they do? What do you do when a government is fighting a war in Ukraine, against Russia, that the populations of Germany, France, the rest of the European countries, do not support?

Their only outlet has been to support the nationalistic parties, such as the Alternativ für Deutschland, [Giorgia] Meloni in Italy, and similar parties in England and abroad. That’s not very effective in stopping this whole military plan of attack, and the whole rearmament, and the whole resumption of the new Cold War — which, really, is trying to refight the end of World War II. That’s, really, what it’s all about.

Well, Russia is going to be the winner. The winner gets to set the terms, and NATO will lose; but it can say: Well, if we can generate in the public mind enough resentment against the Russian victory, against the Russian denazification, against the Russian demilitarization of Ukraine; then we can fan these simmering embers of resentment into a new anti-Russian mentality.

It’s all about the narrative, once again. That’s what they’re trying to do in all of this; and that’s why they keep calling Trump Neville Chamberlain, and turning Trump into “Putin’s puppet.” It turns history inside out, and, with it, the whole idea of right and wrong, and good and evil, as described by the whole spirit of civilization for the last few hundred years of drawing up laws of warfare — laws to prevent armies from attacking civilians, false-flag operations. The whole behavior, and breakdown, of the system of international law that’s occurred over the last few decades — really since 1990 (quite a few decades now) — all of this is a breakdown.

That’s what we’re dealing with: the breakdown of the West, and the attempt by Russia, China, and Eurasia to create its own laws of civilization — on how they would define civilization — and these laws are pretty universal; and they’ll pick up what the West’s ideals used to be, but which the West has abandoned now.

⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, how do you see the ability of Europe — because Ursula von der Leyen was talking about [how] Ukraine must be part of Europe (Ukraine, in today’s condition that they have, politically, economically, militarily)? Is Europe capable, or able to let Ukraine in?

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: The question is: What will Ukraine be?

If Europe lets Ukraine in, is there going to be free migration within Ukraine? You’re going to have the Ukrainian males who are able to bribe their way, or otherwise escape from the suicidal service in the army, [and] have already gone into Poland, and Central Europe, and into Germany. From what I read in the newspapers, they’ve made themselves fairly unpopular there, by being very demanding, saying: You have to support us. We’re victims.

Can Europe afford this whole migration crisis?

Well, the whole spirit of the nationalist parties, and of the voters, is very much like the United States. It’s anti-immigration. They’re saying: Western Europe for the Western Europeans; or, at least, they’re saying: France for the Frenchmen, Germany for the Germans, Britain for the British; but not for these countries to support, first of all, the influx of populations from the Middle East (where the United States [has] destroyed), from North Africa, from the Islamic countries — and now from the Ukrainians.

In order to fund the war, you’ve had Chancellor Merz in Germany say: We’ve got to cut back social spending. We’ve got to end the subsidies that we have given to German families — so that they can afford the higher gas and oil prices to heat their homes, and to cook, and to drive their cars — that we’ve been giving, when we cut off the trade with Russia. We cannot afford that, if we are going to spend our money on creating arms to give, or sell, or otherwise provide Ukraine with.

Well, what do you think the Germans are going to say? It’s okay? We’re willing to freeze in the dark and eat cold cereal instead of cooking, as long as we’re hurting Russia?

Can they really be convinced to hate Russia that much?

The neocons find this believable because they hate Russia that much. They’re not willing to fight Russia — and the Banderites (the neo-Nazis in Ukraine) are not the armies, primarily, that are fighting. The Azov Battalion, and others, tend to stay in the back and send the Ukrainian farmboys to fight, not the Nazis themselves. They’re shooting their own soldiers in the back, if their soldiers seek to retreat, instead of moving forward and simply being killed by the Russian drones.

So, you’re having an internecine Ukrainian war, by the Nazis, against the non-Nazi Ukrainians.

And you’re going to have this kind of counterpart all throughout the European countries, between the neocon governments representing NATO (the EU union represents NATO, not the elected voters) and the voters in the European countries. All of that is breaking up the European Union itself. And that’s going to be one of the results of this war.

It will not be up to Russia to do what it’s doing in Ukraine, and rewrite the European constitution and restructure the European economies, like it intends to do in Ukraine.

But you can see that in this fight over how to depict the culmination of the Russian military victory and restructuring of Ukraine; and the loss of the war by NATO, by the United States, and the loss of its whole plans to destabilize Russia — to deplete its arms supply, in order to try to make Russia deplete its arms supply (which has not occurred) — the failure of all of its unrealistic forecasts.

And this is what’s at stake: Can it maintain the fictitious view of reality that led to all of this failure, in the first place, ever since the 2014 Maidan coup d’état?

That’s what is the big picture of destabilization that’s occurring. And at what point will the European countries say: We’ve been suckered into fighting on behalf of NATO (which is really the U.S. War Department, as Trump has renamed it) — really, in serving American neocon foreign policy —

And maybe we should have a European policy, and the aim of our policy should be to improve the productivity and living standards and self-reliance of our European countries themselves, for our self-interest — not the neocon and the Trumpian-American self-interest, that has led to the surrender of von der Leyen to Trump’s tariff rules a few months ago?

They’re going to put European interests before foreign interests; and that’s going to mean, at some point, the loss of Europe to the United States.

This has been discussed by Putin in some of his press conferences. And he said, I think, realistically: You know, it’s going to take about 30 years for there, really, to be a restoration of trust, and trade, and investment, mutually, between Western Europe and Russia. For the time being, we’re turning eastward, with countries whose values we share.

And this ending of the Ukraine war, like the beginning of the Ukraine war, has been all about values.

And I think Lavrov had a wonderful statement, a few days ago, in the meeting with Belarus that Russia has once a year. He said: If we talk about what was, and what they want to restore (meaning NATO), these are all exhausted Euro-Atlantic models. NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] are Euro-Atlantic structures. The European Union has long ceased to be a European forum where the interests of Europeans are represented. It’s become an appendage to NATO. And what they call fighting for their values, is fighting for, what turns out to be, Nazi values.

That says it all, in a nutshell.

Again, yesterday, Lavrov said, in a French interview, that the whole drama began with the West’s attempt to have NATO absorb Ukraine, create a military threat to Russia right on our borders; and in breach of all the promises given to the Soviet Union, and contrary to all the understandings concluded then with the Russian Federation. As part of the OSCE framework on the indivisible nature of security, and the fact that no organization, no country in Europe will seek to strengthen its security at the expense of others, it was approved at the highest level — NATO acted in exactly the opposite way.

That’s the Russian position that’s going to shape how it restructures the domestic legal system and political system of Ukraine, and the value system in which it’s doing this. If you read what they’ve said, you realize the total disconnect between the so-called “peace proposal” propaganda effort, and what Russia intends to do. Russia has been sort of slow to raise the ante, and say: This isn’t simply about what military side is going to win; it’s a fight over the values of civilization. And Lavrov has said that Western Europe no longer has the values that shaped the Enlightenment, and shaped European Idealism at a point when Europe achieved world political and economic ascendancy in the 19th and 20th centuries.

⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, before this live[stream] we were talking about Bloomberg’s leak of Steve Witkoff’s private call with Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov. What are they trying to do?

Looking at the social media, the way that they’re attacking Steve Witkoff, they’re calling [him] a KGB agent? He’s an agent of the Trump administration! He’s Russia’s puppet, “Putin’s puppet?” What’s going on with the case of Witkoff? It seems that the establishment is attacking him, and these people are getting in line with the establishment.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, you mentioned the establishment. It’s obvious that the phone calls and the emails that Witkoff was handling were all copied by the National Security Agency. Essentially, they’re doing to Witkoff what they did to Donald Trump in his first administration, [when he] tried to appoint the general that was going to clean up the CIA, and clean out the bad actors. The NSA leaked it to the FBI saying, oh, look at what the general said. They pretty much falsified the charges against him.

I’m blocking out the general’s name, but you must remember who he is. At any rate, they’re trying to do the same with Witkoff. They’re trying to

Witkoff by saying, here is the reality that we recognize, when he was talking to [Kirill] Dmitriev and other Russians.

⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, you mean that general that was in Russiagate, they said that he’s connected with Russia, General [Michael] Flynn?

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Yes, General Flynn. The one thing that the deep state wanted to do was to prevent General Flynn from being appointed to clean out the CIA, to clean out the neocons. That’s what Trump wanted to do. They framed him up, and they got Trump’s awful vice-president [Mike Pence] to say, and his idiot son-in-law [Jared Kushner] to say: No, you’ve got to get rid of General Flynn. The FBI doesn’t like him.

Well, of course the FBI and the deep state doesn’t like him because he wanted to clean out the neocons. And Trump was gullible enough to trust his idiot son-in-law and the vice president that was urging him. And he listened to the neocons who he wanted to get rid of for the advice: Don’t have anyone strong enough to get rid of us in power. He was suckered.

And I think he decided not to do that again. And that’s why he’s focused, in his second term, on appointing politically loyal cabinet members, and army members, and NSC members, and State Department members. The problem is that appointing political loyalists, they’re not (all) that savvy as to how to really conduct foreign relations and foreign policy, or even military policy. So that’s the trade-off that is sort of tearing his second term apart.

Well, they’re trying to say: Witkoff, by saying that Russia is winning, Witkoff is also “Putin’s puppet.” Well, any attempt at reality is defined [by neocons] as “pro-Russian,” because reality is the Russians have defeated Ukraine. They are marching towards victory, that they will probably conclude at the end of next spring, at the latest, in Ukraine. They will get rid of the Nazi government. They will replace it with a new government. They will write a new constitution.

All of that (obvious) military victory is a realistic expectation, and yet that’s called pro-Russian. Well, if reality is pro-Russian, then that means that NATO and America is the sphere of unreality. And the only way that you can ever get unreality to somehow dominate the electoral political process is by shaping a narrative in a way that distorts reality, that distorts the reality that recognizes Russia’s military victory in Ukraine; and, by the same token, [distorts the reality] that recognizes the futility of ever sending millions of Ukrainians to die, or to emigrate, or to suffer, to fight to the last Ukrainian.

What will the Ukrainian population think when the war is over? The voters — not the neo-Nazi leaders and the kleptocrats — what will they think? To say: How did we ever get our children, and our relatives, killed in this futile fight that we’ve lost, and had no chance of winning, because we were outgunned, outmanned? And all of this was just to, somehow, weaken Russia, not to help us? What interest did we have in fighting against the Russian language, in burning the library books that are written in Russian, in blaming, banning the Russian speakers, banning Russian music, and all of that?

Last time I was in Latvia, I remember, we were invited to a concert, and it was Dmitry Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. This was many years ago, when I was there performing Russian operas. All that, now, is swept away by the anti-Russian Baltic feeling, by banning the Russian-speaking population from voting and really having a voice in the electoral process. So that’s what all of this is about.

When they’re saying that Witkoff is pro-Russian, and that what he is saying — that Russia’s winning — is pro-Russian — it’s as if that’s a bad word. Instead of saying: Witkoff is recognizing economic reality. Thank God that we have Donald Trump appointing him, [who] is willing to face the reality that, as Trump has said (again and again), Ukraine is losing. And if Ukraine doesn’t agree to end the war now, on whatever terms it can, it’s going to be in an even worse position later. Well, Trump is right.

⁣NIMA ALKHORSHID: Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much, Michael, for being with us today. It was great to talk in detail [about] what’s going on in terms of Trump’s [28]-point peace plan, and what’s next, happening behind the scenes. Yeah, great pleasure, Michael.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Thank you very much. I’m so glad we had this discussion.

Qatar, Türkiye Warn Gaza Ceasefire Is Fragile, Incomplete

There comes a time when one has to give credit where credit is due.  This does not mean sudden trust, it does not mean that one throws knowledge away and suddenly become love partners with the Arab states, it only means we give credit where it is due, at this moment.  The future will tell. The Doha forum unfortunately had everyone and the kitchen sink taking part. We had Kaja Kallas and such people taking part. But, the Qatar and Türkiye leaders spoke truth, clearly, with no ambiguity.

Gaza Ceasefire Lacks Stability, Say Regional Leaders

This is from https://interbellumnews.com/conflicts/palestine/qatar-t%C3%BCrkiye-warn-gaza-ceasefire-is-fragile-incomplete

Top mediators Qatar and Türkiye issued a stark warning that the nearly two-month pause in Gaza is fragile and incomplete, stating that a genuine ceasefire cannot be achieved without the full withdrawal of Israeli forces and an end to the ongoing violence that continues to claim Palestinian lives.

Speaking at the Doha Forum on Saturday, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani emphasized that the current situation amounts to merely a “pause” in hostilities. He asserted that stability, freedom of movement for Palestinians, and a complete Israeli military withdrawal are non-negotiable prerequisites for a lasting peace. This call was echoed by regional leaders who stress that without addressing the core issue of Palestinian rights and sovereignty, any agreement risks repeating cycles of violence.

A Truce in Name Only

Despite the truce that began on October 10, the Israeli military campaign has not ceased, with Palestinian authorities reporting over 600 violations in seven weeks. Since the truce started, Israeli attacks have killed at least 360 Palestinians, including 70 children.

Just on Saturday, seven people were killed in separate incidents across northern Gaza. This ongoing violence underscores the mediators’ point that the current arrangement fails to provide genuine safety for Gaza’s civilian population.

Furthermore, key provisions of the first phase of the U.S.-brokered plan remain unfulfilled. The agreed-upon daily target of 600 aid trucks entering Gaza has never been reached, and the Rafah border crossing has not been reopened for two-way movement as stipulated. Egypt, alongside other nations, has condemned an Israeli plan to open Rafah exclusively for Palestinian departures, warning it could facilitate permanent displacement and blocks aid entry, a move seen as a breach of the peace plan.

Disarmament, Governance, and an International Force

The proposed second phase of the deal, which has yet to begin, involves a complex set of interlinked challenges that mediators are urgently trying to solve. The phase calls for a full Israeli withdrawal, the deployment of an International Stabilization Force (ISF), the establishment of a new Palestinian governance mechanism, and the disarmament of Hamas.

The issue of Hamas’s disarmament presents a major stumbling block. The group has stated it will not disappear and remains a central part of Palestinian political life, and is only open to handing over weapons as part of an internal Palestinian political process, not as an act of surrender to Israel.

Experts warn that attempting forcible disarmament would be a “recipe for disaster,” likely leading to renewed conflict. A viable plan would require a sequenced, Palestinian-led process that offers reintegration pathways for fighters.

Parallel to this, efforts are underway to build a post-war security infrastructure. Egypt, with EU support, has begun training thousands of Palestinian police officers intended to form a future Gaza security force loyal to the Palestinian Authority. This force is envisioned to work alongside, and eventually take over from, the proposed ISF. However, the composition and mandate of the ISF itself are still unresolved.

While Türkiye has indicated a willingness to participate, Israel openly opposes its involvement. The force’s primary goal, as stated by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, should be to separate Palestinians and Israelis, with other details to follow.

A Race Against Time

With the humanitarian situation still catastrophic and winter approaching for a displaced population lacking shelter, mediators are pressing for immediate action. Norway’s foreign minister insisted that the stabilization force and a governing peace council “must be formed this month,” warning the current pause “cannot hold for many more weeks in its current phase”.

—
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the future of the Gaza ceasefire at the Doha Forum 2025.

Al Thani emphasized that the current pause in fighting is not yet a full ceasefire, highlighting the need for Israeli withdrawal, stability in Gaza, and free movement for residents.

Both leaders stressed ongoing collaboration between Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, and the US to advance negotiations and establish an International Stability Force (ISF) to separate Palestinians and Israelis at the border.

Fidan noted that the ISF’s mission must be realistic, supported by local Palestinian police, and coordinated with a peace board for long-term stability.

This is the speech that I concur with. Veracity? Future will tell but so far the Arab states held strong to a Palestinian State.

Global Trade News

“The genie is out of the bottle. The provocation of a “USV privateer war” on trade routes threatens to collapse global maritime trade.”

By Rotislav Ishchenko at ukraine.ru.

(machine translation)

The oil tanker Virat has been attacked twice by unmanned boats near the Bosphorus Strait. On one occasion, the ship Kairos was also set on fire. Western media outlets have claimed that the tanker belongs to Russia’s “shadow fleet.” This expands the list of potential suspects. Naturally, Ukraine, which has been waging a long-standing war against the Russian military fleet using unmanned combatants, is at the top of the list. However, it is unlikely that Kiev would have dared to attack merchant ships, especially near one of the world’s most important transportation hubs connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which is controlled by Turkey, without the direct approval of its Western allies. The consequences, both direct and indirect, would have been far-reaching, affecting the entire world. Ukraine may no longer exist, but the unmanned surface vehicle’s (USV) attack on merchant ships could echo for decades, shaping the maritime trade landscape.

So it doesn’t matter whether these USVs belonged to Ukraine or whether the British and Americans decided to use their own or those belonging to a third country. The genie is out of the bottle. And not only because this game can be played by two people.

In this case, Britain is unlikely to hope to remain outside the scope of retaliatory actions. It is clear that it is more difficult to use USV to disrupt shipping in the open ocean than in enclosed waters such as the Black, Baltic, Mediterranean, White, Red, Yellow, and Japanese Seas, as well as all Chinese coastal seas. However, the ports of the United Kingdom are within direct reach of USV strikes from the continent and/or from ships and vessels passing through the English Channel. The situation for shipping may be even more dangerous in the classic pirate stronghold of the Caribbean Sea, which borders dozens of countries, many of which are home to both drug cartels and ideological guerrillas.

The threat to American southern ports in the Atlantic is clear.

At the same time, although USVs are more complex than the simplest air drones, they do not require high-tech enterprises for their creation. The problem of guidance, especially at shorter distances, is also solvable. This means that it is not always possible to determine the nationality of a USV that has not exploded, especially if the manufacturer deliberately conceals it.

Almost all strategic global maritime trade routes, no matter how far they extend into the open ocean, eventually pass through bottlenecks like the Bosphorus. Moreover, almost all of these bottlenecks are within the reach of the USV from the coasts of dozens of countries and/or hundreds of ships passing by simultaneously. Only the Northern Sea Route is relatively protected by national means. The rest can be blocked.

The provocation of a “USV privateer war” on trade routes threatens to collapse global maritime trade. This does not require sinking all ships. It is enough to make the threat significant enough to increase insurance premiums, crew salaries, and security costs, as well as delivery times. As a result, significant volumes will be excluded from global trade due to their unprofitability. Additionally, USV can be produced in large quantities (or purchased) and used by dozens of countries against each other. As we know, the greater the demand, the cheaper and easier to use the technology becomes. The first AK-47s were secret and carried in tarpaulin cases, but now the entire world, including the poorest tribes, is using them, and only the lazy ones are not producing them. Finally, the Ukrainian military crisis, as well as the wars between the Houthis and the Saudis and Israel, have demonstrated how easy it is to use high-tech weapons against a third country under the guise of a proxy ally. If Ukraine can launch American and European missiles, which require satellite guidance, at targets deep within Russia, and the Houthis can use hypersonic weapons to attack their enemies, what is stopping Somali pirates or Colombian drug lords from developing similar technologies for the USV?

I want to emphasize that the problem is not that a tanker that could theoretically belong to Russia’s “shadow fleet” was attacked. Russia is primarily a land-based power, and its main trade routes are located within the Eurasian continent and are well-protected. The main targets of the “USV privateer war” may include China, Taiwan, Japan, both Koreas, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Taiwan, India, the Gulf oil monarchies, Iran, Singapore, Turkey, Indonesia, and countries in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, North Sea, and Baltic regions.

These are either trade competitors of the United States and the United Kingdom, or allies of the United States who are in a leading geopolitical position and are used as a springboard for military and political pressure on the United States’ trade and economic competitors.

In recent years, the West has been losing not only the financial and economic struggle, but also the struggle for control of global trade. The dollar and the euro are losing their positions as the main and auxiliary global currencies and currencies for trade settlements. The yuan, rather than the ruble or the rupee, is actively replacing them. The traditional trade between the West and countries in the Gulf, Latin America, and Southeast Asia is gradually shifting to China. China is also actively expanding its presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, moving through the Greater Middle East.

In all of China’s advancements, maritime trade routes are of utmost importance.

The land-based trans-Eurasian trade routes that connect the continent into a unified economic Greater Eurasia serve as the foundation, but it is the control over maritime trade routes that allows China to build a “fairy-tale castle” of global profitable trade. It is no coincidence that China is building a navy that surpasses the United States in terms of the number of ships and is poised to surpass it in terms of overall combat power. China needs to control the routes that facilitate the sale of its goods. Russia can exist as an autarky, but China will quickly explode from within if its trade is blocked.

During the Ukrainian military crisis, Western UAVs, which were limited in their use in Ukraine, proved to be highly effective in controlling the water area dominated by the enemy’s navy and aviation, as well as in blocking ports and posing a constant threat to military bases. Russian sailors gradually learned to combat the UAV threat, but they were unable to completely eliminate it.

It should be noted that the military fleet, which exercises dominance in a closed water area, has impressive capabilities for combating enemy USVs. However, as mentioned earlier, the threat of USVs in the Black Sea has not been completely eliminated. For the military, repelling attacks is a natural activity. The merchant fleet, on the other hand, is not equipped to handle this task. Any measures taken to enhance the security of commercial ports and the surrounding water area will immediately impact the speed and cost of shipping goods, while the threat of USVs remains high.

The West is not just not afraid of playing a “double game” in the “USV privateer war.” It is provoking this war, deliberately seeking to paralyze global maritime trade.

We can say that this will hit the West itself. It will hit it, but not as hard as we would like. As mentioned above, the West has already lost its trade supremacy to China, and it will only continue to lose ground. However, the rules of geopolitical warfare require us to try to destroy the mechanism that benefits our geopolitical adversary rather than ourselves. During the two World Wars, when maritime trade was an Anglo-Saxon monopoly, Germany attempted to wage war against it using its submarine fleet. The West is now trying to strike a blow to global maritime trade, which is gradually being taken over by China.

We have repeatedly said that the paralysis of Chinese trade will inevitably plunge Beijing into a financial, economic, and then a social and political crisis. The Anglo-Americans have failed to isolate China through legal means, so why not try proxy piracy, since they are already waging a proxy war on land against Russia.

It is clear that we should not expect hundreds of USV attacks on sea routes tomorrow. However, we should not expect them to take decades to organize. As the development of UAV technology during the Ukrainian military crisis has shown, it is possible to transition from isolated attacks to large-scale use in a matter of months (or even a couple of years), which can change the entire dynamics of the conflict and require the development of appropriate countermeasures, which may not always be as quick as desired.

The fact that the incidents involving attacks on merchant ships by the USV occurred in the area of the Bosphorus, a trade route controlled by a NATO country, indicates that the organizers of this provocation are preparing for a global undeclared war on trade routes (similar to the war between English pirates and Spanish transatlantic trade in the 16th to 18th centuries), and they do not intend to tolerate the transfer of control over these routes to their geopolitical opponents. Given that the United States is developing an icebreaker fleet and actively expanding its presence in the Arctic, we should also consider strengthening the security of the Northern Sea Route.

Thailand Sidelines the US and Goes to Beijing – Geopolitical Implications for a Declining West

By Peter Koenig

It is a pleasant sight to see, how in Asia a (former?)  military ally of the United States, Thailand, shifts away from Washington and goes to Beijing – literally.

On 14 November 2025, the Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn had embarked on a five-day historic state visit to Beijing. This is not a common event, as Thai monarchs do not often practice State visits. They usually stay home and let their Foreign Ministries maintain diplomatic relations with their partners.

This is the first Royal state visit to Beijing since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China some 50 years ago. As a logical conclusion, this is a strong signal to the Thai elite and people, as well as to the rest of the world, that Thailand is initiating a major geopolitical shift in her relations with Super Powers – from Washington to Beijing.

This diplomatic move of Thailand’s may be indicating more than meets the eye, namely a general tendency of South Asia – if not of the Global South – to strengthen its relations with China, in a peaceful cooperation, rather than the classical stick-and-carrot relation, dependent on the western sanction-prone dollar-economy, dominated by the US, and closely followed by Washington’s European vassals.

Such a move may have been exacerbated by President Trump’s dystopian tariff war, mainly against China, but by association with the rest of the world, including Thailand.

Today, the US is Thailand’s third largest trading partner. With roughly US$ 80 billion two-way trade in 2022.

Compare this with Thailand’s economic relationship with China, Thailand’s largest trading partner, characterized by strong and growing commercial relations and reciprocal investments. China is Thailand’s largest partner and major source of foreign investment. In 2023, bilateral trade reached approximately $126.3 billion.

King Vajiralongkorn’s decision to embrace China is of special importance, given his long personal ties to the West. He attended private schools in Egland and received military education from Australia’s Royal Military College. The king’s reorientation to the East, stands in contrast with that of his father’s, King Bhumibol Abdulyadej, whose seventy-year reign was defined by deep engagement with the US.

Thailand’s close relation with Beijing is underlined, by the king’s daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who studied in China and has visited the northern neighbor more than 50 times. In fact, she was honored with China’s Friendship Medal which is a sign of longstanding cultural and educational ties beneath the political surface.

See this for more details https://www.rt.com/news/628669-china-thailand-royal-visit/

The deployment of royally enhanced diplomacy between the two countries, signifies also a shift towards a new multipolar world order. This trend is likely expanding rapidly to other countries in Asia and the Global South in general, as the western empire and its vassals have outlived their hundreds, if not thousands, of years of exploitation of what they still today consider, the inferior world, rich in resources and what the west believes, dependent on the western credit and monetary system.

Those days are over. Fortunately, there is a new world order in sight, in which the geopolitical, economic and monetary future lays in the East, while the western self-styled Empire and associates is not only a phantom of the past, but will play a secondary and tertiary role, as far as worldwide geopolitical influence is concerned.

Western aggressions, militarily and economically, are soon a thing of the past, whether the mainstream propaganda will keep drumming the MAGA and Empire beat or not.

We see today also a last ditch-effort of the United States and her “associates” – one may add, “associates in crime” – attempting to create an Asian Pacific NATO to control not just China, but the entire Indo-China Sea Region.

See also this https://www.globalresearch.ca/resurgence-of-japanese-militarism-threatening-china-washingtons-ambition-to-create-a-new-nato-like-military-structure-in-asia-pacific/5907037

To the propaganda-influenced masses, it may look like a winning proposition, but to those in the know about the Chinese military power which is next to none, other than Russia; and if combined with China’s close ally, Russia – a western aggression in the South China Sea, would be nothing less than a western attempt of suicide.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst, regular author for Global Research, and a former Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Slices of Life, #16

“People robbed of their past seem to make the most fervent picture takers, at home and abroad. “As humans, we’re born naked and will leave with nothing,” yet another monk speaks.”

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Vung Tau, 11/12/25

Bill Gates, Primo Levi and Max Beckmann in Vietnam — Nov 13, 2025.

Just before 5AM, I got a call from Sơn, the NaLi Beach security guard. Come out, he urged. Sơn was sitting at a newly opened café just five yards from the disappeared Coffee Seven. I sat there once and hated it. Maybe tomorrow, I told him.

On the way to Ông Bầu, I noticed an old white guy in a “Good Morning Vietnam” T-shirt. On Thủ Khoa Huân, there’s a bar, Black Sheep, meant for them. Most Vietnamese don’t care to sit on high stools. In Macau six years ago, I hung out with an international bunch. At the bar, though, there were just me, a Chinese-American and an Indian who had spent decades in the States. We were the Americans. Others sat at tables.

Though other businesses on Thủ Khoa Huân have English names, they’re still designed for Vietnamese. Their names are telling. There’s Củi Warehouse, The Góc, Nomad Café and NBNB Bakery. It’s ultra cool to mix English with Vietnamese. A block away is Salt Water, where all those dressed up girls are snapping selfies.

In this week’s Tuổi Trẻ Cuối Tuần, a magazine aimed at the young and cosmopolitan, there’s an article by Willow Dương Liễu. Four of the seven global news pieces focus on the USA. “Salaam New York!” one screams. There’s also one on Bill Gates and AI. Sipping my second cappucino, I’m browsing this pretentious rag. (Kabu, as it’s called here, is found all over, and is even more ubiquitous in Cambodian cities.) On the back cover is some freak with a chest tattoo. He wears something like a crusader hood crossed with a keffiyeh. Words fail me.

Most curiously, there’s a translation of Primo Levi’s “Cena in Piedi.” First published in La Stampa on 1/22/77, it’s about a kangaroo at a dinner party. Of course, this springy beast feels very out-of-place until some chick comes by to stroke and caress him. Unfortunately, her hands never reach his tails and thigh. Is this kangaroo a Jew about to be sent to Auschwitz? It’s bad enough to be a minority anywhere.

To help Vietnamese readers understand, here’s the beginning of Levi’s accompanying bio, “Primo Levi (1919-1987), an Italian chemist and writer of Jewish ancestry, survived the genocidal Holocaust. He became famous through works about his camp experience.”

There’s also a reproduction of Max Beckmann’s Die Nacht, perhaps his most famous canvas. Unforgivably, it’s not attributed. Worse, this scene of sexual sadistic torture with a capped man who looks very much like Lenin is meant to suggest Nazi horrors. Painted in 1918-1919, Die Nacht depicts a Jew dominated Germany. The Weimar Republic lasted from late 1918 to 1933.

a shot of that Beckmann illustrating a Levi story

In the sports section, Mahathir Mohamad is quoted, “It’s a real shame that non Malaysians are representing Malaysia. Though we crave victories, we should do it correctly, without resorting to cheating or fraud.” Sounds like Hitler! At one hundred years old, Mohamad is just senile. Vietnam’s star striker is Nguyễn Xuân Sơn, a Brazilian who was born as Rafaelson Bezerra Fernandes. He’s even less kosher than Stephen Miller. At least Miller speaks English.

With another world war looming, consider this Levi passage, “Most of them weren’t monsters, idiotic lechers, or perverted dandies: they were functionaries of the State, more pedantic than brutal, effectively indifferent to the daily horror in which they lived, and which they appeared to get used to quickly, partly because, in agreeing to oversee the Lagers, they avoided being sent to ‘cover themselves with glory’ on the Russian front. In short, they weren’t elegant, stylized beasts but vulgar, cowardly little men.” (That’s from his “Movies and Swastikas,” as translated by Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli.)

Levi is describing SS men who would rather terrorize helpless women, children and the old. Beats being maimed or killed at the frontline. ICE agents are exactly like that. All you vulgar, cowardly little men better sign up with ICE before you’re sent to a real war. There’s no higher calling than serving the most vulgar, littlest man ever.

On the way to Ông Bầu, some woman on a bicycle said, “Happy birthday, uncle!” so words got out. Before encoutering the West, Vietnamese paid no attention to birthdays, only deathdays, ngày dỗ. Even years after a relative’s death, this is solemnly remembered. In Stung Treng, Cambodia, I met a woman who would rush back to Vietnam each year for her parents’ deathdays.

I’m all for the primacy of deathdays. Its only drawback is you can’t celebrate yours with those closest to you, if you had any.

As a 12-year-old retard in 1976, I saw my first Beckmanns in New Orleans. In 2002, I caught his retrospective at Paris’ Centre Pompidou. His canvases aren’t just brutal but contemplative. They also employ age-old techniques like glazing. He’s a better draftsman than Otto Dix, and his colors are better tuned than Kirchner’s. The latter was aiming for something else. It was a frightful, hysterical era, and unspeakably tragic. Somehow, it got even worse.

Vung Tau, 11/12/25

Give Us This Day Our Daily BeerLao! — Nov 13, 2025.

About two decades ago, Americans were introduced to customer service agents from India. Nearly all US companies adopted this cost saving solution. Calling your bank over some minor issue, you’d be greeted by “Rachel” or “Chase,” but with a distinctly Mumbai or Chennai accent. After ten minutes or so of frustration, many people simply gave up.

Now, there’s an AI anything to not help you out. They include doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, tutors and financial advisors. There must be AI priests. God, it’s proven, was the first Artificial Intelligence. Jesus being nailed to the cross was the first Deep Fake. It was a huge hit.

Living outside the US since 2018, I still have a US bank account. This is necessary for many practical reasons. Two days ago, I had to call Wells Fargo. Since its numbers for Vietnam didn’t work, I dialed the USA. As a cellphone adverse person, this was rather trying, but I managed to reach some guy who sounded reasonable enough. It was still a disaster.

Reached this morning to grade Wells Fargo’s service, I gave it a zero star out of ten, with this considered explanation:

Terrible customer service. Staying overseas, I was locked out of my account due to a wrong password entered. When I called the US to get this resolved, it couldn’t be done! The man online said his name was “Varney,” but would not give his last name. I doubt that’s his real name. He also gave me this as the number for my case, “k101192315.” He probably just made it up. That’s how much faith I have in Wells Fargo.

Soon as I get back to the States, I will cancel my account and switch to a more professional bank. I remember Wells Fargo being heavily fined a while back for fraud. Should have switched my bank then.

I actually signed up for Wachovia because it was in my Philly neighborhood. Wells Fargo bought it when it went bankrupt.

Before leaving for Kathmandu two weeks ago, I used Xoom, a PayPal linked service, to withdraw $1,400 from Wells Fargo. With a fee of $12.99, I paid $1,412.99. Though I had no problem receiving my money from a Vietnamese bank, I was alerted while in Kathmandu that Xoom never got $1,412.99 from Wells Fargo. Contacting PayPal immediately, I was told by an AI that everything was fine, but it wasn’t. Yesterday, I called Xoom to straighten this out, only to be told I needed to contact Wells Fargo. I’m not calling another Varney, man. Fuck it.

Given up on Xoom, I used Western Union to send money to myself. At Agribank on Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa, the teller refused this transaction, however. Though I had my passport, Vietnam visa and Western Union’s code number, she said “LINH DINH” is not “LINH HOANG DINH,” as stated in my passport. Though everyone there could see she’s being preposterous, I had to walk away without losing my cool.

AI, Varneys and ditzy bank tellers are in our future. At least I’m not living in a land lorded over by moronic tyrants like Trump, Hegseth and Bessent.

At Ông Bầu, my BeerLao bottle from yesterday is displayed on a shelf. If only I could drink one or two a day for the rest of my life!

At the licker store yesterday, there was a poster for Budweiser. Buy many cans to possibly win one of ten grand prizes to next year’s World Cup. Nothing is said about securing a visa from Trump’s regime. It’s a time consuming and exasperating process for citizens of many countries. Once in, there’s no guarantee you won’t be harassed or even arrested by Trump’s goons. Knowing this, foreigners are increasingly shunning the USA. Worse than isolated, it’s becoming a pariah nation.

Bud is also dangling 200 consolation prizes. Free Bud for a year, it promises or, rather, threatens.

Eating much more sanely and walking barefoot on hard ground as much as possible have undoubtedly improved my liver and kidney. I don’t need doctors, real or AI, to tell me this. My body, especially my skin, says so. Having mostly abstained from alcohol over two years, I’m also ready to ease, ever so gently, back into BeerLao! Give us this day our daily BeerLao should be a universal prayer.

taken by Troy Skaggs (L): Marion, Indiana on 11/6/25 ; (R): Kokomo, Indiana on 11/13/25

Checking In With Troy Skaggs in Kokomo, Indiana — Nov 13, 2025.

In your group house, how many people are relying on government programs to get by? How many are working? In what jobs, for how much an hour?

-I’ve been in Kokomo since the beginning of August. After losing my VA pension while in South Bend, I couldn’t afford the room I was renting. I was in Kokomo last summer before returning to Michiana for tomato season and the winter. It’s a smaller, quieter place. No rainy day saver, I stayed a month in my folks’ basement before heading here.

I spent just over a month at the Kokomo Rescue Mission. It’s an evangelical Christian organization. I’ve been in a few others so knew what I was getting into. The Protestant work ethic goes hand in hand with salvation from sin. Six day work weeks in the kitchen and their warehouse weren’t conducive to seeking outside employment and services, but that’s how it works. I was there when Charlie Kirk was dubiously assassinated. The response at the Mission was to be expected. Prayers for Kirk, his family and this fallen life on Earth. A persecuted believers vs. the sick, sick world kind of vibe. It was hard to swallow. I always appreciate a warm meal, bunk and shower. They provided and I’m grateful for that.

I left the Mission on good terms with the understanding that the work schedule was just too much. I was accepted into the CAM (Coordinated Assistance Ministries) Center, a smaller men’s shelter. No prayers for Chuck or excessive work requirements, just guys playing video games and bullshitting all hours of the night. Patrick, a dorm mate, was a piece of work. He’d survived a drunken car/tree collision and had completed three back to back in-patient rehabs. When he asked if I was interested in smoking cocaine in the laundry room, his espoused philosophy of “radical acceptance” took on a new light. Birds of a feather flock together. I declined. Maybe that’s why he called me an asshole and a pussy on the day I moved out. Bill, in the bunk below me, just chuckled, “Hey, it’s Kokomo, man.” That made me smile.

I haven’t been able to attend to my health so the babesiosis I’d partially recovered from has returned. It’s a bitch and I’m running ragged.

I left the CAM center after signing a lease at Jackson Street Commons, a subsidized complex for military veterans. I was hesitant at first since requires some form of disability. Though I’ve had my go rounds with addiction, mental illness, physical sickness and existential uncertainty, I still like to consider myself an independent operator. Backing into the parking space Jackson Street Commons, my power steering blew.

Most of our residents are subsidized and aren’t working. Kokomo is doing better than some Indiana places thanks to Chrysler, but it’s still struggling. Most available jobs are in the service sector. That’s always a concern. We all know healthy economies don’t run on services alone. I’ve seen similar poverty in South Bend, but so far Kokomo’s a safer choice. Buttoned down factory towns can make for freak undercurrents. My buddy Steve calls it the 50-year-old wigger on a BMX phenomenon. I saw a dude a couple of blocks from here on a riding mower towing a trailer with two refrigerators and his wife on board. I always have to remember that there but for the grace of God go I. For all of my religious misgivings, I still believe that we’re all on Mr. Sky’s watch. It helps to keep that in mind. Part of me wants nothing more than to be a BMX dude. At this point, why not?

I’m in a one bedroom apartment on the third floor. The Veterans Service Officer got my pension reinstated, so I pay just over $400 a month, 30% of my pension. It’s a sliding scale, so no section eight. The unit is handicap accessible. From another resident, I learnt that at least one of my room’s previous occupants left in a body bag.

JSC houses a variety of veterans with a range of mental and physical issues. Of course, there have been many overdoses. Brandon next door has been here nearly a decade. He told me about two fatal OD’s within two weeks. That’s just the circle of life around here. I have some survivor’s guilt considering how I was able get housing in Kokomo within three months. Some of the guys at the Mission or CAM have been stuck there for months, even years.

I’m extremely fortunate. It’s a weird scene here, but it’s a scene. Time will tell. Just a few yards from my window is the flagpole. I can see the Stars and Bars, plus the POW/MIA flag right below it. A ways beyond is the Martin Luther King Memorial. I can just see the back of Doctor King’s concrete head.

taken by Troy Skaggs in Kokomo, Indiana on 11/13/25

The poor are often exhausted from overwork and worries. Still, they must socialize, so is there a bar nearby where you and those you know hang out? How much does it cost to drink there for a couple hours? In Kensington, a Philly neighborhood, I once sat next to an old woman who kept lifting an empty beer mug to her mouth. She couldn’t afford to buy another one. She did that regularly at Jack’s.

-I can’t really tell you about the bar scene here. I’m within walking distance of Tom Thumb Tavern, Elbow Room, The Hoosier Bar and The Handle Bar. I have seen a lot of activity at the Legion a few blocks away. I’m guessing these places are cheaper than in most American cities. Sadly, that isn’t saying much if alcohol prices have increased along with groceries and everything else. The Coterie, a downtown hipster place, does host some decent live music. On a summer night, you can sit anywhere downtown and listen to the bands. Most of these places are your basic, shabby working-class establishments. With plenty of bliss, torment and everything in between under the same roof, bars can be fascinating. I do like seeing folks coming and going. Due to my alcoholic history and present circumstances, I hesitate to enter bars by myself. I can have a pint or two of Guinness once or twice a year with a close friend who was born in Ireland, but that’s about the extent of it lately. My worst drinking days ended twelve years ago. I spent a lot of time in bars in my twenties. Some good times, but by the end of it all, I’d been to jail and accidentally set my car on fire outside Corby’s in South Bend. This was prior to the Army. I did a few rounds of bar hopping in Colorado Springs, but by then, I was a pretty solitary drinker.

I’m still in contact with Michelle from Philly. We got pretty close. She had some good bar stories. Miserable but tough, she’s still at the rooming house in South Bend. I think you have to be in places like Philadelphia, probably more so than the rural Midwest. Reading about the woman from Kensington says it all. It’s sad, but sometimes an empty mug is better than being alone.

taken by Troy Skaggs in Kokomo, Indiana on 11/13/25; (R): graffiti says “BOBBY KNIGHT IS A HONKY”

It’s too depressing to drink alone. It should be social, with much talking and laughing. I know of a Vietnamese nail salon guy who would sit at his kitchen table to down many Buds, fall asleep and, often enough, piss in his pants. That’s his social life, pretty much, in East St. Louis. It’s too dangerous to walk outside. Finally, is Kokomo still solidly MAGA? Is no one doubting the greatest American ever and infallible one?

-The kind of despair and isolation you mention is something I still struggle with daily. I’ve made inroads, but it’s still a problem. Budweiser was my beer of choice at the end. Much like your East St. Louis acquaintance, I’d sit in front of the TV and drink myself into a stupor. Pissing myself became a common occurrence. I was pushing the boundaries of late stage alcoholism. Towards the end of 2013, things got pretty hairy after I got discharged from the Army and booted from the oil fields for excessive drinking. Not being unable to walk safely in your own neighborhood is one of the worst aspects of living in today’s USA. I see it everywhere, in myself and others. It’s a feeling of defeat. I try to fight it because it plays into the hysteria and isolation playbook.

Again, I’m pretty lucky. There are places and situations where getting out is easier said than done. Marijuana is my surrogate crutch right now. Like many Americans, I find it difficult to function without a buzz. It is what it is. That’s the problem. Alternatives exist, but immediate gratification is the easiest option for the worn and overworked. It’s the option that many choose. A vicious cycle.

I’d place Kokomo in the MAGA camp by a margin. In the Mission’s defense, they didn’t push politics too hard besides their veneration of St. Kirk. Since Evangelicals are captured by the MAGA cult, they didn’t need to. One guy on an adjacent bunk was always on his phone talking to his girlfriend about Trump and how he needs to reinstate the Insurrection Act, to take care of business. The TV at the CAM center was usually tuned to FOX News. Vince, one of the guys there, calls it trailer park conservatism. A Stockholm syndrome of sorts. I think the desire for political salvation crosses the political divide. Like the controlled asset stripping of this country, it’s a bi-partisan affair disguised as politics.

We’re in Team Red phase. This freaking joke is on all of us. I remember reading your take on Trump in 2016. You got it right, Linh. Most didn’t. I got fooled the first time around myself. I’ve never voted. I can’t t endorse more war, more debt and less freedom each time around. Still, I had my hopes. Ten years later, it’s easier to see.

What really saddens me is that, as deluded and unhinged as MAGA has become, it’s an obvious reaction to the rhetorical and physical abuse that conservatives and traditional values took at the hands of the Woke crowd. It was nasty. I’d be pissed, too, and that’s why anger and fear are such wonderful tools for political control.

Controlled we are and controlled we will be, I’m afraid. Woke, MAGA, same monster. I’ve tried to point it out, but for my own sanity, I now leave it alone. When we outsource our minds, bodies and communities to transnational interests, why be surprised at the state of things?

Good intentions and bad habits are a toxic combo. I’m a walking example. I’m a fan of Sade, the smooth jazz chanteuse, not the perverted Frenchman, yet a smooth operator I am not. Time to smoke a bowl and think about it all.

taken by Troy Skaggs in Kokomo, Indiana on 11/13/25

Fearless — Nov 14, 2025.

Having told Sơn I would see him at his new spot, I went there just after 4AM to find it still closed. Across the street was one just opening up, so I’m there. It’s an entirely new universe. Tables and chairs are placed on the dark sidewalk. I’ve claimed someone’s regular seat, I’m sure. The guy sharing my tiny round table is listening to a Buddhist monk. Instructions on how to live is interspersed by a woman singing.

Tired of one monk, he switches to another. “Don’t be greedy, don’t steal, don’t lend money at exorbitant interest.” Then, “Get along with everybody, respect all religions.” Another woman, much older, sings.

The coffee here is not quite hot, and there are no frisky dogs. Coming from Bến Đình, Sơn on his motorbike will pass by, so should see me. At 4:22AM, that café is still closed. Now, my table mate is listening to a didactic woman. Religious or ethical instructions are his drug of choice. Five other men, all regulars and older than 50, must also be edified, if not enlightened. Nirvana is just a band whose lead singer shot himself in the head. The guy at the next table has suffered a stroke, it seems, for he has one of those three pronged canes I never saw half a century ago.

No one is talking.

This café’s owner is a squat woman with a dull face. She almost grunted when I showed up.

“As humans, we’re born naked and will leave with nothing,” yet another monk speaks.

At 4:35, I see light over there, so will head over. The owner’s daughter married an older Aussie. Let’s hear what she has to say.

That didn’t last long. After five minutes of sitting with Sơn plus another woman, Quý, we decided to vacate that joint. Its coffee wasn’t just bad, but dubious, and they refused to turn off the music. I’m at my third café, Anh Trần. Each cup here, very good, is served with a tin filter, and the tea is also fine. Across the street is a hotel, Hoàng Yến, built in the 70’s. Such buildings recall the Vũng Tàu of my childhood.

Vung Tau, 11/14/25

A white haired guy just praised a younger woman’s buttocks. “That’s like two chunks of silicone!”

“My ass is money!” she laughed back. Her cushy tushy looks real. Clearly, they know each other well enough.

A boastful man with a Hanoi accent, he’s lived in Germany and England, he tells me. He’s been all over. One hundred and seventy five countries, to be exact.

“How do you manage that?! There’s not enough time. Plus, there’s the paperwork.” A Vietnamese passport doesn’t open many doors.

Smirking, he adds, “I have two sons in the US, two in London and one in Australia. I see them whenever I want.”

“How can you afford to travel so much?”

“People give me money.”

“Who?”

“People.”

“What’s your business?”

“None. I have never worked. All my life, I’ve just enjoyed myself, and gotten into fights.”

Laughing, I turn to another man, “And he hasn’t been killed!”

“Now, I’ve hung up my sword. If I get pissed off, though, I will still fight.”

“Have you been jailed?”

“No.”

“You’re very lucky.”

“When I was 15, I survived bombs. My shelter was blown to bits. Other kids were killed. Chunks of flesh were dug out with bare hands. I survived.”

“In 1970?”

“72.” Executed with B-52’s, it’s Operation Linebacker. “Those bombs taught me to be fearless.”

Even now, not one out of a hundred Vietnamese knows what a linebacker is. The best Vietnamese-American athlete ever is Dat Nguyen, a middle linebacker for Texas A&M and Dallas Cowboys.

“You were lucky. You were spared.”

“I do whatever I want.”

“I just look.”

“I see your laptop. You’re filled with words, with knowledge. You think.”

“I just look. You do!”

“Everyone is different.” Turning to two other men, he remarks, “Look at his forehead. Flies would have trouble landing there!”

“I’ve done nothing. I only have my brain. The rest is paralyzed.” This drew laughs from the owner. She’s in her mid 60’s.

“Nearing that hole, I’ve slowed down,” continues the braggadocious. “Each man has three holes he must deal with. The hole from which he was born, his wife’s hole then the hole he’s tossed into.”

“Many people don’t even get that middle hole.”

“We’re not talking about freakish exceptions, but generally.”

Coming to Anh Trần, I didn’t expect any of this, obviously. Sơn and Quý left a while back. Since it opens at 4AM, this wouldn’t be a bad place to sit. Braggadocious has asked nothing about me. It’s fine.

He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese and English comfortably, he claims. He can do whatever and go anywhere. Vietnamese gangsters across Europe are terrified of him. Even top cops don’t dare to mess with Braggadocious. Saigon whores can’t empty his pockets.

“They’re like sharks and alligators,” I say.

“They can’t bite me. I bite them!”

Though living with any braggart must be hell, there are those who adore bombastic boasters. So sad this constant need to prove you’re not worthless.

Shut up already about all your awards, prizes, ribbons, medals, books published, contests won, pussies or dicks “conquered,” world records, championships, countries visited, weird dishes eaten or famous hands shaken. Every winner finishes last! How’s that toothache or cancer treating you? Just be thankful you weren’t slapped around, nuked or neutered decades earlier! Everyone or his grandma could have been a contender! You’re making me sick! There’s no weight division too low for you.

At 8:20AM, I finish this at Ông Bầu. Soon, I must go to Saigon to get a five-year visa, meant for overseas Vietnamese. There’s an agency that can arrange this, I think. With that, I will only need to leave every six months, instead of three.

Interviewing Troy Skaggs about small town Indiana made me want to go there, but that would mean flying into O’Hare, a state away. There are so many steps and miles before I can sit inside Handle Bar or Tom Thumb. Close enough to that hole, I should just take it easy.

There’s a desolation peculiar to the USA. It’s especially striking in rural areas and suburbs. Car culture isn’t solely responsible. No other population is as leery of mingling. More than macho DeKooning, Kline or Pollock, Edward Hopper is the most representative American artist, for he’s best at isolating this desolation. In movies and music videos, the opposite appears. That’s the American con.

Edward Hopper art

As for being fearless, I must mention Mo, Cà Phê Cà Pháo’s kitten. Yesterday, I saw him for the first time since returning from Kathmandu. There he was, sleeping on a cushioned chair.

“I’ve been away nearly a month, but he hasn’t gotten any bigger. He’s shrunk!”

This provoked much laughter, for it was a different cat. For a week, Mo disappeared. Whoever found him had replaced his collar, before Mo ran off again. Thanks to an online notice, he’s finally recovered on Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa, a good mile away.

Back home, he didn’t even open his eyes when touched. Strange voices couldn’t disturb his sleep. In his brief life, he’s been lost twice, hit by a motorbike and gotten so sick, he had to spend a week at the vet. Even when half conscious, he fears nothing.

“Amazing,” I marveled. “It’s as if nothing happened.”

Like a proud parent, his owner smiled.

Such quiet assurance Braggadocious has never known. Lowered into that hole, he’ll still be terrified of ridicule. With rotting ears, he’ll hear mocking laughter. At least he doesn’t need to print his name on every piece of clothing, building or plate.

The weakest men must screw the smallest bodies. Virginal, they can’t compare him to any other. Even then, he’s still terrified.

(L): Kōji Yakusho in Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days ; (R): Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “U. A. Play House, New York,” 1978

Naked and Barefoot — Nov 18, 2025.

Three mornings at Anh Trần were enough. The Hanoian braggadocious wasn’t just tiresome but menacing. Bombastic boasters are often like that. People who admire them are like squirming worms, not necessarily with red hats. Though I have a high tolerance for all types, I must focus on my thoughts and writing. This morning, then, I began typing before 4AM while sitting outside Ông Bầu in the dark. From the house next door, a woman could be heard coughing several times.

Talking about Perfect Days, I forgot to mention Hirayama’s habit of never picking up his watch when leaving his flat. He only takes his keys and coins. Hirayama doesn’t just know exactly what he must do with his day, but how long each task should take. Neither impatient nor frantic, he’s serenely focused.

Eating lunch on the same park bench each day, Hirayama always takes photos of swaying leaves above him. Since it’s the same tree, Niko, his niece, asks, “Is that tree your friend?”

Though surprised by this question, Hirayama has to admit, “Yes, this is my tree friend.”

Hundreds of these leaf photos are kept in tin boxes. Those that don’t turn out well are thrown away. His film camera, an Olympus Stylus, is not just amateurish but old fashioned. It has no screen. Held so low, Hirayama can’t even look through its viewfinder. Only after each roll is developed does he know how many keepers there are.

Though Hirayama is admired for his zen like composure, there’s something neurotic about his picture taking, no? He takes hundreds of photos to not really look at them. Worse, he must document his enjoyment of komoberi. Defined at the end of the film as “the shimmering of light and shadows that is created by leaves swaying in the wind. It only exists once, at that moment.” All too human, Hirayama must capture and solidify such fleeting phenomena.

Like most of us, Hirayama is radically alone. Sure, he has a few friendly acquaintances at Asakusa Yakisoba Fukuchan, his noodle shop, and Beni no Akari Novu, an atmospheric old school bar whose owner can sing so soulfully, but he sleeps alone and has no deep conversations with anyone. Unable to confide his pains, fears and infinite sadness, Hirayama must stay calm. His most intimate and steadfast friend is a rustling tree.

Note that Hirayama always buys the same coffee drink from a vending machine just ouside his door. Why doesn’t he stock up on a bunch, thus save a few pennies? Always waking up alone, Hirayama needs this machine to give him, without fail, some sweetness before he’s thrust, again, towards an infinity of shitters. It’s also the only neighbor he has any meaningful intercourse with. We’re not introduced to any other.

(L): Hiroshi Sugimoto seascape ; (R): sketch by Hà Quang Đại

It’s no accident Wenders made this film in Tokyo. At the end of WWII, its destruction by the U.S. Air Force was greater than in Nagasaki and roughly equal to what happened in Hiroshima. Much of what America failed to raze, the Japanese did, in their rush towards progress and economic recovery. Even Donald Richie, who loved Japan deeply and spent 65 years there, had to admit Tokyo was “unusually ugly.” This is because much of its past is gone.

Regarding the past, photography and the Japanese, Susan Sontag has this to say, “People robbed of their past seem to make the most fervent picture takers, at home and abroad. Everyone who lives in an industrialized society is obliged gradually to give up the past, but in certain countries, such as the United States and Japan, the break with the past has been particularly traumatic.” Bombers and bombed share this unspeakable loss.

Robbed of family and community, Hirayama can only cling to images no one, not even him, cares to look at much, plus songs he can’t fully understand. Hirayama tearing up over Nina Simone is mostly fiction. Only you and I cry for real.

Before I slink off somewhere to bawl, wail and gnash my remaining teeth, I must point out Hirayama’s appreciation for tiny shifts in the mundane is very Japanese. Check out Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photos of oceans across the globe, for example, or his images of abandoned theaters. In these gorgeous temples to mass hallucinations, the big screens are still lit up, but nothing is shown. We’ve seen it all so many times, we see nothing.

Wenders’ inclusion of bathhouse scenes evokes Japan’s disappearing past. It’s striking, and exotic, to see naked men sitting on low stools to soap and wash, then soak together in a hot pool. Relaxing in a common room, Hirayama is even seen fanning a dozing old man, a beautiful touch. Most foreigners may not realize these bathhouses were, not even a century ago, unisex.

Consider this 1927 passage by Akugatawa, “He had previously been quite unperturbed about undressing in Kōno’s presence when he entered the bath located next to the kitchen. Recently, however, he had not allowed himself even once to appear to her in such a state. He was now undoubtedly ashamed of his body, which resembled that of a plucked rooster.” A pioneer writer during an unsettling era, Akugatawa killed himself just a year later.

Such inclusion and exposure are gone. Contemporary men must be screened off from each other, if not masked. His isolation ever increases. Listening to cassettes and reading complicated books in silence, Hirayama is a dinosaur, if not freak.

Sitting in Ông Bầu, I’m feet away from Mr. Đại, painting from life. He’s inserting me, though, walking barefoot past the altar to the Goddess by the banyan tree. While painting, he’s singing a Phạm Duy song from 1971. At age 50, that great song writer, a poet, really, recalled a girl he fell in love with as a teenager. Like so much else, those sweet, gentle sentiments are lost.

Vung Tau (L): 11/24/25 ; (R): 11/22/25

Westminster, Vietnam To Begin With — Nov 25, 2025.

This morning, I woke up Hùng around 5AM to get his phone number. He was sleeping in his cyclo cab, of course. “I have a Westerner who will probably hire you. He’ll call you today or tomorrow.” Groggy, Hùng looked older than his age. He’s a most gentle man, or perhaps just thoroughly defeated. Before something went terribly wrong internally, Hùng was a falling down drunk. He’ll die without ever seeing his parents, siblings or hometown of Da Lat again.

“How’s business?”

“Bad.”

“Yet you won’t make that sign!” I had urged Hùng to clearly list his price for ½ an hour and an hour. “You’re so stubborn!”

I then bought two toothbrushes from a Circle K. Since it was so early, I didn’t feel too self-conscious about walking in barefoot. With Ông Bầu not open for an hour, I decided to go to Mrs. Hạnh. She’s the one married to an impotent American for six years.

Riding past me was a woman in cycling tights and listening to a Buddhist chant on her Bluetooth. Nam mô a di đà phật, she had to hear over and over. The idea of Buddhist chanting is to empty your mind of bullshit, I think, but this chick has turned it into bicycling muzak. On that street is an ex drug addict who always sits alone before dawn to listen to Eminem. People who can’t stand silence are lost to themselves and, thus, understanding of anything, from the most trivial upward.

Since Mrs. Hạnh and her husband were still setting up, I headed to Front Beach, where hundreds of people were exercising or jogging. I sat by two young women who chattered, giggled and laughed as they loosened their joints and got their blood flowing. Doing a forward thrust, they joked about diving onto the jagged rocks below. Lights flickered along the shoreline. Some people rubbed their belly in a circular motion as they walked quickly. I used a fingernail to groove into my flesh around my ankles and soles.

Finally sitting down at Mrs. Hạnh’s, I asked if she enjoyed her eight-day Singapore vacation so many years ago.

“Of course! I also have dozens of relatives overseas.” In Bolsa and Canada. Bolsa is a Vietnamese area in Westminster, CA. Its mayor is Chi Charlie Nguyen. All three council members are Vietnamese-Americans.

Whatever happened to the annexation of Greenland and Canada becoming the 51st state? I, for one, think Westminster and Santa Ana must be ceded to Vietnam immediately, with an additional city added yearly until at least a third of California belongs to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Its residents of all races will enjoy more freedom, including economic, than under President Trump, J.D. Vance or Gavin Newsom, guaranteed.

Twice, I’ve seen a young woman helping out at Mrs. Hạnh’s. She’s not her daughter but a 34-year-old homeless woman who sleeps nightly at Trưng Sisters Park. Trưng Sisters were warriors who fought against the Chinese two thousand years ago. Think Boudica times two.

As a girl, she was taken in by a noodle soup seller at Old Market, now demolished. As a pretty young woman, she started sleeping with Westerners, so her adoptive father kicked her out. He still brings her food, and she’s paid nearly $2 daily by Mrs. Hạnh, who also feeds her. It’s charity, more or less, since Mrs. Hạnh and her husband can do everything themselves.

“Where’s your puppy?”

“He’s big!” her husband answered. “He’s at home.”

“Why don’t you bring him here?”

“He causes too much trouble,” he smiled.

There was a tiny kitten in the grass. I picked him up and caressed the beast. He started purring. When I put him down, this cat rubbed his head against my foot.

“You know,” I said to Mrs. Hạnh, “a woman sleeping alone in a park in the US would be raped in no time. Homeless people there often cluster together for protection. A woman like that cannot sleep alone outside.”

“I wish I could sleep alone,” Mrs. Hạnh joked as her husband stood by her side.

I laughed hardest. He only smiled.

Now at Ông Bầu, I just ordered a second cappuccino. Mr. Đại is painting a nude from some photo he got off the internet. It’s totally pointless, but whatever. Wouldn’t some aging whore, at least, be willing to pose for him for phở money? To be exposed and stared at for an hour might be too much.

Checking my email, I see one from Max, whom I met in Albania. In his rented car, we went to Montenegro. On his first visit to Vietnam, Max is in Da Nang. I’m pretty sure Max is Syrian. He spends most of his time in London. Go to Hội An and Huế, I just told Max. Even a side trip into Laos would be fantastic. If you decide to come down here, I’ll show you around.

Near death, I have less energy to take photos, but yesterday, I did catch two lovelies outside The Góc. One, with her butt cheeks just peeking out, was taking photos of her friend in a mini skirt. Nothing exists unless it’s photographed.

Maybe 15 years ago, a woman told me this joke in Philly, “What looks like shit and feels great?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“A pussy!”

Now, we must ask, What looks great and feels like shit?

Come on, man, give me the punchline!

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

The 28-point Theater of the Absurd

“Whatever was the real story behind the 28 pointer … the messy, even infantile “plan” posing as Hegemon in Control and mocking the BRICS/SCO is completely unworkable.”

By Pepe Escobar at the Strategic Culture Foundation.

The Circus Ringmaster’s 28-point “peace plan” for Ukraine may be seen as a pet seal splashing around in a pond to amuse the galleries. And up next, we move to another attraction.

Yet if taken seriously – and that requires not a pinch but a barrel of salt – it’s like a twin to the Circus Ringmaster’s “plan” for Gaza, this time with the objective of snatching a pitiful “victory” from the jaws of the Empire of Chaos’s own, de facto strategic defeat.

Let’s check the reactions. Here you will find Larry Johnson’s analysis – which I share – , but most of all the video of the stunning two-hour interview  we had mid-week in Moscow with stellar Maria Zakharova, the most articulated Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on the planet.

What Mrs. Zakharova essentially told us is that by mid-week there was no Russian reaction because Moscow had not received anything concrete: “When we have some official information, when we receive it via a relevant channel, naturally, we will always be open to work.”

The same applied to the Kremlin. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “No, we haven’t received anything officially. We see some innovations. But officially, we haven’t received anything. And there hasn’t been any substantive discussion of these items.”

Kupyansk has been liberated – Gerasimov told Putin

The political leadership of Ukraine does not give orders to its troops to surrender, Gerasimov said

The political leadership of Ukraine is not such, Putin noted

The president called the Kiev authorities an organized… https://t.co/3vrNdx5zkS pic.twitter.com/gpudF5g5mf
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) November 20, 2025

The first actual, terse response that came from President Putin was stunningly graphic: in camouflage, visiting a command center, and stressing that the set up in Kiev can no longer be described as a “political leadership” because it’s just “a criminal organization”.

After a few frantic days buried in a tsunami of spin concocted by NATOstan mainstream media, supporting but essentially against the 28-pointer, someone in Washington – and not necessarily Russian middleman Kirill Dmitriev – may have delivered it, officially, to the Kremlin.

So this past Friday we had, finally, President Putin’s own response, during a session of the permanent members of Russia’s Security Council.

The key Putin points must be stressed:

Alaska: “The main point of the Alaska summit, its main purpose, was that during the talks in Anchorage we confirmed that, despite some difficult issues and complexities, we nevertheless agreed with these proposals and were prepared to demonstrate the requested flexibility.”

Global South reaction: “We provided detailed information to all our friends and partners in the Global South on these matters – including China, India, the DPRK, South Africa, Brazil, many other countries, and, of course, the CSTO states. All our friends and partners, and I want to emphasise this – without exception – supported these potential arrangements.”

U.S. non-response: “However, after the negotiations in Alaska, we have seen a certain pause on the part of the U.S., and we know this is due to Ukraine’s de facto refusal to accept the peace plan proposed by President Trump. I believe this is precisely why a new version has emerged – essentially an updated plan consisting of 28 points.” Note that “updated” is the key operative word here – as in an extension of Alaska.

What the 28-pointer really means: “We have the text. We received it through our existing channels of communication with the U.S. Administration. I believe it too could form the basis of a final peace settlement, but this text is not being discussed with us in substance. And I can suggest why.

The reason, I believe, remains the same: the U.S. Administration still cannot secure Ukraine’s consent – Ukraine rejects it.

Evidently, Ukraine and its European allies remain under illusions and still dream of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield. I think this position is rooted not so much in a lack of competence – I will leave this topic aside for now – but rather in the absence of objective information about the real situation on the ground.”

Expanding on the EU and Ukraine: “All things considered, neither Ukraine nor Europe grasp the consequences of this path. Just one very recent example – Kupyansk. Not long ago, on 4 November – just two weeks ago – officials in Kiev publicly stated that no more than 60 Russian servicemen were present in the city, and that within the next few days, as they claimed, Ukrainian forces would fully unblock it.

But I would like to inform you that already at that moment, on 4 November, the city of Kupyansk was practically entirely secured by the Russian Armed Forces. Our guys were, as they say, simply finishing the job – clearing the remaining streets and neighbourhoods. The fate of the city had already been fully determined.

What does this tell us? Either the Kiev leaders do not have objective information about the situation at the front, or, having it, they are simply unable to assess it objectively.”

The SMO will go on: “If Kiev does not want to discuss President Trump’s proposals and rejects them, then they – and their European war-instigators – must understand that the situation in Kupyansk will inevitably be repeated on other key sectors of the front. Perhaps not as quickly as we would like, but the outcome will be inevitably repeated.”

The inevitable conclusion: “On the whole, this is acceptable to us, as it leads to achieving the objectives of the special military operation by military means. But, as I have said many times before, we are also ready for peace negotiations and for resolving problems by peaceful means. However, this requires a substantive discussion of all details of the proposed plan. We are ready for that.”

Deconstructing an incoherent mish-mash

So here we have finally come back to the essentials – what everyone with an IQ over room temperature following the imperial proxy war against Russia in Ukraine already knows: Russia is ready for peace, but in Putin’s own words, “is also satisfied with the current dynamics of the SMO”. Because this is leading – slowly but surely, “to the achievement of its goals” in the battlefield.

Whatever was the real story behind the 28 pointer – assuming it was Dmtriev and Witkoff holed up in Miami for three days; and then lowly neo-con Marco Rubio and zero-expert on anything Zionist asset Jared Kushner (!) chiming in – the messy, even infantile “plan” posing as Hegemon in Control and mocking the BRICS/SCO is completely unworkable.

What if it was designed to be exactly that?

The new frantic spin is that the sweaty sweatshirt in Kiev has been given an ultimatum by Trump 2.0: under a new “aggressive timeline”, he has to get on board. Or else.

Kiev’s backers – the proverbial assortment of chihuahuas comprising the EU, the European Commission (EC) and “leaders” in selected capitals – have rejected the 28-pointer, and so did Kiev, right from the start.

The 28-pointer indeed manages the feat of assembling an incoherent mish-mash that is unworkable not only for Russia but also for the EU/NATO combo. A few examples:

Point 4: “A U.S.-mediated Russia–NATO dialogue will be launched to resolve security issues and promote cooperation”. NATO is a brainchild of the Empire of Chaos. It will never “cooperate” with “existential threat” Russia.

Point 9: “European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland.” That means NATO still ready to attack Russian territory.

Point 10: “The U.S. security guarantee [to Ukraine] comes with conditions: – The U.S. receives compensation.” That’s pure “offer you can’t refuse” Mafia territory.

Point 13: “Russia will be reintegrated into the global economy:

• Gradual lifting of sanctions
• Long-term U.S.–Russia economic cooperation
• Joint ventures in AI, energy, infrastructure, rare earths, and Arctic extraction
• Russia rejoins the G8”

That’s what this is all about, per the Circus Ringmaster himself: grabbing Russian natural resources. Moreover Russia does not need the G8: Moscow’s focus is on BRICS/SCO.

Point 14: “Frozen Russian assets will be allocated as follows:

• $100 billion used to rebuild Ukraine (run by the U.S.)
• The U.S. receives 50% of profits from reconstruction investments
• Europe contributes another $100 billion
• Remaining frozen assets go into a U.S.–Russia joint investment vehicle to deepen economic ties.”

That’s peak Theater of the Absurd: not only the Americans want to use Russian funds to rebuild Ukraine – which they were instrumental in destroying – but their “10 per cent for the Big Guy” turns out to be a hefty 50%.

Point 17: “The U.S. and Russia will extend nuclear arms-control treaties, including New START.” A non-starter: Moscow has been stressing non-stop that arms-control treaties will not be negotiated in relation to the SMO.

Point 21: “Territorial arrangements:

• Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk are recognized as de facto Russian, including by the U.S.
• Parts of Kherson and Zaporozhye become frozen “contact line” zones (also de facto recognition)
• Russia gives up other agreed areas
• Ukraine withdraws from remaining parts of Donetsk; the zone becomes a Russian-recognized neutral buffer
• Russian forces cannot enter the buffer zone.”

Total non-starter – and not only for the EU/NATO-Kiev combo.  Kherson and Zaporozhye, constitutionally, are now fully Russian – and will be liberated on the battlefield.

Point 26: “Full amnesty for all parties for all actions taken during the war: no prosecutions, no war-crimes claims.” Total non-starter: Kiev forced the draft document to use “amnesty” instead of “audit”. Moscow will settle for nothing less that full prosecution of members of the “criminal organization”. Yes, there will be a war crimes tribunal.

Point 27: “The agreement will be legally binding and enforced by a Peace Council chaired by Donald J. Trump.” That’s a Gaza replay. As if Putin and the Russian Security Council would accept a “Peace Council” chaired by a Circus Ringmaster whose expiry date is fast approaching, not to mention be subordinated to the losers in a vicious proxy war. 

About a really intriguing takeaway

One plausible takeaway of the 28-pointer is that the selected oligarchy running the Empire of Chaos continues to run a protection racket – and the only way to salvage the de facto strategic defeat in country 404 is to turn a quick buck.

Another more intriguing, plausible takeaway is that the 28-pointer was never meant to be accepted by the EU-Kiev combo. It’s all about the Circus Ringmaster’s exit strategy from the debacle in Novorossiya.

Trump is already preparing the terrain – as in I tried everything, but Zelensky won’t comply. So it’s now his – and his gang’s – problem only, side by side with the EU chihuahuas. Up next: an immediate change of narrative. What else: the Empire of Chaos cannot manage reality, only narratives.

Trump 2.0 may start to work on improving U.S.-Russia relations – while blame for the collapse of the “peace process” is laid on the EU-Kiev combo. The optics of the 28-pointer P.R. op are everything: packaged as it is asking Moscow to strike a compromise, even as Russia is winning in the battlefield, while making sure the “criminal organization” in Kiev cannot agree to the main provisions.

Provisional endgame: the chihuahuas of war will keep barking while the SMO will keep rollin’ along.

Sheriff David Hathaway with Judge Nap

What a level-headed no-nonsense perspective by a courageous law enforcement professional who worked a quarter century in DEA and lived in South America.

It took 40 years to replace Al Qaeda with Al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s Founding Fathers.” — President Reagan meeting with Freedom Fighters from Afghanistan (Mujahedin), Oval Office, 1985.

Nima AlKhorshid interviews our roving eye nomad on the central Asian Stans, Al Qaeda ‘R US, and other travails of stark-naked Anglo-Zionists.

Slices of Life, #15

“No life is boring if properly recounted. His given name, Quyết Chiến, means Determined to Fight. Quyết Thắng means Determined to Win.”

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Vung Tau, 11/3/25

Nguyễn Quyết Chiến — Nov 05, 2025.

An extraordinary story imperfectly told is better than one simply ignored. I will now tell you about a Vietnamese-American in Oklahoma. If alive, he’d be at least 75. His given name, Quyết Chiến, means Determined to Fight.

In 1972, Chiến was tasked with diverting ARVN troops away from the main thrust of an NVA assault. Basically sacrificed, all men in his unit died, but Chiến was captured. Weirdly enough, the ARVN officer recognized Chiến’s Nghệ An accent. Not only that, they had attended the same school. Instead of turning Chiến over to an ARVN prison camp, where at least beatings awaited, he reported Chiến as a “Chiêu Hồi” defector.

Spared, Chiến made broadcasts for the South Vietnamese, then he became a spy. In groups of three, these elite commandos were airdropped into North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, to collect information. Of course, many were detected and killed, but Chiến survived.

Just before the Fall of Saigon in 1975, Chiến was in Vũng Tàu. As everyone, including armed ARVN soldiers, scrambled to get onto anything that floated, Chiến noticed a hysterically sobbing boy. Grabbing this kid, Chiến was determined to take him along, but they didn’t manage to get onto any boat. Now, Chiến was stuck. Death seemed certain when he’d be caught by the North Vietnamese. He’d betrayed them, after all.

Chiến’s father had fought under General Võ Nguyên Giáp at Điện Biên Phủ, and his younger brother, Nguyễn Quyết Thắng, had died during the Vietnam War. Quyết Thắng means Determined to Win. Chiến had also betrayed his family.

Again not shot, Chiến was sent to a reeducation camp way up north. Even more miraculously, the warden took a liking to Chiến, so made him a barber. Though he barely ate like everybody else, Chiến wasn’t really beaten up or put into solitary confinement. After just over five years, Chiến was released. This, too, was a stroke of luck. ARVN soldiers jailed under five years weren’t allowed to emigrate to the US under the Humanitarian Operation program.

Before leaving, Chiến had another frightful encounter. His old man had come south to look for him. Instead of giving Chiến a sound beating, his dad was shocked at how thin and poor Chiến was, so all was forgiven.

“You don’t even have an extra bowl!”

To feed his father, Chiến had to borrow one from the house next door.

I have no idea how Chiến survived in Oklahoma, but he made enough money to revisit Vũng Tàu at least once.

Vung Tau, 11/5/25

Worst To Be Safest — Nov 05, 2025.

Two days ago, I told Mrs. Seven I was headed to my grocer to get some cucumbers. Immediately, she handed me 10K (38 cents) so I could buy her the same. Hating to go anywhere, that’s mostly how she shops. Another time, she asked me to get her mosquito repellent lotion. Years ago, she risked going to those five-story buildings where many Russians lived. Somebody there sold killer sausages, she’s told. On the way back, Mrs. Seven got seriously lost, so never again.

She’s “hai lúa,” or “two harvests.” That’s a slang for hicks. They don’t know anything beyond their two harvests. And yet, a much younger Mrs. Seven went as far north as Hanoi and crossed into Cambodia to dance. Once she had to perform outside a theater filled with corpses, freshly butchered by the Khmer Rouge. Many were decapitated. When Mrs. Seven was a star at the Palace Hotel, a Taiwanese and a Frenchman fell in love with her. Others, too.

Even lives not so eventful are filled with turmoil, perhaps more than usual. No life is boring if properly recounted. Though I’ve talked much shit about the painter at Ông Bầu, his story is astounding, so let me sketch Mr. Đại, as he did me today.

His father is from Cẩm Giang, a village in Bắc Ninh, a thousand miles north of Vũng Tàu. In 1883, they converted en masse to Catholicism. During the First Indochina War, it was occupied by the Việt Minh, however. From there, they shelled French troops around 1950, so Cẩm Giang was in danger of being wiped out by French bombs. Them Frogs had planes. Since Đại’s dad was about the only one who could speak some French, he was tasked with saving his village. Approaching them with a white flag, he shouted, “We’re all Catholics! We’re not Communists!”

When the Việt Minh occupied Cẩm Giang, they forced each house to display a portrait of Hồ Chí Minh. Now, those were put away. In their places were crucifixes and portraits of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Seeing these, the French were satisfied these villagers were indeed Catholics, so they didn’t bomb, rape or steal. They paid for every chicken, duck or pig. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay. When the Việt Minh returned, Đại’s dad was in deep shit, so he had to flee way south, alone. Left behind was his wife and oldest son. Dead, he would have been useless anyway.

Ending up in Huế, 430 miles south, he joined the army of Bảo Đại, Vietnam’s last emperor. With a steady salary, he decided to remarry, but suddenly, his wife and son showed up. Hearing this from Đại, I protested, “What’s the chance of that?! How did your mom end up in Huế? Plus, it’s a huge city, even then. What were the odds of her running into your dad?”

“But she did,” he shrugged. “They were still in debt to each other.” It’s a Vietnamese expression meaning intertwining fates haven’t finished their courses.

In Huế, then, a second son was born, then his parents came to Vũng Tàu. Here, Đại appeared. Except for a dozen years in a New Economic Zone, he’s never lived anywhere else. As a city dweller thrust into the jungles, Đại didn’t have an easy time, obviously.

“I had been in the Boy Scouts, so that helped. Plus, I was befriended by a peasant from Quảng Ngãi. He showed me what to do. I also got help from an ARVN who spent years in jungles.”

Most incredibly, Đại still had his art supplies. In the middle of nowhere, he kept drawing with charcoal and pastels. Though Đại had no idea when his ordeal would end, and he had no audience, art kept him going.

In the late 80’s when most Vietnamese were still abjectly poor, Đại somehow went to China. He’s also been to Cambodia.

(L): Vung Tau, 11/5/25 ; (R): Saigon, 10/30/25

Had Đại been exposed to oil masterpieces over decades, he would likely have become a much better painter. Even most Americans have never seen an actual Manet, Vermeer, Hopper or Lucian Freud, etc. In the entire USA, there’s just one Da Vinci. Though books could be had anywhere, few bother to read even the best their culture has produced. Belligerently, defiantly and gleefully savage, millions march towards their Golden Age.

Finishing this at Ông Bầu, I see Morose at her laptop. Two days ago, I told her about La Gi, a town just 60 miles north. She’d never heard of it. “Go to Bình Châu, have lunch, then head to La Gi. It’s fascinating!”

Everywhere, everyone and everything is, but you’re not going to catch much if you’re always glued to a screen, masked and earplugged. Landing in Saigon after a three-hour flight from Guangzhou six days ago, I photographed one such man. From Chicago, he’s always well protected. It’s worst to be safest.

Vung Tau. (L): 11/8/25 ; (R): $3.65 on 11/10/25

Cecil Hotel in LA? — Nov 10, 2025.

This morning, I bought four cucumbers, four tomatoes, ten brown eggs and three fistfuls of shiitake mushrooms. Charging me $3.65, my grocer was apologetic, “Produce prices have gone up. There have been all these storms and floods.” Days ago, the tomato crab soup lady, Mrs. Tím, also lamented about prices. As with nearly everywhere else, Vietnam is increasingly slammed by natural catastrophes, with Hội An, its best preserved historical city, deluged with a record 42 inches of rain in 24 hours just two weeks ago. Huế, a capital city in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, suffered the same. Most horrible are houses or boats destroyed. Many thousands of people simply lost everything.

Several climate engineering techniques were tested, refined or perfected during the Vietnam War. Chemical weapons, too. Agent Orange is still deforming babies and killing people here, plus in Laos and Cambodia. Though made in the USA, Uncle Sam has always denied any responsibility. That’s just how he is. Boastful, bombastic and gleefully genocidal, Trump is the perfect personification of Uncle Sam. Those who love Trump aren’t ignoring his worst traits. They admire and envy his sadism, selfishness, shamelessness, vulgarity and infantilism. They wish they were Trump. MAGA men who must lie nightly next to aging wives can only fantasize about grabbing underaged pussies. Life isn’t fair.

A barista at NaLi Beach has just died from complications of Agent Orange. Telling me this at Coffee Seven, Sơn said he was surprised to find out this man was 36-years-old. He was so stunted. As NaLi Beach’s security guard, Sơn saw him each day until two weeks ago. Even gravely sick, he couldn’t afford to quit. Since he served me just once, I can barely visualize this man.

Bet you’ve never heard of Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent Pink, Agent Green or Agent White? Only God knows what else Sam sprayed here so liberally. What cute names, almost like a child’s crayon set.

Typing this at Ông Bầu, I notice another customer, in her late 40’s, clipping her toenails. A feeble young man with slender, easily breakable fingers is texting. Đại the painter was here sketching. Two days ago, he brought his four-year-old granddaughter. Sitting very still, she drew birds, cats, the sun, a cloud and a tree.

When I complained about everyone staring at phones, Đại said his wife has a 20-year-old nephew who’s so addicted to the small screen, he barely eats and has no actual friends. Responding to TikTok challenges, he taped his face, then genitals. He’s now on medications.

Just now, a man in his 60’s walked in with a retarded girl of about nine. Like me, they’re sitting in Ông Bầu’s small courtyard. Their low table is just a circular board resting on two truck tires. It’s so sweet to see this old man so patient and gentle towards his granddaughter. She’s eating a pretty good looking bánh mì. On her back is a cartoon cat. Now that she’s settled and enjoying herself, he starts focusing on his cellphone.

Coffee Seven is no more! Mrs. Seven has just been evicted by her half sister. Let’s call her Lanh. Though Wikitionary only defines it as fast or quick, shiftiness is implied. Devious and ambitious, Lanh is at least 20 times richer than Mrs. Seven. When her mom and stepdad got old and messy, she maintained social distancing, all right. It was Mrs. Seven who had to wash their asses thousands of times. Instead of thanking or reimbursing Mrs. Seven, Lanh is showing her the door. In months, that property will be converted into another mini hotel. Vũng Tàu already has hundreds.

Knowing she was leaving, the neighborhood loanshark came by to embarrass Mrs. Seven. Like many people up and down this street, she still owes him some money. This 68-year-old with a pot belly exuded smugness. Speaking loudly so all could hear, Pot Belly smirkingly said Mrs. Seven wouldn’t be able to close her eyes at death. This ugliest curse, he repeated several times.

Finally, he turned to Liệt, the retired teacher, to talk about Trump. Without the Donald, China would have swallowed up Vietnam already, Pot Belly sneered. This idiot with a third grade education was only drafted into South Vietnam’s Regional Forces near the end of the war, so saw no fighting. He wasn’t reeducated in any prison camp.

His first break came when his daughter married an old Aussie, then his son wedded an ethnic Chinese with some means. From his kids, then, he got enough cash to become a loanshark.

With her two dogs, Nọng and Milk Cow, Mrs. Seven has moved into her older daughter’s house half a mile away. I kept urging her to set up a sidewalk café on Đồ Chiểu, but who knows if I will ever see her again. Sơn, too, must find a new morning spot.

Left behind is a tree her dad planted decades ago. It wasn’t even on his land, but across the street. “It’s still your tree,” I joked, “so cut it down to sell the lumber!” As a parting gift, I gave Mrs. Seven some Nepali green and black tea.

Seriously thinking about returning to the US to take care of some business, I’ve looked into hotel prices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and El Paso. I’ve even considered staying in Juarez, across a short bridge from El Paso. In LA, the only reasonable priced hotels are around Skid Row. Stay on Main where Melissa Lam was found dead in a rooftop watertank is now called Cecil. That’s affordable. For weeks, its water tasted funny. We still don’t know what happened to Melissa.

In that fabulous land, there are no truths, only fairy tales about Lincoln, Roosevelt, JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, Moon Landings and 9/11, etc. Nothing ever said about it is remotely true, except when uttered, tweeted or pontificated by that radiant and anointed being who’s always right about everything.

Trump, Miller, Schumer and Dinh — Nov 11, 2025.

The sadistic mastermind behind ICE is Stephen Miller, a Jew whose real name is Glosser. He’s greenlit masked thugs to attack even citizens in broad daylight. There’s no transparency about the thousands kidnapped. Many were plucked from inside courthouses as they obeyed American laws. Racial profiling is rampant. Trump and Miller creamed their pants Christening one concentration camp “Alligator Alcatraz.” Judeo Christianity rules! I’d not be surprised if many victims have been tortured or murdered. Not realizing they may be next, MAGA morons cheer. In the meantime, they’re just bankrupted or starved.

Trump’s Democratic opposition is led by Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jew ever in the US government. Though enjoying a surge of support due to revulsion to Degenerate Donald, Schumer’s Dems have given up fighting for affordable healthcare. Us vs. Dem in US politics is always smoke and mirror.

Trumpers, though, will laugh off street protests or online outrage.

Darth Shredder, “Dems literally had NO REASON to cave… They had the polls in their favor… huge election wins to solidify it and momentum on their side. Republicans were seen as the villains, trump was losing support and getting desperate by taking away SNAP. What was the frickin point of even shutting it down in the first place? They not only got nothing… they lost the narrative and shifted all the blame to them. I’m done.”

Love One Another, “Chuck Schumer orchestrated this Kabuki Theater. He’s a lying TRAITOR! WE WILL PRIMARY YOU, CHUCK. MAGA NOT DEMOCRAT. HOW DARE YOU! Chuck just killed over 50,000 of us each year, who can’t stay alive without medical care.”

SkyP1e, “I started dialysis this year the cost comes to about $80,000 annually. I’m on disability and my private insurance dropped me right after the dialysis started so I applied for Medicaid. I eventually got approved but it took about six weeks of constant attention from me to get there. Chuck might have just killed me tonight. Thanks a lot scumbag.”

Seriously, though, how can you take people who call themselves SkyP12, Love One Another or Darth Shredder seriously? They’re no more real than Catdompa, Gigolo Joe, Mister Charlie PhD, Trinity or Arbeit Macht Frei, etc. Passing impotent gas, pseudonymous commenting perpetuates tyranny.

Genocides and economic collapse must go on.

Trump’s lead negotiator in the Middle East is Steve Witkoff. This Jew misled the Iranians into thinking the US was negotiating in good faith, but Trump colluded with Jews to attack, before bombing them himself. Though holding no official position, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner has just met with Netanyahu to sort out what to do with the remaining Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli real estate firm Harey Zahav cheerfully chirps, “Wake up, a beach house is not a dream!” Jews are salivating at moving into a Gaza free of Arabs. Trump envisions his golden statue, hotel and casino lording over them. How many prepubescent shiksas will be imported? Pain is their ultimate aim. Trump’s fingers still work, at least. Dumpster diving MAGA morons can follow the action on Truth Social or TikTok. Since they can’t afford to fly an hour to see dying grandma, they won’t be anywhere near Trump Gaza. Jews don’t care to see such vulgar red caps or T-shirts anyway.

“JESUS IS MY SAVIOR. TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT.” “GOD, GUNS AND TRUMP.” “Liberty Guns Beer Trump” for LGBT. “IT’S GONNA TAKE A FELON AND A HILLBILLY TO FIX THIS.” Show up with any of these in Tel Aviv to be spat on.

Speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition on 10/31/25, Lindsey Graham proudly declared, “I feel good about the Republican Party and where we’re going as a nation. We’re killing all the right people and we’re cutting your taxes. Trump is my favorite president. We’ve run out of bombs. We didn’t run out of bombs in WWII.” Graham has been a senator for 22 years. Before that, he was a congressman for eight years. Though usually less crude, most US senior politicians have exactly the same posture, ass up, that is, towards Jews.

Last Sunday, Trump appeared at a Commanders vs. Lions game. Though he was loudly booed or given the finger by nearly everyone present, a White House video of this humiliating incident shows Epstein’s best buddy given a hero’s welcome. It begins with Air Force One flying slowly over Northwest Stadium. A football with “TRUMP—COMMANDER IN CHIEF” and a jersey with “TRUMP” are shown. The latter, framed, is presented to him by the team’s owner, Josh Harris. This Jew with a shady business history has had much dealing with Jared Kushner.

It’s a nation of scams, lies and spins. Still thinking about a brief visit back, I checked Las Vegas hotel prices. With delight, I discovered 14 nights at Excalibur, right on the Strip, was on sale for just $359.74. The normal cost is $1,269.33. In small print, though, there’s this easy to miss bit, “Not included in price (collected by the property): Resort Fee (Pay at property) USA 714.28.” How many foreign visitors only discover this when checking in? No other country tries to pull off such a stunt, but then, again, no other nation is ruled by Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner and Bibi Netanyahu.

Yesterday, I also got this email:

Though a bit long-winded, it sounded exactly like Trump, so of course, I immediately sent all my savings to The Donald via PayPal.

Forget San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, El Paso or Las Vegas, I will fly straight from Saigon to Dulles Airport, then take a limousine to the White House. To its swarthy driver, I’ll bark, “Trump has me covered. I’m his Official White House Advisor, so step on the gas, motherfucker! Any delay and I’ll have you deported. Where are you from anyway? Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen? Go back to where you came from, dickhead. Crawl back into your Bin Laden cave!”

Since it’s nearly freezing in DC, I will need to buy a cashmere coat, for the occasion, you know. In this tropical climate, a Binori or Canali would be very tough to find. Plus, I just sent all my cash to Trump. Enthusiasm, fanaticism or just stupidity can even lead to suicide, or at least death by a thousand cuts.

Vung Tau, 11/12/25

22,630 Days — Nov 12, 2025.

On my 62^nd birthday, I’ve allowed myself to go mad, or, rather, to revert to a madder, more irresponsible self. At 9:35AM, I’m on my second BeerLao, though the first was somewhat shared with Như. She hardly drank her iced glass. Now, I’m sitting outside a liquor store that has maybe 30 types of beer. Four feet from me is a masked crone no taller than 4’9”. Across the street is Mrs. Tím, the crab noodle soup lady. Under her conical hat, she’s cleaning up and putting her tables and chairs away.

Until a minute ago there was a recorded song from inside the licker joint. It’s played for the owner’s 21-month-old daughter. I first heard it nearly 60 years ago. It’s about some frog sobbing in a corner. Tagged on stanzas include a dog, monkey and other animals. There’s an obscene version of a girl pissing in a corner.

Come out here, what’s that sitting in the corner?
Only her back is shown. Oh, it’s a girl!
It’s a girl pissing, with only her back shown.
Oh, she’s a bad girl!

That didn’t just leave a profound impression on me at age 8 or 9, it has defined my entire life, I’m sure. Without this ditty, I could have been a venture capitalist, five-star general or president of the United States of America. Now, I’m permanently traumatized.

A couple months ago, I challenged Như to finish her book in a year. It’s coming along. Two weeks ago, I said I’d give her a serious spanking if it’s not done on schedule. I was born to coach, mentor or just be an asshole.

This morning, I told Như about Raymond Carver and Harold Brodkey. Over decades, details may slip. Recently, I insisted to D.W. Shumway my Mariners lost to the A’s by identical score, 6-0, on consecutive days in 1976. Problem is D.W. was at the fuckin’ first game! I only heard it on the radio in Salem, Oregon. It was the Angels, and not A’s.

Me this morning, “Carver wrote about being in some Yakima laundromat and feeling rather sorry for himself. That really resonated with me. I was living in Grays Ferry, this shitty neighborhood in Philly. Though I didn’t know it at the time, Grays Ferry kids, these Irish, Catholic boys, were selling soiled underwear to this creep, Uncle Eddie. He lived in Center City’s best neighborhood, Rittenhouse Square. Just the name alone, you can tell. Though he was a UPenn graduate and had a wife, Uncle Eddie was a closet faggot, with a shit fetish. Lying under a glass table, he enjoyed staring at shit oozing from these boys’ assholes.”

I’m not sure Như wanted to hear all that around 7AM. I did have a point. Uncle Eddie had a vision, which he followed. He was more artist than most artists. If eating shit is intrinsic to who you are, don’t overmask it.

Me on Brodkey, “This guy was so heavily promoted, and he was excellent. His prose is much better than Carver’s. Brodkey has the most amazing passage about pussy licking, and it went on for four or five pages! He seemed so honest and candid, but it turned out Brodkey was a queer. He had to admit this because he got AIDS.”

Như, “Queers can be amazing at pussy licking because they don’t like penetration. They must focus on that!”

“You must write about that, too!”

Như said that as a child, she was always screaming inside her head. As a kid, all I wanted was to grow up as quickly as possible, so I could escape.

“We’re all helpless children,” I said. “You’re not really in your 30’s.”

“I feel like I’m 23.”

“Bullshit! You’re about 8-years-old, at most. I’m 4 or 5.”

Of course, writing is one way of dressing yourself up, to sound more intelligent and in control, you know, but if your baby, malformed or monkey self cannot seep out, you’re a waste of time, if not a criminal.

“We’re always dressed up.”

“Even when naked, we’re dressed up.” She’s trying to outdo me!

Not willing to concede defeat, I cited Andre Dworkin’s Intercourse, “She has some of the most amazing insights into being naked I’ve ever read.”

At age 70 or so, poet Stephen Berg pulled down his pants at a gathering of maybe six people. “Look at that,” he shouted. I wasn’t there, though. Versions of this story must be circulating around Philly, at least. “Why did he do that?” I asked Như. “What’s the symbolism of that?” Berg’s infant or beast got loose, and not for the first time. This time, he wanted to be caught.

Như talked about sabotaging every relationship. Having turned away from everyone, she felt a perplexing guilt.

“But you’re not going to change.”

“I’m not going to change.”

“You’re getting even.”

Like me, Như decided early on to never have children. We can’t justify passing on our despair, resentment and horrors. Unhappy children are most trapped.

Without that frog song, I could have been a Vince Lombardi or, at least, a Pete Carrol, but instead, I’m just a canceled, wrinkled toddler drinking a $1.50 large bottle of BeerLao in perfect weather. Imbibing nothing but perfectly content, at least in appearance, that masked mummy keeps turning her vigilant skull with its murky eyeballs back and forth, as if there’s much to look at on this drowsy, terribly boring street.

All week, I thought about returning briefly to the States, but my US banking and Vietnam residency issues have mostly been solved. A visit to Guam, the first US territory I entered way back in 1975, is still a possibility. As the native land of the Chamorros, all of the Marianas should be one nation, I’d think. Instead, Guam will likely be the first territory to be completely wiped out during the next nuclear war. The Chinese DF-26 missile is even nicknamed “Guam Express” or “Guam Killer.”

The rest of the Marianas would be uninhabitable, but that’s probably true of everywhere else, too.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Hamas Statement on Israel’s Ceasefire Violations in Gaza

### Press release issued by the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, regarding the occupation’s violations of the ceasefire agreement signed in Sharm el-Sheikh one month after its implementation.

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

In this statement, we in the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas affirm our thanks and appreciation for the efforts of the brotherly mediators and all countries, international and humanitarian organizations, and free people of the world who took a courageous ethical and humanitarian stance in rejecting the genocide carried out by the occupation against our people in Gaza. We value the efforts of the mediators who contributed to reaching the ceasefire agreement.

In the context of the commitment of the Movement and the resistance forces to implement the agreement, stemming from their national and humanitarian responsibilities, it calls on the brotherly mediators, guarantors, countries, and international organizations to continue working to pressure the occupation and oblige it to stop its repeated excesses and violations aimed at torpedoing the agreement and undermining efforts to stabilize and sustain it. These violations were as follows:

First: Hamas’s full and precise commitment to the agreement

Since the ceasefire agreement signed in Sharm el-Sheikh came into effect, the resistance forces have adhered with full, precise commitment and in good faith to implementing the agreement. It handed over the twenty living captive occupation soldiers within 72 hours of the implementation’s start. It also continued meticulous search operations for the bodies of “israeli” captives in daily coordination with mediators and the International Red Cross.

This was despite the extremely difficult field conditions created by the war, its complete changing of the Strip’s features, the destruction of its infrastructure, the occupation’s control over 60% of the Strip’s area, working amidst hundreds of tons of unexploded ordnance dropped by the occupation on Gaza, the lack of sufficient excavation and rubble removal equipment (which the occupation still obstructs the entry of), the martyrdom of a large number of resistance fighters who were guarding the occupation’s captives, and the vaporization of the bodies of hundreds of Palestinian fighters and civilians (and the possibility of the same for some of the occupation’s captives).

Despite this, the Movement was able to recover (24 bodies out of 28). Through mediators and the Red Cross, it provided coordinates for the locations of other bodies in areas under occupation control. Meanwhile, the Movement continues its intensive efforts to find the remaining bodies. The Movement has left no pretext the occupation tried to fabricate, addressing each one, confirming through actions and field facts its full commitment to the text and spirit of the agreement.

Second: The occupation’s violations one month into the agreement

Since the agreement began, the occupation has not stopped undermining and violating it daily and momentarily, and attempting to fabricate pretexts.

This is represented in:

> 1. Killing and targeting civilians: 271 Palestinians were martyred as a result of deliberate bombing and shooting by occupation forces. Civilians constituted more than 91% of them, with 94% inside the Yellow Line and the rest adjacent to it. Among the martyrs were 107 children, 39 women, and 9 elderly persons, meaning 58% were children, women, and the elderly, in a scene that reflects the occupation’s continued policy of systematic killing against the unarmed population.
>
> 2. Injuries: 622 citizens were injured by bombing and shooting. 99% of them were civilians, including 221 children, 137 women, and 33 elderly persons, meaning 63% of the injured were children, women, and the elderly, which confirms the vengeful and systematic nature of the occupation’s crimes.
>
> 3. Arrests: The occupation arrested 35 Palestinians, including fishermen at sea and others from areas adjacent to the Yellow Line. 29 of them remain in detention.
>
> 4. Demolition of homes inside the Yellow Line: The occupation continues, on a daily and systematic basis, to demolish homes located inside the areas it controls outside the Yellow Line, in a clear and explicit breach of the agreement. These violations have continued for a full month without stopping, leading to widespread destruction of citizens’ property inside that area.
>
> 5. Exceeding the temporary withdrawal line: The occupation has not adhered to the agreed-upon withdrawal line for the first phase. It is exceeding the Yellow Line by an area estimated at 33 km squared, which includes fire control within distances ranging from 400 to 1050 meters inside the line, and the incursion of military vehicles into these areas. The occupation has also placed concrete blocks that exceed the Yellow Line by distances ranging from 200 to 800 meters along the temporary line.
>
> 6. Preventing the entry of UNRWA aid: In an explicit violation of the agreement’s text, the occupation continues to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid provided by UNRWA, which has led to the backlog of more than six thousand shipments of vital supplies. UNRWA is considered the most capable and professional body for distributing humanitarian aid, given its more than seventy-seven years of experience in relief work and serving Palestinian refugees in its various fields of operation.
>
> 7. Restricting the entry of aid and fuel: The occupation has deliberately and systematically violated the agreement’s clauses stipulating the entry of at least 600 aid trucks daily, including 50 fuel trucks of all types. Actual humanitarian aid did not exceed 40% of the total trucks entering during the first month, meaning less than 200 trucks per day.
>
> Commercial trucks constituted 60%, part of which were registered as aid despite being commercial. It also only allowed in 38 gas trucks and 92 diesel trucks, i.e., 8.4% of the agreed-upon quantity. Fuel is the oxygen for restarting life—for operating hospital generators, opening roads, running transport facilities, and rehabilitating infrastructure amid a total power outage. This confirms the occupation is working in a calculated and systematic way to maintain the state of paralysis and prevent the return of life.
>
> The occupation also continues to close the “Zikim” crossing, a main route to facilitate and speed up aid entry from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. The occupation also controls the types of materials allowed in, preventing basic foodstuffs like meat, poultry, eggs, and livestock, except in minimal amounts. In 31 days, only one truck of eggs was allowed in. It also prevents the entry of tents and shelter supplies despite the harsh onset of winter; what has entered is less than 5% of the Strip’s urgent needs, deepening the humanitarian crisis.
>
> 8. Failure to operate the power generation plant: Despite a month passing since the agreement’s signing, Gaza residents have not seen any practical steps toward restarting the power generation plant, even though the agreement’s text affirms that preparations for its operation should begin immediately upon the agreement’s entry into force. This keeps the Strip in a state of partial paralysis affecting all aspects of life.
>
> 9. Preventing infrastructure rehabilitation: The occupation continues to prevent the entry of heavy equipment and materials needed for rubble removal, as well as obstructing the entry of necessary supplies for operating power and water stations, sewage systems, bakeries, and hospitals. It also prevents the entry of construction materials and civil defense equipment needed for reconstruction, which systematically prevents efforts to rehabilitate infrastructure and restore civilian life in the Strip.
>
> 10. Closure of the Rafah crossing: Despite the agreement to open the Rafah crossing in both directions starting October 20, 2025, the crossing has remained closed since 03/18/2025, despite (21) days having passed since the agreed-upon date for its reopening. The occupation government continues to prevent citizens from traveling and returning, which has multiplied the suffering of thousands of stranded individuals, patients, and students, in a direct breach of the agreement’s clauses.
>
> 11. Incitement by occupation leaders to return to war: Political, military, and security leaders of the occupation continue their public, near-daily incitement to resume the war and not abide by the agreement’s terms, in clear disregard for the international community and defiance of world leaders who affirmed at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit the necessity of stabilizing the ceasefire. The occupation’s cabinet also voted, one week after the ceasefire agreement, to change the war’s name to the “War of Resurrection” (Harb al-Ba’ath), a step that shows its insistence on continuing the aggression and its rejection of the ceasefire path and international efforts for stability.
>
> 12. Mutilation of the bodies of Palestinian martyrs: The occupation handed over dozens of Palestinian bodies that had been brutally mutilated, including bodies crushed under tank treads, and others who were field-executed while bound and blindfolded. This constitutes a fully-fledged war crime and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
>
> 13. Detainees and the missing: The occupation continues to manipulate the delivery of a list of names of Palestinian detainees from Gaza, despite a full month passing; it has not provided the final list as stipulated in the agreement. It continues to evade the mediators, providing incomplete lists from time to time, lacking dozens of detainees it had previously acknowledged in earlier lists, in addition to repeating some names or including names of persons who were previously released.
>
> The Movement affirms the existence of more than (1,800) missing persons from Gaza whose fate is still unknown. The occupation also continues to detain the nurse Tasneem Marwan Al-Hams from Gaza, along with dozens of women and children from the West Bank, and prevents the families of deported detainees from meeting their released relatives.

We in the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas and the resistance forces affirm our full commitment to the agreement signed in Sharm el-Sheikh and to our ethical and humanitarian responsibility towards our people. We hold the occupation fully responsible for its continued gross violations and breaches. We call on the mediators, guarantors, governments, and international civil society organizations to take immediate and serious action to oblige the occupation to stop its aggression, lift its siege, allow in aid, and guarantee the Palestinian people’s rights to security, freedom, and dignity.

Based on the resistance’s commitment to the agreement, international law, and international humanitarian law, we call on the brotherly mediators, guarantors, countries, international organizations, and free people of the world to act urgently to ensure the occupation is obliged to implement the following clauses:

> 1. Precise adherence to the clauses of the ceasefire agreement signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, affirmation of its continuation, and prevention of any breach.
>
> 2. Immediate cessation of killing, massacres, and violations against our people in Gaza.
>
> 3. Withdrawal according to the temporary line agreed upon in the first phase, and preventing any field transgressions or additional fire control.
>
> 4. Commitment to allowing in the agreed-upon quantities of aid and fuel as stipulated in the agreement, and preventing their reduction or obstruction.
>
> 5. Allowing UNRWA to work with full freedom inside the Gaza Strip immediately, and enabling it to enter and distribute humanitarian aid as the most experienced and capable body to do so.
>
> 6. Operating and opening the Rafah crossing in both directions for the travel and return of citizens, and lifting the restrictions imposed on it immediately.
>
> 7. Opening the Zikim crossing for the entry of humanitarian and relief aid via the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan without restrictions or delay.
>
> 8. Urgent allowance for the entry of 300,000 tents for immediate shelter to enable citizens to protect themselves from the bitter winter cold.
>
> 9. Entry of equipment and machinery necessary for infrastructure rehabilitation, and adherence to the agreed-upon humanitarian protocol.
>
> 10. Immediate cessation of demolishing and destroying homes and civilian facilities in the areas the occupation still controls.
>
> 11. Allowing entry of equipment necessary to operate the power generation plant in Gaza, and entry of the required diesel quantities for it.
>
> 12. Full and immediate disclosure of the fate and data of all Palestinian detainees and missing persons from the Gaza Strip.
>
> 13. Allowing entry of medical, humanitarian, and media missions and civil defense teams to provide their humanitarian and relief services freely.

The Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas
Monday: 19 Jumada al-Awwal 1447 AH
Corresponding to: November 10, 2025

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November 10, 2025

Source: Resistance News Network

Michael Hudson & Glenn Diesen: The Strange Case of Europe’s Decline

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, I guess it’s not too optimistic, unless you look at the prospect of a revolution as being optimistic.

GLENN DIESEN: Welcome back to the program. We are joined today by Professor Michael Hudson to discuss the very strange case of Europe’s economic decline, as well as some of its latest self-harm and questionable decisions. So thank you very much for coming back on.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: I’m glad you invited me, Glenn.

⁣GLENN DIESEN: So, I wanted to get into the Europeans joining in on America’s tech war, or economic war, against China. But first I wanted to ask a bit about this seizure the Europeans are engaging in. Because as we know they have frozen Russian assets, that is sovereign funds, and there is now growing pressure to seize these funds. That is, as various newspapers write, they’re looking for something to make it seem legal to essentially steal the Russian assets, sovereign funds, something that’s never been done before. And what makes this unique is the Americans do not want to participate in this because, of course, they would become financial pariahs. Japan doesn’t want to. But for some reasons, the Europeans seem quite determined that this is something they should do. What do you make of this decision? Because it is quite complex. They want to take the Russian assets and use it as collateral for a loan, which can’t be repaid back.

So, you know, either way, the Russians are not going to get their money back, more or less.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, the question is: Who are the Europeans that we’re talking about? I’m not sure it’s the European population that seems to be against the war with Russia and Ukraine, and seems to want to simply have an industrial recovery. The Europeans are led by the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Estonian, her Estonian helper [Kaja Kallas], and by Friedrich Merz of Germany. And the neocons and the NATO groups, Mark Rutte, have all decided that they want to extend the war between Ukraine to Russia into a war between Europe and Russia, or at least to frighten Europe and make Europe think that there’s going to be an imminent war, in order to, basically, create a kind of military Keynesianism.

So, let me begin, I think where we’ve left off, or we’ve discussed earlier, about this $300 billion Russian deposits with Euroclear, which was the clearing organization centered in Brussels for dealings with Russia’s foreign exchange in Euros and dollars. Nobody knows where Euroclear has actually put this $300 billion, or Euros, in assets. It seems to have spread them over many countries, in many investments. There have been many attempts by journalists and by politicians to try to find out where [it is]. Nobody knows where it is. And the Belgian prime minister says, well, since Euroclear is in our country, we only have $10 to $20 billion of this money at stake, but we’re against Europe seizing Euroclear.

So, the Germans, and the French, and the other pro-war advocates in Europe, have sought to circumvent this by mobilizing public opinion, by frightening it into thinking that there’s an imminent problem.

Ultimately, what they’re conjuring up is, well, is Russia going to invade Europe? This is absurd. No country that’s developed and has an elected official at the head is going to invade any other country. Land invasions are over. Any fight with Russia is going to be fought by missiles, and only by missiles. It could be air missiles, it could be from submarines, it could be naval missiles, but it’s going to be a missile-type fight. The main missiles that people have spoken about so far are the drones.

I think the aim — what Merz and the Europeans, who are trying to set European interests against those of Russia, are trying to do — is [to] achieve this military Keynesianism, based on the ostensible need to fight Russia, or to “defend” itself against Russia, is an extension of this bombing of Ukraine. And that’s where the conflict is certainly leading.

Now, the plan of Merz and Germany is to give the money to Ukraine, from the Euroclear, that’ll be earmarked in Ukrainian account to buy weapons to fight Russia. Nobody trusts the Ukrainian kleptocracy enough to simply give the $300 billion to Ukraine. It would end up in the pockets of the kleptocrats. But they will create an account for Ukrainians to spend on European armaments. Good news for the European military-industrial complex, whose stocks have been going up, while the other industrial stocks have not followed suit because of the slowdown that was caused ever since the termination of trade for Russian oil and gas.

Well, the news exposed in the last few days is that Merz turns out to have staged alleged Russian drone appearances at airports in Germany in order to whoop up propaganda against Russia, as if it really had some intention of attacking Germany in some way or another. I mean, that’s what the drones are doing in Ukraine. And the fact that the drones are such a novel form of transforming the character of warfare in the last three years, you can see how this was the button to push on the German and the European population.

And you’ve already had the NATO head, Mark Rutte, calling on NATO to be prepared to fight a long-term confrontation with Russia. Well, a “confrontation” means, at some point, a war: that’s what NATO is all about. And he claims that the alliance has turned the tide on ammunition. He says NATO’s currently winning.

And if you read the European popular press, the mass media, they all say that Ukraine has a chance of beating Russia. It’s just fighting to a stalemate! This is completely different from the guests that you’ve had on your programs who are, like me, reading — What are the Chinese saying, What are the Russians saying? What are reporters throughout all the rest of the world saying? That the Ukrainian war is, basically, over. It’s lost, totally.

And the problem for Europe’s industrial economies, according to Merz, is, well, if the war in Ukraine has been lost, then what are we going to use all of our weapons for? Who’s going to buy our weapons? Not the United States. The United States is asking Europe to buy American weapons for NATO. NATO needs the threat of war in order to maintain the military-industrial production and employment that it seems to have been willing to base the economy on.

Four days ago, Germany’s Stern magazine published insider leaks, showing that the whole idea that Russian drones were being used against German airports to sort of sound them out, as if this was all a preparation for Russian bombing of the airports in Germany and Europe, just as it was bombing air transportation in Ukraine. All of this turns out to have been made up by Merz, and orchestrated as a scheme to sort of amplify public fear, and fast-track these lucrative military contracts for the domestic firms.

It turns out that [Merz]’s personal background is a corporate lawyer with deep connections to Germany’s arms sector. And from the very beginning in Germany, as the Christian Democratic leader, he’s been advocating more defense outlays — saying this is going to lead the German recovery — as if the German industry can recover given the break of relations with Russia, and now the imminent break of relations with China, as well.

So, if these leaks turn out to hold water — and Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany has been very outspoken in trying to get to the bottom of this, and insisting on a public investigation — then it’s going to be obvious that Europe has this deep state of NATO and anti-Russian neocons, that is just as serious as the U.S. deep state in pushing for confrontation and, ultimately, war with Russia.

And if you read what Merz has said, it’s as if this really isn’t about national security at all. It’s about securing gains for industrial investors and for a minority, that has hijacked European defense policy and industrial policy. I think the question is: Why are they doing it now? Now that the war is ending, it looks like there’s going to be, at some point (and it may take until Spring), a Ukrainian surrender. The Russians are going to take over and appoint a non-Nazi government — replace the whole government in Ukraine.

The intention of Russia is to block any attempt by Europe to send more missiles or arms attacking Russia itself. Russia’s aim is simply to isolate itself as much as possible from Europe because it no longer looks at Western Europe as offering an opportunity for mutual gain. It only sees Europe as representing a threat — and if it could make an iron wall isolating Europe? Basically, it’s “you leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone — but don’t get involved.”

I think, given the fact that (if and when) the war ends, Russia is now going to have to spend an enormous amount of money rebuilding the Russian-speaking Ukraine (former Ukraine), that is now part of Russia. Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea have already voted, had a referendum, to rejoin Russia. And Russia is going to need a lot of money.

The opportunity of ending the war in Ukraine offered Russia the chance to say: Well, you are demanding reparations from Russia for the war in Ukraine that you, NATO, started, with the U.S.–British coup d’état of 2014 by the Nazis that overthrew the elected government. (It was NATO in Europe that backed the Ukrainians in an ethnic war against Russian-speaking Eastern provinces.) So, we’re the victims, not the attackers.

If there’s anyone who owes reparations, it’s Europe owing reparations to Russia; but, of course, that would take years and years to settle through the courts. But what Russia, I think, would be willing to agree on is: We’re going to use that $300 billion to spend largely in Europe, to start the reconstruction and rebuilding of the real estate, the industry, the economies of Luhansk (Donbass), and other parts of the former Ukraine that are now part of Russia.

And I think that what Merz and the anti-Russian cabal in the European leadership are trying to do is to prevent this opportunity. They don’t want Russia to spend its money on Europe to rebuild the Russian-speaking former provinces of Ukraine. They want the money to be spent, specifically, on Europe’s military-industrial complex. That’s what the whole problem is all about.

⁣GLENN DIESEN: Well, I think a key problem for Europe is also that the war now is, well, the work going on is more or less a condition for the survival of the political West, indeed, Europe itself; because the U.S. has already made its intentions clear, that it wants to reduce its presence, not just in Ukraine, but Europe. But the Americans have now taken this clear position that they will want to make a profit from the weapons. So, the Europeans have to pay for the weapons it sends.

But what was interesting (back in the end of August), it was reported in Reuters that the U.S. told the Europeans that they would begin to pull, a bit, out of the Baltic states. And that’s suddenly when you see all this reporting on the drones. So, suddenly, everyone, you know, if they think they saw a drone, but it hasn’t been confirmed; or actual drones were seen, but none of them were actually tied to Russia? Many of them were revealed — that there were people flying drones as a hobby — Germans in Germany, for example.

But the narrative remains. That is, not one piece of evidence; but if you put the 0 + 0 + 0, suddenly, you have at least a 1 (one) — in the European math.

But we also see now that the U.S. is gradually pulling some of its troops from Poland [and] Romania; and this is creating some panic. The only thing that can make the U.S., perhaps, change its mind is if there’s an actual conflict brewing up, some real threats towards Europe.

Otherwise, yes, I want to say, as well, Europe itself risks fragmenting because the EU’s main strength was collective-bargaining power: the ability to stand together; and this transfer of sovereignty towards Brussels would allow for the EU to deliver some tangible economic benefits for its member states. The EU doesn’t really do well economically anymore. So, at the moment, unity, to a large extent, depends on the war. Once the war is over, it’s very likely that the EU will begin to fragment.

So, I think a lot of this helps to explain why the political leadership in Europe seems so frightened, or desperate, to keep the war going.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: But Glenn, the war is creating disunity.

Look at what is happening with Hungary and the Czech Republic. The European Union now is saying, well, under the rules that we’ve had all along, Hungary is given the ability to block our military spending in support of Ukraine — Hungary has actually been attacked by Ukraine. Article 5 of the NATO [Charter] is dead. A NATO member (Hungary) has been attacked by a foreign power (Ukraine) to destroy its oil supplies that it was getting via Kazakhstan, via Russia. And both Hungary and the Czech Republic — and now there’s pressure in other countries, too — saying: We cannot afford the war of Russia. You, Germans, are willing to end your industrial growth and deindustrialize, and impoverish your economy for your ideological hatred of Russia; but we cannot afford your war. We’re going to block it.

And so, the European Union wants to change the rules to not permit member countries any longer to have the right to block.

So, what is Hungary to do? Is it to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? It’s being left out.

The war is, I think, not only dividing European countries against each other, it’s dividing the European right-wing NATO leadership from the voters, the population as a whole. The voters want secular recovery. They don’t want war, because war is going to impoverish them. War will enrich the military firms, that are represented by Merz and the other pro-war leaders. It’s not going to really help the economy at all. So, I think it’s being divisive.

⁣GLENN DIESEN: No, I think you’re very right. And in the long term, the war is just deepening the divisions within Europe. But in the short term, it’s seen as something to hold it together. Again, this is part of the problem now: I think there’s no strategic thinking where we’re actually going with this. But towards this end, though, the need to have the constant tensions with Russia, and keeping the war going with Ukraine, is becoming more difficult now that Ukraine is turning out to be in much worse shape than many European leaders would like to admit.

How do you see this moving forward? Do you think the European leaders have to step in? Because there’s a lot of talk now in Europe. You have the former NATO Secretary General arguing that the Europeans, or NATO, should start intercepting Russian missiles and drones from NATO territory. There’s more push now to do long-range strikes into Russia — we keep saying “helping Ukraine” — but at the end of the day, this will be our weapons, buttons pushed by our contractors. It will be our targeting, our satellites.

So it’s a NATO attack on Russia. And I think more or less this shouldn’t be controversial to say anymore.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, it’s not controversial in Russia. Both President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have said that if a missile hits Russia from a NATO country, and even if this missile is launched from Ukraine, if the missile itself is from a NATO country, or steered electronically from Wiesbaden, or any other European guidance center, Russia will retaliate against the countries that produced, or guided, the missile. And that means it’s going to do to Germany what it’s done to Ukraine. How much will it do it? Will it just begin hitting the military companies, the army bases, the electric-power utilities; or will it be more?

Russia’s response will be: You sent a missile against us? We’re going to send missiles against you. You, Europeans, have no defense against our new hypersonic missiles. They’re not going to be atomic — they don’t have to be — but they’re enough to disable your industry, certainly your military industry, to disable your ability to send missiles. We can disable not only your arms-makers, but your electronic [and] electrical facilities, your transportation facilities, your railroads, your airports, your ports.

They’ve been as clear as they can in saying this, to such a point that, given the feelings [of] the Russian voters themselves, saying: You can’t just ignore one red line after another, and let Europe escalate. You’ve got to respond.

We’re dealing with a step function here. Russia has tried to warn Europe again and again: here is what’s going to happen if you really do “that.”

Europe has decided that it wants “that.” Apparently, Merz, and Rutte of NATO, believe that Europe needs to be attacked by Russia in order to rebuild its industry. But the attack by Russia is going to prevent it from rebuilding its industry. That’s what we call an internal contradiction.

And how do you explain this? It’s a tunnel-visioned ideology of, literally, sharing the long-term British hatred of Russia. It has nothing to do with communism, because Russia is not the Soviet Union anymore. It’s almost a geopolitical confrontation that leads Europe to share the U.S. neocon view that, well, if only we could divide Russia into four or five small countries, then it wouldn’t have the power to, not only threaten us, but to play any positive role in the world at all. And that’ll enable us to play a positive role in the world, as America’s leading puppets, administering the rest of the world on America’s behalf.

I mean, that’s a pretty pitiful worldview, but that’s where it’s all moving towards.

I have other things that I want to talk about in your show. What the European Union has done is saying it’s not enough to fight Russia. As Rutte said, this is not only a fight against Russia, it’s a fight against Russia’s allies: China, Iran, North Korea. This is a war against us, against what almost seems to be the Global Majority. And the first arena in this war has been against China, and it’s been by the Dutch, who seem to be even more than Germany, extremists. They confiscated the Nexteria battery company that Chinese firms had bought and developed in Holland to provide a basic stage in transforming silicon wafers into batteries. This is not in itself a national security issue.

And in fact, because it’s not a national security issue, it’s such a common mundane technology, automobiles, Mercedes, all of the Volkswagen, all the big German car companies, but also industry in general, needs all of these batteries. And batteries are fairly simple, but the technology requires, I’d say, a couple of years to put in place. And so when Donald Trump and the Americans pressed the Dutch government to say, you have to seize any government that China owns 50% or more of, or Chinese investors own 50% or more of, you have to confiscate it as part of our war against China because we, Americans, are not going to join your fight against Russia, but we are going to end up fighting against China as our existential enemy — as the Americans like to put it.

So, the Dutch seized Nexperia and on the grounds that — well, number one, the United States told it to seize it, by designating hundreds of Chinese companies that are owned 50% or more, as free [for] Europeans to grab; and the Dutch grabbed it — and because it said, we worry that Nexperia, given the growing antagonism of the West towards China, is going to move some of its operations to China. And China might do something that we don’t like or that to interfere with our control of this bilateral battery trade.

And so we’re going to grab the company, take it over, and confiscate it — just like the European companies have confiscated Lukoil’s affiliates in Romania, and other European countries. So obviously, China denounced it. The anger in China is very, very clear. And it said, how can you do this? Europe’s manufacturing sector is dependent on Nexperia’s batteries. It has, I think, millions of its products are sold throughout Europe as not very expensive, but key inputs for automobiles and other basic machinery. And all of this is going to be blocked now. And China said, well, obviously, you know, we’re not going to keep selling producing all of this output for companies that have now been seized by the Dutch government in violation of all law, simply because the Americans tell them to. Well, the Dutch responded to say, well, Donald Trump has indeed said he’s no longer imposing the 50% rule against China’s designated companies.

But that’s not why we grabbed it. We were going to grab it anyway because we don’t want the Chinese to be in control of a company that so many of our other firms in Holland and throughout Europe actually are dependent on. So they’ve stopped production, and the Chinese have said, well, you know, we’re not going to give you stuff for free. First of all, all future trade with Holland and with other European industries is going to be in our own currency, the RMB, not in Euros. We cannot keep our savings and bill our products in Euros because you may do to us what you just did to Russia. It’s obvious we’re on the same trajectory there. Ruth has said we’re just as bad as Russia because we’re importing Russia’s oil and that’s supposed to help Russia defeat Ukraine and the whole fantasy of interconnections that the Europeans have drawn.

So the Nexperia incident is sort of to China become a whole barometer of Europe’s institutional credibility is what the Chinese spokesman have said. And it’s unilaterally halted the waiver supplies to Nexperia claiming its own national security for all of this. So I don’t see any chance of a resolution for this. The Dutch keep saying, we think the Chinese are going to be reasonable and surrender to us. Well, China’s not going to surrender. And in fact, it’s blocking key exports, not only raw material, not only rare earths, but other raw materials. There are so many key materials that China is supplying to the West that even if they’re alternative sources to Europe, these alternative sources are, first of all, going to be more expensive. And secondly, it’s going to take quite a while to put them in place. China has said, well, we are able, of course, to replicate at home what Nexperia was producing in Holland. And it has affiliates all over Europe. Of course, we can do it, but it’s going to take a while. And certainly, just to begin exporting these batteries again is going to take three or four months.

Well, the European industries that have been using these imports have all followed just-in-time accounting. They’ve minimized their keeping of inventories so that they can operate with a lower expense of doing business. So Europe doesn’t have inventories of these batteries. And it’s going to have to, it’s companies all throughout Europe within two months have announced, Mercedes and others, they’re going to have to close down their plants because you can’t make a car without these simple, basic batteries, raise and lower windows when they go up, you know, automatic control, internal control systems of cars, and they’re going to have to lay off the labor force. So, once again, this idea of Europe somehow regaining control of its economy by declaring a trade and investment and financial currency war, extending this war from Russia to China and other countries, is going to be as serious on a smaller scale as Europe’s decision not to import Russian oil and gas anymore. Europe is cutting itself off from all of the basic imports from raw materials to semi-manufacturers to other manufacturers, goods that it’s become dependent upon. And there’s no way that an economy can function without these products.

Well, you can be sure that China is quite aware of this. And when it says, well, it’s going to take a while, it’s completely Holland’s fault for doing this. Well, what it’s saying is that, well, let’s you European countries fight among themselves to see what the resolution is. And of course, when there’s a resolution, there’s going to have to be reparations, and China will protect its own national security from future seizure by saying the European leaders are really just like Donald Trump. They’re changing the rules at will for their military confrontation. In order for us to avoid our own interruption of our processing and manufacturing, we’re going to have to keep our control of our own manufacturing. Europe can, of course, do the same thing. Well, maybe in ten years, let’s say seven or eight years, Europe can do its own thing. Its population will fall in half. Mass poverty, the governments will be voted out of office. It’ll be a disaster. That is the clearly outlined plan that Merz and von der Leyen, the European Union, European Commission, NATO, the German government, the English government, the French government are pushing for. It’s unanimous that the future is for a European collapse, deindustrialization, and it’s going to result in a breakup of the European Union. And probably this kind of a breakup is what leads to actual military confrontation and war. And that’s where things seem to be leading. It seems crazy, but I don’t see when you read what other governments are saying, this is what they’re warning Europe about. And the Europeans said, well, that’s what we want.

⁣GLENN DIESEN: It’s very crazy we ended up in this situation. But the thing is, the Russian market was quite good for Europe. Indeed, it was a very important part of the entire development model. That is not just all the cheap energy which was being supplied by Russia, but also what the Russians were doing with all that money, because they were, to a large extent buying European-produced goods. And if there weren’t a special energy project, work in the Arctic, often under the hope of developing this Greater Europe, based on Gorbachev’s Common European home idea, often Europe was favored as partners, as well as with the United States, with the assumption that economic connectivity would somehow lead to Russia’s gradual integration.

It’s just crazy going down this path, because it was the Americans who were pushing very hard for NATO expansion to redivide the continent, remilitarize it. It was the Europeans who, for all these years, worried that we would recreate the Cold War logic, that we would impose these zero-sum civilizational choices on the countries, between NATO and Russia, which could make a choice, which would manifest itself in civil wars, and then proxy wars.

But yet, here we are, and the Europeans are now really doubling down. It’s very hard to have anyone actually explain where the national interest comes in here, how this is good for anyone, including Ukraine, for that sake. But no, the Chinese and others are definitely watching because if there would be some push tomorrow for Taiwan to secede, and China would take any actions. why wouldn’t the Europeans also take the Chinese funds? Why wouldn’t they seize Chinese companies? I mean, it’s even the fact that they’re discussing this is just, I think, a horrible mistake.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: There is a discussion of national interest, and Merz and Rutte and von der Leyen have said: Our national interest is in deindustrializing Europe. Our national interest is anti-labor. Our national interest is war.

That is their idea of national interest. So, it’s not what you mean by national interest. When you and I talk about national interests, we use it in the way that it used to be used 50 years ago. It’s the interest of the entire economy, if you were saying what is good for the economy, in terms of its material welfare and well-being for the population, the increase in output, and the more equal distribution of this output — that’s how you and I, and I think most of your listeners, have defined a national interest.

But the national interest as defined by the European leadership is: No, our interest is the same as in America — the 1%, mainly the 10%. Our interest is in the military-industrial complex. Our interest is the money in our personal pockets, that we get from the bribery from the U.S., from NATO, from the companies that we represent — against the interest of labor and the voters.

So, you have a divergence of national interest, from what used to be called a materialist approach to history: thinking that countries are going to act in their own economic and social and political self-interest, in a democratic way that represents what’s good for the population as a whole. This is no longer the meaning of national interest in today’s Western economies, from the United States to Europe.

⁣GLENN DIESEN: Well, it’s not as if — that will be my last question — it’s not as if there were some structural problems before this conflict. That is, if you look at the European economy 20 years ago, it was close to parity with the United States, the EU and the US. But since those days, the divisions between the Americans and Europeans have only increased.

I was wondering, how do you see the reasoning behind this? Is it about the energy cost? Is it about the technological sovereignty, financialization? Or is it just subordinating European interests to economic interests, primarily to U.S. geopolitical interests? Or how do you make sense of how that parity fell? Because that was quite important for the Europeans, the way the Europeans had envisioned the post-Cold War era. It would be a collective hegemony under the U.S. and EU as equal partners. And if you [fast] forward [to] today, as you said, the main objective of the Europeans appears to be to hope that America will accept Europe as a junior partner, if we subordinate ourselves enough — which is a far cry away from where we were 20 years ago.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, Glenn, you know that I’m a financial economist primarily; and so it’s hardly a surprise that I trace the whole decline of Europe to its disastrous adoption of the Euro; and its German-backed rules that European governments, including the European Union as a whole central bank, should not create its own money. It has to basically borrow the money and it cannot run a budget deficit more than 5% of the population. Europe at the beginning said we will never, under the rules, be able to apply the same Keynesian policy for economic recovery that the United States, China, and every successful industrial company has. We are going to tie the hands of [the] Europeans’ banking and financial system to prevent the government from providing enough credit to enable the economy to grow, as more and more of its national income is spent on finance and economic rent-seeking activities.

The design came from University of Chicago extremists of the hard-money Milton Friedman School. And the United States knew just exactly that by imposing these self-destructive, tunnel-visioned rules on Europe, Europe could not use the modern monetary policy that the United States uses for right-wing purposes, but not for the purposes that Modern Monetary Theory was developed, to help the economy as a whole grow.

So, Europe tied its hands from the beginning, by not being able to have the government play a role. The United States backed politicians who said: Although Europe is joining now, it will be a Europe of corporations. We want the country to be led by [Giorgia] Meloni in Italy. We want exactly the corporatism that Mussolini advocated for Italy. We failed before in World War II. We’re not going to fail again.

And this is the craziness of it. Of course, the way in which every industrial economy, including Europe and Germany in particular, developed its industry in the 19th century was a mixed economy with government taking the lead in public infrastructure, and in supporting a central bank supplying credit to the economy, relying on government banking and government rules, steering finance into productive capital formation and tangible investment building factories and employing labor. That’s not what Europe is advocating anymore.

And, in fact, I don’t think that Europeans spend much attention looking at what made industrial Germany in the 19th century so productive, and enabled it to take the lead; and what made French industry also so productive. Why did it have such a great takeoff in the 19th century to be the economic center of the world? And now it’s shrinking onto the periphery? If you compare the difference, it’s very largely the role of the government in what was becoming industrial socialism. That it was called “social democracy,” which really meant socialism in Germany and the other leading industrial countries of Europe. And now? It turned into finance capitalism, where most European wealth is made financially, not industrially. And the financial sector realizes that it’s easier to make corporate and personal fortunes in a shrinking economy, than it is in a growing economy; because in a shrinking economy, you have grabitization. You have insolvency, bankruptcies, you have an enormous concentration of wealth ownership. And you’re going to be seeing that in Europe, just as you’re seeing that in the United States economy. And that polarization ends up impoverishing the economy as a whole, and also leading to a suspension in democratic freedom of expression, of voting. It neuters the role of voter election of national officials by this overpowering EU control system that turns out to be taken over by a unity of the neocons and the financial oligarchy, basing itself more and more on the military-industrial complex, and its links to the United States, and as a subsidy of these personal companies and personalities — the Tony Blairs of continental Europe and the Merzes — that have been able to take control.

⁣GLENN DIESEN: It is fascinating that the European project, which began after World War II under the Coal and Steel [European Coal and Steel Community], was intended to have transparency, to avoid militarization, and be an anti-war project. Now the EU, more and more, defines itself, in its own words, as a geopolitical Europe in which economic development will be done through military Keynesianism. Well, thank you, as always. Very much appreciate you taking the time. So, thank you.

⁣MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, I guess it’s not too optimistic, unless you look at the prospect of a revolution as being optimistic.

Slices of Life, #14

“I walked past a McDonald’s, Starbucks, 7-11 and Kentucky Fried Chicken, all lined up, cheek to cheek. America’s icons will survive its collapse.”

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Kathmandu. (L): 10/29/25 ; (R): 10/28/25

Go There! — Oct 29, 2025.

Walking a couple miles, I got a last look at everything, that square with the serene stupa and Tibetan temple, KTM Burger, Fire Café, Bueno Burrito, the early morning chai place that made me feel so at home on my first morning, 4 Square with Sumitra mopping the steps, the Indian beggar in his NIKE knit cap, Saroj’s store, founded in 1943 by his grandad, where I bought more treats and yak cheese. I passed too many gorgeous neighborhood temples to count. I moved too fast for stray dogs to say goodbye or curse me for leaving them.

With plenty of time before my flight, I asked the taxi driver to leave me outside the airport’s gate. Thirty-seven years old, he’s been driving 15 years. Though his village is only 100 kilometers away, he doesn’t have to go there since his parents are dead. Only his 55-year-old brother remains.

“Does he want to come here? To work?”

“He was here.”

“No job!”

“No job.”

“At his age, it’s better he stays in the village. When you’re over 45 or so, no one will hire you for anything. They don’t want experience, only young, strong bodies.”

He chuckled in agreement.

“In Vietnam, too, it’s like that.”

“It’s like that everywhere.”

“For women, it’s even worse. They only want young, pretty women in the restaurants and cafés. Hey, how come your English is so good?”

“I practice.”

“No classes?”

“Four classes!” he chuckled.

That’s all he could afford, obviously. He pays 15,000 rupees ($106) a month for rent. His taxi costs 3,000 a day. That’s also the monthly tuition for his five-year-old-son. Since his other son is only 1 ½, his wife must stay home to take care of this baby. Food for four costs 20,000 per month.

“I have no savings,” he said. “Sometimes, I take out loans.”

“But the interests are so high!”

“There are no jobs.”

“Too many people from the villages, and not enough tourists. I’m very surprised.”

“They’re scared.”

Kathmandu, 10/21/25

“But that was what, six or seven weeks ago? It’s perfectly safe here. Even then, there was no danger. If you see a protest, you just walk the other way! Did you see anything?”

“No, just on the mobile,” he chuckled.

“The protests were in a tiny area. Tourists, though, are always nervous. In Kathmandu, they stay inside a tiny area, where they can eat burgers and pizzas!” I laughed. I didn’t confess to pigging out at Bueno Burrito several times. Vung Tau has no Tex-Mex.

Just now, a guy about 50 looked over my shoulder to see what I was typing. We smiled. I’m sitting outside a cheerful and perfectly skanky eatery with dirty dishes on the concrete floor. Waiting to explode, an old gas canister lies on its side. The young waitress looked very nervous when I said, “Chai,” or when I threw up an index finger, meaning one more. Smartly dressed in his school uniform of button-up shirt, neck tie, creased shorts and dress shoes, a boy of eight eyed me as he walked past. Ten feet away, blue and red plastic bags of food garbage lean against each other. All I smell, though, is the curry being cooked. Since I don’t feel like sweating in agony, I’m not going to order anything. Tall bottles of Gorkha are certainly tempting.

This time tomorrow, I’ll be on my last leg to Saigon. Suddenly, I’ll be in balmy weather again. Snow is expected across Nepal within 48 hours. “4,982 escapees are still on the run,” announces the Himalayan on its front page. Also, Cameroon has just elected a 92-year-old president. Since Trump is just 79, Americans should expect 15 more years, at least, of winning big, no inflation and having so much money, they won’t know what to do. Unlike Elvis, Trump won’t ever leave the building.

At 10:16AM, I’ve cleared immigration and security check. There was a long line to just enter the airport. With boarding still an hour away, I rewarded myself with a 500 ml can of Nepal Ice. With its licker content at 6.1%, I’ll be groovy on that plane. Maybe I’ll sing Elvis.

Already, I miss Shree Gha Vihar, but here’s a deep, original thought. You can’t be everywhere at once! I should have been a hash pushing guru. It’s never too late. That’s what they all say, even as they’re lowered into the ground.

That thought just now is but a limp riff on what my long lost buddy, Aziz Vargha, said. When I visited Aziz on the 8^th floor of Pennsylvania Hospital, America’s oldest, he lamented, “You know what’s funny, man? You can’t just be somewhere, you must go there! That takes time.”

Born in Iran, Aziz was raised in Germany then the UK before ending up in the USA. He had “MADE IN USA” tattooed on his forehead, back when tatts anywhere was still rare. Sitting in McGlinchey’s among whites, Aziz shouted, “I’m white, man, just like you!” Soon after, he said to a table of blacks, “I’m black, just like you!”

One snowless Christmas, we headed to Kensington to get lots of the white stuff. Doing lines, we laughed so hard. If alive, Aziz would not being do well, I’m sorry to say. He was already a mess four decades ago.

Just sitting still takes time. That’s all we have. Even if it’s just a hundred yards, I’d rather go there.

After my laptop went dead, I rushed to a charging station. Seeing my heavy machine, a woman in her mid 50’s asked in a Germanic or Dutch accent, “Do you want to sit here?”

“No, no, I just need to charge my laptop. Thank you!’

Immediately I thought of an old woman on the Rome subway from 26 years ago. “Chi vuole scendered?” she said in the gentlest voice imaginable. She even smiled slightly.

Such sweetness or civility is what we live for. OK, must run now. Boarding time. I must go there!

Guangzhou, 10/29/25

Too Heavenly for Words — Oct 30, 2025.

If still in Nepal, I would have been in bed by the time I landed in China. Though exhausted, I was also elated at finally entering China, so I headed into town. Getting a transit visa was relatively painless and not too time consuming. After changing $100 into yuans, I found my way to the Metro. Though I had visited Macau and Hong Kong, and saw Chinese streets from across a thin river in Lào Cai, only now was I inside!

Having no Google Maps, I didn’t know which station to get off. One that connected to two other lines sounded like a transportation hub, so must be busy at street level? Outside, there were just vendors selling assorted sausages on sticks, mostly, taxis and motorbike taxis. No stores or cafes were within walking distance. This was Guangzhou at its grubbiest. The station, though, was well appointed. After ten minutes, I headed back in.

Guangzhou, 10/29/25

Since the ticket machine didn’t accept my 100 yuan bill, a uniformed employee went out of her way to get me change. She also suggested a more lively station. This young lady couldn’t have been nicer.

On the train, all but a very old, tiny woman were looking at phones. Whether in Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand or China, Asian subways are new, safe, clean and on time. The squeaking horror shows that still chug along in NYC or Philly are certainly cinematic. Since DC’s Metro must serve swamp dwellers, lobbyists, lawyers and Pentagon staffers, it’s cleaner and safer, though still dark and almost spooky in its cavernous design. DC go-go bars have nicer dancers, too, and they show everything. No coquettish peekaboo. Powerful old creeps don’t have time for subtleties.

Of course I forgot the recommended station, so got off at another drab neighborhood, but this one had stores and restaurants. I walked past a McDonald’s, Starbucks, 7-11 and Kentucky Fried Chicken, all lined up, cheek to cheek. America’s icons will survive its collapse. 7-Eleven has long been owned by the Japanese. Sears, once a symbol of America’s abundance, is mostly dead at home. There are three in Mexico City. I ran into one.

Standing outside McDonald’s, I heard John Denver’s “Take Me Home,” though sung in Cantonese, with only bits of English. “Country roads take me home, to the place I belong. West Virginia, mountain momma. Take me home, country roads.” Arriving in the US in 1975, this was one of the first songs I could almost sing.

Further on was a local fried chicken joint where sat three Chinese and an African. I noticed two pizzarie and several convenience stores. At a bright stand selling lottery tickets, a young female employee slept with her head slumped on a table. I entered a lit up Cantonese restaurant with uncleared tables and beer cans on the floor. To compensate for my suffering, I ordered too much food. I was nearly comatose. Grabbing a takeaway container, I then exited to look for a taxi. Before leaving, I did notice adds for prostitutes inside the toilet. In London, they lined phone booths, with exotic chicks from Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Scandinavia and Brazil, etc., especially popular. Dom leather, water sports, pussy licking, uniforms, toys and spanking were all available.

At Kathmandu’s airport, there were about 30 English high school kids. I heard one say, “I’d be very sad if you were to die on the way back.” Deadpan Brit humor. My favorite is what an Englishman says to his wife after their very first night, “I sure hope you’re pregnant, dear, because I don’t want to go through all those ridiculous motions again.”

Reentering Guangzhou’s airport, I knew my can of Nepal Ice, saved for Sơn in Vũng Tàu, would likely be confiscated, but there’s no way I could drink it myself. I had a can of clam sauce taken in Philly, a bottle of wine snatched somewhere and a jar of confit nearly filched from me at Heathrow. Global madness amplified after 9/11, the Anthrax scare then the Shoe Bomber, all hoaxes. In case you haven’t figured it out, Covid was an American bio attack on China, then Iran. Already a totalitarian state, China didn’t need a fake virus to paralyze itself. It was real enough for them to way overreact. Trump’s economic war against China should also be seen in this context. Xi, and Putin, too, certainly knows who’s his main enemy.

Exhausted and irritated, I made a beeline for those sleeping pods I had seen two weeks earlier. At just 138 yuans ($19.44) for three hours, it was absurdly cheap. Inside, there was a comfy seat that could be reclined nearly flat, lights that could be dimmed, a quiet fan and a TV. I assumed when my three hours were up, some alarm would go off or there would be knocks on the locked door, but nothing happened. I slept two extra hours. This, I only realized after emerging outside. Last night’s employee was asleep at her counter.

Since it wasn’t quite 6AM, restaurants were just setting up. Arabica, though, was open. A latte was just what I needed. Even before my first sip, I took photos of this elegant café. Their baguette sandwiches seemed proper. Nearly all Asian and European airports are more comfortable, better organized and civilized than American ones. At Guangzhou’s, hot or cold water is available for free, and you can sleep well enough even outside those pods. There are also free shower stalls. Even today, you cannot take a train from JFK to Manhattan.

At Mi Cang, I ordered rice gruel with just bits of minced pork and century egg, a peasant breakfast much beloved by my buddy John, an ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. It’s his ultimate comfort food, what his mama must have made often. It’s akin to oatmeal for many Americans. In Macau, I met a Chinese-American transplant who was delighted to find a store selling oatmeal. He needed it to feel at home

At $5.92, Mi Cang’s rice gruel was much fancier, for it came with four Japanese fried dumplings. On the menu were also Vietnamese phở, Japanese ramen with tonkatsu and a burger combo that looked pretty good, but they all do in photos. Eating my grub, I thought of a Nam Cao story where a woman feeds slop meant for pigs to her kids. Her calling it chè, a sweet, cold soup eaten as snacks, doesn’t fool them.

Looking up, I noticed a line at my gate, earlier than expected. Joining it, I asked a young white man if this was for Ho Chi Minh City, but he didn’t answer. Overhearing me, a Chinese said, “Yes, Ho Chi Minh.” The other couldn’t hear because he had earbuds on. To block out the foreign, many tourists must listen to familiar songs and check, constantly, websites from home.

With Guangzhou’s airport so vast, you must often take a shuttle to your plane. Getting on, I immediately looked for Vietnamese faces, but there was none. I also strained to hear Vietnamese, without success. Two weeks earlier, the flight from Saigon to Guangzhou had few Vietnamese. It’s that human or animal instinct to identify your own. Forever, life and death could depend on it.

Guangzhou, 10/29 – 30/25

With more money, and many more people, Chinese are much more visible everywhere. With increasing economic and political might, Chinese tourists and immigrants will be even more ubiquitous. JD Vance’s characterization of them as peasants exposes his hickishness. In Canada and Australia, rich Chinese have made real estate prices in many cities unaffordable for native peasants, workers and even the middle class.

After failing repeatedly to log on to Yahoo! Mail or my SubStack, I realized they were blocked. Everything Yahoo! is inaccessible there. Same with Google, Wikipedia, New York Times and Washington Post, etc. China doesn’t want any American information or disinformation for its citizens.

Rejecting most American products, it’s also prepared to ditch the American consumer. That righteous and pushy slob has been buying on credit for decades, from China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and, literally, every country you can think of.

Landing in Saigon, I will leap immediately onto a mini bus for Vung Tau. Failing to bring Sơn a Nepalese beer, I thought of getting him a Chinese one, but busy writing, I never got round to it. Those remaining yuans I’ll use, hopefully, on a proper trip to China.

Cloudy paths, zap me home! To that place, I sorta belong! Ocean mamas, they’re singing and dancing, all right. It’s enough to steal glimpses of them every so often. Why should they sing to me?

On the Kathmandu to Guangzhou leg, two babies on my row screamed or cried often. Others elsewhere did the same. Now, I only hear the slurping of noodles from the guy two seats away. Since there’s no broth, I’m not sure how he does that. Behind me is a well masked American from Chicago. Risking death or long Covid, he did manage to take it off to eat.

I finish this at 6:58PM in Vung Tau. It’s as if I never left. This is Như’s last day at Ông Bầu Coffee, she just told me.

“Where will you go next?”

“I don’t know.”

I don’t either. At some point, I should return to the US to experience, at least for a couple weeks, its Golden Age. I must catch Honolulu, El Paso or San Francisco before it becomes too heavenly for words. As for Philly, I won’t even recognize it, I’m sure.

Guangzhou, 10/30/25

Shrinking Brains and Dwellings — Oct 31, 2025.

On 5/29/25, a garbage truck stopped a Kings Park, NY middle school to empty its dumpster. There, a school janitor saw an injured, garbage draped man trying to climb from the truck. After it emptied its load, another was discovered, but well dead. Since this happened at the back of the school, no student witnessed the horror. Learnt of it from television news, how many thought this could ever happen to them? Much more likely, they envisioned their future as a president, astronaut, NBA star, Hollywood actress, trophy wife, rapper or, at the very least, YouTube influencer. On that date, the low was only 55, so these unfortunates or human garbage had slept inside the dumpster not for warmth, but to be safe. This was conditional on them getting up before the arrival of the garbage truck.

In Santa Monica, bums, especially female ones, dwell inside locked toilets. Further north, you can rent a tent pitched on someone’s backyard. Storage units are more solid, but illegal. Still, thousands of Americans must be dwelling in them. So loaded, they don’t know what to do with their heaps of cash. Those who freeze outside in the winter must be alcoholics or drug addicts, according to conventional wisdom. Don’t say it’s too funny a word in Trumplandia.

Sleeping quite well in my tiny pod at Guangzhou’s airport, I thought these compact solutions should be scattered everywhere. Herding American peasants into cities, huge parks were built to give these factory slaves imitations of their lost landscapes. Thus, we have Central Park in NYC, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Fairmount Park in Philly and Grant Park in Chicago, all built in the 19^th century. Now, all these and more can be filled with sleeping pods, imported from China. Spinning in his grave, Frederick Law Olmsted will appreciate the exercise.

Convicted of any crime, the offender’s sleeping pod can just be locked. With bread sticks tossed in daily, he won’t starve. His shit and piss can be eased out through a hole. Capital punishment will be applied quickly and cheaply by denying him of bread sticks. After the stinking corpse is extracted, his sleeping pod will be sold at a slight discount, after a few sprays of disinfectant.

Just a few hours in China yielded so many solutions. Must be in the air.

In China, porn is banned. In the West, it’s freely available as the last bastion of free speech. Since jerking or stroking nearly nonstop is the best means of social control, it must be made mandatory. TVs inside sleeping pods must show only porn. Wouldn’t this lead to more rapes? Quite the opposite. Men who’ve shot their wad several times a day can only grab, at most. Most Americans are already fine with this, at least in principle. It’s also egalitarian. Why should bottom dwellers be denied some Trumpian perks? “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” MAGA chicks are turned on.

Guangzhou, 10/30/25

The last photo I took in Guangzhou was of a white enough man in a LAS VEGAS hoodie. Next to him was his exhausted wife. Bent over, she held her head. His or her wrinkled, white haired mom looked stunned. On 5/26/25, more than 8,800 flights were delayed in the USA alone. The next day, nearly 7,000.

Flying from Chicago to Frankfurt on 10/28/25, a 28-year-old Indian stabbed two sleeping American teens with a metal fork. He then slapped a woman and a crew member. One teen told investigators he had only exchanged pleasantries with the Indian. This non-immigrant had just finished his studies at Moody Theological Seminary.

Since 42 million Americans will lose food aid tomorrow, proactive cops across the USA have increased patrols around grocery stores, convenience stores and shopping centers. America’s Golden Age has just begun.

Yesterday at Saigon’s airport, I joked with the immigration officer, “Coming back, I’m just waiting to die!”

“You’re not that old, uncle,” she smiled slightly.

“I’m exhausted.”

On the minibus to Vung Tau, we passed a young man with this on his hoodie, “SMILE! IT WILL ONLY GET MUCH WORSE.” His helmet said, “WE WILL ROCK YOU!”

The young lady next to me wore a Covid mask and earbuds. When not dozing off, she stared at her cellphone. Born into universal madness, she’s well lost. After she dropped one earbud, we all helped her to find it. When it was discovered, there was universal jubilation inside that mini bus.

Ông Bầu Coffee’s evening barista just gave me a free glass of hot tea. In a minute, I will head home to eat some yak cheese with Nepali biscuits. This morning, I was too pooped to show up at Coffee Seven before 5AM. Tomorrow, then, I will see Mrs. Seven, Sơn, Liệt, Nọng and Milk Cow.

Vung Tau, 11/1/25

Fish in Teapots — Nov 01, 2025.

At Ông Bầu Coffee, one barista is a rather morose 20-year-old I first talked to only yesterday. It turned out she’s a third year student in logistics. With lots of shipping through Vũng Tàu, she’ll get a job easily, she believes. AI won’t bump her into any dumpster.

Though born after the Boat People crisis, Morose knows about corpses being washed up regularly on Vũng Tàu beaches. She also knows about Vietnamese trying to enter the US illegally during the Biden years. Someone approached her family to propose this. $70,000 per head was all it took, he said, and you’d make that back within two years, working in a nail salon, as if the US wasn’t oversaturated with these Vietnamese businesses. As a clumsy newbie whose English or Ebonics wasn’t good enough to interact with customers, who would hire you?

After eight years, you could return to Vietnam loaded with cash. He didn’t say anything about crossing seven countries before reaching the Promised Land. After entering Panama from Colombia, you would be an illegal for over 3,000 miles while being transported by criminals from various nations.

“What’s stopping them from robbing, raping or killing you?” I said. “People who could afford to fly to South America were rich! They sold everything here, thinking they’d never come back. Now, they’re being deported by Trump!”

Morose has never been outside Vietnam. She didn’t even know you could easily reach Cambodia by bus.

Village explainer, “You can go from Saigon to Bavet in just two hours! Cambodia opens all these casinos for Vietnamese. They want as many to come as possible, so go to Bavet, but without entering the casinos! You’ll just lose all your money! Phnom Penh is much more interesting, but it takes six hours to get there. Go to Bavet first, just to get a taste, then go to Phnom Penh later.”

Here three years, Morose started out making 18K, or 68 cents an hour. Now, she earns 23K. Working 200 hours a month, she takes home $129, though the shifty owner often deducts $27 for unexplained reasons.

Morose never protests. When business is slow, she just stares at her phone, like right now.

Morose lives with her parents just two doors down. At least her school is six miles away. She does visit occasionally a married sister in Saigon and has gone as far north as Nha Trang.

Fancying himself a painter, the owner has set up an easel right at the café. He’s so vapid and timid, you can’t talk to him about anything. It took me less than a minute to find out.

Before me, Như tried to mentor Morose, but it’s useless, she said. This girl is just incurious.

“She never had a chance!” I protested. To invigorate her, I will nudge and shove Morose some more, give her a few kicks in the ass.

Once, I overheard Như telling Morose about a new café that paid better. I’m not sure she applied. Begging for acceptance is always intimidating and dispiriting.

Ông Bầu Coffee has a new regular. A Siamese fighting fish is living, all alone, inside a teapot. Its diameter is four times the length of the fish’s body. There are pebbles at the bottom. Though it’s always lidded, I’ve been reassured there’s enough oxygen for this displaced creature. It could be much worse. Next to this teapot is a glazed ceramic planter with a cartoon cat and “cute” above its head. Taking frequent breaks, Morose would sit next to these exiled beasts.

In the next room, someone is strumming a guitar and singing. Surrounded by kitschy paintings, he and his listeners are soaked in an artistic environment.

Out collecting plastic bottles, that homeless Cambodian will return in the evening. He uses Ông Bầu’s bathroom and sleeps each night just feet from where I’m sitting. Lately, he’s refrained from disturbing that garish altar to the goddess beneath a banyan tree across the street. As long as he doesn’t go berserk, he belongs here at least as much as that fish.

Splotchy and discolored, he’s a piss poor representative of his species. With any residual self-respect, he should be deeply ashamed of himself, but I shouldn’t talk. My dorsal, pectoral, pelvic and anal fins are sad and feeble enough. Still, they’re sufficient to propel me home. After paying for my cappuccini, I’ll swiftly swim outta here.

That yak cheese is nearly gone. That cheerful, repetitive hymn to Ganesh I heard dozens of times daily so recently has faded. Soon enough, I’ll remember nothing.

(L): Vung Tau, 11/1/25 ; (R): Trump’s Golden Lincoln Bathroom

Bloodbaths and Bashes — Nov 02, 2025.

Too much excitement this morning at Ông Bầu. Using her thin jacket, a woman swatted at a bee in mid flight, then stepped on this buzzer after he had dropped to the floor. His squashed body now oozes whatever. His stiff, broken wings are stuck up. No one knows what he could have accomplished. He might have been a great bee poet. For this gratuitous display of unfathomable viciousness, she’ll be reincarnated as a bee, wasp, fly or mosquito, I’m sure. Placid, Morose inspected the fleeting carnage. As she walked by, I had to refrain from expressing my entirely justified indignation. I only thought, “What were the odds of the innocent, intelligent looking bee stinging that smug, still smiling broad in the fuckin’ twat?!” Oblivious, she’s yakking away. She does have a melodious voice.

Before Ông Bầu, I stopped at Mrs. Tím’s stand for a $1.52 bowl of crab noodle soup. As I slurped away, a security guard on a motorbike stopped to ask for a 95 cent bowl. After he left, I said, “You still make a profit with that, no?”

“No, but what was I supposed to do?”

“Does he come by often?”

“Only rarely.”

“A security guard’s salary isn’t too bad.”

“But he also has a wife and children. What was I supposed to do?” Mrs. Tím, then, makes nothing selling to this man. Her name means Purple, by the way. One of her two sons is nearly always in drug rehab. This widow has maybe four front teeth left.

Worst are those who stuff some change into their bra or up their long sleeve, then say Mrs. Tím has short changed them!

“They have so many tricks. When you sell stuff, you see everything.” She said this without rancor, only a touch of amusement.

Before Mrs. Tím’s food stand, I was at Coffee Seven. Today, Sơn told me more about his experiences in Cambodia. I had asked Sơn about soldiers who freaked out. Of course, that happened. Losing their minds, some even shot at their comrades.

On a lighter note, Sơn told me about Vietnamese troops visiting Cambodian whorehouses. They were dim and sordid, and the girls were so poor, their panties were pitifully or laughably threadbare. Worst were Viet soldiers who refused to pay after service. “They’d leave a hand grenade on the floor to chase the girls away.”

made in Thailand jeans and T-shirts

Even Viet officers barely had cash. Some sold used artillery shells, illegally, of course. With this profit, they could buy made in Thailand jeans or T-shirts. Both were highly prized back in Vietnam. Even in 1998, I had some rural guy touch my Levi’s with something like awe. They were called cow pants, quần bò, short for cowboy pants.

Underfed Viet soldiers stole chickens, ducks and pigs from Cambodian peasants. Like American, Australian or South Korean soldiers here, they raped. Unchecked aggression or rage is intrinsic to every war, as is wetting or soiling your pants from ungodly terror. Clean uniforms and impeccable discipline are only meant for parades, to fool civilians, draftees and recruits.

Last night, I finally bought a new phone. With a sim card, it cost me just $125. Don’t even know what brand it is. Last phone I bought before this was in Albania four years ago. I need this gadget to take care of some business.

Last night, I also went shopping at Lotte Mart, Vũng Tàu’s fanciest mall. Viets who can afford it treat it like an amusement park, almost. Better dressed kids run around screaming. With burgers, pizzas and fried chicken available in futuristic settings, they’re in the USA of their imagination. KFC Vietnam has a new dish, Migaxuxi. It’s slices of hotdog in an overly sweet red sauce on too soft spaghetti. On KFC’s wall was a nearly life-sized Colonel Sanders, with that first KFC in Harland, KY in the background. Most Viets think this America still exists.

When the entire White House is destroyed, replicas will appear across Asia, I’m sure. Even if all of the USA becomes like Gaza, its highlights will be preserved in the East. There’s nothing to worry about, man! Thousands of Statues of Liberty will sprout, just not in America.

In each Oriental burger, pizza or fried chicken joint, wholesome white families as wax figures will be installed to give yellow diners the impression they’re practically in Sacramento, Cincinnati or Youngstown. In fancier diners, waitresses with their hair already dyed blonde can wear white masks and speak in a cute, flirty English they’ve learnt from movies like American Pie or Grease.

For a while, Michael Bordenaro has done an excellent job of tracking America’s collapse. Three days ago, he said, “As of September, employers have announced over 1 million job cuts, which is the largest number that we’ve seen since the pandemic in 2020 […] So this job market collapse is getting real.” Walmart, Amazon, Ford, Microsoft, Target, Starbucks and McDonald’s, etc., are all firing thousands of workers this year.

When Bordenaro asked his viewers about how they’re coping with this new grim reality, they’re saying they’re buying less or inferior food, driving less, selling more to pawn shops, delaying or avoiding medical care, saving less or nothing, using less energy, including taking cold showers, not traveling or seeing distant relatives, not going to restaurants or movies and, perhaps, most depressingly, having to move back home after decades of living independently.

One man, “I’m 45 living in my parents’ basement again, not because I’m irresponsible, but because of the economy.” Over 57% of Americans between 18 and 24 are living with their folks. You’d have to go back decades to find a higher percentage. Millions of Americans are also side hustling. One, “I’m doing DoorDash after my full-time job just to keep up. I’m exhausted and still falling behind.”

Another, “I barely leave the house anymore because I can’t afford gas to drive to work and see my family.”

All these testimonies, though, must be fake news disseminated, or rather, jerked off, by far-left agitators.

As Trump cut off food aid to over 40 million Americans, he hosted a Great Gatsby themed Halloween bash at Mar-a-Lago called, “A little party never killed nobody.” So cute, the bad English. Shows his common touch.

Posting photos of his glitzed up shitter on 11/1/25, Trump crowed, “The Refurbished Lincoln Bathroom in the White House—Highly polished, Statuary marble!” Let them eat shit is right.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Brian Berletic: Short Memories Regarding Agreement-Incapable America

Recent US-Chinese talks regarding the array of tariffs, restrictions, sanctions, and other financial, economic, and diplomatic measures the US is trying and failing to use to contain China are almost irrelevant – the US is incapable of upholding its own proposals and agreements, and certainly will not honor any agreements made from a position of weakness;

”Progress” emerging from the talks will take the same form of temporary pause/reorganization before the US doubles down on another campaign of attempting to encircle and contain China – both through the above stated measures but also through the military and non-military means of coercion and political capture along China’s periphery and the toppling of governments friends with Beijing (Venezuela among them);

When the US has recalibrated its policy of encirclement and containment of China, it will sidestep any agreements it has made and relaunch any and all measures it thinks will undermine China’s rise both within its borders and beyond them;

The US doesn’t do “diplomacy,” – instead, what it does is buy time and space to create conditions that may not currently be optimal to achieve its long-term objective – that objective always and continues to be global primacy and the elimination of ALL rivals, adversary and ally alike;

Unless this fundamental objective and the interests driving it change (and they aren’t), the only thing about US policy that will change are the ways it attempts to pursue this and NOTHING else.

https://t.me/brianlovethailand/4352

Pepe Escobar: How ASEAN Keeps Its Centrality Between China & US

Sputnik

ASEAN is quite a delicate geopolitical entity: gracious, polite and consensual but at the same time, always privileging its “centrality”. The collective 11 Southeast Asians (East Timor is the new member) are very serious global players – with a GDP of $3.8 trillion, and constantly rising.

On a personal level, when I decided to move from the West to Asia, in 1994, I chose Southeast Asia: then, it was imperative to follow the Asian “tigers” – or flock of geese – with the Big Goose, China, flying right behind them.

Kishore Mahbubani, the former Singapore ambassador to the UN and dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, has been the paramount analyst of ASEAN over the years, including in his must-read The ASEAN Miracle. There was never a miracle: it was a matter of hard work and combined geopolitical/geoeconomic savvy.

As chair of ASEAN in 2025, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim – one of the most capable diplomats on the planet – had a very tough job; to conduct a smooth, well balanced and productive summit in Kuala Lumpur projecting that notorious ASEAN unity while significantly advancing trade and cooperation within ASEAN and with external partners.

He did pull it off – riding the Trump tariff blitzkrieg with flying colors.

Predictably Western mainstream media had only one provincial, obsessive focus: Trump in Asia. The media circus could not be more predictable – but Anwar let it flow. Trump presided over the – shaky – deal between Thailand and Cambodia, officially known as the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords; that calls for the demilitarisation of the extremely tense Thai-Cambodia border, expanding on a ceasefire reached in July – and brokered by Malaysia, not the US.

The decades-long border problem between these two ASEAN neighbors is virtually intractable: it focuses over different interpretations of colonial-era maps, and how and where to settle everything. Thailand does not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). That’s Cambodia’s preference. Thailand wants a bilateral deal through a Joint Boundary Commission.

Cunning Ways to “Diversity” From China

Trump came and went, but the meat of the matter remains what’s cookin’ between ASEAN and China – the group’s number one trade partner: bilateral trade last year reached $771 billion.

Both China and ASEAN are key players in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – the top trading bloc on the planet, covering 30% of global GDP. Anwar hosted an RCEP summit the day before they signed an upgrade to their wide-ranging free trade agreement, with emphasis on the digital and green economy.

It’s no wonder that, for Beijing, ASEAN is of supreme importance. The Trump tariff blitzkrieg was essentially directed at both.

Cut to the 28th ASEAN + 3 summit, part of the Kuala Lumpur proceedings. Chinese Premier Li Qiang was adamant on the need to strengthen the alignment of their development strategies, as cooperation between ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea continues to deepen – in industrial and supply chains. Beijing once again stressed the need to “safeguard the multilateral trading system.”

Russia was also a key presence in Kuala Lumpur, as part of the East Asia summit. Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk emphasized Moscow’s growing partnership with ASEAN in nuclear technology, logistics and of course trade. It’s not by accident that in every forum in Russia, President Putin stresses that the fastest growing regions in the world right now are Africa and Southeast Asia. Hence ASEAN’s centrality in the Russian “pivot to Asia”.

In the Kuala Lumpur corridors, in bilateral and multilateral discussions, of course the main theme had to be the Trump tariff tantrum and its deeply disturbing effects on supply chains. But, as a Thai entrepreneur observed, it was also clear that small and medium-sized companies across ASEAN are starting to regroup.

The garment sector all across ASEAN was severely punished. Trump tariff blitzkrieg imposed 19% on nearly all of Malaysia’s exports to the US. That’s among the lowest rates in ASEAN – roughly the same with Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia. Yet with Laos and Myanmar it was much worse: 40%. Add to it an American obsession with trans-shipment – as in the rerouting of made in China products via ASEAN, also to be mercilessly tariffed.

So one of the solutions for loads of manufacturers is to “diversify” from China. That’s a tricky proposition – very well explained in this analysis when it comes to booming Vietnam, which expects to grow by a whopping 10% next year.

Essentially, lots of Chinese and foreign companies significantly relocated to Vietnam even before the tariff tsunami. That’s predictable: Vietnam has a young, ultra-motivated, very well educated, hard-working workforce, and it’s close to China in connectivity corridors, culture, customs and also institutionally.

The numbers tell a fascinating story. China exports over $150 billion a year to Vietnam and imports $97 billion. That means that China’s capacity to absorb Made in Vietnam goods is now at over 82% of the US market, and imports from Vietnam keep growing. Vietnam won’t do anything to alienate China.

Moreover, China already has a nearly $60 billion trade surplus with Vietnam – and counting, while its labor costs remain lower than in the US, the EU and Japan. China’s exports to Vietnam are most of all high-quality, low-cost goods, many processed in Vietnam before being exported to the US and the EU.

So China’s supply chain is the absolute key factor when it comes to Vietnam’s trade surplus with both the US and the EU. The bottom line: for Hanoi, the Chinese market is way more essential than the US market.

All Aboard the Yuanization High-Speed Train

And that brings us to the fundamental theme discreetly but enthusiastically discussed in Kuala Lumpur – and beyond: the renewed drive for the Yuanization of Planet Earth.

Everyone – ASEAN +3, RCEP – is fully aware that the People’s Bank of China announced the full connection of its yuan digital cross-border settlement system to the ASEAN 11 plus 6 nations in West Asia, discreetly bypassing the US dollar.

Talk about strategic patience. In fact CIPS, the Chinese Cross-Border Interbank Payments System, may soon offer payment settlements to most of the Global South.

CIPS has already processed ¥52 trillion (roughly $7 trillion) in settlements overall, overtaking clumsy SWIFT in several ultra-strategic connectivity corridors. For example, 95% of Russia-China trade – and counting – is now settled in their own currencies.

Of course there are problems. The digital yuan may not be an all-around solution – yet – because there’s no liquidity. It is rarely available outside Hong Kong.

Yet a lot of players trying to escape the threats and tariff tantrum tsunamis will start to pay serious attention. Digital yuan settlements take a matter of only 7 to 8 seconds. Moreover, they allow for transaction tracking and automated enforcement of anti-money laundering laws. Compare it to archaic SWIFT – where delays of up to 5 days are practically the norm.

Last year, the volume of yuan settlements across six ASEAN nations, including Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, reached 5.8 trillion yuan – 120% more than in 2021.

The digital yuan was key in New Silk Roads/Belt and Road Inititave (BRI) projects across ASEAN such as the China-Laos high-speed railway and the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway – combined with the Beidou navigation system and quantum communication technologies. That’s the Chinese Digital Silk Road in effect – with the digital yuan arguably working as the top strategic BRI tool.

So, in a nutshell, China is already creating a loop of yuan payments across Southeast Asia; and at the same time is officially rewiring its massive financial system to trade globally bypassing the US dollar. No wonder the Empire of Chaos has gone berserk.

Post Asean – All Business is Yuan Business

While countries are generally dealing with tariffs individually, they will now be handled as a bloc.  The broader business environment is moving toward Yuan-based transactions.

The Most Important – Extension of the Free Trade Area

Recently, positive progress has been made in the process of regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific. The upgraded protocol of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA) 3.0 was officially signed, and the fifth Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Leaders’ Meeting was held, during which a joint statement was issued. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others have also warned that although the Asia-Pacific remains the fastest-growing region in the world, rising tariffs and protectionism could exacerbate economic vulnerabilities.

The Asia-Pacific is the world’s most dynamic economic player and engine of growth and a forerunner in regional cooperation and economic integration. More than three years since the entry into force of the RCEP, economic cooperation and trade between member states has continued to deepen and regional economy has maintained relatively rapid growth.  China and ASEAN have been each other’s largest trading partner for five consecutive years.

In preparation of Xi Jinping meeting with Trump:

At the regular press conference of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 29, a reporter raised a question regarding the possible discussion of the so-called “fentanyl-related tariffs” during the meeting between the Chinese and US heads of state, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at Wednesday’s press conference that China’s position on this issue is consistent and clear. China is the most resolute in combating drugs, with the most thorough policies and the best record. It is also one of the countries with the most extensive list of controlled substances and the strictest regulatory measures in the world, he added.

[There is no sympathy here.  China is standing fast that the US must deal with US problems. ]

The Export-Import Bank of China (China Eximbank) on Wednesday signed multiple cooperation agreements with international financial institutions as well as domestic and foreign enterprises at a parallel forum during the Annual Conference of Financial Street Forum 2025, as financial cooperation is increasingly being deepened among partner countries and international organizations for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

China Eximbank signed a cooperation agreement with the National Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan for Foreign Economic Activity. According to the agreement, the two sides will establish more solid peer-to-peer cooperation channels in a bid to jointly contribute to high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and the building of a community with a shared future between China and Uzbekistan.

In addition, the bank signed an agreement with the Development Bank of Kazakhstan related to major financing terms of a 2 billion yuan ($282 million) loan facility, while it also signed a memorandum of understanding with public company “Motorways Republic of Srpska”, Liability Company Banja Luka.

There are many more.

To date, the bank’s outstanding balance of loans for BRI projects has exceeded 2 trillion yuan, and the bank has outperformed the task on delivering a 350 billion yuan financing window,” Chen Huaiyu, chairman of China Eximbank, said at the forum.  With the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) first proposed in 2013, China has forged high-quality BRI cooperation ties with more than 150 countries and more than 30 international organizations.

The wake-up call has already sounded for ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists:

A clear trend is taking shape. The Chinese mainland is moving more decisively to punish “Taiwan independence” separatists, while in the US, a growing chorus is advocating a sober, reality-based reassessment of the Taiwan question. For the separatists still lost in their fantasies, the wake-up call has already sounded.

A police probe against “Taiwan independence” separatist Shen Pao-yang over secession charges is a just and necessary move to safeguard national unity, a spokesperson for China’s State Council Taiwan Affairs Office said on Tuesday. Chen Binhua, the spokesperson, made the statement after police in Chongqing announced that they had launched a criminal investigation against Shen over his suspected acts of secession, including initiating and establishing the separatist organization, the Kuma Academy.

In the past, China published lists of diehard “Taiwan independence” separatists, but the move was largely a political warning. This time, however, the decision to open a formal criminal probe against Shen marks a turning point, experts noted, emphasizing that it reflects a shift in actions against diehard separatists – from political warning to legal enforcement.

Nvidia CEO’s stands firm that US AI chips need to be exported to China:

Nvidia is losing business.

According to Nikkei Asia, Huang on Tuesday told reporters and analysts that if Nvidia continues being shut out of the Chinese market, it will hurt America more than it hurts China, after he delivered his first-ever speech at the company’s GTC DC developer conference in Washington.

The US government has been tightening exports of advanced AI chips to China from Nvidia and others, along with chipmaking tools, in recent years, and the chip giant’s CEO said that he hoped the US administration could see the harm such policies will do to the US, Nikkei Asia reported on Wednesday.

“We want to compete against China, no doubt about that. We want America to win this AI race, no doubt about that … But we also need to be in China to win their developers. A policy that causes America to lose half of the world’s AI developers is not beneficial in the long term,” said Huang, according to the report.

Huang said at a question-and-answer session with reporters and analysts Tuesday afternoon that the US administration is working on new regulations to allow the government to take a 15 percent cut from its China sales, and claimed China has not decided whether it will allow Nvidia chips to go back into the country. “Our job is just to wait until they want us to be there,” Huang claimed, according to the report.

He added that shares of Chinese domestic chipmakers have jumped significantly with Nvidia leaving the country, which should be a sign for Washington to move fast to bring it back into the market. According to Nikkei Asia, Huang said that “This is a country with a lot of technological might. This is a country with a lot of manufacturing might. They’re not waiting around for us.”

Ma Jihua, a veteran tech analyst, told the Global Times on Wednesday that despite US chip restrictions on China, the country has been steadily advancing its industrial capabilities, accelerating the development of independent and self-reliant products, and strengthening its own supply chain.

“At present, China has become a major consumer and producer in the global chip market, and the Chinese market remains critical for the entire chip industry, including American companies,” Ma said.

On October 6, Huang said at a Citadel Securities event that the company’s position in China had dropped from 95 percent of the advanced chip market to zero, as the US semiconductor giant is not allowed to sell its advanced products to Chinese mainland companies under US export restrictions, the South China Morning Post reported.

Ma said that Huang’s remarks showed that the CEO has recognized the indispensability of the Chinese market. However, due to the pressure imposed by the US government, he has to make concessions to seek a balance, the expert said.

“The US should stop politicizing and weaponizing economic, trade, and technology issues, as such actions hinder the development of the global semiconductor industry and will ultimately backfire, harming others while damaging the US itself,” Ma warned.

Is there really a ‘rare-earth crisis’ between China and Europe?:

China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of rare earths, a natural outcome of resource allocation in economic globalization. China-EU cooperation in rare earths also reflects the high degree of economic complementarity between the two sides. China’s long-term exports of rare earths to the EU have provided substantial support for the EU’s digital and green transition goals, enhancing its economic competitiveness and security. The EU has been benefiting from China’s rare-earth industry.

China’s recent export control measures are part of the ongoing transformation and upgrading of its rare-earth sector. They are not a temporary move, but a necessary step to ensure the long-term stability of the rare-earth production and supply chain and, what’s more, an alignment with global green development trends. At the same time, in the context of turmoil and frequent military conflicts in the world, China’s implementation of export controls on dual-use items like rare earths represents its proactive fulfillment of international non-proliferation obligations and its commitment to defending world peace and stability. 13 countries around the world, including several in Europe, have implemented similar export controls. Why, then, is it labeled a “threat” only when China does so? Those who fear that China might “weaponize national security” to choke Europe’s supply should first reflect on whether they harbor such thoughts toward other countries.

The Chinese side formulated relevant regulations with full consideration of the concerns of all trading partners, a process that was highly responsible. The relevant measures are prudent and moderate. According to the Ministry of Commerce of China, before the measures were announced, China had already notified relevant countries and regions through bilateral export control dialogue mechanisms. In addition to that, China specifically established a “green channel” for European firms and held multiple rounds of consultations and dialogues with the EU at various levels. Facts have proven that China keeps its words: In the first half of 2025, more than 60 percent of EU companies obtained export licenses through this channel. Recently, several enterprises in Bavaria, Germany, have also successfully received approvals to import rare-earth materials. Rare-earth exports have never been, and should never become, a problem between China and Europe.

The so-called “rare-earth anxiety” among some in Europe is essentially a cognitive issue. In their eyes, in any field, the more one engages with China and the closer the ties, the more it is seen as “dependence” and a “risk.” The real problem between China and Europe does not lie in rare earths, but in whether Europe can break free from geopolitical manipulation, correct its cognitive bias toward China, and return to a rational and pragmatic policy track. Lately, some US media outlets have been hyping up the so-called “China rare-earth threat,” and certain Europeans have followed suit. This is not only a serious act of self-deprecation but also a typical case of strategic confusion.

Lula-Trump Mediation: 5 Key Breakthroughs in Brazil–US Talks Amid Venezuela Tensions

Lula-Trump mediation discussed in Malaysia as both leaders commit to easing trade frictions and exploring dialogue between the US and Venezuela.

On Sunday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and U.S. President Donald Trump met on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur.

At the center of this meeting was Lula-Trump mediation — Brazil’s strategic proposal to act as a bridge between Washington and Caracas, easing the confrontation between the U.S. and Venezuela.

A “Constructive” Dialogue: Lula and Trump Reopen Bilateral Channels

External source: ASEAN Summit Statements by Telesur

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira described the meeting as open and direct. “President Lula began by saying there were no forbidden topics,” Vieira told the press. He noted Lula presented a Brazilian request to suspend U.S.-imposed tariffs on exports for a negotiation period, alongside review of the Magnitsky Act sanctions targeting Brazilian officials.

According to Vieira, Trump’s response was positive. The U.S. President agreed to initiate “a bilateral negotiation process starting immediately,” aimed at resolving trade disputes “within a short time.” Both leaders agreed that their teams would begin technical discussions “today,” signaling renewed cooperation.

This pragmatic tone reflects Lula Trump mediation efforts not only on commerce but also in restoring mutual confidence after years of friction.

Brazil as a Regional Peacemaker in Latin America

External source: Telesur report on Lula’s stance toward U.S. actions in Venezuela

Beyond trade, Lula reaffirmed Brazil’s geopolitical strategy: to act as a mediator in Latin America, particularly in the Venezuelan crisis. “Yes, President Lula raised the topic [of Venezuela],” confirmed Vieira. “He said Latin America and South America, specifically, are regions of peace, and he offered to be a contact and interlocutor, as he once was, to find solutions that are mutually acceptable and fair.”

This statement cements Brazil’s role as a diplomatic bridge between Washington and Caracas at a time of heightened tension. By positioning itself as a conciliatory power, Brazil seeks to stabilize hemispheric relations and reclaim its historic influence in regional diplomacy through the Lula Trump mediation approach.

Political Climate and Symbolism

During the meeting, the atmosphere was cordial and relaxed. Vieira emphasized that Trump “expressed admiration for President Lula’s political career,” a reference to Lula’s imprisonment and subsequent acquittal. Both leaders agreed to reciprocal visits — Trump voiced his intention to visit Brazil soon, while Lula accepted a future U.S. invitation.

“The president said he admires Brazil, that he loves Brazil and its people immensely,” Vieira noted. The statements were widely interpreted as a goodwill gesture signaling a shift in the White House’s posture toward Brasília.

These gestures reinforce the image of Lula Trump mediation as anchored not only in policy pragmatism but also in personal diplomacy aimed at rebuilding trust.

From Bolsonaro to Lula: Trump’s Subtle Recalibration

A revealing moment came when Trump was asked about former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, his past ally. “I’ve always liked President Bolsonaro, he went through a lot, but that’s not our concern,” Trump said. The remark suggested a clean break from ideological affiliations, focusing instead on current cooperation with Lula.

The Lula Trump mediation framework, therefore, represents a calculated realignment: pragmatic engagement over partisan loyalty, seeking tangible outcomes in economic recovery and regional stability.

Broader Geopolitical Context

This rapprochement between the two largest economies in the Western Hemisphere arrives amid shifting global alignments. The United States faces diplomatic competition from China and Russia in Latin America, while Brazil aspires to strengthen its strategic autonomy and leadership in multilateral forums such as BRICS and ASEAN.

Analysts see Lula Trump mediation as a balancing move — giving Brazil leverage in negotiations with both Washington and Beijing. By promoting dialogue with Venezuela, Lula also aims to reduce militarization in the Caribbean, counteracting U.S.-led interventions that Brazil views as destabilizing.

This repositioning underscores Latin America’s growing assertiveness: regional actors using diplomacy over dependence to define their role in the emerging multipolar world.

Statements and Social Media

Following the meeting, Lula summarized on social media platform X:

“We addressed the bilateral economic and trade agenda openly and constructively. We agreed that our teams would meet immediately to seek solutions on tariffs and sanctions.”

This message encapsulated the spirit of Lula Trump mediation — transparent dialogue, shared interests, and step-by-step restoration of ties.

Malaysia: 47th ASEAN Summit kicks off

Theme: “Inclusivity and Sustainability.”

Established in 1967, the grouping includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste is the youngest member and just joined, as well as being the youngest country in the region. It is small with a population of 1.34 million at the 2022 census, and is heavily skewed towards young people due to a high fertility rate. Education has led to increasing literacy over the past half-century, especially in the two official languages of Portuguese and Tetum.

ASEAN can become confusing, specifically because it is accompanied by another summit, the East Asia Summit, a gathering of leaders of the ASEAN nations, the US, China, India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

This year, US President Donald Trump, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, newly appointed Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will be attending. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak will represent Moscow while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take part virtually.

Beyond the leaders of ASEAN and the East Asia Summit nations, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be in Kuala Lumpur too.

High on the agenda is the Cambodian-Thai border conflict, and the US trade war as well as access to rare earths.

The Cambodian-Thai long-running border conflict rekindled in July when dozens of people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced along the border. A ceasefire was reached after five days with the help of Malaysia, China and the US. Trump grabbed the largely ceremonial photo op and oversaw the signing of a Memorandum of Intent between the parties to deal with their differences. Despite the high-profile nature of the event, some critics have questioned whether the deal will be more of a photo-op for Trump than a lasting resolution. Ceasefire violations have continued since July while the original issue around border demarcation has also not been resolved, according to Mu Sochua, a former Cambodian opposition leader and president of the Khmer Movement for Democracy.

It is said that the threat of tariffs from Trump helped bring Thailand and Cambodia to the negotiating table in a move that was effective in the short term but also controversial. Critics in both countries say it amounted to economic blackmail – trading peace for trade benefits rather than addressing justice, sovereignty or local needs.

Attendees are also expected to discuss pressing issues like Myanmar’s civil war and the proliferation of scam centres in Southeast Asia, which have earned criminal networks tens of billions of dollars.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, the chair of ASEAN 2025, said rising contestation and growing uncertainty test not only ASEAN economies, but ASEAN’s collective resolve to keep faith in cooperation.

Then, there are trade talks. The Chinese and US delegations began talks on economic and trade issues in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday morning. The Chinese delegation is led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer represent the US side.

There are no high expectations for breakthroughs at the summit itself and the general expectation is major photo ops only. We hope that the ASEAN members will withstand the coercion this way or another way, that will most certainly come from Demented Donald’s contingent. (They should open a GoFundMe!). Despite this, it is reported that most delegates will try and grab a little time with Trump, to talk Tariffs.

All the World is a Stage across the Ancient Silk Road

A time travel across History – the Ancient Silk Roads as well as Xinjiang may well be the ultimate crossroads of civilizations. Along Central Asia, they are the (beating) heart of the Heartland…

By Pepe Escobar at the Strategic Culture Foundation. 

ON THE SOUTHERN SILK ROAD – Silk is the stuff of legend. Literally. At first manufactured only in China, silk historically was not only a luxury product but a monetary unit: a key element of trade and export revenues.

In 105 B.C., a first-ever Chinese diplomatic mission landed in Persia, then dominated by the Parthians, who also occupied Bactria, Assyria, Babylon and parts of India. Under the four-century long Arsacid dynasty – contemporary of the Han in China – the Parthians at the time were the essential middlemen of transcontinental trade. Chinese and Parthians sat down to discuss – what else – business.

The Roman Empire faced some serious trouble with the Parthians – between the massive defeat of Crassus in Carrhae in 53 B.C. and the victory of Septimus Severus in the year 202. In between, silk hit Rome. Big time.

The first time Roman soldiers saw silk was in the battle of Carrhae. Legend rules that the silk banners deployed by the Parthian army, their scintillating appeal making serious noise under the fierce winds, frightened the Roman cavalry: talk about the first instance of silk contributing to accelerate the decline of the Roman Empire.

Well, what matters is that silk perpetrated nothing less than an economic revolution. The Roman Republic and then Empire had to export gold like there’s no tomorrow to get their silken ways.

Parthian rule was followed by Sassanid Persia. They reigned until the mid 7^th century – their empire stretching from Central Asia to Mesopotamia. For quite a while the Sassanids incarnated the role of great power between China and Europe – up to the conquests of Islam.

(L): Silk Road, the ancient Chinese way: from Xian to Alexandria, not Rome ; (R): The stone tower: Tashkurgan Fort, the landmark between China and the rest of Eurasia

So imagine, at the start of the Christian era, bolts of silk moving overland all along across the Silk Road spectrum. What’s fascinating is that Rome and China never (italics mine) entered in direct contact – for all the vast cast of characters (merchants, adventurers, fake “ambassadors”) that tried.

In parallel, a Maritime Road was also in play – already in effect during the times of Alexander The Great; it later became the Spice Route. That was how Chinese, Persians and Arabs reached India.

Since the Han dynasty, the Chinese reached not only India but also Vietnam, Malaysia and Sumatra. Sumatra soon developed as a key maritime entrepot, with Arab vessels arriving non-stop. In a more long-distance vein, it was the discovery of the rules of the monsoon – in the first century B.C. – that allowed the Romans to also reach the western shores of India.

So silk arrived in Rome by land and sea, via loads of different middlemen. And yet Rome never knew anything about the origin of silk, nor went further than the Greeks in their wobbly knowledge of the distant, mysterious land of Seres.

The twists and turns of the Panlong Ancient Road, in Pamir lands

I went down to the (Pamir) crossroads

After the mid-1^st century, the Kushan empire, actually Indo-Scythian, gets a protagonist role in southern Central Asia, in what was known then as Eastern Turkestan. The Kushan, rivals of the Parthians in the role of messengers of international trade, not only facilitated the spread of Buddhism but also Gandhara – Greco-Buddhist – art (some originals are still to be found today, at exorbitant prices, in art galleries in Hong Kong and Bangkok).

And yet, further on down the road, the rules of the game never substantially changed: two great Silk Road poles – Sassanid Persia and Byzantium – involved in a real, cutthroat industrial war with silk right in the middle. The secret of silk manufacturing had already been leaked to South Asia.

This trade war got even more complicated with the onslaught of Turk tribes across Central Asia, and the emergence of a trade kingdom in Sogdiana (with Samarkand at the center).

By the mid-7^th century, the Tang dynasty recovered control over parts of the Silk Road ruled by Tarim basin kingdoms. That was an absolute must for business to go on – because caravan routes traversing these kingdoms encircled, and bypassed, by north and south, the fear-inducing Taklamakan desert, as they still do today.

Tang China wanted absolute control all the way at least up to the Pamir mountains where, in the legendary stone tower relentlessly described by adventurers but never really located with 100% certainty, Scythian, Parthian and Persian caravans met Chinese caravans to trade that precious silk plus several other commodities.

The stone tower mentioned by top geographers such as Ptolemy is actually Tashkurgan Fort in the Pamir mountains: ultra-  strategic, straddling the Silk Road, and nowadays a top tourist attraction very close to the Karakoram highway.

The stone tower is the symbolic landmark between the Chinese world and the rest of Eurasia: to the west is the Indo-Iranian world.

I traveled the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan back-to-back before Covid interrupted everything. This time our mini-caravan crossed Pamir lands along and around the Karakoram highway on the way to the China-Pakistan border: that is now prime China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) territory, a key plank of BRI.

It’s the Pamirs that in Ancient Silk Road times allowed reaching the oasis of Kashgar. The Pamirs tie a gigantic mountainous knot between the western limits of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and the southern slopes of the Tian Shan.

This has always been the key crossroads between the triangular trade uniting northern India, eastern Central Asia – with China nearby – and western Central Asia, with the steppes not so far away.

China meets Islam: a great, historical “what if?”

Silk, bearing serious value as a unit of capitalization and trade, had a much larger role than its usage. In Byzantium, silk was the object of an imperial monopoly. Everything was strictly regulated: professions, state ateliers where women worked, and customs. The state protected its monopoly via a fierce bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, the Maritime Road was booming. A Buddhist and maritime power, Srivijaya, controlled the ever-crucial Malacca strait out of the island of Sumatra. It’s under this configuration that Islam enters the Big Picture.

As much as History ruled that Rome and China would never meet directly along the Silk Road, it also ruled a stark separation between Islam and China. Or try to imagine if China, in the mid 8^th century, had become a land of Islam.

The battle of Talas, in 751 – in what is today’s Kyrgyzstan – pitted China against the Arabs. And its result ended for good any Chinese whim of conquering Central Asia. Today, with the New Silk Roads/BRI, is another story – about Chinese trade/investment power projection all across the Heartland, and beyond.

(L): Culture interpenetration: Bukhara meets Kashgar ; (R): Samarkand. Opening the doors to another dimension.

Back in the early 8^th century, the key player was Umayyad dynasty General Qutayba ibn Muslim. He first conquered Bukhara and Samarkand; crossed the Ferghana valley; the Tian Shan mountains; and nearly reached Kashgar. The Chinese governor at the time, sensing that Qutayba might be about to take over Chinese lands, sent him a bag full of earth’s soil, a few coins and four princes as hostages. He calculated that’s how the Arab conqueror might not lose face, and leave the Middle Kingdom alone.

As incredible as it might seem, this arrangement lasted for half a century. Until the battle of Talas. Now compare it with Poitiers in 732 – one century after the death of Prophet Muhammad. We can certainly interpret Talas and Poitiers, together, as the two key landmarks of how Islam was on the verge of extending itself all cross Eurasia (including its European peninsula), creating a political-military empire from Rome to Chang’an (today’s Xian).

Well, it did not happen. Still, that’s one of the most extraordinary “what ifs” in History.

The importance of the battle of Talas – virtually ignored in the West, except in rarefied scholarly circles – is really larger than life.   Among other issues, it imposed a new circulation of techniques. The Arabs took away with them artisans, sericulture experts but also paper makers. Ateliers at first were set up in Samarkand. Later on, in Baghdad and all across the Caliphate.

So alongside the Silk Road, we saw the birth of a very busy Paper Road.

An extraordinary Silk Road exhibition currently at the Gansu museum in Lanzhou

Deserts, mountains, oases – and no “slave labor”

Rolling down the highways across Xinjiang shooting a documentary after retracing the initial Ancient Silk Road from Xian to the Gansu corridor is an incomparable, historical time travel – as we may retrace in detail centuries of Central Asian turmoil all the way to the decline of some local pre-Islamic cultures by the 9^th century. It’s a thrill to reconnect with the main actors: Uyghurs, Han Chinese, Sogdians, Indians, nomads, Arabs, Tibetans, Tajiks, Kyrgyz – and Mongolians.

The nomad groups thar proclaimed themselves heirs to the fierce Xiongnu came from the northwest of Mongolia and the Altai mountains. They incorporated several ancient nomads of western Central Asia during the 4^th century, sharply remodeling the political and ethnic landscape.

The Xiongnu, on and off, pillaged parts of northern China – and were occasionally enticed into serious trade, offered tribute, or simply bribed to stay away. Actually the Xiongnu had a branch established in China and separated for at least two centuries from the previous ones:  they ended up taking Samarkand in the year 350. Later on, it’s the Turks that once again came from Mongolia (don’t tell Erdogan about it; he wouldn’t know), unifying the steppe in the 6^th century, way before the arrival of Islam.

Arguably the key Silk Road imperative is the desert and oasis contrast/dichotomy.

(L): The stark beauty of the fierce Taklamakan ; (R): Good pasture in Pamir lands

Deserts such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi, and several others, as well as arid steppes and mountains are among the most forbidding on the planet: these are the essential features of what amounts to roughly 6 million km2.

What is very rare in Central Asia is cultivated land (yet we can see a succession of cotton fields) or good pasture (we can see it in the Gansu corridor, and even in Pamir lands near the mighty Muztagh Ata). Still, deserts and mountains are at the heart of everything.

Some oases are of course more equal than others. Khotan is the most important oasis of the Southern Silk Road – not far from the immense, deserted Tibetan plateau. That’s fabulous for agriculture but most of all, courtesy of an alluvial cone, for precious stones, especially jade, supplied for over 2,000 years to every Chinese dynasty. Khotan spoke an Iranian language – close to those of ancient nomads Saka and Scythian, masters of the steppes.

The kingdom of Khotan was a fierce rival of the oases further west, Yarkand and Kashgar. It was only intermittently under Chinese control. And may have been conquered by the Kushans in the 2^nd century. Indian influence is omnipresent – as we still see in dress patterns and food in the Night Market. In the 3^rd century Buddhism was already a major influence – featuring the most ancient testimonials in the Tarim basin.

The Silk Road, actually Roads, is of course The Buddhist Road. In Dunhuang, in the Gansu corridor, Buddhism was also popular  since the 3^rd century: a famous local monk, Dharmaraksa, was the pupil of an Indian master. The Dunhuang Buddhist crowds were a mix of Chinese, Indian and Central Asian – once more testifying to the non-stop interpenetration of cultures.

(L): The Chinese character for “silk” inscribed in jade in front of a factory in Khotan ; (R): Playing the Uyghur blues

The Shakespearean “all the world is a stage” metaphor totally applies to the history of the Silk Road: all those actors from all corners of the Heartland historically were playing several roles, sometimes all in one go – an apotheosis of the favourite Xi Jinping-coined “people to people’s exchanges”. That’s the spirit of the Ancient and the New Silk Roads.

We were fortunate enough to be on the road smack in the middle of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Among so many accomplishments by socialism with Chinese characteristics in Xinjiang in terms of sustainable development, the taming of the Taklamakan – or “sea of death” – is in a world class of its own.

We crossed the Taklamakan from the Northern Silk Road in Aksu to the Southern, near Keriya: and we experienced everthing from the impeccable highway bordered by the reeds composing the “China magic cube” – to keep the sands away – to some of the 3,046 km-long sand-blocking green belt, featuring plants such as the desert poplar and the red willow.

The Taklamakan has always been Sandstorm Central – a major threat to the succession of oases. The terrain all around the oases is hardcore: deserts, barren mountains, Gobi wasteland, poor soil, sparse vegetation, low rainfall, high evaporation, dry air.

Well, what we see today started even before the Go West campaign launched in 1999: since 1997, an array of central and state agencies, central state-owned enterprises, and 14 Chinese provinces and municipalities have sent a massive amount of funds and personnel to properly develop Xinjiang.

Now compare all that with original research shared at an academic conference on Xinjiang recently organized by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Hong Kong University – my neighbors when I lived in the Fragrant Harbor. The research showed how British MI6 since the 1990s was instrumentalizing a minority of Uyghurs side by side with a massive global P.R. campaign with the explicit target of breaking China into three parts.

That evolved into the CIA-concocted “genocide” accusations of the past few years and of course “forced labor” masses barely surviving in concentration/re-education camps. In our extensive travels, guided by Uyghurs, we were dead set on finding slave labor in cotton fields along the Northern Silk Road or in the middle of the Taklamakan. Well, sorry: they don’t exist.

The propaganda though was essential to regiment loads of Uyghurs into ISIS, including their sizable contingent in Idlibistan now roaming free between Syria and the Turkish border. They wouldn’t dare coming back to Xinjiang and face Chinese intel.

Forget about barbarian propaganda. What really matters, historically, is that the Ancient Silk Roads as well as Xinjiang may well be the ultimate crossroads of civilizations. Along Central Asia, they are the (beating) heart of the Heartland. And now, once again, they are back as protagonists in the heart of History.

Slices of Life, #13

What matters is Thầy Thím’s perseverance against tyranny and misfortune.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Vung Tau, 10/8/25

Holy Water Puddles — Oct 11, 2025.

I’m typing my first words at 6:03PM. Yesterday, I ate beef wrapped in piper lolot leaves dipped in a fermented fish sauce, mắm nêm, which is very salty. This morning I woke up with a headache it took all day to recover from. My system can no longer forgive even small indiscretions. Today, I ate just spaghetti with olive oil, black pepper and cayenne pepper. At age 19 or so, I read about DuChamp eating just spaghetti with butter near the end of his life, and he wasn’t poor.

I had come to Ông Bầu hoping to run into Như, but she’s not around. This afternoon, I did send her an eBook version of my Postcards from the End of America. I have no hard copies. Since she did study anthropology, my book would be of interest. For more than four years, I took trains and buses all over the United States or, more often, just around the Philly area, to simply look and listen.

Just shut up and nearly everyone will tell you nearly everything.

Of course, they’re not likely to open up about their abject yearnings or weird lusts, though clues may seep out. Jerking and stroking their secrets to the last, the old finally croak, relieved at having never been found out.

Some, though, are exposed. Just look at your Dear Leader, suicidal soybean and corn farmers! As an extra fuck you, he just sent twenty billion of your “In God We Trust” greenbacks to Argentina! Since you laughed off his puckering sickness slobbering over virginal white flesh, you’re complicit in the raping of your own children! Be proud in your red hat. Unlike those coastal elite creeps, you’re the heart and soul of America!

Had I more money, I would have stayed longer in distant cities. I spent just one night in Portland or Cheyenne, none in Youngstown, Salt Lake City or Charleston. Too often I slept on buses and trains. I slept at the bus station in Kansas City, Denver and Pasco. You do what you must with what you have.

In Boston, I met Katie, who tried to avoid sleeping indoors. This was outright dangerous for a young woman. Even in Alaska, she had curled up outside. Katie also walked everywhere, for hundreds of miles, sometimes, over days. Though most people would dismiss her as foolish, if not mad, Katie had to act this way to recover something essential in herself. Last I checked, Katie had become more fixed and cozy.

Since the lesser known is always caricatured, many Westerners believe Orientals are conformists incapable of creativity. Don’t let me dissuade you. To Như, though, I would point out Vietnam has never lacked for individualists or eccentrics.

Just 12 miles from Vung Tau is Long Sơn, the realm of an anti-French fighter turned holyman, Lê Văn Mưu (1855-1935). His followers still adhere to unusual practices, such as being buried within 24 hours in unmarked graves, with no funeral to speak of. They don’t look for auspicious days for weddings. They don’t set up altars to divers gods. Lê Văn Mưu is simply called Ông Trần, or Mister Bare (head and feet). Live most simply was his message.

Sixty miles north is a holy couple, Thầy Thím, or Master and Mistress. Unjustly persecuted by King Gia Long (1762-1820), they had to flee to this remote region. Tigers still abounded. Among their miracles was the appearance overnight of an elaborate village hall. Of course, it’s nonsense. Those villagers, like Borges’ Yahoos, had to have built it themselves. What matters is Thầy Thím’s perseverance against tyranny and misfortune.

Just now, Như showed up, so I ranted on about Ông Trần and Thầy Thím, plus the Coconut Monk of Mỹ Tho. There are so many of these weirdos across Vietnam, throughout history. I also talked about poets Bùi Giáng (1926-1998) and Nguyễn Đức Sơn (1937-2020). Here’s a Sơn poem:

Holy Water Puddle

I will come who knows when
mouth parched nirvana path distant
oh one night bush like a body coiled
you haven’t pissed yet my soul is wet

Educated in the US since grade 9^th, Như never knew about these figures. I cite them to show she’s not alone.

Vung Tau, 10/9/25

Before the Fall of Saigon, Nguyễn Đức Sơn was a teacher. From 1979 until his death, he, his wife and nine children barely survived in remote Lâm Đồng. A third Saigon eccentric poet, Phạm Công Thiện, fared much better. From 1970 to 2011, he lived in Israel, Germany, France and the US. In Toulouse, he taught Western Philosophy. In Los Angeles, he lectured at the College for Buddhist Studies. At age 23, Phạm Công Thiện did have a nervous breakdown. He recovered at Nha Trang’s Hải Đức Pagoda.

Since Ông Bầu closed at 9PM, I had to run to Coffee Seven, where I was ecstatically greeted by Nọng and Milk Cow.

“Where were you this morning?” Mrs. Seven asked.

“I woke up with a headache, so couldn’t get here.”

With Mrs. Seven’s bedtime at 10PM, I only managed a couple hundred words before moving on. Now, I’m back at Ông Bầu. Sitting in the dark outside, I can still use its wifi.

That homeless Cambodian guy is going on, “I was too slow to be hired by the fishermen. They wouldn’t let me onto their boats. My brother carried bricks [back in Trà Vinh]. For a hundred bricks, he made 100K ($3.80). I just couldn’t do it. My legs nearly fell off. My father yelled at me and beat me up. I just couldn’t do it.”

With his pillow and a thin blanket, he wanders away. He’s been told to stop sleeping right outside Ông Bầu. He had on a newish navy blue polo shirt, “HAVANA COFFEE.”

These words, then, are what I’ve salvaged from a day I thought wasted. Now, I will head home. Như has fascinating stories I’ve urged her to write down. “Try to be as honest as you can,” I said, but she already knew that. There are so many layers. Don’t just park your fat ass so smugly on the surface.

Image Psychosis Detoxification — Oct 13, 2025.

According to the Harris Poll, 41% of Americans under 44-years-old, or Gen Z/Millennials, would consider hiring witches, astrologers, etc., for major life planning decisions. 63% of Gen Zers and 52% of millennials are also thinking about getting the fuck out. The youngest Americans, then, are the most disenchanted about the American Dream.

If you must stay, it’s past time to research which witch doctors are most reputable in your area. There must be a Djinn Wolf, Rebecca Nurse, Higuayagua Taino, Karen Rose, John Proctor, Martha Carrier or Juliet Diaz within driving distance? Going to the wrong one, just like voting at all, will have you standing on a chair sporting a clumsily knotted noose. Kicking it, the last sound you’ll hear are four or five pennies jangling in your pocket. Since there’s nothing in your small, large or whatever the fuck intestine, nothing will squirt out, so your underwear will be clean, at least.

Wisconsinitos, a white woman in her 40’s, shares, “My husband and I were sitting on the porch this morning, and we were just discussing the culture in the United States, and how there’s always this undercurrent of violence and hostility, and it’s everywhere all the time, and you feel very vulnerable to it.” Is it that bad? You tell me.

Wisconsinitos, “When you go to a movie theater, do you assess who’s in the room, and who might be a threat, and who might be hiding something in their coat, and what you would do if they stood up and started shooting? How are you going to get out of the room?”

I’d say she’s a bit too paranoid, but even without anyone ready to shoot you in seconds, it’s bad enough to feel simmering hostility or insecurity all the time. It’s a natural byproduct of being hyper self-conscious. From infancy, Americans are conditioned to carefully curate their self-image, and to read, immediately, anything that’s off about anyone. Any US eight-year-old can detect, from clear across any room, the wrong dot, stripe, sneakers or haircut. Although its brand has been severely tarnished by Trump, Hegseth, Vance, Biden and Harris, etc., image is still America’s best selling commodity. With even its “rebels” minutely calibrated, it’s the most image psychotic culture ever.

Noticing this yearning to escape among America’s youngest, its future, 30-ish Zach Abroad asks, “Who’s going to be left in the country if all the young people want to go somewhere else?” Trumpers, Bernie Bros, Hillary-bots, AOC freaks, Groypers, Christian nationalists and all the hardcore illegal immigrant criminals ICE cowards are too scared to track down?

They’re a lot harder to gang tackle than septuagenarian grocers or schoolgirls with braces. If you can’t even grab their pussies, Trumpian fashion, what’s the point? Still, with such a promising foundation, why would anyone want to leave?

Zach Abroad, “Where do these people want to go, you might ask? Well, the top five countries that they want to move to are Canada, the UK, Australia, France, and Italy.” I’d say those nations must soon erect barriers for blue passport holders.

Would you want a guy like this? Adam.c, “I move to Sweden I can’t wait I’m disabled and I’m 25 with 4pets and my partner I’m so exited I figured Sweden would b a great fit BC of prices rent and grocies and the country and ppl stick to themswlf witch is what I like [blue heart].” A man so disrespectful of his own language can’t be expected to give a flying fuck about any foreign one, or its culture, so good luck to Sweden, with its affordable “grocies.”

Witches breed witch hunters. With 99.999% of Americans now functionally illiterate, contemporary Cotton Mathers must appear in YouTube videos or TikTok skits. Audio books, too, overtax shriveled heads, and shit like this must be updated, “They which lie, must go to their father, the devil, into everlasting burning […] When they bed and pray in hell fire, God will not forgive them,” and you can’t use words like “impudent,” “scurrilous” or “wicked,” bitch!

Keep it simple. Hairless hoo ha hopheads must have their hoses slowly hacked. Did you know the most popular Netflix movie ever is K-pop Demon Hunters? Yo masters are way ahead.

Who’s the most awesome witch alive? With the answer so obvious, you’ll get no heart shaped or fly imprinted fentanyl cookies! Who’s bewitching millions, if not billions?

Sitting at Ông Bầu, I’ve just been approached by an old head who said he wanted to draw my face. He’s sitting with another trauma survivor who, twenty minutes ago, was strumming on a guitar. To not be rude, I will go talk to them, so will cut this short.

Mrs. Tim’s crab noodle stand this morning

Yesterday, Như let me sniff some leaves that smelled like root beer. Not everything is fake. The Vietnamese name for root beer, xá xị, is exactly what they call the cinnamomum parthenoxylon. Keeping it simple will increase your chance of survival.

Walking to Ông Bầu, I passed Mrs. Tím’s crab noodle soup stand. With a light rain coming down, she had the crudest canopy propped up with three thin branches against the splotchy yellow wall right behind her. White smoke rose from a wooden fire. At home, I still have a small bottle of BeerLao. I should drink it before heading to Kathmandu.

Vung Tau, 10/14/25

Amor Fati or Else! — Oct 14, 2025.

Centuries ago or just yesterday, Mrs. Seven almost went to Japan with her dance troupe. All the girls were warned to not get an abortion in the land of salarymen, too often drunk. Dental care would also be too expensive. With minders always watchful, their chances of getting pregnant with a broken tooth, to boot, was nearly nil. Still, one had to warn these gorgeous and nimble girls on a very rare trip overseas, but it didn’t happen anyway.

Hearing about my trip to Nepal, Mrs. Seven told me this amusing tale. Since men can also get pregnant, as we all know, I should plan for a possible abortion in Kathmandu, though how this can happen without my having sex is a mystery, or conundrum, I’ll address on another day. When is sex not a conundrum, whatever that means?

The exercise music at Morning Star Kindergarten is nearly loud enough to cause brain damage. Stumbling about, trapped toddlers half lift their limbs. Looking lost, they sway. Smiling brightly, their teachers break out moves.

On the way to Coffee Seven, I noticed the homeless Cambodian was still sleeping outside Ông Bầu, his usual spot. His dark feet stuck out, corpse like, from his clean Tweety Bird blanket.

Inside Ông Bầu, there’s a new exhibition of paintings, all terrible. The artist is a man in his 60’s with a pony tail, wire framed glasses and pensive expression. Duly artistic in appearance, he’s devoted his entire life to these pointless canvases. Getting a preview last night, I told Như about Jim Shaw and his thrift store paintings. Those are interesting because they reveal the goofy or even bizarre personalities behind them. The ones at Ông Bầu betray nothing.

Vung Tau, 10/14/25

Not even funny some dog with a flowing scarf on a motorbike or a timid odalisque with hazy Islamic domes in the background.

“These are bad not because of poor technique, but because he sees very poorly. Hands, breasts, water, boat, everything he paints is very poorly observed!”

Ears are rarely painted well, but there are no reasons for breasts to be so ugly! Their shapes aren’t overly complicated. If a man can’t appreciate specific breasts, or their variety, he’s legally blind.

The homeless Cambodian needs his spot outside Ông Bầu to feel anchored. Just now, I checked with satisfaction the score between my Mariners and the damned Blue Jays. That I should care at all is entirely irrational. When the homeplate umpire cheated Logan Gilbert on two clear strikes, as graphed on my screen, I was outraged. Arriving in Kennewick, WA years ago, I was cheered and calmed by the Seahawks pennants on the walls of the first bar I entered. I had recovered a portion of my childhood. For over a century in the USA, team loyalty has mostly replaced a genuine sense of community. It also patches over divisions within each.

Toronto’s defeat of the New York Yankees in this year’s playoffs must have deeply satisfied all Canadians. They’re sick of the endless insults from Trump. The Blue Jays do have a Canadian star, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.. Of Dominican ancestry, he’s born in Montreal.

In Kennewick, I found out about Thai farm laborers imported into the US, for they were even cheaper than Mexicans, and also easier to abuse. MAGA farmers didn’t vote for Trump because they wanted to replace dirt cheap illegal immigrants with Americans. Wake up, man! Even American employers don’t want American workers.

MAGA farmers believed Trump would bring them virtual slaves, in the form of legal immigrants, through the little scrutinized H-2A visas. If mistreated, illegals can just walk away. Legal ones are trapped on farms, to be underpaid, overworked and abused, even sexually. Your Heartland farmers aren’t these Norman Rockwell sweeties, but slave drivers. Promising them slaves, Trump delivers bankruptcies and suicides, so he does have a sense of humor after all.

In Cairo and West Jerusalem, Trump just delivered two rambling, self-centered speeches. The second is wrily described by Al Jazeera as “stream-of-consciousness,” with the diapered fool having the “the time of his life,” since he was showered “with applause, laughs and too many standing ovations to count” from Knesset members. Jews consider genocides orgasmic celebrations.

As for the fake ceasefire that, to my surprise, even Kevin Barrett terms a “crushing victory for the Resistance,” Jews are just taking a much needed breather before resuming their assaults on Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians. The ethnic cleansing of Gaza will continue. Sending at least 200 American soldiers to Israel, Trump still envisions Trump towers, plus a giant golden statue of himself, in Palestinian-free Gaza. Lounging by a pool next to another aging blob, Trump will sip some mocktail not quite blood red.

[ “… Initially, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent about 33,000 American military personnel to Vietnam, primarily as non-combat advisors to assist the South Vietnamese Army…”]

During five years in power, Trump has waged wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Iran and Venezuela. Plus, he’s threatened Canada, Mexico, Panama and Greenland. Still, Trump expected a Nobel peace prize! Most pathetically, nearly half of Americans shared his delusion. When Trump confused Albania with Armenia, or said Iran borders Qatar, most Americans didn’t flinch either. It is an insular society mired in self-infatuation.

Today, I cleared out my fridge. For breakfast, I ate a tomato, onion, cucumber and egg salad. I finally drank that small BeerLao. Even though too many BeerLaos in Pakse edged me closer to the precipice, I remember with fondness my several months there. The café across my Pakse hotel was called Amor Fati, or Love Your Fate.

Before Laos became a fabled drug destination, it was Nepal. Within walking distance of Hotel Pristine, where I’ll be staying, is Freak Street. Two of my closest high school friends, Phil Brenner and Brian Robertson, were freaks. Brian, though, became a hardcore Republican, and even served under Trump.

Married to an anti LGBTQ crusader, MAGA Mike Johnson has just been exposed as a Tinder cruiser who loves to be butt plugged! Almost nothing is as it seems.

With still hours left before I must board that van for Saigon’s airport, I might just go for another BeerLao. The Mariners up 2 games to 0 will be my excuse. Another reason is the demise of Sammy Davis Clemens. That outstanding author didn’t even last two weeks! Canceling me again, gazillionaire Jeff Bezos also stiffed me of 50 measly bucks. Making no rules, we can only watch, so watch it well, you hear?

Kathmandu, 10/15/25

Back Home in Kathmandu — Oct 16, 2025.

Around midnight, I woke up knowing I was in Kathmandu. Still, it was surprising to open my eyes to see a completely strange room, and it was cold, too. I hadn’t had to use my blanket in a long time. Going back to sleep, I woke up around 3AM, my usual time, so was out on the street shortly after. Of course, I had no map and no phone, but if you keep walking in circles, you’ll end up inside your childhood home in no time. With the earth so small and your life so short, it’s impossible to get lost.

Coming from the airport yesterday, I had two phrases, “Chhetrpati Chowk” and “Hotel Pristine.” I hadn’t even learnt downtown Kathmandu is called Hamel. Though my taxi driver spoke minimal English, he got me where I needed. With clipped sentences, we still had a meaningful conversation.

“How long have you been driving, taxi?”

“Twenty-eight years.”

“Do you live inside city?”

“Yes.”

“Where is your village?”

“Three hours.”

“Three hours away! Very far!”

Twice a year during festivals, he goes home to see his parents. His wife and kids are here. He won’t celebrate the next festival, however, because a relative died less than a year ago. A Hindu, he must mourn for a year, he said.

Of course, he assumed I was Chinese. There are many here. “Vietnam,” I told him. Then, “Have you been outside?”

“No, I am poor man.”

“Not even to India,” so close.

“Only border, not inside,” so technically, he’s been outside.

Though his brother runs organized tours, he, too, is poor. Everyone and his grandma run trekking tours here.

My room is on the 5^th floor, so trekking up and down several times a day is equivalent to climbing Mount Everest, I’m sure. Let’s not overdramatize every little gesture, OK? Sherpa guides my ass. I must contact the Guinness Book of World Records to tell those losers about my superhuman feat.

Getting out of the taxi, I was exhausted, but also exhilarated. Despite all the burger or fried chicken joints I had seen on the ride, plus English language schools, I was in a new universe. Before this, I had spent just a month in South Asia, in Bengaluru and Chennai. Nepalese, though, are more varied in appearances than southern Indians. There are folks who look almost like me.

Without wandering cows to piss and shit all over, Nepal is certainly cleaner than its southern neighbor, and much less congested, too. Sadly, perhaps, pot is now legal only one day a year. Though I myself have never inhaled, snorted or dropped anything too unusual, people should be free to unwind with natural enough assistance.

Failing to find an atmospheric café to get my bearings, I settled for GHR Pizzeria and Coffee House. Despite its indifferent name and sterile appearance, it introduced me to an excellent ruby lager, Gorkha, and a fantastic plate of buffalo meat momos. My grand prize, though, was the presence of a radiant waitress whose constant smiles made me so happy, I couldn’t help but tell her, though this made this angel so self conscious, she stopped smiling so much. Worse, she retreated to the next room for a while.

Guangzhou, 10/15/25

On the layover in Guangzhou, there was a psycho security lady who barked one word commands to all passengers. Her English was so bad, it wouldn’t have helped much had she spoken more slowly and calmly. There was no reason for her not to smile, though. “Very strange, that lady,” I said to a South Asian man. “Mentally ill!”

Since he only smiled back, he may not have understood. He may have been Nepalese. Already, I can tell English is not as widespread here as in India, but this country was never colonized by the Brits.

So in the dark this morning, I wandered into the unknown, past small temples, wooden balconies, ancient wells and even graves. Pedaled by a skeletal man in the dark, a bicycle rickshaw rolled past. Another, just as bony, used a broom with too short a handle to sweep the street. Having done this for decades, he’s folded nearly in half, so that must be his preferred posture. Since this was still Asia, I had no fear of being mugged. Seeing a small group huddled at a tiny store, I headed over to ask for chai.

“Cha?” the old lady answered. In her sari, she was sitting with folded legs behind a portable gas stove, on which rested an aluminum pot and a huge tin kettle, with its spout like an elephant trunk, so charming. There were only three other customers. With my hot glass, I was at home. Soon, a Korean looking man showed up, but he was no tourist. Speaking fluently to the lady, he settled snugly into his usual spot.

The tiny store had instant noodles, eggs, candies, cookies, salt, MSG and Lay’s potato chips, so rush here when the bombs go off before everything runs out. You can never have too much of Smoky Popping Candies or Monaco Biscuits, especially in pizza flavor. Suddenly, there was a tallish Oriental who called to two dogs in the middle of the street. Surprisingly, they came. After petting them, I headed to our, notice how naturally I say that, neighborhood café to sit right next to me. Together, we represented Chinese imperialists, perhaps, ready to overwhelm Nepal. Though its Maoist government has just been deposed, we, notice how naturally I say that, have backup plans.

Paying 60 rupees or 43 cents for my two glasses, I headed off again, so am now sitting at KTM Burgers, with my fourth cup of cappuccino. On the way, I passed all these Chinese restaurants and hotels catered to Chinese. I also noticed a Japanese restaurant and a South Korean flag outside a nightclub. With so many Oriental men here, there must be prostitutes, of course. I spotted a thick thighed one in a skirt not quite mini.

Entering KTM, I saw an old black dog lying near an uneaten momo, so he’s not starving. At a nearby table, a young man listened to rap. Typing this, I was interrupted by a beggar who squatted at my feet. In exchange for a photo, I gave him 70 rupees or 50 cents, which made him very happy. Smiling, nearly laughing, he waved those bills at the waiters as he walked out. Had I given him too much, it would have pissed off the waiters, for they must work hard for their daily momos and kati rolls. Although he had a scab on his grimy knee, the beggar’s teeth were better than mine ever were.

Kathmandu (L): 10/15/25 ; (R): 10/16/25

Wanting nothing, the half dead dog approached to see how I was doing. His phlemy eyes clearly said, “I’ve seen it all, too, motherfucker.”

A white bearded man with weary eyes and an earring stirred his coffee with a hand too soft to have ever been familiar with a hammer, screwdriver or rifle. He would head home to write more poems no one will ever read, I’m sure. Just burn those batches, bitch. Don’t even try to publish them on Amazon or Kobo.

I finish this at The Nook. Walking between cafés allowed thoughts to surface. Yesterday’s Gorkha was so good, I actually thought, too many BeerLaos nearly killed me in Pakse, so maybe I’ll die in Kathmandu, more than happy, clutching a bottle of Gorkha.

All the recent unrest in South and Southeast Asia made me think Uncle Sam must be up to his tricks again. This isn’t to downplay local dissatisfactions or outrages. “All political parties here are bad,” someone has already told me.

At 7:38AM, I will wrap this up. Though paying just $9.40 a night, I get free breakfast, so will head back to Hotel Pristine, if I can find it before the Second Coming. My Rapture Sit Rep has also been rejected by Kobo, by the way, so my disappearance continues. Chattering in the background, the waiters and baristas sound cheerful, but laughter is actually much more common outside the angry USA, believe it or not. They’re chuckling now.

Smiling, I will reenter a familiar enough street whose name I don’t even know.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

A Capsule of Round One Heroics

A documentary of the missilemen of Iran. “…. the one who finishes a War, is the one claimant of expertise.”

https://x.com/AryJeay/status/1974164482088996971

@Fotros Resistance (Arya – آریا):
Exclusive footages of Iran’s underground missile complexes during the 12-day war.

An IRGC member recalls how they operated inside the deep underground missile tunnels during the 12-day war.

He explains the tunnels were not damaged and everything inside was operational, the only issue was the entrance that sometimes got hit which would delay launches until it’d get dig out.

The tunnels in the footage displays Haj Qassem & Kheybar Shekan missiles.

The IRGC operators says the morale among the IRGC was very high and they did everything to not delay launches.

One of the IRGC members says at one time, an Israeli Hermes drone had hit one of the launchers that caused him to get injured on the spot, but got up and continued working to launch the rest of the missiles.

One of them rejected Israeli ridiculous claims about having bombed Iranian missile capabilities “to dust” and says we’re not even above the ground to bomb us to dust.

Slices of orange Kirks, Part Deux

“Does anyone else think this looks like a soap opera but with extra bad acting? If this weren’t real, it would be comical.”

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Erika Kirk, La Toya Jackson and Bubbles — Sep 16, 2025.

If shit didn’t stink, we would eat it, dressed up all different ways. There would be shit buffets, Michelin rated shit restaurants with celebrity chefs, shit cooking shows, cheap instant shit to be quickly cooked up at home, exotic shit imported from distant lands, UFO shit, shit from historical figures to be auctioned off at Christie’s, semi fake shit with dubious ingredients and lots of artificial colors and flavors though brightly packaged with cute names, shit eating contests staged on boardwalks on breezy summer days with wholesome crowds cheering. Unfortunately, shit does stink, so we must forego so much pleasure, but it’s not all bad. Our variety of virtual shit dished up from so many sources and eagerly consumed by everyone is heartening.

By now, you’ve probably seen the video of Erika Kirk photogenically weeping at her just assassinated husband’s open coffin. Her long blonde hair cascading down her black coat is worthy of a Munch or Pre-Raphaelite painting. This theatrical chick is even miked, so we can hear, clearly, “Oh, I love you. I love you, I love you. I know. I love you, I love you. God bless you.” Charlie’s stiff, orange hands are shown.

I’m hardly the only one aghast by this performance. At OneIndiaNews, here are some consecutive comments, with even misspellings left as is:

shanefox61, “Anyone else here think that posting intimate close ups of you grieving at your husband’s casket is creepy and crass.”

dinakindred, “My husband got killed in less than 48 hours I’m not gonna be talking to social media. Everyone grieves differently.”

DM-qd6bv, “As a veteran, I’m insulted that he had a military honor guard.”

justin456, “So, about those Epstein files.”

lawRN23, “None of this seems right. Something much bigger happened here. Pay attention.”

VisionX100-s2r, “Not everything belongs on social media.”

rabiabashir5689, “This should’ve stayed personal.”

Elbow1222, “This is beyond strange. Does anyone else think this looks like a soap opera but with extra bad acting? If this weren’t real, it would be comical.”

baysisaiah, “This is weird. Who films themselves grieving over their spouse like this. Treating this like a tv show. This feels so scripted.”

GordonGreenCincinnati, “This feels really off. Why is there a cameraman 6 inches from Erika’s head while she cries over a faceless body with rubbery looking hands. Her speach with the Rumble book and Trump on Time magazine cover appears to be scripted and forced. Why is she giving a speach at all? And how is Charlie’s body already in a casket 24 hours after death? This is not adding up.”

ImperfectlyPerfect33, “A private moment at your husband’s casket but you are wearing a mic? Wtf is that?”

These spontaneous responses by rubes need to be presented so people a hundred years from now will know we didn’t just eat and spit out shit nonstop.

Erika Kirk’s show of grief made me think immediately of La Toya Jackson heart rending visit with Bubbles at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida. With the King of Pop’s chimp all grown up, La Toya couldn’t enter Bubbles’ cage, unless she wanted some interspecies loving or her face torn off. Separated by a steel mesh, La Toya still managed to deliver a drawn out monologue for her Animal Planet audience. Of course, she got paid.

“Bubbles, Bubbles, yes! Hi, Bubbles! Hi, hi, Bubbles! You know I miss you. I haven’t seen you in ages. Bubbles, do you remember me? Bubbles, do you remember me? Bubbles, you’re looking like you do. Do you? Bubbles! Bubbles! Bubbles! Oh, I want to kiss you, I want to hug you, and I know I can’t, cause you’re so big!” It goes on.

Bored as shit, Bubbles looked away at several points. Much smarter than those who are eating up every bullshitty detail of the Kirk assassination, Bubbles wasn’t buying any of La Toya’s shit. I’d vote for Bubbles if he ran for president. The USA would improve immediately.

(L): Erika Kirk ; (R): Russian roulette, The Deer Hunter

Now, we know the lethal bullet didn’t enter but exited Kirk’s neck, and Tyler Robinson was 100% not his killer. This doesn’t invalidate our noticing the symbolism of such a neck shot, or the fingering of a MAGA deerhunting lover of trans sex as Kirk’s murderer. Presented with so much shit, we must dissect it while others eat.

For nearly two years, I used self-publishing on Amazon as extra motivation, but that’s over. Moving forward, I will compile my essays into eBooks, to be sold on Kobo, perhaps. If nothing else, I can at least have them printed in Vietnam.

Vietnamese poet and novelist Trần Dần couldn’t publish at all from 1956 to 1988. Worse, as a political liability he was shunned by most acquaintances. Despite all this, Trần Dần never stopped writing. His poems written in complete isolation were some of the best of that era. Those who pander or are cowed can only dish up shit.

@AmurakaHidden: Erika (Frantzve) Kirk won Miss Arizona 2012, a Trump Owned Pageant. She, then, became Casting Director and started Multiple Nonprofits (Orphanages) including Romanian Angels which was embedded in claims of Trafficking of Children and Organ Trafficking to the UK, Israel and “Undisclosed Islands”. Her Father worked for the Department of Defense AND chaired RAYTHEON’s Israeli Division. Both her parents are prominent Zionists. At this point, it’s clear, (at the very least) she acted as HONEYPOT. Charlie’s Political Machine is now transferred to a Controlled Asset (Erika).

Edifying Rituals For Morons — Sep 17, 2025.

Before going to bed last night, I thought perhaps my Amazon canceling was a just a technical glitch, that its AI screener was triggered by my description, “Of course, it’s hopeless, but don’t kill yourself yet, not before reading my takes on incontinent cartoons, big beautiful faces in DC and Hanoi, child rape privilege, Anus River in Vegas, Nation of United Races, global cultural collapse, selling Raymond Carver with frontal nudity, Charlie Kirk assassination and Trumpocalypse Now! Book ends with a fascinating and informative interview with a 73-year-old American internal exile, Douglas Larsen.”

Since all YouTube videos with “suicide” in their title are immediately blocked, I figured the same had happened to me at Amazon, so I changed “kill yourself” to “rub yourself out.” I also changed the title from “Stragglers in the Night” to “Trumpocalypse Now!” With two more articles, I resubmitted my book, confident it would sneak through, so business as usual. This morning, though, I woke up to the same rejection, “During our review process, we found that your book(s) are resulting in a disappointing customer experience.”

“Child rape privilege,” “frontal nudity” and even “Charlie Kirk assassination” might also be red flags, and that’s just in the description. The book itself is landmined with hundreds of no-nos.

Long dead in the USA, free speech’s corpse is now defecated on even more openly. CNN, “Dozens of social media posts and messages about the murder of Charlie Kirk, including some that celebrated his death, are being spotlighted by conservative activists, Republican elected officials and a doxxing website as part of an online campaign to punish the posters behind the messages.” NBC, “In the days since the assassination of conservative figure Charlie Kirk, institutions from airlines to schools have moved quickly to discipline employees accused of celebrating or mocking his death, a reflection of the charged atmosphere surrounding the killing.” Mocking is too inclusive or vague a verb.

Plus, what’s wrong with mocking? In Thailand, you’ll get jailed for disrespecting anyone in the royal family. In Germany, the same will happen if you question even the tiniest detail about the Holocaust fairy tale. In Vietnam, the Communist Party is untouchable. In the USA, you can now be fired for smirking or laughing over an internet influencer murdered by the government itself! It will get much worse.

The world is noticing. Times of India, “Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, universities nationwide have faced intense scrutiny over faculty and staff’s online remarks, leading to disciplinary actions and firings. This has ignited a debate over free speech, academic freedom, and political influence on higher education.”

Announcing charges against patsy Tyler Robinson, Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray speechified, “Charlie Kirk was murdered while engaging in one of our most sacred and cherished American rights, the bedrock of our democratic republic, the free exchange of ideas in a search for truth, understanding a more perfect union.” Am I mocking Gray? No, that fragrant weasel is mocking himself, plus the general level of American intelligence. Sorry for the oxymoron.

Not mocking nobody, Kevin Barrett yesterday stuck most stickily to verifiable facts, with the driest, most rigid wording possible, in “Charlie Kirk’s Resurrection Scheduled for Next Sunday.” Wanting to quote it just now, I searched “Kevin Substack,” “Kevin’s Newsletter” and even “Kevin Barrett Substack,” but his SubStack didn’t turn up, incredibly. Instead, I was steered to Kevin Bracker, Kevin Lynagh, Kevan Lee, Kevin Wheeler, Kevin Powell and St Kevin’s Primary School, etc. This has never happened before.

Obviously, they don’t want you to read, “Ben Shapiro, the newly-appointed Pope of the Church of Charlie Kirk, has announced that Kirk’s resurrection will take place at 1 pm Eastern time next Sunday afternoon. All churches will be closed and NFL games have been rescheduled for Saturday or Monday so Americans will not be distracted while witnessing the Charlie Kirk Singularity, which promises to be an awesome, millennium-inaugurating spectacle, after which nobody will be allowed to criticize Charlie Kirk, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Donald Trump ever again.” Kevin Barrett is a top-notch scholar who taught at the University of Wisconsin. Hearing him lecture at a Nation of Islam gathering in Detroit in 2017 blew me away. Since only self-censoring cowards or outright morons are tolerated in American academia, Barrett has been chased all the way to Morocco.

Not a moron, certainly, is Kash Patel. With a straight face, albeit with crossed eyes, the FBI director announced Kirk’s killer did write a manifesto. Somehow, this has been lost, but with its contents scrupulously preserved, to be used as evidence.

In 2010, 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud was convicted of attempting to set off a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, OR. This Somalian-American supposedly tried to blow up the cutest, blondest Christian children during Christendom’s most sacred holiday, in short. The key evidence against Mohammud was provided by an FBI agent, who claimed he had said, “I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured.” Most absurdly, that agent’s recording device malfunctioned just then. Still, we must believe the FBI, CIA, White House or Pentagon.

Vung Tau: (L): 9/15/25 ; (R): 9/12/25

Today in Vung Tau is most beautiful. Though sunny, it’s not too hot. Sitting at Cóc Cóc writing this, I saw, just now, Matthew Rossman riding by. This dawn at Coffee Seven, I teased Mrs. Seven about missing Sơn, the security guard. He’s in Long Xuyên for some undisclosed business. Although many Vietnamese leave Christmas trees up year round, I don’t think Sơn wants to blow one up, but who knows?

“Brother Sơn has been gone three days,” I said.

“Four days!” she retorted.

“You missed him so much, you added a day!”

Without Sơn, I spent more time chatting with that retired high school teacher, Vũ. He, too, sees through much of the Charlie Kirk bullshit. People are sacrificed all the time. Vũ mentioned an exceptional ARVN general, Đỗ Cao Trí, who died when his helicopter exploded without being hit by enemy fire in 1971. I told Vũ about Gary Webb. For exposing the US government’s complicity in drug trafficking, Webb was fired from the San Jose Mercury News, then suicided in 2004. I also recounted the death of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the “DC Madame,” who was killed in 2008.

“Her brothel served all these big shots, congressmen and senators, so they had to kill her. When you’re such a high profile prisoner, they put you on suicide watch, so you’re naked, with not even a toilet to shit in, just a hole. There’s nothing to kill yourself with, not even toilet water to dunk your face. Plus, there are all these cameras. Knowing what’s up, she told friends, ‘If I die in prison, I definitely didn’t commit suicide,” but they killed her anyway. They didn’t give a shit. No one remembers.”

There are so many cases. What made Kirk’s execution exceptional was how spectacular it was, but these are the same people who pulled off 9/11, man! They specialize in special effects. What’s also astounding, or perhaps just amusing, is his widow’s histrionic participation. She had to act immediately before this story fades. Its deadly consequences will linger for decades, or until this Jewjerked American Empire disappears.

Walking home for lunch, I noticed at Triangle Park people setting up stalls to sell mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. For two days, I’ve also been cheered by my Mariners being in first place so late in the season. I still remember the scores of their first two games ever. They lost 6-0 twice to the Athletics. I heard both contests on the radio in Salem, OR. As we’re preoccupied with soothing, stupid, harmless or beautiful rituals, they conduct Satanic ones, but not primarily for themselves. They do it mostly to imprint into our shallow, stinking minds the real nature of our existence. Instead of mocking or complaining, we must get on our knees to thank them. Nearly all your neighbors are already doing it, daily.

Killed by Jews, a Jewish Tool Becomes Greatest Christian Saint — Sep 21, 2025.

With that, I was kicked back to earth. Was that a dream? Hell, no! I ran into God last night. Behind him stood Charlie Kirk, Christianity’s greatest saint, until Donald Trump dies, that is. It should happen any second now. Is that “should” a threat? Would I recognize a Mauser M 98 even if it wasn’t wrapped in a towel, but labeled with black magic marker on a placard?

On YouTube, there are many similar testimonies. Kirk’s made-for-social-media assassination has sucked many souls straight into heaven, at least for one night.

One begins, “My name is Sarah. I am 47 years old. I never thought my life would take such a dramatic turn that I would find myself standing here trembling, speaking words that feel too weighty for me to carry.

“Yet on the night of 9/12/25, I had an experience that changed me forever.” What triggered it, no less, was a “moment in history [that] carried eternal significance.” Despite getting even hoakier, it has gotten nearly 74,000 views after eight days. The lurid accompanying images show Jesus even when Kirk is described or swooned over, so Christ and Charlie Kirk are conflated.

Another man who merely dreamt of Kirk testifies, “He was a light for Jesus in these dark campuses, these dark colleges and universities where darkness has prevailed, where doctrines of demons and just lies have prevailed for generations now, since these universities and these colleges have been hijacked by communism, socialism and the woke agenda, which is the manifestation of demons.” Sounds like the Frankfurt School! Jewish funded Charlie Kirk was fighting leftist fanaticism or idiocy as pushed by Jews! Whites are hopelessly trapped in the Jewish funhouse.

Whigger rapper Tyson James, “We are Charlie! We are Charlie! We are Charlie! […] Listen, the devil ain’t playing, he trying to take us down. Are you willing to speak the truth and take a round? […] Charlie died but through his life, many come to know the Christ […] You took out a man, but you can never kill a vision […] A real Christian got assassinated, but I can see an army activated. I know you demons agitated, cuz you didn’t kill a man. He only graduated.”

All these fringe or freakish voices are reinforced by America’s leaders. The White House on 9/21/25, “Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans unite to honor Charlie Kirk—his vision, his mission, his impact, and his deep love for this nation.

“Charlie Kirk was one of one. A life devoted to faith, freedom, and America.”

Donald Trump on 9/21/25, “Perhaps it should be no surprise that Charlie, who spent his life speaking with the critics of these traditions ultimately became convinced that we needed not just a political re-alignment, but also a spiritual reawakening.”

Jews made Charlie Kirk a pseudo celebrity and millionaire. With young whites, Kirk’s primary audience, increasingly antagonistic towards Jews, due mostly to the Gaza genocide and the Jeffrey Epstein child rape ring, Kirk started to break from Jews because, just 31-years-old, he’s charismatic and smart enough, he thought, to be, who knows, president one day? His gummy grin was certainly more fetching than J.D. Vance’s brightest smile. Though knowing he was playing with fire, Kirk took this risk, but with one pop, it’s over!

On 9/11/25, I already wrote, “Alive, the frankly obnoxious Kirk hurt Trump even more than he helped. Dead, he’s become a saint while giving the Donald fresh ammunition to go after ‘the radical left.’”

You can’t take money from Satanists then betray them. Worse, Kirk knew how these Satanists operate, so of course they had to shut him up. Though they could have done it with a plane crash or car bomb, it had to be done most publicly, as Kirk was speaking. He’s punished mid-transgression. On 9/11/25, I also wrote, “Congratulations to that professional sniper,” for it was executed perfectly.

Congratulations must also be extended to that entire theatrical crew. Though they took down the set immediately, that performance is still going on, with Erika Kirk a newborn star. She’s amazing.

Dead, Kirk is loved so fuckin’ hard by his killers and abusers. They’ll love you a long, long time, buddy.

Vung Tau, 9/23/25

Rapture Sit Rep — Sep 23, 2025.

Though I knew Lamont Steptoe for about 30 years, I saw him rarely. We never had a beer together. As director of poetry programming at the Painted Bride, Lamont scheduled me for a reading when I was just 22-years-old, so I’m grateful. Of all Lamont said to me, I remember just three statements. 1) Lamont claimed a collection of his poems was on James Baldwin’s night table when he died 2) As a gay black man who also fought in Vietnam, Lamont had so much going for him as a poet, careerwise 3) A huge UFO was going to pick up Lamont sometime in 2000. It’s his version of the Rapture.

I thought of Lamont this morning because thousands of people, not just Americans, are convinced the Rapture will occur between September 22^nd and 24^th. Here in Vũng Tàu, it’s already the 23^rd, so I have another day to babble and sell a few books. Though my Kindle Direct account is suspended, my self-published volumes are still available on Amazon.

Just now, I had to stop to scratch Nọng, but that bitch will only have to worry about her itchiness for a few more hours. Shouldn’t blameless dogs go to heaven?

I was tipped off to this latest Rapture frenzy by Angela Baker of Parkrose Permaculture. With corporate and even much of dissident media so misleading when not toxic, one must seek out the most obscure independent voices to figure out anything. People like Polly St. George of Amazing Polly, Christian Westbrook of Ice Age Farmer and Max Igan of The Crowhouse have taught me much. Only Igan is still broadcasting. Before they killed him, Gonzalo Lira was very informative, too. There’s this tendency to isolate mistakes to dismiss someone entirely, but that’s childish and not very useful.

The latest Rapture hysteria shouldn’t be seen as some fringe lunacy. Checking online postings of the Rapture ready, Angela Baker finds plenty of Trump worship and “big memorial posts to Charlie Kirk.” “MAGA is a death cult,” she concludes.

With their saintly hero shot, Christian children massacred, Jewish women raped, Jewish babies decapitated, Americans drugged by Chinese made Fentanyl entering through Mexico and Canada, and Uncle Sam cheated by every country on earth through unfair trade practices, this evil world can’t end soon enough. The Rapture is MAGA’s death wish disguised as religious euphoria. Beam me up, Jesus!

You don’t have to be Trump or J.D. Vance to wear makeup just to step outside. Even a midnight run to Seven Eleven requires you looking somewhat presentable, like zipping up your fly and rubbing away eye boogers. Being lifted to heaven, then, shouldn’t be taken lightly. Sonj779, “I recommend you go out and buy a couple fresh packs of undies to wear for the next month. Throw all the old underwear away. Imagine after you’ve been harpazoed. Your clothes float back down. You don’t want someone’s last impression of you to be your old underwear.” Though it is satire, most viewers couldn’t be sure. It’s getting harder to tell.

With its blinking lights, sparklers, booming music and a creepy Trump swaying and singing next to a brightly smiling Erika Kirk, the memorial service to “prophet” Charlie had no gravitas. It was just a mega MAGA rally, executed with the worst taste, but what do you expect from a regime that’s planning a cage fighting extravaganza at the White House? Centuries-old trees have also been felled to clear space for a ballroom to make Liberace’s ghost all hot and bothered.

Though videos prove otherwise, Frank Turek still said of the moment right after Kirk was shot, “His face was looking at mine but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking past me, right into eternity.” Sniped from behind, Kirk seized up, so wasn’t looking at anybody. With his severed jugular gushing blood, Kirk was dead before he even hit the ground. Though complicit in his murder then cover up, Trump called Kirk “our greatest evangelist for American liberty” and “a martyr now for American freedom.”

After murdering Martin Luther King, the US government erected a huge statue of him on the Washington Mall. If King looks sort of Chinese, it’s because he’s carved by a Chinese, Lei Yixin. An American sculptor would have charged much more for a crappier job. After popping off JFK, gracious Uncle Sam named New York’s airport and Washington DC’s performing art center after the man. Shouldn’t a major American city be rechristened Charlie Kirk? I propose Seattle. Instead of some Godless Injun, it should evoke this great white man who’s also a lion-hearted friend of Israel. Calling Seattle Charlie Kirk City will also chase away all those woke Antifa assholes.

With hours or just minutes left before the Rapture, I won’t waste one second. Though exhausted, I won’t take a nap. In DC HomeStay’s swimming pool I will soak for maybe an hour, then go from there. Should any sort of apocalypse come while I’m in the water, it will be less painful, I’d think. With my hair singed and my entire face burnt off, the rest of me should be fine. In that water not yet boiling, I will still wiggle for another moment or two.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

L’Afghanistan appelle les États-Unis au réalisme après les menaces de Trump de s’emparer de la base aérienne de Bagram

Les autorités afghanes ont appelé les États-Unis à ne pas répéter les « expériences infructueuses du passé » et à

L’article L’Afghanistan appelle les États-Unis au réalisme après les menaces de Trump de s’emparer de la base aérienne de Bagram est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

Slices of Life, #11

I can’t think of any country more disunited. So appropriately, it’s ruled or at least fronted by a master divider. The self-adoring psycho is enjoying every second.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

MAGA Situation Report — Sep 08, 2025.

First off, I want to thank Ling Ding Dong for allowing me to come on here to counter, point by point, his endless bullshit. As a free subscriber to this asshole’s SubStack, I haven’t read most of his articles in full, but his name alone is enough of a clue. This motherfucker also lives in Communistic Vietnam, when he’s not panhandling in South Africa, India or Albania. He’s obviously too broke to travel to any First World or white country.

Rejected by America, he’s missing out on President Trump’s Golden Age. This explains his seething bitterness. This lost loser is too poor to fly back, not that we want him. Landing at Philadelphia International Airport, he’d be arrested within five seconds, then placed on the next flight to South Sudan, where he could mingle forever with other savages of color.

Just now, he’s gloating over the supposed collapse of Las Vegas. Foreign tourists are boycotting it, he claimed. Fact is, we don’t want Chinks, Japs, Gooks, Dotheads, Ragheads and Spics to ruin that beautiful city. Shit, man, we don’t need Frogs, Krauts and Puckheads either. Europeans are freeloaders and Canadians have stupidly refused to become our 51^st state. Shunning California, Florida, Arizona and Las Vegas, they’ll just freeze their nuts of.

More good news: Singapore Airlines, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, British Airways, Air Canada, Emirates and Qantas have all cut back flights to our beautiful country, thus making it even more gorgeous. Nothing is more breathtaking than empty streets with boarded up stores, such as we’ve seen for decades in Normal Rockwell type burgs across America. Soon enough, Las Vegas will look like Welch, West Virginia.

Having never flown, I didn’t even know there were more than ten airlines, but why, you ask, should we celebrate fewer British Airway flights? Doesn’t MAGA Land need many more white people? Each flight from London is packed with child raping dotheads, who the Brits call Asian groomers. No, thanks.

Any second now, Ling Ding Dong will announce Vietnam Airlines has stopped direct flights from Ho Chi Minh City to San Francisco! Until a minute ago, I didn’t even know there were such outrages. Kenyan Obama must have greenlit that human trafficking pipeline!

Our country is already overrun by Viet Cong run nail salons and dogmeat pho joints. You can’t pay me to even sniff a fuckin’ bowl. What’s wrong with a $12 Bacon Quarter Pounder with Cheese Combo at some ghetto McDonald’s? Haven’t had one in a while, I must admit. We have a family of four. A hearty eater, my wife must have her $24 Classic Big Mac Pack. Two more bucks for a large Coke. Don’t even try to steal one of her fries. Can’t complain. More cushion for the pushin’, my daddy always said.

Having chased most of the yellow, brown and black tourists away, we must do a better job at keeping them out of our colleges. All the Chinese kids are spies anyway. With President Trump flipping off China for years, slitty eyed nerds are no longer so numerous at Ivy League schools, MIT or even Georgia Tech, so that’s a start. These schools have tried to replace them with Indians and even Nigerians, however. That’s seriously fucked up.

Since each Chinese student spent twice as much as an Indian, and thrice as a Nigerian, many more of these savages must be brought in to replace the Chinks!

Where are the white students?! There must be enough who can handle plasma physics, molecular biology, rapid prototyping, neuro science, ordinary differential equations, computational linear algebra, combinatorial analysis and advanced applied probability courses? I have no idea what any of those words means, not one! Gave me a fuckin’ headache just typing them. In 12^th grade, I did get a C- in geometry.

Under President Trump’s firm and erect leadership, this previously flaccid nation is finally ejaculating in the right direction. Don’t let pussies like Ling Ding Dong tell you otherwise. One last bit of good news: our corn, soybean and wheat farmers are all in deep shit. Thanks to ICE, their Spic laborers have disappeared, and those Chinks ain’t buying. This is fine, actually.

Like President Trump wisely pointed out, farm work is for black, brown and yellow peasants. Even fat face JD Vance knows this. Us whites have no business growing food or raising animals. With trillions flooding in from Trump’s tariffs, we can just cash our dividend checks.

Didn’t our greatest president ever say, “We’re going to become so rich, you’re not gonna know where to spend all that money. I’m telling you—just watch!”

Freezing my white ass off in a used RV after losing my fuckin’ farm founded by my great, great, great grandfather, a passenger on the Mayflower, I’m watching away, daddy!

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (L): Coffee Seven on 8/25/25 ; (R): 9/4/25

Lovable Messes! — Sep 08, 2025.

Matthew Rossman is beyond nauseated by my Trump coverage. Having escaped North America, he doesn’t want to hear about that monster. A long time resident of Vietnam, Matthew worked for years in Saigon, and is now in Vung Tau. Typing at Cóc Cóc, I would see him ride by on his motorbike, sometimes with his teenaged daughter. I think she takes violin lessons, and is also in a badminton club.

Vietnamese kids in blue martial art uniforms are studying Vovinam. When still fighting in a boxing ring, MMA star Cung Le would use its signature scissor kick takedown.

Anyway, as a Canadian Matthew is especially disgusted by Trump. To spare him further pain, I will now talk about some Vung Tau characters. Since Matthew isn’t Vietnamese, his access to this culture must be limited. Though I’m not working in this economy, and can’t even ride a motorbike, I can dig out stories Matthew can’t. Plus, I’m a lurker. Even if I wasn’t a writer and photographer, I would still lurk.

For at least two weeks, Mrs. Seven has been obsessed with the K-pop singer Lisa. Since most YouTube videos on this Thai-born singer are in English, Mrs. Seven must sometimes ask me to translate a caption, such as, “Lisa’s sad and tearful moment back home.”

Seeing this 28-year-old chick crying on stage in Bangkok, I couldn’t help but blurt, “Look at her! She’s faking it!”

Wrong, wrong, wrong! Sixty-seven-year-old Mrs. Seven walked away, looking hurt. Her beloved Lisa can’t be a phony! Even her obviously fake nose must be real!

Other times, Mrs. Seven can be very tough. Yesterday, she decided one of her two dogs needed the hair around his asshole trimmed. Since Milk Cow had gone through this routine, he was cowering under a table. Holding her scissors, Mrs. Seven shouted for him to come out. As she clipped away, I observed, “You’re not even an inch from his balls! Click, click, click, click! He’s traumatized for life!” She thought it was hilarious.

I’ve already told you about Mrs. Seven cutting the tail off all her puppies and kittens, just after they’re born.

Just as important as hygiene is obedience. When her younger daughter was in the 12^th grade, she came home near midnight once, so was caned three times on her ass while lying face down in bed, sobbing. When her older daughter, already 21-years-old, came home in the morning after a night out, she was slapped, hard, three times at the door. When Mrs. Seven was told her husband was seen with some slut, she went looking for them with a barber’s razor. As an organist playing at restaurants and nightclubs where booze was served, he must have had many chances.

Telling me these stories, Mrs. Seven boasted, “I’ll knock you out, send you flying with a kick.” As a girl, she practiced her punches on her dad’s heavy bag. Even today, there’s a five-foot-long hard plastic pipe she keeps by the door, just in case there’s trouble.

This morning, Lisa was again mentioned. Mrs. Seven does concede K-pop stars are all sliced up and reconfigured, every single one of them but her Lisa. Like most people, she knows South Korea leads the world in plastic surgeries. To my surprise, she added, “But if you need to fix things down there, you must go to Thailand! They can cut if off and give you a hole. They can go the other way, too.”

“But it won’t work!” I retorted.

“Of course, it will work.”

I turned to Sơn the security guard, “How does Mrs. Seven know so much about this?”

He just grinned.

In five months, NaLi Beach’s lease will run out. Though Sơn could be assigned somewhere else, he will likely work for his son-in-law as a manager at a construction site. Sounds like a better gig. When Sơn showed up in Vung Tau in 1991, he didn’t even have a thousand đồng [three pennies]. His first job here was at a lumber mill. Though Sơn earned next to nothing, he somehow got married soon after to a woman not so destitute.

“How did you manage that, brother?”

“Technique,” he smiled.

“Did you hear that, Mrs. Seven?! Brother Sơn has technique!”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t tried.”

In just six hours, I will see those two again, plus Nọng, of course. She’s always ecstatic to see me. Sometimes this bitch disappears into the kitchen, way in the back, to lie quietly in a dark hovel. Like everyone, she’s more complex than we can imagine, so preoccupied, each of us, with our laughable, or lovable, if you will, mess.

(L): Manila, 4/19/25 ; (R): Vung Tau, 9/4/25

Nation of United Races?! — Sep 09, 2025.

In late 2019, I showed up in Vung Tau to stay for a month, then disappeared for 2 1/2 years. From mid 2022 until now, I’ve spent two more years here, so I’ve had a chance to see Vung Tau change. There are many more itinerant sellers of lottery tickets and recent rural transplants wandering around peddling food or dirt cheap items. Most alarmingly, some beggars have reappeared. From 1975 to 2000, there were so many. During that span, I spent nearly three years in Vietnam, with trips to very remote areas of both north and south, so I saw these beggars. I’m not speaking from statistics.

Last night at Cóc Cóc, I gave money to a woman in her mid 40’s. There’s something off about her. The young barista sensed this too.

This is the seventh month of the lunar calendar. In Southeast Asia, it’s calculated from the year of Buddha’s death, so we’re in 2568. (Basically, I’m living 543 years ahead of you.) This is when dead souls are allowed by Yanluo Wang, the ruler of hell or just the afterlife, to return to their old haunts. Setting up altars with food offered to these spirits, many businesses also give food to the living. This attracts scammers. Mrs. Seven, for example, saw a woman who kept changing blouses and hats so she could return to the same charity line as a different person. Another woman she knew went all over Vung Tau to collect food, then bragged about how much she got. This goes against the spirit of neighbors helping neighbors or the truly destitute.

Last night’s beggar complained the bills I gave her were too old. Overhearing this, the young barista suggested I stop giving her money again.

“Have you seen her before?” I asked.

“Just once.”

“She’s weird, but who knows? Maybe she’s really hungry.”

At Cóc Cóc recently, some guy was caught on camera stealing its plastic plant pot. I can’t imagine it selling for more than 10,000 đồng, or 38 cents. This is enough, though, to buy sticky rice with mung beans, lotus seeds, peanuts, gấc or even pork floss. Six years ago in Dak Lak, I would get shit faced with three other guys on just 10,000 đồng’s worth of moonshine. No longer sipping socially, I can’t recommend any rice wine that may kill you for next to nothing, but you can certainly feel fine after work for five or six days on just two bucks, or just 10,000 đồng a day. Turn off your TV, then, and scour your neighborhood for plant or flower pots, even huge, ornate ones. What’s the worst that can happen? Running from bullets is great exercise. Ding dong ditching is for kids.

“You don’t know how bad it was 25 years ago. You weren’t even born!”

“I wasn’t, uncle.” She smiled.

“Look at these.” I then showed her five photos on my laptop. “Just look carefully at each.”

She stared at people, including children, sleeping on sidewalks. One image had a pantless boy standing next to a woman in a beatup wheelchair.

“Where do you think this is?” I asked.

“Africa?”

“Africa?! Look at them! They look like us.”

To many Vietnamese, a Cambodian is black enough, so he’s just black. Those images, though, were of Manila. Sleeping on sidewalks for months or even years would darken your skin, too, so the barista thought she was looking at Africa. Ignoring their hair, eyes and lips, she only saw skin color. For millennia, we were conditioned to detect the smallest differences, for life and death might depend on it. Even before he could open his mouth, we could tell he wasn’t from our tribe. Even today, many Vietnamese will insist they can differentiate, by sight alone, a Mekong Delta native from a Red River one. Genetics, climate, food, history and culture must leave clues, often obvious.

Working at least 360 days a year, the barista hasn’t traveled anywhere, so you can’t really blame her for confusing a Southeast Asian nation for Africa. Africans rarely show up in Vung Tau. If he’s tall and well dressed enough, most Vietnamese would just call him a Westerner, ông Tây.

As a child, I still heard the USA referred to as Hiệp Chủng Quốc. Derived from the Japanese 合衆国, it’s supposed to be a translation of United States, but 衆 is clearly mass or crowd. Hiệp Chủng Quốc or 合衆国, then, is literally United Crowd Nation.

Smart asses will point out that 衆 is really chúng, and not chủng, which means race and not mass. What we have then, is a Japanese mistranslation further mistranslated, at least colloquially, by the South Vietnamese, perhaps willfully. Dimwit South Vietnamese like me imagined the United States as the Nation of United Races.

Speaking of race and crowds, South Korea just beat the US in soccer by 2 to zero in metro New York. At MetLife Stadium, South Korean fans far outnumbered US fans. It was the visiting Orientals who had home field advantage. For decades, this has also been true of Mexico vs. US on American soil. Who cares, you say, but the world cares more about soccer than just about anything else!

Roger Bennett, “South Korea, Bong Junho, BTS, New Jeans just turned the US men’s national team into Bibimbap!” Just a decade ago, so many Korean references strung together would have been impossible. There is indeed a cultural shift.

This game came right after that ICE raid in Georgia where over 300 South Koreans were arrested. Even when foreigners bring jobs to Americans, they’re treated like enemies.

On the same day in the same city, Trump was loudly booed at the US Open tennis final, and this blustery clown is a New Yorker! This June, Trump was also booed at the Kennedy Center, the nation’s premier space for the performing arts. He’s also despised in LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and just about every other American city. His only remaining supporters are the farmers he’s bankrupting and depressed blue collar types who think wearing a red hat will transform their lives.

I can’t think of any country more disunited than this Nation of United Races. As its economy collapses further, this seething hatred between Americans so divided by race, national origin, class or favorite TV station can only get much worse. So appropriately, it’s ruled or at least fronted by a master divider. The self-adoring psycho is enjoying every second.

Such absolute self-love leaves no room for affection or just basic awareness of anything else. Nothing means anything unless it serves him immediately. Fortunately, madness so pure and public doesn’t plague every nation.

(L): Chuck Workman’s Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990) ; (R): Mickey Rourke as Charles Bukowski in Barbet Schroeder’s Barfly (1987)

Post Siesta Thoughts on Global Cultural Collapse — Sep 10, 2025.

In hot countries, taking a nap in the afternoon is most natural, as is getting much done early in the morning, even before dawn, when it’s coolest.

Finished with an article by 10AM, I walked around a bit, cooked, ate, washed dishes, gathered news, thought about this and that, then fell asleep. Getting up much later than usual, I didn’t leave my room again until past 5PM. Just getting dressed, I thought about Chuck Workman’s Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, a film based on Raymond Carver’s short stories. These flicks I saw in theaters more than three decades ago. For some reasons, they made me think of Barfly, a 1987 film about Charles Bukowski I never saw, and Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. I did catch that in 1985. Still in college, I had a classmate, a black girl, who was a Mishima freak. Another girl, a Canadian, turned me on to Andrei Tarkovsky.

Walking to Cóc Cóc, I thought about Nguyễn Huy Thiệp’s 1986 short story, “Tướng về hưu.” In my translation as “The Retired General,” it was published in the American Poetry Review, then Crossing The River. Twenty-three years after publication, this Curbstone book has but nine reviews on Amazon. A JD Vance sideway fart generates more critical attention, including PhD dissertations.

With increasing excitement, but also rage, I thought about the Tennessee Williams stories made into movies, and of his drunken interview with David Frost in 1974. Despite all its problems, hypocrisy and violence, that was America’s Golden Age. Those plopped into Biden’s wokedom then MAGA’s cesspool have no ideas.

As led by the USA, our global cultural collapse occurred over decades. Within 24 hours of arriving in Hanoi in 1995, I had a heated discussion with strangers about Nguyễn Huy Thiệp at a random café. Granted, most of them were only familiar with his fiction through film versions, just as Americans could watch Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Baby Doll (1956), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Summer and Smoke (1961), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) The Night of the Iguana (1964), and two versions of The Glass Menagerie (1950 and 1987). Now, most people would prefer a lethal injection over being stuck on a comfortable chair in an air conditioned room next to a tub of popcorn to endure over two hours of any film made from a serious work of literature. That’s infinitely worse than death by a thousand cuts!

Ashland, Oregon was famous for a Shakespeare Festival where MAGA types would pay to get their perfunctory dose of high culture. Once a lifetime ain’t so bad. It spared them from driving five hours to Portland just to sidestep Antifa freaks, either panhandling, bent over from heroin or dead from Fentanyl, lying weirdly on the sidewalk. Maybe those plays in incomprehensible English are still being staged? At least the costumes are cool. Getting fucked up beforehand also helps.

Before Warhol, there was Salvador Dali, but the Spaniard did paint. Warhol mass produced his art in studios he called, most tellingly, The Factory. Having assistants do most of his work allowed the artist to spend nearly all his time just looking cool. Warhol’s main task was self-promotion. With his magazine, Interview, Warhol also made money by turning whoever into superstars, at least for 15 minutes. Before dropping dead, Warhol lent lotsa shine to Jean Michel Basquiat. With his black face often white with coke, Basquiat actually died from smack at age 27. His Whitney retrospective in 1992 was mostly financed by Madonna! Basquiat was the last American artist to receive any sort of general recognition.

In fiction, Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991) hit the big screen in 2000. By then, movie theaters were barely hanging on. Denis Johnson’s excellent 1992 collection of short stories, Jesus’ Son, hardly made a splash as a film in 1999.

I can’t claim to be a huge fan of Raymond Carver, but he’s heavily promoted when I was just learning to write, so I read pretty much all his stories. I even endured fiction by his pusher, Gordon Lish. When Short Cuts came out, I immediately went to the Theater of the Living Arts on South Street to see it. What struck me then was how all the female stars had to be frontally nude at some point, so porn was used to sell literature. Hollywood as a sexist whorehouse couldn’t have been more naked. Only in 2017, though, was serial rapist Harvey Weinstein arrested.

(L): Bùi Cường as Chí Phèo in Phạm Văn Khoa’s Làng Vũ Đại ngày ấy (1982) ; (R): Ken Ogata as Mishima in Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

Arriving at Cóc Cóc, I saw only one customer, a man in his 50’s I had talked to several times. Let’s call him Tuấn. After the army, Tuấn went to the Soviet Union to study, then work. This northerner has traveled a bit. Now he works at Vung Tau’s small airport. Helicopters to oil rigs and Côn Đảo take off from there.

Already frothed up, I started to rant about cultural collapse, including in Vietnam. I mentioned how in nearly three years in Vung Tau, I saw just one person with a serious book, a collection of Nam Cao short stories, how in Dak Lak, I quoted a Hồ Xuân Hương line, “Spread me to three points, there’s not enough skin,” only to have it not understood, much less recognized. It’s a vagina talking. I mentioned how a motorbike taxi guy had never heard of Nguyễn Du. He’s only Vietnam’s greatest poet, with schools and streets named after him all over. In Phnom Penh, there’s even a Nguyen Du Aesthetics Plastic Surgery Center.

Sitting outside the Walt Whitman house in Camden, NJ one July 4^th, I talked to a panhandler who claimed he did odd jobs for “Mr. Whitman.” His grave in the same city is nearly as forlorn as Ivana Trump’s.

Understanding me perfectly, Tuấn agreed something must be done. He mentioned how cultured Putin sounded when interviewed by Tucker Carlson. We laughed at Trump’s illiteracy.

We discussed the Philippines. “They have a slave mentality,” Tuấn actually said. Their English proficiency is actually a mark of this. Minalonan born Carlos Bulosan’s best known work is America is in the Heart, written in English. Manila native Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters is about Manila, but in English. Their national hero José Rizal’s Noli Me Tángere is in Spanish. F. Sionil José wrote in English but had a Manila bookstore with a Spanish name, Solidaridad.

Of course, there’s also a Saigon chump who wrote about his native city in English. Worse, he has four books with America in the title, but massa, I was airlifted to Guam as a chide. Growing up on your bountiful and beauteous plantation, I gorged on Shirley Temple, Leave it to Beaver, Donny and Mary, Happy Days and The Gong Show. I wrote a fan letter to Slick Watts. Please don’t whip me, massa, though I gone bad!

“You know, I used to sit at Ca Dao.” The name means folk poetry. “The music played is from Saigon before 1975, plus some songs from Hanoi before 1954. Over half of their songs, though, are American, so what’s being evoked here? Almost none of their customers can understand a word, so they’re in there only to relive American occupied Saigon! Most Saigonese at the time had no interest in American culture, however. Only bargirls listened to American music, because they had to. Yes, there were a few bands influenced by American music, but most people ignored it. Growing up in Saigon before 1975, I didn’t even know what a hot dog or a pizza was, I never ate fried chicken, and my dad wasn’t poor! No one wore a hoodie. That’s for a much cooler climate. It’s so hot here!”

As Tuấn’s eyes glazed over, I waved at the stores in front of us, “Look at the English!” Actually, it’s much worse further on Ba Cu. “Our kids make all these mistakes,” in Vietnamese, I meant, “and their vocabulary has shrunk! Whenever I’m in the library, I’m the only one in there!”

I did shut up long enough to hear Tuấn talk about the importance of national pride, with respect and love for one’s culture a key component.

“What Vung Tau needs,” I ranted on, “is for its writers, painters and musicians to be recognized by people living here, and for them to write, paint and sing about being here.”

Though Tuấn agreed, I suspect he doubted it could ever happen. We’re too far gone.

In days, my three Vietnamese books will arrive in the mail. Each has a print run of 200, more than I need, but 100 would have cost only slightly less.

Emailing Saigon poet Lý Đợi, I said, “I don’t see how I can give so many books away. Those boxes will go into my coffin then,” not that I’ll have a coffin.

We’re not too far gone. Since respect for one’s language, history and land, for one’s nation, in short, is essential for having a meaningful life, it must be cultivated continuously. If eroded over centuries or raped away overnight, it must be recovered.

The second half of this piece was written the morning after, at Coffee Seven. At 5:36AM, the sun is up. This morning, the sky has a pale pink tint. Across the street, Morning Star Kindergarten’s gate is open, but no kid has arrived. In an alley, someone is sweeping.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Life, #10

it’s all about sticking it to your political enemy even as your nation is imploded and you go bankrupt. Over a century of professional sports has conditioned the American mind for such fanaticism.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Images of America’s Golden Age — Sep 06, 2025.

The Smithsonian or any other major museum should mount a monster exhibition to chronicle how Trump is depicted, by himself, his admirers and his detractors. Never before has anyone exerted so much energy in crafting his own image. This, in turn, has provoked a fierce backlash, so there’s a dizzying array of Trump images online. Being virtual, they’ll disappear unless printed out then preserved. A thick coffee table book would do, too.

The White House’s TikTok account’s images of Trump are weird and provocative enough. Standing at a podium next to an unguardedly smiling young woman, Trump with his puckering mouth and scanning, leering eyes doesn’t spell wholesomeness, I don’t think.

There’s Trump, in a McDonald’s uniform, waving from a drive through window, Trump in a hard hat at a construction site, Trump looking very serious, even menacing, from the passenger seat of a heavy truck. All these images are meant to convey how down to earth and close to the working man is this silver spooned lover of virgin flesh and gold leafed cherubim. Jackie Parker comments, “I voted for this. Trump 2028 [bookended by two flags].” So a third term is in order. Screw the Constitution! Clanker has Trump laughing over a red map of the USA, “PLACES WHERE TRUMP IS STILL YOUR PRESIDENT AFTER ALL OF YOUR PROTESTING.”

At Amazon, there are all these “WOKE TEARS” or “LIBERAL TEARS” mugs for sale, so it’s all about sticking it to your political enemy even as your nation is imploded and you go bankrupt. Over a century of professional sports has conditioned the American mind for such fanaticism. Nothing feels better than backing your team, especially when it’s winning.

For just $19.99, you can get your MAGA grandpa a tumbler with Trump’s face, plus this mess, “YOU ARE A REALLY, REALLY GREAT GRANDPA. THE BEST, REALLY TERRIFIC. JUST FANTASTIC. OTHER GRANDPAS? LOSERS! TOTAL DISASTERS, EVERYONE AGREES [three stars] YOU ARE THE BEST [three stars] BELIEVE ME.” Trump’s bombastic style spreads.

His praises are generic and disingenuous. His insults are more creative yet prepubescent. They’re not even juvenile. Trump is reshaping American English. Mocking Trump, Gavin Newsom is outtrumping Trump.

In 1858, Lincoln debated Stephen A. Douglas seven times. Each lasted about three hours, in front of crowds averaging 13 thousand people. Of course, there were no microphones, so manly voices had to carry. With no YouTube videos to rewatch later, everyone had to pay closest attention. In November of 2024, Trump mimicked giving a microphone holder a blow job as his fans laughed and cheered. He’s praised the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis. Even gayer than Obama, he’s obsessed with interior decorating.

Most comments at TikTok are intensely negative, with many accompanied by a computer generated image. One shows Trump, Weinstein, Epstein, Bill Cosby and Diddy on “Mount Rapemore.” Another has Trump as “The Lying King.” An X-ray of his head shows a minuscule brain. On that preposterous banner at the US Department of Labor with Trump’s “big beautiful face,” Epstein is added. Behind this Satanic child rapist, then, lurks his Jewish pimp.

Meant to hype the Trump cult, the White House’s TikTok account has become a survey of how much he’s despised. The Mount Rapemore response has 1,930 likes, more than any other on that thread.

With everything a joke, it’s often hard to detect irony, but perhaps there’s none in a “MAGA DYNASTY” image showing Vance, Rubio and Hegseth as presidents after Trump.

Billions across the globe are astounded that Trump’s approval rating is still at 41%, as of 9/6/25 according to The Economist, hardly a left wing or liberal bastion. It’s a damning indictment of the American brain. At TikTok, there’s a fine image of five MAGA cultists licking Trump’s boots as he stands on stage. Obscured by his legs is the US flag.

Before I had published my first poem, story or article, I posed as an art critic. I published reviews at the now defunct New Art Examiner, out of Chicago. I curated a show, Toys and Incense, at Philadelphia’s Moore College of Art. I was critic in residence at Art in General in New York City.

Sitting ugly in Vung Tau, I await that urgent call from the Smithsonian, so I can start assembling that blockbuster show of Trump images. After DC, it will travel to New York, LA, Paris, London, Rome, Tokyo, Shanghai and Sydney. Jostling crowds will laugh their nuts off.

(L): Madison Zhao ; (R): International Kid

Flexing Fools — Sep 05, 2025.

Yesterday, I ran into Dzuy, that habitual liar. I met him just days after moving into DC HomeStay in January of 2024. A housepainter, Dzuy told me was a retired highschool teacher. The girlfriend he was staying with, he introduced as his wife. Working in Germany, she comes back for a couple months each year.

When Dzuy told me he had just returned from Germany, I said bullshit! “Let’s go for a cup of coffee,” I suggested, “so you can tell me all about Germany.”

As we sat at this leafy sidewalk joint on Nguyễn Tri Phương, Dzuy couldn’t say anything.

“You must have taken some photos in Germany?”

“Many!”

“So show me a few.”

Cornered, Dzuy put his phone away. Months ago, he said he had visited Cambodia. When asked, Dzuy couldn’t even name that town or city. Always boasting, Dzuy claims women look for him because he can last over an hour. I know who you’re thinking of, but unlike that frantic chest thumper, Dzuy doesn’t have 500 bucks to his name, and he’s not stinking up each room with his loaded diaper.

Having claimed Trump as thinker is more influential in Vietnam than Confucius, Laozi and maybe even Buddha, I must clarify. Confucius stresses temperance in action and modesty in speech, so the exact opposite of Trump’s behavior. In the Orient as elsewhere, boasting has become so easy thanks to the internet, but there’s a twist. Nearly always, yellow flexers flaunt how ultra Western they’ve become. There’s no Confucianism, Taoism or Buddhism in any of this.

Consider, for example, just two famous Chinese influencers, Madison Zhao and International Kid. Their names alone say much. In appearance, too, they’re straining to be not Oriental. Madison’s hair, eyes, nose, lips and even skin are desperately Occidental, and she only wears the most expensive Western brands. International Kid is the same. To mostly swooning audiences, they crow nonstop.

Judge for yourself. Madison Zhao in a typical TikTok video:

Here’s a breakdown of all the money I made and spent in a day as a public company CEO and content creator. On this day, I started work at 8AM and worked for 16 hours. My hourly rate is $5,000 per hour, so I made $80,000 for my main job.

I mean, this is kind of ridiculous because I get paid the same rate even I work overtime, while everyone else in my company gets paid 1.5 times more. Can you believe that? But luckily, I made around $1.3 million from the stock market today, so it kind of offset my underpaid salary. Now, let’s talk about the money I made from my side hustles.

I made $719 from one video on TikTok and $1,587 from my course. My lunch was around $900 and my dinner was around $1,000 because that’s usually how much it costs when we dine out, even though it was the worst dinner I ever had in my life. Literally tastes like shit!

Then I went shopping and spent around $500,000 in the LV store. But here comes my biggest expense slash investment of the year. I ordered a $2.5 million Richard Mille Watch that only have 50 pieces in the world, but my shareholders paid for it, so the total for that was zero.

So I made $1,380,000 and I spent $502,000, which leaves me a positive $878,000 for the day.

Even worse, International Kid sounds like parody:

My name is Jay Ma, and I’m the richest international student at NYU. This is how we spend our break time between classes. I need to buy new gym clothes, so I went to shop on everyone’s favorite fitness brand, Celine.

I bought this nice track jacket, but they did not have the matching track pants in my size. Next, I need the new headphones, because the AirPod Max is too basic for me. How’s everybody supposed to know my music is more expensive than yours?

Snack time. I rent out the whole restaurant for me and my friend, to keep me as safe from the people with a low credit score, so I can enjoy a black caviar in peace. I go to Gentle Monster to buy new sunglasses, but there’s no time left to try them on, so I just asked them to ship it all to my penthouse at 432 Park Avenue.

Vung Tau, 9/4/25

At “my friend,” there’s a brief shot of a white girl. She never reappears. In Japan, there are host and hostess bars where fake boyfriends and girlfriends can be had. Fake families can also be rented in Japan. Having modernized much later, Chinese aren’t quite as lonely, but they’re catching up fast, I’m sure.

Last week, I sneaked into Salt Water in Vung Tau. Those preening girls I encountered were but silly hicks compared to Madison Zhao.

Of course, Vietnam also has internet flexers, including AI ones. E.M ƠI [roughly O.H. HONEY] promotes domestic fashion brand, Môi Điên [Crazy Lips]. From its English only website, “Môi Điên Studio was founded in the heart of Saigon, Vietnam in 2016 by Tom Trandt Minh Đạo—a Parsons graduate […]” Trần, or Chang in Chinese, is now vaguely Germanic. I’m sorry, but fick dich, Trandt!

Those who flex or worship flexers, then, are Trumpian in spirit. Luckily, most Vietnamese can only afford the cheapest T-shirts or pyjamas ridiculously emblazoned with Channel, Gucci or Dolce n Gabbana, etc.

Impotently, old heads mourn. This morning at Coffee Seven, I talked for the first time with an actual retired highschool teacher. We lamented the deterioration of our language, including comical misuses of common words. We also noticed the disappearance of eyes from boat prows and phoenix flowers from school yards. Also, fruit bearing trees are no longer planted at schools because wimpy, fried chicken fattened boys might fall climbing them. Hard to believe their forefathers defeated the Chinese, Mongols, French and Americans.

Boats needed eyes to scare away sea monsters, by the way. Viet fishermen also forbade all women, including their wives and daughters, from stepping on their vessels. With amusement, the teacher recalled when a famous actress, Thẩm Thúy Hằng, showed up in Vung Tau around 1960 for a photo shoot. Every local hick chased her from his boat, however.

“Some progress is necessary,” he concluded.

Soon enough, such appalling or amusing tales will be forgotten or whitewashed, here, there and everywhere.

Child Rape Privilege — Sep 06, 2025.

In 2008, a 76-year-old Saigon professor, Nguyễn Văn Ân, was put on trial for marrying a 15-year-old. Then as now, Vietnam’s age of marriage for a female is 18. Though this is often ignored among Highland tribes, this case occurred right in Vietnam’s biggest city. Of course, what made it sensational was their enormous age difference. Plus, the professor was fairly well known.

The old creep said he had taken her in a year earlier to be his housekeeper, and to keep him company. With her family so poor, this was also an act of charity, more or less. How could he be blamed if this peasant girl fell in love with such a towering Saigon intellectual who spoke several languages? It was she who suggested marriage, Ân claimed.

The girl’s mom had a different story. So destitute, she had agreed to sell her daughter to Ân for 50 million đồng, or less than $3,000, to be payable in two installments. After paying her 30 million, he returned the daughter, and refused to pay the rest, so he stiffed her, she declared with justifiable outrage. Both sides concurred this marriage was never consummated, since the professor’s crane no longer lifted, but what is sex, really?

Decades ago, I read Kawabata’s House of the Sleeping Beauties. In it, old men pay to sleep next to a drugged woman, so there’s no interaction. I don’t remember any description of fondling or molestation, though, you’d think, it has to happen. When the protagonist is assigned a different beauty on a visit, he balks by saying, “I’m not so promiscuous as that!” Something like that, I sold that book long ago.

With Ân so feeble, the court showed mercy by not jailing him, and the girl, it is said, betrayed no trauma. Returned to her village, she was training to be a makeup artist for brides.

This case reminded literate Vietnamese of Nguyễn Công Trứ (1778-1858). This poet, mandarin and general had 13 wives. The last was a 17-year-old he married at age 73. Clearly proud of this fact, he celebrated and even joked about it in a poem, “Marrying in Old Age.” Its best two lines:

Bride asks groom, How old are you?
Fifty years ago, I was just 23.

Its last line is still repeated in conversations, “The older the more pliable and long lasting!” Càng già càng dẻo càng dai! Most who do it has no idea it comes from this poem.

Like Ân’s bride, this unnamed 17-year-old had to be destitute, for why else would she want to be the 13^th wife of an old man?

Nguyễn Công Trứ died at age 80. Trump is 79. Melania is just 55, so 24 years younger. If alive, Trump’s first wife Ivana would be 76. Dead three years, she’s buried in a pitiful, minimal grave at a forgotten corner of Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, NJ. A typical Vietnamese peasant is interred with more dignity.

It’s horrible enough for any teenager to be in bed with someone old enough to be her grandfather. It’s much worse when she’s raped.

(R): Ivana Trump’s grave in Bedminster, NJ

Three weeks ago, I mentioned testimonies on 6/3/25 by Israeli girls raped and tortured by some of the most powerful men in that society, including members of the Knesset. On 9/3/25, victims of the Jewish pimp and blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein appeared in Washington DC to demand, finally, transparency into that evil network.

Though deeply involved, Trump declared this Epstein scandal was “a Democrat hoax that never ends.”

Victim Haley Robson countered, “It feels like you just want to explode inside because nobody again is understanding that this is a real situation. These women are real. We’re here in person.” This registered Republican has offered to meet Trump to hash everything out. I wouldn’t bet on it happening.

Another victim, Jena-Lisa Jones, said, “I’m a Republican. I voted for him. I voted for Trump. For him to say what he’s saying is beyond me. Because I put my hope in him, and he’s supposed to protect us. And for him to say that this is a joke…”

Victim Chauntae Davies, “Epstein surrounded himself, I’m sorry, with the most powerful leaders of our country and the world. He abused not only me but countless others, and everyone seemed to look away. The truth is, Epstein had a free pass. He bragged about his powerful friends, including our current president, Donald Trump.  It was his biggest brag, actually.”

Everywhere throughout time, old men near death have fantasized about sleeping with beauties decades younger, but most don’t act on it, especially with force. When they do, there should be severe consequences. The more corrupt or Satanic a society, the more they can get away with this. Trump just might. Many have.

Trumpocalypse Now! — Sep 07, 2025.

Before, Mrs. Seven opened around 4AM, with her first customer, nearly always, Mr. Sơn the security guard at NaLi Beach. He rarely arrived before 4:30, however. Since she had wifi, I started to show up as early as 3:10AM. Sitting in the dark on her only bench, I would read the news, do some research and think about that day’s article.

Sniffing my scent, one of her two dogs, Nọng, would go berserk inside Mrs. Seven’s bedroom. Having no choice but to get up earlier, she now opens around 3:30AM, just to serve me a 38-cent glass of black coffee, plus free hot tea. Some days, though, I may not arrive at all.

Sitting in a lit up Coffee Seven, Nọng would look anxiously down Lê Ngọc Hân Street. Behind her display case with its cigarettes, soft drinks and talismans, Mrs. Seven also waits.

Though I didn’t disappoint Nọng or Mrs. Seven this morning, I couldn’t get anything started, so left early.

“I’m still so sleepy.”

“So go home and sleep!”

Moseying home, I passed a baby girl in the cheapest stroller. As I smiled at her, her grandma said, “Behave yourself or grandpa will yell at you!” This was said in a gentle, playful way. The baby simply stared at me.

“Who’s so pretty? Who’s so well behaved?” To not alarm her, I only touched her shoulder lightly. The Vietnamese adjective for well behaved is ngoan.

“She’s very ngoan,” the old lady said. “Now greet grandpa!”

A child greeting an old person should fold her arms and bow slightly. This gesture is called ạ. As a kid, I did this all the time. It’s rarely seen these days. So ngoan, this baby ạ me properly.

“So pretty! So well behaved!” Smiling, I walked away. I had never seen them before, and may never see them again.

(R): Vung Tau, 9/7/25

Turning left on Thủ Khoa Huân, I noticed a snail in the road, so picked him up to place under a tree. He would have been crushed within an hour or two. Since it was only 6:25AM, cocky bastard thought he was immortal. Just days earlier, I had run into another snail on the same street. If the same one, he’s dumber than me.

Resisting the French, Thủ Khoa Huân was exiled to Cayenne, French Guiana, where he spent five years. Released, he resumed his guerilla activities, so was finally decapitated in 1875 at age 45. Vietnamese history is filled with such fearless nationalists.

Before leaving Coffee Seven, I did have a quick chat with that retired highschool teacher.

“What do you make of this?” I asked while showing him a Truth Social post by Donald Trump.

It flaunts this draft dodger in shades and a black cavalry hat with its crossed sabers. Behind him is the Chicago skyline, five Vietnam era helicopters and flames, suggesting war. “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…” it says at the top, then “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the department of WAR.” Three cartoony choppers serve as exclamations. “Chipocalypse Now,” it says at the bottom.

Few Vietnamese have seen Apocalypse Now. Those who have would have laughed hysterically at Coppola’s declaration, “My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.” Based on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and filmed in the Philippines, there’s no Vietnam in that flick, but don’t let any Vietnamese persuade you. Americans know best.

Though the retired teacher could read English, he couldn’t decipher any of the referents, so I had to explain, “There’s this famous film, Apocalypse Now. In it, there’s this famous line, ‘I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.’ It’s written by a Jew. Americans think it’s funny. Trump is using Vietnam War imagery to threaten an American city!”

We also talked briefly about Trump’s decision to kill 11 Venezuelan fishermen while claiming they’re drug traffickers. Nothing about it makes sense. Even if true, it’s illegal, but what do you expect from a child raping supporter of Jewish genocides?

Just now, Trump’s masked assholes also raided a Huyndai plant in Georgia. Most of those arrested were South Koreans. With short term visas, they only came to the USA to bring jobs to Americans, but whatever, man. Trump is pretty much at war against the entire world, including Americans. Even white tourists are staying away.

South Koreans are appalled at photos of their businessmen treated like gangbangers or drug dealers. Cheering MAGA cultists don’t realize their nation, under Trump, is committing suicide. They’ll find out soon enough.

Finishing this at Pato’s Bingsu, I’m surrounded by screaming children, running around. They’re just having a good time. At nearby Triangle Park, the ladies are dancing to upbeat music. The sights of people doing anything together always cheer me. Only those addicted to idiocy on tiny screens are depressing.

“Stop running around and stop screaming!” a woman says, but these kids can’t stop. Life is just too exciting. Of course it is, but only if you’re swimming in it. Knowing this, grandpa will now run outside.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Life, #9

I never thought I’d hobble into that sunset so limp.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Nuisances and Genociders’ Last Gasp — Sep 02, 2025.

American Dale James West after his arrest in Da Nang on 8/27/25

In South Korea, American Ramsey Khalid Ismael, better known as Johnny Somali, has been stuck for a year, awaiting his conviction, after committing a series of crimes, including playing obscene audios near children at a theme park, fondling a Comfort Woman statue, disseminating an AI video of himself with a Korean woman whom he claimed was his girlfriend, terrorizing an old employee at a convenience store, on and on, for the guy’s a famous “nuisance streamer,” an American specialty.

In Manila, another American nuisance streamer, Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, has been jailed for five months. With the Filipino legal system moving quite leisurely, he won’t see a courtroom for a while. Like Somali, Vitaly can count on many years of free room and board in an exotic locale, not that he’ll see much. In dreams, they’ll return often to Florida and Arizona. Wearing their MAGA hats, it will be just like before, but suddenly, they’re fucked from behind by a new foreign friend. Before his arrest, Vitaly joked his asshole was ready. It will speak fluent Tagalog by the time he’s released. You’d think Somali is too ugly to demand much erotic attention behind bars, but he, too, will get his share of prison love. Lighter, humbler and grayer, each will stumble out to a much changed world.

For decades, Westerners have considered East Asia to be a place to find cheap, unusual fun, you know, like little brown fucking machines, even underaged. After fucking little girls in Cambodia, Glam rocker Gary Glitter showed up in Vung Tau, where he was finally arrested. His rented house is within a 20 minute walk of where I’m sitting.

An American sexpat living for decades in Chiangmai claimed he had never heard of “little brown fucking machines.” He also thought Trump was a great president. Perhaps “irritable farmer” or “western lands” is that innocent.

Not so innocent is Dale James West. Here’s Dân Trí on 8/31/25”

On the evening 8/26, Dale James West (29 years old, a foreign citizen), masked, wearing a Grab uniform and a helmet, attacked a security guard with an iron pipe then barged into PNJ store (455 Núi Thành, Đà Nẵng) to smash a glass case with a hammer to steal gold and diamond jewelry worth 833 đồng [$31,619].

After his crime, the suspect escaped on a motorbike. On the morning of 8/27, the police captured James, along with all the incriminating evidence.

It took less than 12 hours for Vietnamese cops to snag this American. If convicted, a near certainty, he’ll spend from 18 years to life in prison. Since that’s the standard penalty for such a violent crime, let’s hope the Vietnamese authorities won’t show any leniency just because he’s an American.

A video posted by the New York Post shows bystanders on a busy street trying to block his escape, but this tallish armed man proved too intimidating. Violent crimes are extremely rare in Vietnam. The Post also states he’s only 26 years old, and from California.

The West has long exported its degeneracy to the East. With economic collapse, this trend has only accelerated. Here’s news.com.au on 4/28/25:

A wannabe Aussie influencer has been slammed online after “desecrating” a grave in Aokigahara, also known as Japan’s suicide forest.

Sydney man Lochie Jones posted a clip earlier this month titled “Suicide Forest Japan Pt 2 Graveyard Flip”, showing himself entering a burial site on the outskirts of the notorious forest.

“So it looks like there’s a cemetery here with a whole bunch of dead people,” he told his camera.

After climbing into the cemetery he can be seen touching graves, saying: “I wonder how many of them died in the forest.”

He then approaches a headstone with a can of popular Japanese beer Kirin on top of it.

“Look at this guy,” he laughs.

“A whole can of Kirin. Should I drink it?”

“What do we reckon?,” he asks himself.

After setting his phone up against the headstone he decides to do a coin flip to “leave it up to chance.”

More insidious are “educators” like Mark Ashwill in Hanoi who spreads his globalist and woke ideology. Marxism itself is a Western poison still being detoxed by the East.

Nationalism has sustained Oriental nations for millennia. Just below it is Confucianism, then Buddhism, but mixed with assorted folk beliefs. Though Orientals have learned much from the West, they must stop looking towards it for standards.

At Coffee Seven where I’m sitting, there’s an octagonal Taoist mirror over the entrance, a money frog biting a coin, a small golden plate showing a Thai woman kneeling over two fish and a Japanese Maneki-neko cat waving in customers. Of course, Mrs. Seven can’t explain any of these, but her confusion is harmless. In her bedroom, there’s a crucifix and a photo of Father Trương Bửu Diệp. Her late husband was a Catholic. Though converted, she never attended church regularly, and hasn’t been in one in over a decade.

I used to be bothered by Vietnam’s cultural confusion, its mindless hodgepodge, but it’s exactly this ideological inconsistency that’s its saving grace. Vietnamese are too incoherent to be fanatical. I don’t suggest this would work anywhere else. I only think it’s fine for Vietnam.

Walking towards Coffee Seven in the dark, I paused to ask BlueTooth, “If you could live in another country forever, which would it be?”

Though I fully expected him to say USA or, much less likely, Australia or Canada, he answered, “Nowhere. I love it here!”

“Every interesting. You’re unusual! How about if you could spend two weeks in another country? Where would that be?”

“Nowhere. I love it here!”

Last time I heard that was in Lebanon. Ali, my regular driver, said he loved Lebanon too much to go anywhere. Even better was some guy Paul Theroux met in Sicily. When Theroux said he was a traveler, this guy declared that he, too, traveled, then he rattled off all the towns he’d visited. They were all in Sicily. Goofball had never even been to the Italian mainland.

After several delays, it appears my three thickish books in Vietnamese will be published, albeit privately. All I need are 50 copies of each, so some will survive, if only for a few years, my exit. It’s less vanity than the need to complete what I’ve started. After becoming a real homeboy, I’ll give a reading somewhere in Saigon, to a handful of people and, hopefully, two or three dogs, a dozen geckos and one attentive frog.

Ghosts all, we must strive to not be nuisances while barely alive.

Halo Evans

Cool Missiles Bursting in Air! — Sep 03, 2025.

Yesterday, Vietnam held a monstrous military parade in Hanoi. Watching bits of it on YouTube, I couldn’t help but think, What if just one of these impressive looking young men and women falls down? Worse, what if an AK toting soldier needs to use the bathroom? It wouldn’t do to perform a quick number two in front of the whole world, just as you’re passing a grandstand filled with big shots. Some old lady next to General Secretary Tô Lâm licked her lips rather obscenely. At least she didn’t fall asleep.

Off camera, even generals crap in their pants from a too-close explosion. War is all about being acutely aware of your animality, of how meatlike and shit filled you are. It’s anything but an inspiring display of unity made for television. In Beijing, there will be an even more asskicking parade today. Moscow just had one. Such military flexing is designed to steel pussified civilians for the escalation of war, no?

One glaring exception was Trump’s joke parade in DC. As the rest of the world hardens, Americans become self-mocking clowns, with the only tough guys those masked assholes in unmarked cars kidnapping busboys, gardeners, shoppers, grandmas and retarded schoolkids.

Just now, Mrs. Seven showed me a photo of her daughter in a national flag T-shirt, saluting. Behind her is a patriotic sign with soldiers. There’s also a video of about 12 young women, all employees of Shinhan Beauty, looking ready for a military parade, at least. They’d soil their panties at the first incoming.

Buying groceries at Lotte Supermarket, I was given a nylon flag with a plastic stem worth 19 cents. It’s sticking from my never watched TV.

It’s amazing this patriotic eruption across Vietnam, as shown on clothing, cars and at private businesses. To amuse Mrs. Seven, I shared with her a video of a cheeky and boobilicious American waving the Stars and Stripes, as the Star-Spangled Banner plays. Bitch means business.

With “the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,” war is, again, reduced to an inspiring spectacle. One can argue that this is absolutely necessary. Without such manipulation, nations are lost.

As Trump crows of how hot and rich the USA has become, we get entirely different accounts from ordinary Americans.

The Functional Melancholic’s “The United States of Collapse: The End of Empire” begins, “Have you noticed this feeling in the air? A lowgrade tension like the faint smell of smoke in a building where the fire alarm never quite goes off, or maybe the subtle smell of rot under the bed perfume. You walk down any major street in the US and you’ll see it in the eyes of the people pretending not to notice the growing tent cities pitched under the overpasses. And you’ll hear it in the way conversations have basically turned into shouting matches about whose version of the facts are true. You’ll taste it in the food that somehow costs twice as much while containing half as much food and even less nutrition. The roads crack your suspension. The bridges look like relics from civilization long gone. And it’s not just the cracks in the sidewalk, it’s the cracks in the soul.”

After 24 hours, it got over 2,250 comments, with nearly all offering their versions of how the US has collapsed. Also viral is a poem-like declaration from Halo Evans. I’ve inserted linebreaks:

I’m an American.
I pay $1,600 for a flat that has no bedroom.
That’s 2/3 of my income.

I’m an American.
I work 50 hours a week.
I don’t have health insurance.

I’m an American.
I couldn't afford to have a child
Even if I wanted to.
I’m $7,000 in debt.

I’m an American.
My health is declining because
I can’t afford Whole Foods, because
That’s too expensive for my life.
I am very overqualified for my job,
But no one else is hiring.

I’m an American.
I make my boss hundreds of thousands,
If not millions of dollars, while I can
Barely keep myself alive.

I’m an American.
I have never been out of the States.
I have never been on a vacation.

I’m an American.
I make 20 some dollars an hour.
A livable wage here is, like, 30 some. Yet,
I don’t qualify for government assistance
Whatsoever. On the days I don’t work,
I’m so tired I just sleep all day.

I’m an American.
My electric bill is so expensive,
I sit outside in the heat because
I can’t afford to turn the AC on
In the damned house.

I’m an American, and I fear
I’m just an average American.
I’m living the American dream.

Since her Instagram page is filled with self-adoring portraits of herself looking cute, one may wonder how depressed she really is, economically or psychologically? What’s really important is that millions of Americans are seeing themselves in Evan’s self portrait. They’re also overworked, broke and have never taken a vacation.

Unfortunately, it’s not just an image war. Trump just posted, “Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.”

This lawless psycho is attacking another nation on false pretexts. Battered by so much madness daily, it’s nearly impossible to grasp how fast your society is imploding, especially when you must deliberate forever before buying a loaf of bread or a dozen eggs.

Phoenix in Flames at Haunted Hotel — Sep 03, 2025.

Having been a semi-regular at Coffee Seven for nearly a year, I had assumed until this morning Mrs. Seven lived alone with her two dogs. Whoever else I had seen coming out of her house I thought was a visiting relative. Now, I know she has a sister and a nephew living upstairs, but they never talk. Her sister was a heroin addict, bad enough to be jailed. Now, she just drinks herself stupid, as much as her tiny budget allows.

Her 38-year-old nephew was a gang member who was never sober. So messed up, he had a stroke nearly a decade ago, so is now bedridden and in a diaper. From the government, he receives 1.5 million [$57] a month, and his mom gets 500K [$19] to take care of him. Even in cheap Vietnam, such stipends are jokes, but luckily, the nephew gets an additional 3 million [$114] a month from his gang leader, the notorious Vũ Cách Mạng. Just typing his name made me tremble, I’m such a pussy. Sure hope I won’t run into Revolutionary Vũ any time soon!

“If you come by in the afternoon, you’ll catch my sister. She’ll be sitting right there, drinking beer.”

Sure sounds like my kind of gal, except I only drink black coffee, cappuccini, soursop smoothies and avocado smoothies these days. I never thought I’d hobble into that sunset so limp. Just three years ago, I could still knock them down for 12 hours straight while blathering about Nguyễn Huy Thiệp, Hồ Biểu Chánh, Max Beckmann and Walt Whitman. Now, I just look forlorn while scratching my deflated balls.

“I had this cat,” Mrs. Seven continued. “My sister was always complaining about it, then one day, she just picked it up, right in front of me, and rode away! I couldn’t react quick enough. She just tossed that cat somewhere! It still hurts me to think of how it must have starved and suffered.”

A chick that hard up for drinking money must have sold the cat to one of these “mini tiger” restaurants, I thought immediately, but said nothing. Though pets are generally safe in southern Vietnamese cities, you still have these drug addicts riding around at night, hoping to catch anything.

Also today, I found out her house is worth at least 300K in US Dollars. Four years ago, it could have been sold for half a million. Though so run down, it’s still very close to the ocean, in a city not far from Saigon. With five siblings, all proceeds must be divided by six, so Mrs. Seven has to get by on selling 38 cent black coffee to the least fashionable crowd. With condensed milk, it’s up to 57 cents! Everyone gets free hot tea.

This old broad never complains, however. Yes, there are hints of regrets, such as when she talks about being lusted over by all these foreign men, Taiwanese and Westerners, when she was a star dancer at the Palace Hotel. Since she couldn’t talk to these white guys, she had no idea if they were Russian, Polish, German or whatever. She’s mourning, just a bit, her lost youth.

Sitting at Cóc Cóc, I look up to see too many fat thighs riding by. Most Viets are still thin, though, which is great. Not so great is the replacement of newspapers, books and conversations by smart phones. Covid lockdowns heightened this addiction. Passing through nine countries during that hysteria, I was never quarantined. For 2 ½ years, I lived as normally as possible.

Bringing me my avocado smoothie, Nga is masked. Thảo the receptionist at DC HomeStay is also always masked. Both young, they’re already half dead. If you fear oxygen, you ain’t open to anything.

Done with this article, I will leisurely browse through 300 Years of Poetry About Ba Ria-Vung Tau. I’ve had this for a while. Every city in the world must have a similar anthology, and one for fiction, too. Though this leaves out some key poets, it’s still an invaluable document. Many eyes and souls have experienced these very streets, alleys and buildings.

Done with my reading, I will trek through Vung Tau for miles. Just five minutes away is the Victory Hotel, where Mrs. Seven’s dad worked as a chef. One of his creations was Phoenix in Flames. It was just some wok tossed chicken. Still looking fine on the outside, Victory smells bad, apparently, and might even be haunted. I don’t doubt Mrs. Seven’s dad is still in the kitchen, cooking away late into the night.

Wherever you are, there must be an infinity of stories to be dug up, to dig, dig, dig away! You’ll feel saner, for sure.

So Rich, Smart, Powerful and Ripe — Sep 04, 2025.

Influenced by China, Vietnam had imperial examinations. Any educated boy’s goal in life was to pass this exam so he can become a mandarin, thus gaining social status, wealth and the ability to help his entire family. Like China, Vietnam also had four social classes. From top to bottom were intellectuals, farmers, craftsmen then, finally, merchants. Though a shopkeeper may be much richer than, say, a medicine man, the latter was considered an intellectual, so technically held in higher esteem. If you’re a mandarin, however, you had everything.

To pass the imperial examination, one had to master classic Chinese literature. Mandarins, then, were super literary. This had its drawback. A bookish nerd may not make the best administrator. This glitch in the system bred a bureaucracy that couldn’t stand up to the West. It was also corrupt, since each mandarin’s extended family had to be taken care of.

Even after imperial examinations were abolished, dumb peasants still expected top officials to be intellectuals, so both Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, for example, posed as poets. So crude, Mao would say to his female underlings, “How were your bowel movements this morning?” He also said, “If you must fart, fart! If you must shit, shit!” That is Confucius wise, I must say. The sage did advise, “When you enter a room, raise your voice and lower your eyes,” so whoever is in there can stop masturbating or farting, I suppose. Gandhi was also very concerned with clean assholes, especially among his female followers.

These thoughts I have this morning because even in Vietnam, there are Trump worshipers. How can they not admire this wealthy chief mandarin of the world’s most powerful nation?

At Viet bookstores, there are translations of Trump’s The Art of the Deal, Think Big and Kick Ass: in Business and in Life, Never Give Up, How to Get Rich, Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate and Life, Trump 101: The Way to Success and Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich—And Why Most Don’t, the last co-written with another famed hustler, Robert Kiyosaki. There’s also Michael D’Antonio’s Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump has become Vietnam’s leading thinker! His wisdom is more valued here than Confucius’, Laozi’s and maybe even Buddha’s! Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough: How my Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man is also available, but only in English, so its readership is minuscule.

Countering this mass psychosis, I tell people, “Trump loves to fuck little girls. He’s a degenerate. There’s this Jewish guy who had an island where Trump, and other top Americans, went to fuck kids. With everything recorded, these politicians must do whatever they’re told by Jews. Other foreign leaders are also trapped this way. Let’s say you’re invited to some party in New York or Washington. They’ll have these girls there. Just leaning into one and you’re fucked! You don’t even need to fuck them. I have an American friend, a white guy, who attended these parties in NYC. He told me, ‘You don’t know how degenerate these guys are!’ His boss used to go to that Jewish guy’s island. When his name appeared in that guy’s black book, a friend of my friend emailed him, ‘Hey, your boss went to that fuckin’ island!’ Though my friend didn’t say anything, he got fired, but his boss also gave him six million bucks! Now, he just travels. In Bangkok, I asked my friend, ‘Did your boss fire you directly?’ ‘No, he had somebody do it,’ he answered. ‘How close were you to your boss?’ I then asked. ‘We fucked girls in the same room!’ he answered.”

Even now, there are millions of Americans who think Trump’s Epstein connection is fake news or an Obama plot. That’s how degenerate the US has become. Even most of those who are outraged don’t dare to call it a Jewish blackmail operation. Very few have spoken up.

On 9/3/25, Kevin Barrett reminded us “the media has studiously avoided the most important aspect of the Epstein story: That the disgraced pimp and his accomplices, starting with Maxwell, were Israeli spies tasked with blackmailing the American political and financial elite.”

This sinister setup enables genocides. Barrett, “Given that Trump is the most abject slave of Israel ever to occupy the Oval Office, and that Epstein (Trump’s best friend for ten years) was a Mossad blackmailer, the world has been practically invited to connect the dots: We are witnessing what historians will describe as the Jeffrey Epstein Genocide, in which the only power that can stop Netanyahu from exterminating hundreds of thousands of innocents—the American executive branch—refuses to do so because its chief officer has viciously raped teenage virgins in front of Israeli spy cameras.”

Vung Tau, 9/3/25

Complicity with Jewish crimes hasn’t just destroyed most Western nations morally but economically. Endless genocides are expensive. Angry white pussies who are terrified of doxing themselves deserve no less. Same with white nationalists who worship Jew sucking Trump. Outside the sinking West, dumbshits who swoon over Trump or devour his books don’t really matter. Ignoring that farcical white jester and all others, their leaders are coalescing.

Done at 6:29AM, I will get some breakfast then stroll towards the ocean. It’s delightful to see people exercising or just daydreaming. Though Trump’s immense stench has wafted to all corners of the world, it’s much less intense here. Pity if you’re not so lucky.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Last Chinese warning

… the Tianjin SCO summit is a collective demarche by Eurasia, which has united against the United States, the European Union, and their regional allies…

By Rostislav Ishchenko at Ukraine.ru.

(machine translation)

The meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization states that opened in Tianjin today is undoubtedly a diplomatic triumph for China. This was clearly intended by the main participants, including Russia and India.

And the West is to blame for this.

Let’s start with a formal note: all the participating countries are represented by their heads of state or government. The President of Russia has arrived for a four-day visit, combining his participation in the SCO summit with a state visit to China. The events related to the latter will take place in Beijing. By the way, Putin’s schedule is extremely busy, with numerous meetings with the leaders of the participating countries, which indirectly confirms the importance and significance of the summit.

In general, it should be noted that although the SCO summits are held in member countries on a rotational basis, all the turning points in the organization’s life have occurred in China. The founding meeting of the then-called “Shanghai Five” (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) was held in Shanghai. The 2001 meeting, which led to the establishment of the SCO after the admission of Uzbekistan, also took place in China (also in Shanghai).

In addition to SCO members, observers and dialogue partners, representatives of five other Southeast Asian states (Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Laos and Vietnam) have arrived at the current summit in Tianjin (also China). I do not presume to say that they will gain any status in the SCO as a result of the meeting, although this is not excluded. For example, why don’t they become observers or dialogue partners? But the very fact of the arrival of representatives of these countries is very important.

The fact is that China’s relations with Southeast Asian countries are extremely complex. They have traditionally been wary of China’s ambitions and Beijing’s claims to dominance in the region. Vietnam and Malaysia have territorial disputes with China that are just as complex and long-lasting as the Chinese-Philippine dispute, which the United States is currently using to escalate military tensions in the region in order to increase pressure on China.

Washington has recently (as recently as August of this year) made attempts to draw Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, and India into the anti-Chinese alliances being formed by the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. The presence of the leaders of these countries in Tianjin indicates that the choice has not been made in favor of the United States. This is due to the fact that the agenda of the meeting focuses on discussing security issues, both military and economic. The main threat to the countries in the region comes from the military activities and economic policies of the United States.

It is no coincidence that I wrote that the West, primarily the United States, is to blame for China’s diplomatic triumph, which was achieved through joint efforts with India and Russia. The Russia-India-China triangle, which forms the basis of the SCO, had its own challenges. In fact, it still does. However, these challenges are being actively addressed, and the countries are actively seeking and finding mutually acceptable compromises, as they recognize the aggressive policies of the United States and the West as the primary threat to their interests.

The very beginning of the SCO – the creation of the “Shanghai Five” – was the first global format to bring Russia and China closer together strategically. The “Shanghai Five” helped to resolve relations between Moscow and Beijing in Central Asia (primarily with the buffer countries bordering both powers), as well as with the Central Asian states themselves. At the time, both Russia and the Central Asian states had serious concerns about China’s plans for military, political, and financial-economic expansion in the region.

It is unknown whether Russia and China’s relations would have reached the level of strategic cooperation (especially so quickly) if it weren’t for the West’s openly aggressive policies, which left the countries of Eurasia with no choice. The alternative to uniting the countries of the region through compromise to fight for their interests against the West was to capitulate to it and become dependent states subjected to neo-colonial exploitation. The further rapid growth of the SCO, which included even countries that had been at odds with each other for many years, was also predetermined by Western policies, which caused greater concern and rejection among the countries of the region than any old local conflicts. The region was fighting “for its borders,” while the West was fighting “for its life.”

The current meeting is taking place against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s announced shift in U.S. foreign policy towards China. Instead of presenting mutually beneficial proposals, the U.S. has come to Beijing with an arrogant demand to abandon its own interests in order to support an ineffective U.S. economic and military policy aimed solely at restoring the irrevocably lost American global hegemony, which allowed for a neo-colonial plunder of the planet.

The Americans needed the support of countries in the region, as well as global players such as Russia and India, to succeed in their anti-Chinese policy. Instead of looking for ways to bring their positions closer to Moscow and New Delhi, Washington has found nothing better than to try to put pressure on them. Russia is being persuaded to accept unfavorable peace conditions in Ukraine, although the United States needs a temporary (until victory over China and switching to Russia) stabilization in the European direction.

Economic sanctions are being imposed against India in the form of increased tariffs, trying to force it to accept US demands that are unfavorable for its economy. Moreover, the requirements not to buy Russian energy carriers (which the United States itself buys and resells to its allies at a surcharge) are secondary. Major increased tariffs on Indian exports to the United States were introduced earlier, in an attempt to force New Delhi to accept artificial restrictions on the profitability of its trade with the United States.

The United States has lost its ability to compete effectively with foreign producers. They no longer need (because it is not profitable) freedom of trade. They want to open up other countries’ markets for themselves and close their own markets to others. They are willing to achieve this goal not only through economic means, but also through military force where they cannot be defeated.

This is why the topic of military, political, and economic security in the region will be the main focus of both the summit and bilateral negotiations. This is also why Russia, India, Indonesia, and other Eurasian countries have not only agreed to the summit format as a Chinese diplomatic triumph, but have also helped to organize it.

In form, this is China’s response to the United States, its final warning in response to attempts at aggressive pressure. In fact, the Tianjin SCO summit is a collective demarche by Eurasia, which has united against the United States, the European Union, and their regional allies, to postpone or even successfully resolve existing problems and conflicts in the face of a global threat from the West.

The success of the summit in Tianjin, which means the further expansion and internal strengthening of the SCO, is guaranteed by the very fact of a united (even though this unity is beginning to crack under the weight of unsolvable problems) and extremely aggressive West.

Slices of Life, #6

Cambodian dictator Hun Sen’s level of corruption and depravity is also instructive, since it’s mirrored by other leaders, including the world’s most visible. 

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Thy Sovantha — Aug 24, 2025.

Though Hun Sen’s official title is President of the Senate, every Cambodian knows he’s still their dictator, as he’s been for 38 years. On 8/3/25, Hun Sen announced 30-year-old Thy Sovantha had been kicked out of the Cambodian People’s Party and fired from her job as vice mayor of Arey Ksat, a city of just 76,000 people.

His explanation, “We don’t have time to educate undisciplined cadres when national matters demand attention. Time and again, Thy Sovantha has posted inappropriate messages on FaceBook. I’ve personally called her to request she delete two recent posts. Today, she again posted a message that’s harmful to our military even as our soldiers are defending our nation.”

A day or two later, Hun Sen also stripped Thy Sovantha of her citizenship, and booted her entire family out of the country. She’s lucky to not be murdered. What has this minor Cambodian politician done to incur such wrath, and why should you care?

Off the coast of Sihanoukville is Koh Tang, a paradisal island that houses thousands of forced laborers and sex slaves of many nationalities, according to Thy Sovantha. She has even compiled names of victims. Those no longer useful are killed for their organs. Since a heart is worth one million bucks and a liver $560,000, nobody should be wasted. Vietnamese already know Koh Tang as where 513 of their compatriots perished, after being kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 from Thổ Chu, an island 65 miles away. After being worked to death, their corpses were used to fertilize jackfruit, coconut and mango trees. So quaint, such a primitive solution.

With the Kingdom of Cambodia technically a democracy with the king just a figurehead, such horrors are supposed to be passé, but slaves are still trapped across Cambodia. Mostly controlled by Chinese, they enrich the Hun Sen clan.

Before this episode, Thy Sovantha was already famous for her stunning looks. At age 18, she emerged as a supporter of Sam Rainsy, a flamboyant politician now living in exile. When Thy Sovantha switched her allegiance to Hun Sen, it’s assumed she had been bought off. No one really cared, since she was so soothing to stare at. Unlike Kristi Noem, she hasn’t been cut up every which way, then nervously reassembled like some thrift store jigsaw puzzle.

Hun Sen’s level of corruption and depravity is also instructive, since it’s mirrored by other leaders, including the world’s most visible. To these monsters, young women and girls are only useful for sex, young men are to be worked to death or sent to battles, with the rest just useless eaters to be murdered, with their organs harvested. Jewjab was a particularly cute solution, since people were charged to be injured or even killed. Those with “long Covid” can be fleeced for years until death.

With Thy Sovantha so visible, Hun Sen couldn’t just zap her. This decision may prove fatal. Humiliated by Thailand and abandoned by China, he’s already in deep shit. From overseas, Sovantha will speak out even more. Perhaps the old creep is also smitten by this beauty.

Whenever in Saigon, Hun Sen stays, for some reason, at the middle-brow Tân Lộc Hotel by Bến Thành Market. Frequenting nearby eateries, he’s well known for squeezing waitresses’ shoulders. Near corpses can’t help but grab.

In Jordan last month, I thought often about Ghassan Kanafani. Married to a Dane, this Palestinian could have fled to safety. Instead, he stayed most outspoken in the Middle East, so was murdered by Jews, along with his 17-year-old niece, in Beirut. Challenging Cambodia’s most powerful man, Thy Sovantha also flirted with death. There’s also the example of Albania’s Musine Kokalari. Educated in Italy, she could have just stayed there. Instead, Kokalari came home to write in her native language and become politically involved. Though this wrecked her life, her courage and integrity still inspire.

Nations that lack Kanafanis, Sovanthas, Kokalaries or Nam Caos don’t survive. A life’s worth shouldn’t be measured in years, but in meaningful, decisive acts, whether honorable, cowardly or merely misguided. These considerations are moot, however, if men are on auto pilot. With ChatGPT, Chatsonic and whatever else, half dead brains can just drift. In self driving cars, they can just text or ogle at porn.

For a week, I had this stubborn cough, runny nose and slight headache. Only yesterday did I get some pills from Pharmacity. Done with this article by 7:33AM, I will trek a few miles, just to wade into tactile life again. Unmediated experience is never a waste of time. I’m lucky to be in a society with streets still alive.

Couch or cubicle bound serfs can keep mooning at Thy Sovantha, but remember, she’s not just a pretty face!

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/22/25

Ah, Life! — Aug 25, 2025.

Doing nothing, 29-year-old Vinh gets 200K [$7.60] a day from his parents. After high school, he did enter college to study tourism management. He lasted just one year. Like millions of similar youths across this globe, Vinh’s defeated lifestyle is enabled by the internet. Its free music, porn, video games and TikTok skits give his life meaning. He’s entertained.

Walking to Coffee Seven this pre dawn, I paused to chat with BlueTooth. As always, he was listening to Eminem. That sonic monotony defines and anchors him.

“I don’t know any Vietnamese who can rap that rapidly,” I said. “Do you?”

“I met this kid who claimed his crew could do it.”

“Could he?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“What does it mean, to rap so rapidly?”

“It means you can sing without thinking!” He sounded awed. “We can’t do it yet.”

When BlueTooth said that rap must be authentic, I pointed out the obvious. Most rappers are broke assed pussies who pose as loaded gangstas. Like Trump or Uncle Sam, they’re fakes. Since I must think before singing, I couldn’t be so elaborate or exact. Still, I got my point across.

Arriving at Coffee Seven, I noticed a Chevrolet Orlando parked outside. Though an American brand, it’s made in South Korea and never sold in the USA, so a fake, basically. It belongs to Mrs. Seven’s niece. As the Assistant Post Master General of Ho Chi Minh City, she can afford these nice wheels. Nearing 50, she’s never married. Her two sisters are also unmarried career women. This global progression towards isolation is accelerating, and mostly welcomed.

Tribes in the Vietnamese Highlands used to live in multi-family long houses. The Hakka of southern China dwelled in enormous circular fortresses, so a vast home, basically, for each clan. Now, there are charmingly named cage apartments and coffin homes in Hong Kong. Five years ago in Seoul, I stayed for nearly a week in a tiny room that cost just $24 a night. It was fun as a novelty. Many South Koreans, though, must live that way. Four decades ago, I had friends who rented NYC closets they converted into bedrooms. Any space wide enough for a single mattress can be leased, obviously, with a first month, last month and security deposit, plus a background check. Your live in landlord wouldn’t want you to slide open that closet door at 3AM, so you can, you know, snuggle a bit. Tennessee Williams has fond memories of such encounters in New Orleans rooming houses. His best account of aroused strangers clawing for love is “Night of the Iguana,” of course.

Despite herself and almost unconsciously, a spinster manages to seduce a queer, but not to consummation. Just before coitus, she flees back to her room, so is, again, alone. Still, she has glimpsed a novel universe.

Consider this masterful passage, “Now she was sleepy. But just before falling asleep she remembered and felt again the spot of dampness, now turning cool but still adhering to the flesh of her belly as a light but persistent kiss. Her fingers approached it timidly. They expected to draw back with revulsion but were not so affected. They touched it curiously and even pityingly and did not draw back for a while. Ah, Life, she thought to herself and was about to smile at the originality of this thought when darkness lapped over the outward gaze of her mind.”

There’s nothing original about seeing semen as life, but it certainly feels that way to each virgin. There’s no mockery in Williams’ acknowledgement, only tremendous empathy. By adding pity to her wonderment, he’s also showing pity for all lonely bodies, including his, of course, for how many times did Tennessee touch that damp spot on his own belly?

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): 7/24/25 ; (R): 8/24/25

Two weeks ago, Gina Schrank commented, “I loved hearing about your coffee lady caring for someone or other constantly.” After her mother’s stroke, Mrs. Seven had to wipe and wash her daily for 12 years. For a much shorter time, she had to do the same for her dad. “He used to clutch at his pants like this!” she told me. “But I had to do it. I couldn’t let him be so dirty.”

This morning, I found out Mrs. Seven also took care of her mother-in-law whenever she popped in for coffee, which was often. After escaping Vietnam by boat, this lady settled in California, but came home after two decades without her husband.

“She lived with her son, you know, so she wasn’t properly washed. A woman had to do it. I took her to the back. Her pussy was all slimy,” she chuckled at this memory. “I washed it.”

Her term for pussy is chim, by the way. It literally means “bird.” Makes no sense. Vietnamese also call cows “crawling animal,” con bò. They’re beyond goofy, man.

Though subjected to each deranged trend emanating from that Flaming Babylon on that distant, unreachable hill, almost no Vietnamese is tatted up, pierced and strutting down the street, acting tough. Even those in “cool looking” hoodies flaunt cutesy slogans and cartoon characters in pastel colors. The most clueless wear pyjamas all day long. The more image conscious, the more narcissistic thus insane you are.

Once upon a time Gore Vidal, Truman Capote or Tennessee Williams could be spotted on American television. That civilization is hardly remembered, much less missed. Now, there are only waves of cool zombies brushing against confused troops, freshly deployed. Their endless war has come home.

China’s Tang ping, South Korea’s N-po generation, UK’s NEET and Japan’s freeters are all descendants of Herman Meville’s Bartleby, that pathetic yet sublime Wall Street quitter. Steered towards a soulless, machinelike existence, they’ve all decided to mumble, “I’d prefer not to.” It would only be a passive suicide, though, if you’re not saying yes to anything.

For several years, I’ve photographed people staring at phones. Uploading my latest, I was struck by how insane they’ve become. It’s useless to say this can’t go on.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/26/25

Stragglers in the Night — Aug 27, 2025.

Passing BlueTooth in the dark, I said, “We’re like ghosts. While other people sleep, we just…” I checked myself from saying “function.” Half an hour later, I still don’t know what verb would have been better, but perhaps “straggle”? You, me, him, we barely straggle, for we’re the luckiest.

Hearing me sneeze, Mrs. Seven’s bitch barked from behind her rusting steel door. Only today did I learn she’s called Nọng, a hideous name, and unique, too. Nasty Flannery O’Connor has a character named Hulga Hopewell. Mrs. Seven’s other dog, a male, is called Milk Cow, Bò Sữa. She also refers to him as “missus,” as in, “Missus always hides when it’s time to take a bath.” With our quirks, secrets, shameful solutions or perversions we get by, hopefully without being humiliated or jailed.

Before leaving my high ceilinged, French built room, I listened to a monologue by The Functional Melancholic. Witty, thought provoking, well read and with a good delivery, he’d have drawn live audiences 30 years ago, like Spalding Gray, but today, he must earn his keeps on YouTube. “Civilization’s Inevitable Collapse” has provoked 1,500 comments after just a week, so he’s raising urgent yet all-too-familiar issues. From Thoreau to John Zerzan, many have articulated the despair and horrors of being trapped in conformist America.

The Functional Melancholic, “While most of us are staggering under debt and spiritual emptiness that’s become so routine and ubiquitous, it might as well be direct deposited with our paychecks at this point. The question, ‘Do you like civilization?’ is about as absurd as asking, ‘Do you like your nervous system?’”

A typical response, “I was sitting in my cube today, trying to be grateful for still having a decent job, when a realization hit me. The world just feels.. wrong. Everything about it is wrong. Nothing is the way it should be. It’s all backwards and upside down. It’s like Morpheus said: it’s like a splinter in the mind. It’s suffocating.”

I heard Spalding Gray around 1985. Going to the Painted Bride, I passed through Washington Square. Thousands of Revolutionary War soldiers, plus a few Brits, are buried there in unmarked graves. Seeing me with a white girl, some dude, perhaps homeless, started chasing us with a fallen tree branch. I’m betting he’s a Vietnam Vet who suddenly spotted a Viet Cong. Brushing off this goofy episode, we enjoyed Gray’s performance. In 2004, this Manhattanite jumped off the Staten Island Ferry into the East River, so that’s that.

During my 35 years in the USA, I never got a credit card, so never spent cash I didn’t have. I bought two used cars, which I drove for less than two years altogether. I never got a mortgage. There were times I counted pennies at checkout counters. With such a minimal lifestyle, of course I was a loser to most eyes, but so what. Once I was paid to talk to a class at the Philadelphia Community College. The very next day, I was washing windows at Rittenhouse Square. The term gig economy hadn’t been invented. With buckets of hot water, squeegees and scrunched up newspapers, I roamed through Center City with Lee Goldston. Despite his name, Lee was just this black dude from North Carolina. Lee’s business card said, “Associated Philadelphia International Company,” but my own father, with a single restaurant in Santa Clara, CA, called his backwoods operation “Kobe International.”

“How is it international?” I asked him.

“That’s for the future. Kobe will be international!”

That’s Trumpian or Muskian logics. Since you can’t absolutely rule out any possibility, you can just say anything, but only to morons, of course.

With Klarma, afterpay and affirm, Americans are postponing paying in full even their fastfood burger, burrito or reconstituted chicken. They’re also skipping payments on their houses and cars. Even if your blood pressure is spiking and your nuts are freezing, everything is cool, sort of, as long as there are deep fried calories in your belly.

By early 2018, Tony and his sister no longer had electricity or heat, but they were still eating and, most importantly, drinking. With Latinos taking over his kitchen, Tony became just a parking lot attendant, but his furtive stealing finally got Tony fired. His aging sister was only given the worst tables at her waitressing job. All Friendly Lounge’s regulars gave Tony money so he wouldn’t starve. His last words to us before disappearing for good, “This is your last chance to lend me money!” That wouldn’t be a bad line in any monologue.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/26/25

Since it’s 6AM, I will wrap up today’s monologue. Straggling home, I will cook up some spaghetti, to eat with a beef burger patty. A recent indulgence are cubes of sugar free dark chocolate, bought at Lotte Supermarket.

One last detail before I forget or get struck by lightning. During the Vietnam War, Mrs. Seven’s dad made good money selling pot to American soldiers. Getting to know them, he even converted this very house into a mini bar. That’s why there’s a Minnie Mouse, playing the harp, on Mrs. Seven’s bedroom wall. When she was distracted chatting to a neighbor yesterday, I sneaked into her room to photograph it.

To survive, you must be resourceful, sneaky or freakish, whatever it takes, man, as long as you’re not hurting nobody.

With her tail chopped off, Nọng only has a comic stub to wiggle, but she’s never felt one second of self-pity, I don’t think. As she came by to check on me just seconds ago, I felt so much admiration, from me to her, of course. You’re a pitiful shit, she’s probably thinking.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Life, #5

What crime did I commit in a past life to end up like this? To feel anything, numb sacks of meat must go online to cultivate their sadism.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/18/25

Bird Wings Under Sunshine — Aug 19, 2025.

Noticing her frog so immobile, Mrs. Seven thought maybe it was pregnant. Now, she thinks it’s just starving. “Look at its flanks,” she frets as I peer at the darkened lump, parked in a puddle, with its rump against the splotchy wall. What crime did I commit in a past life to end up like this? it must be thinking.

Give this animal a sprig or two of raw watercress, I suggest. With all that’s wrong with the world, why am I concerning you with this inconsequential being? I’m not, really. Like y’all, I don’t care about anyone, ultimately, but as a SubStack hack, I must come up with amusing tales, and pretend I give a shit about anything. It’s grueling and dangerous work. Why didn’t I choose a much softer career in some coalmine or sewer, or on a tsunami battered offshore rig?

Mrs. Seven’s husband’s death anniversary is coming up. Her two daughters and two grandchildren will be here. Her two pregnancies were separated by 15 years. In between, she had three abortions, of the kind performed very early. She explained it as having a blood clot conveniently sucked out, more or less. As a dancer, she couldn’t prance around on stage with a bulging belly.

By the late 80’s, Mrs. Seven was performing at the Palace Hotel. It’s only half a mile from Cóc Cóc, where I’m sitting. On 4/30/75, Palace was the site of the very last Vietnam War battle in Vung Tau. Surrounded and vastly outnumbered, more than 400 ARVN soldiers had to surrender after several hours.

Mrs. Seven’s recollection of Palace is mostly pleasant. When food was still scarce, her troupe could occasionally enjoy all-you-can-eat buffets, with even leftovers to take home. Twelve members were northerners, with several from Nghệ An, Ho Chi Minh’s home province. It’s long famous for its poverty.

“They wouldn’t just take food home, but steal plates and glasses,” she remembers. “When I visited their homes, I’d see all these Palace Hotel plates.” She laughs. Their homecooked meals were pitiful, but that’s just Nghệ An. “They don’t eat like us.”

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): 8/16/25 ; (R): 8/15/25

Foreign companies would have catered parties at the Palace. Not until these Westerners or Taiwanese finished feasting could her troupe begin its dubious folkloric performance. Mrs. Seven’s star turn was impressively labeled “Bird Wings Under Sunshine.” As her agent, I’m ready to book this slightly stooped and creaking old broad for Trump’s new ballroom at the Whitey House.

Most annoying were the French, for they sure took their time eating. They’d leisurely suck every sliver of meat from the thinnest crab leg and lick the last drop of whatever soup from a spoon. When they’re done, there wasn’t a speck of gravy left for a baby gnat. Forget frogs.

For a single performance on a cruise ship on Phú Quốc Island, Mrs. Seven made enough for a used washing machine. “The toilets on that ship were better than what we had on land!” A booking for three months in Japan fell through, however. This was when Vietnamese needed exit visas. With that secured, Mrs. Seven already bought, in her mind, a sound system for her husband’s band. He’s an organist.

My Scranton buddy, Chuck Orloski, won a Fulbright Fellowship to Bulgaria in the mid 80’s. Before Chuck could board a plane for Sofia, the US imposed sanctions on that nation, so that’s that. He’ll also die without ever seeing his ancestral Poland.

Sơn the security guard reflects often on his brushes with death in Pol Pot’s Cambodia. In her dim café, Mrs. Seven remembers arching her back and holding her pretty hands, just so, under stage lighting.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): 8/8/25 ; (R): 8/18/25

Walking home decades ago, she was hit by some asshole who didn’t turn his light on. Was he saving some gasoline, he thought, or extending the lifespan of his headlight? For over a month, she couldn’t even kneel properly, much less dance. In hellish pain, she had to force her buttocks to touch her heels. “It hurt so bad! I was sweating!” Alone in her room, she had no choice but to keep trying.

When Sơn showed up late, again, this pre dawn, we asked why his wife didn’t wake him up on time? They don’t even sleep in the same room, he explained. She was still sleeping.

Again, I quote Stanley Kunnitz, “Those who were strange born, those who’ll die tomorrow, dance here today,” and alone, too, of course.

With this piece at only 725 words, I must scrape harder for very last bit of coal, crabmeat or soup. Looking up, I see yet another itinerant seller of lottery tickets. She’s short with sticklike legs. Also more numerous are old women from the provinces. Selling not much, they must wander around stoically all day long.

At Cóc Cóc, there’s a taped flyer telling thieves to stop stealing its plastic plant pot. Even brand new, it’s worth less than $3. Closing up each evening, Mrs. Seven must remove a junk electric fan from an outside wall.

We’re old enough to remember necklace snatchers swooping by on motorbikes. Those too clumsy or inexperienced risk smashing their victim’s face or skull on asphalt. Such two wheeled muggers have shown up in the West.

Listen, I’m not here to persuade anyone of anything. If you’re convinced you and yours are cruising through a Golden Age, then happy sailing! You deserve it.

No less deserving are MAGA farmers losing workers, markets and, now, even farms and family homes passed down through generations. American democracy can’t be more perfectly illustrated.

With my back against a wall, I sit in the shade of a midget palm. On the underside of one leaf is a dozen black and orange insects. Just born apparently, they’re clustered around their now empty eggs. Eight yards away, a red bus has just stopped to dislodge aging white tourists. One woman wore a skirt of a dozen colors. Her giddiness at being repackaged is fetching. In her youth, she may have danced nearly as well as Mrs. Seven.

Intertwining Satanists — Aug 20, 2025.

Clarity in thinking or writing is extremely rare. Nearly always, we get ducking, dodging or just plain lying, with the entire US political establishment especially adroit and shameless at these practices. American writers, even dissident ones, are also expert at dancing around obvious truths.

How bracing, then, to wake up this morning to these statements from Kevin Barrett, “Everyone agrees that God hates the wanton mass murder of tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children. Those who stand with God, with their faith, with the values of the New Testament (or the Qur’an or Mahabharata or Analects or Lotus Sutra or Tao Te Ching for that matter) are bound to oppose genocide. Acquiescing in genocide, or even supporting it, amounts to opposing God.

“[…] Jews, by definition, are the people who rejected Christ. That means the self-proclaimed Jewish state is the ‘anti-Christ state’—the State of Antichrist. And the Jewish state of Israel is committing a genocide against the descendants of the family of Jesus, namely the Palestinians. The satanic Zionists, who spit on Christians and burn and bomb their holy places, are crucifying Gaza out of hatred for Jesus and his followers (Muslim as well as Christian).”

Bravo, my man!

As Satanists, these Jews don’t just lapse often into violence, but sexual violence, for the worst violation on any human, and by extension, God, is to inflict sadistic pain on his naked person. You enjoy reducing him or her to a screaming, sobbing animal. As Satanic Americans look the other way, Jews commit thousands of Satanic sexual crimes against Arabs. They’re doing it right now.

With their Satanic sadism so insatiable, powerful Jews also prey on Jews. Just two months ago, some Jewish victims were finally able to make public their unspeakable suffering.

Yael Ariel, “I experienced ritual abuse over many years until my late teens and was forced to harm other children. I chose to speak out and make my voice heard. I received threats after revealing my story. From age five to age 20, I was harmed in these ceremonies. I filed a complaint with the police that was closed after a few months, and I know of other cases that were closed.”

Yael Shitrit, “You have no idea what ritual abuse is. The human brain cannot comprehend it. You can’t imagine what it means to program a three-year-old girl through rape and sadism so they can do whatever they want without anyone knowing. Their trafficking of me happened all over the country. They moved me from ceremony to ceremony. Naked men stood in a circle. My therapist, her husband, and her son harmed me, and there were dozens of other girls and boys who harmed me.”

Unnamed victim, “At 14, he took me to sadistic clubs. I endured torture and starvation at the hands of well-known and prominent individuals. I suffered harm in endless ways. There were public events, and there were internal ceremonies where I was tied to a tall post with handcuffs. Around me, there were other handcuffed victims with rituals of drinking menstrual blood and the slaughter of cats and other animals. They told me no one would believe me if I spoke out.”

My ex-publisher, Dan Simon, just released a French book on sexual crime, “Sad Tiger is built on the facts of a series of devastating events. Neige Sinno was 7 years old when her stepfather started sexually abusing her and at 14 or 15 the abuse stopped. At 19, she decided to break the silence that is so common in all cultures around sexual violence.” I should propose to Dan an encyclopedia of Jewish sexual violence. Just sitting here in Vung Tau, I can already name Jack the Ripper, Louis B. Mayer, Dan Schneider, Harvey Weinstein, Clive Davis and Jeffrey Epstein.

One recent entry is Tom Alexandrovich. A division head at the Israel National Cyber Directorate, Alexandrovich was in Las Vegas to meet NSA officials. Since spooks spy on each other, good old Tom should have known better than to use his cellphone to hook up with a 15-year-old. Armed with condoms, Tom headed to this date via Uber, which left another trail. Caught in a sting operation, he’s safely back in Israel. You think this 38-year-old will show up for his court date on 8/27/25?

In 2008, a principal at Adass Israel School in Elsternwick, Australia was investigated for sexual abuse against three girls. After fleeing to Israel, Malka Leifer was only returned 12 years later to face trial. It only took a decade for Gershon Kranczer to be extradited. Though sexual crimes are common to all nations, only one openly harbors such criminals. Times of Israel on 3/12/21, “Israel has become a haven for dozens of Jewish sexual abusers fleeing charges in recent years, particularly those in the ultra-Orthodox community who are aided by Israeli friends or relatives.”

What do you expect, though, from those whose God advises, “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” It’s OK to commit genocide, but spare enemy virgins, so you can rape them. Though this is also the Christian God, I can’t imagine Jesus talking like that.

The Jewish state is intertwined with the leading white nation, so both are sinking into hell. It’s sickeningly poetic.

Trump the supposed savior of downtrodden whites spent years raping white children, along with other white leaders. Bill Clinton on their leading pimp, “Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of 21st-century science.”

Of course, you should trust the science. Supplying rape victims to top whites, Epstein also joined in the fun. Finally caught with so much dirt on everyone, Jeff had to be killed, or maybe he’s just lying low in Israel. In the Anti-Christ State, those with the sickest appetites are hardly rare. Just for laughs, they shoot teen boys in the testicles.

Vung Tau, 8/21/25

Walking Corpse Running Meat! — Aug 21, 2025.

There’s a useful and amusing Chinese phrase, 行尸走肉. Pronounced as shing shi zoo roo, it means, literally, walking corpse running meat. This can also be applied to nations. Rotting, it still struts.

With my flesh only slightly putrefied, I tickle my maggot burrowed and fly specked brain this morning since it’s the death anniversary of Mrs. Seven’s husband. Later, his musician friends will gather to sing and play his favorite songs. Saigon Beer will flow. Her younger daughter, Mi Mi, arrived last night from Bình Dương, 80 miles away, where she’s working at a beauty salon.

Just now, a neighborhood loser, Vinh, dropped by. A staggering corpse, he still thinks he has a chance with Mi Mi. Unemployed and untraveled, the 29-year-old still suckles his dying mama’s dry titties, so to speak. Mi Mi has worked all over Vietnam, as far north as Pleiku. She has had a steady boyfriend for seven years. Repeatedly, she has turned down his marriage proposal. Still pretty, she doesn’t lack suitors, and she’s making her own cash. She’s seen friends burdened with kids in marriages already sour.

“This boyfriend has relatives in Australia. They want to bring him over there.”

“So your daughter can go with him if they get married?”

“She says, ‘Why would I want to go to Australia when I can go to the USA?!’” Mi Mi has an aunt in Texas who can hook her up. This lady hasn’t been back in eight years, however.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): 8/19/25 ; (R): 8/21/25

Near death, each trip across the globe becomes more untenable. Strapped to a narrow seat between rotting strangers, you’re hurled through cold space in an aluminum tube that may, and perhaps should, break up any second, to put all those over the hill stewardesses out of their earthly misery. No more squeezing those widest hips through the thinnest aisles to serve crappy food to sullen passengers who don’t even speak English. “I said chicken or pasta, you fuckin’ moron!”

Only the most attentive foreigners notice the proliferation of incense sticks all over Vietnam. They jut from bases of trees and fronts of buses. Spirits everywhere must be honored and appeased. Since the dead aren’t quite dead here, every Vietnamese living room is a shrine to the dead. Dead grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and siblings often eat and watch television with their living relatives until they, too, drop dead.

Born in 952, Dương Vân Nga died in 1000. She’s the only queen in Vietnamese history to be married to kings from two dynasties. Soon after Đinh Tiên Hoàng was assassinated, she wedded Lê Đại Hành. Many people suspect she may have colluded with the second to kill the first. They were likely lovers.

The only statue of Dương Vân Nga is in a temple dedicated to her second husband. Each year, this effigy is taken to a temple honoring her first, on his death anniversary. Before being transferred, she’s whipped ten times. This corporeal punishment of a wooden statue is deadly serious. Even after a thousand years, the people of Hoa Lư cannot forgive at least her unfaithfulness.

To remember is to imagine that something of you, too, will linger. Of course, it’s nonsense. Alive, you’re already ignored and forgotten.

Vung Tau, 8/21/25

Sharper than me, Google AI Overview defines 行尸走肉 as a man living without a soul, goal, determination or creativity. That’s a bit harsh, wouldn’t you say? Defines just about everybody, especially today. Now at Cóc Cóc, I’m surrounded by zombies staring at phones. It wasn’t like this just three years ago.

To feel anything, numb sacks of meat must go online to cultivate their sadism. A 46-year-old French live streamer has just died after months of “physical and moral humiliation.” With half a million followers, Raphaël Graven had up to 15,000 dorks watch his degradation, as executed by two “friends,” at any moment. For a fee, anyone could suggest a specific torture. With no talents or looks, Graven couldn’t have asked for a better gig. With death, he’s achieved immortality.

After British Lily Phillips slept with 100 men in one day, she was topped by Australian Annie Knight, who bedded 583 within 24 hours. These blushing maidens were put to shame by another Brit, Bonnie Blue, who scored 1,057 retching blokes in 12 hours. Only a nuclear bomb can fumigate that bedroom. Rule, rule, Britannia! Britons never shall be slaves! All these lovelies rake in big bucks as stars at OnlyFans, a platform owned by American Leonid Radvinsky. Unlike Pornhub’s Solomon Friedman, Radvinsky is no rabbi, however, so don’t give me any of that anti-Semitic shit!

Man can’t live by porn alone, unfortunately. After the last paragraph, I walked home for lunch. Afterwards, I listened to A Homestead Journey video. Only through citizen journalists like this “Barbara” can you get a true picture of what’s happening. Black or white, Americans are incredulous at their jacked up bills. Just to eat, many have stopped paying their mortgage, utility, student loan or credit card debts. For at least a decade before I left the US for good in 2018, this reality was already too common. Just to drag their corpses through another day, all my stressed and exhausted friends relied on drugs and/or alcohol. Only Felix Giordano had it easy. He got a check each month for being mentally ill. Working for years in an insane asylum where patients smeared shit on walls or jerked off nonstop, Felix himself went mad. Most of us aren’t so lucky.

With the vaguest, dimmest and sketchiest approximations of a soul, goal, determination or creativity, they stagger from one porn site to another, for that’s the one resource this world has in luxurious abundance. Humanity has never been so blessed.

At age 26, Mi Mi still has a few years before realizing that she, too, is just another shing shi zoo roo. Suck it up, bitch! There’s no shame in belonging.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Pepe Escobar: & Mohammad Marandi: Explosive Conflicts Rage in Middle East & Caucasus

Diggin’ deeper with the two coolest Persians anywhere. Pay special attention to Prof. Marandi explaining the Zangezur riddle compared to the new Iran concept of Persian Gulf-Black Sea corridor.

Luxury Terrorism

By indi.ca

I call America a luxury terrorism force because that’s what they are. The last time the USA was able to conscript a citizen army was over 50 years ago (Vietnam). The last time they were able to field a debt slave army was over 20 years ago (Iraq). Their last times are upon them, surely. What was once an imperial army is now blowing up hospitals, failing to blow up bridges, and losing to men in the field. I call this luxury terrorism because this empire isn’t expansive anymore, it’s just expensive.

Make no mistake, the White Empire is behind the violence from Ukraine and ‘Israel’. In Ukraine, European and American agents are directing random attacks on bridges and nuclear sites behind the lines. This is done for the media coverage (like terrorism) and not for any military gain. In Gaza, UK overflight and American oversight bomb hospitals, assassinate journalists, and massacre civilians. This is done to conduct a genocide, not a war, and the forces against them (shout-out Hamas) are still firing. What is all this? It’s just luxury terrorism, if you presume that non-white people are capable of feeling terror.

What does it mean, when conventional armies openly act like terrorists, and those condemned as terrorists act like conventional armies? It means not that the Empire is strong, it means precisely that they are weak. Remember that terrorism is a weapon of the weak. Note here that I don’t categorically condemn terrorism. They say that war is politics by other means and I say that terrorism is war by other means, it’s all a continuum of being mean. White Empire has trademarked and co-opted terrorism for itself, but it started and remains, fundamentally, a weapon of the weak. Political forces that cannot assert themselves diplomatically or militarily will assert themselves terroristically. That’s what I mean.

To use an example I’m familiar with (quite unreliably as a Sinhala Buddhist), Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka were banned from diplomatically asserting separatism in Parliament. Tamil Eelam as a non-state was unable to assert itself militarily, and therefore many youth groups asserted themselves terroristically. The LTTE eliminated most of those groups, asserted a monopoly on violence, and did some obviously terrorist things (killing monks and villagers, mass assassinations, basically inventing modern suicide bombing). This was, however, a means to an end, a tactic, not a strategy.

Near the end, the LTTE fielded conventional military formations (like an air force) and was able to hit military targets (like the Anuradhapura air base). The end goal was always diplomatic acceptance (and political existence). As you can see, terrorism can be a means to an end, not just endless cruelty. Insurgents might use terrorism when they’re weak, militarism when they’re stronger, and then politics when they can stand on their own feet. But no insurgent is trying to be a terrorist forever. They’re trying to accomplish something politically. Violence is a ladder, and terrorism is the rung closest to the bottom. Now can you see?

Inverting the insurgents manual, White Empire is falling down the escalation ladder. They have failed at diplomacy, flailed around militarily, and downscaled into terrorism. They’re massacring civilians gathering for food, drone striking children going for water, assassinating journalists, and blowing up hospitals and apartment buildings. They used to command history, but now this is all they can do to make the news, like petty terrorists trying to get their demands on the TV.

The White Empire is going precisely the wrong way down the ladder of power, failing, flailing, and ultimately bailing on political hegemony. This is easy to miss because the violence is so emotionally evocative (this is the point of terrorism), but the Empire has lost power dramatically. Remember that they’ve lost a naval battle in the Red Sea, a land battle in the Ukraine, and air supremacy over their conscript colony (‘Israel’). Their conventional military power has been defeated in the field, the history is already written. All that’s left is petty terrorism on the way down the ladder, base colonialism on muscle memory.

That’s why I call the White Empire a luxury terrorism force. It is what it be. Empire is reduced a few squirrely and cowardly CIA and MI6 forces embedded with proxy armies, blowing up this bridge here and assassinating this journalist there. And they spend billions doing what a real insurgent force would do for basically free. Their heart isn’t in it, and they’re braindead. They often fail at basic terrorism (still can’t blow up the Crimea bridge), and even when they succeed, it accomplishes nothing politically. Russia is undeterred, Yemen is undeterred, and even completely surrounded Palestine has not bent the knee. Meanwhile the whole world is horrified at the livestreamed terrorism. They’re offending their supporters and motivating their enemies. This is not a winning strategy.

If political solutions don’t work and military solutions don’t work, luxury terrorism just makes you look like a geopolitical jerk. It’s the weapon of the weak, wielded by what’s supposed to be the strongest Empire on earth, which makes you question the whole proposition more than reassert it. This widely-advertised luxury terrorism campaign both shows that the empire is falling, and firmly establishes that it should. Which I assume was not the intention.

The fact is that this empire can no longer impose its will on anyone and has lost control of the narrative almost completely. White Empire can no longer command its own citizens into war, it can no longer wrangle debt slaves to do it for them, and its proxies are falling one by one. They have to resort to luxury terrorism to stay relevant and malevolent, but this is expensive more than expansive, and defective more than effective. They can terrify people, yes, but they can’t turn that into political power, which is the point of any political violence. This luxury terrorism is just pointless.

In the dirty business of war you can say that terrorism has its place, but you’re supposed to start there and proceed through conventional cruelty to conventional power apace. White Empire is going backwards through this process. It’d be like finding the Sacklers selling crack on the street, when they had such a good scam going legally. Things would have obviously gone badly for them. So it is with Empire, reduced to massacring refugees and car bombing Moscow.

White Empire’s luxury terrorism is not a sign that they’re coming up again in a new reincarnation (regrouping white supremacy in Australia or some shit, after the loss of Europe in WWII and America in WWIII). No it’s a sign of their historical judgment day. Terrorism is the weapon of the weak, and what came in as a lion is going out with a sadistic squeak.

Slices of Life 4

Like the US itself, Trump is nothing but his image, so when he looks weak, confused, ridiculous or petty, the world can see exactly how his eviscerated nation is doing

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Image War — Aug 16, 2025.

Since American presidents are now at risk of stumbling headfirst going up or down Air Force One, it’s only logical for them to use stairlifts and evacuation slides. Why chance having the Defender of the Free World crack his denture and skull, just heading to another golfing vacation, or some global summit where he will be mostly ignored, if not mocked? Sliding down, each POTUS should be without pants or Depend. With a splash, he’ll plunge into a kiddie pool as journalists cheer. After being washed, perfumed and sedated by two illegal immigrant nurses of color, he’s ready to hit the red carpet to shake hands with foreign dignitaries.

For transparency’s sake, this entire process will be broadcast live on CNN, Fox News and the BBC, with appropriate color commentaries. “For some reasons, that brown bitch is taking too long to soap the president’s balls. Soon as we find out why, we’ll give you an update. Meanwhile, President Putin of Russia patiently waits, his only sign of exasperation a barely perceptible sigh.”

These patriotic and constructive reflections were triggered by the alarming yet endearing spectacle of Trump zigzagging in Alaska. Was he trying to find Cook Inlet? Since Putin took his time descending, Trump had to wait. When the better man finally appeared, Trump erupted with three bursts of applause. Receiving no equivalent affection, Trump looked positively forlorn when they finally shook hands. With his palm up, Trump was a beggar, and for seconds, his left hand even joined their manual coupling in an unmanly, needy threesome. In our image obsessed world, these spectacles aren’t just significant but emblematic. Like the US itself, Trump is nothing but his image, so when he looks weak, confused, ridiculous or petty, the world can see exactly how his eviscerated nation is doing.

This stinking and stumbling psycho is strapped to thousands of nuclear warheads, however. Without them, the US would just be one vast Skid Row, begging to be divided up by Mexico, Canada, Russia, China and Greenland. Here and there in the Heartland, there may still be MAGA republics, though impoverished, irrelevant and worse off than today’s Lesotho, Eswatini, Tristan da Cunha or Bir Tawil.

Rwanda and Gabon have joined Israel, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Pakistan and Cambodia in nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. No major European, Oriental or South American countries have done so. Even the most servile US vassals can’t risk embracing a genocidal child rapist.

Demanding peace between Thailand and Cambodia, 2,500 monks marched through Phnom Penh on 8/10/25. Over a dozen hoisted large photos of Trump, with “Thank You! Mr. President.” Though the US likely had a hand in starting that war, these cloistered doofuses credited the Donald with stopping bloodshed.

Right in downtown Tirana is George W. Bush Street. Though short, it passes Mosque of Namazgah, Albania’s largest. Maybe Trump will have at least an alley named after him in Phnom Penh? He’s winning the image war in Cambodia!

In 2020, I was astounded to discover Trump Kids Kindergarten in Lào Cai, a Vietnamese city of 130,000 right on the Chinese border. In an obscure spot high up in the mountains, Trump was idolized by ignorant Communists. This state run school is still there.

(L): 2,500 monks march, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 8/10/25 ; (R): painting of Bill Clinton in Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion

The US as a brand is most seductive to those with no chance of experiencing the Tenderloin, Skid Row, Philadelphia’s Kensington, Camden, Gary, South Bend, Youngstown, Scranton, St Louis, Oakland or all of New Orleans outside the French Quarters. They’re like those middle-aged guys in Amman, Jordan who are mesmerized by one Hollywood movie after another at cozy yet grimy Pop Café, a place no tourist but one has ever entered. They don’t know what it’s like to endure social distancing nearly every waking hour for decades. I’ve never experienced a population more atomized.

Let’s examine one photo of Zelensky’s visit to the White House on 2/28/25. With his arms folded, the Jewish clown is being scolded by two suited idiots, with Trump flaunting his trademark pucker. Like his boss, lapdog Vance is waving his hands in disapproval. Basic manners dictate you don’t bully a guest, even in private, but this was a staged spectacle, performed for Trump’s Budweiser and Miller High Life swilling base. The setting itself is laughable. Behind Trump on the mantel are the tackiest golden urns and figurines, and “TRUMP” is on some booksized block on the coffee table. Trump must always push his brand. Of course, there are no real books within sight. Flags of the US Army and US Marines flank this draft dodger. If only Liberace had become president!

If only we were just talking about taste. Just now, photos of Epstein’s Manhattan mansion have emerged. Though we see the same level of pricey tackiness so beloved by Trump, there are much darker notes. Vigilant Citizen describes a work of art, “Everything about this sculpture is creepy and unsettling, especially considering that young girls were being raped and abused in this very mansion. White gowns worn by brides are meant to represent their purity and virginity. This particular bride is seemingly attempting to escape something awful… like maybe an old pedo trying to abuse her. They like to mock their victims.” Inside this pedo rape paradise are sweet photos of Epstein with Bill Clinton, Trump, Melania, Bill Gates, Mick Jagger and Elon Musk, among others. A long letter from Woody Allen includes this poetic line, “Add to this that Jeffrey lives in a vast house alone, one can picture him sleeping in damp earth.”

There’s a lovely painting of a saucy Bill Clinton in a blue dress and red heels. Draped across a French Empire chair, he’s showing off his cleavage and flashing a pink thigh.

Long before death, they’re hell dwellers, and proud of it. Why not? Indulging in the worst acts imaginable has reaped them the greatest benefits. Most of their victims even consider them gods.

Baltimore, Maryland, USA: (L): 5/26/11 ; (R): 12/18/11

So Far Gone! — Aug 17, 2025.

The mysterious animal living in Mrs. Seven’s house turned out to be a large green frog. Dwelling behind her coolers, it had standing water on the concrete floor to drink, plus mosquitoes and gnats, one must assume, to feast on. Worrying about this beast’s poor diet, she left a hunk of bread by its side. Since it remained untouched days later, she removed it. Content, this solitary exile will stay right where he is, a silent, brooding presence, unmolested by men, dogs or God. That’s a better fate than most men’s. His options beyond this house aren’t great. Escaping, he’d likely be squashed or gently lowered into a boiling pot of rice gruel with mung beans.

At Vietnamese wet markets, you’ll see skinned frogs still alive. I’ve also written a poem about a turban wearing and gum chewing “sadistic climbing perch monger.”

Here’s the killer part, “Keeping these fish in a tin basin, she takes out each one and snips, with a scissors, its tail, anal fin, dorsal fin, pelvic fin, ventral fin, pectoral fin, then, finally, head. If only she would reverse this order, the climbing perch would not thrash about during the entire process.”

All travelers know no two nations do anything the same. Of course, if you only hop from one global enclave to another, you’ll miss most of these stark or subtle differences, but that’s not traveling. Landing in Timbuktu, Nakhchivan or Qaanaaq, they look immediately for a McDonald’s and a Starbucks.

Baltimore, 5/26/11

Recently, Trump cited Oakland and Baltimore as examples of cities “so far gone,” they need federal intervention, as just happened in DC. Since Trump doesn’t drive, much less walk, anywhere dicey, he has no direct experience of Anacostia or Deanwood in DC, much less Baltimore, but that’s true of his critics also. Whether conservative or liberal, most Americans know better than to stray into black ghettos. Here are the five deadliest American cities, Memphis, Oakland, St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit. Four are majority black, with St. Louis nearly so.

Just pointing out these facts will get me charged as a “racist” by many upstanding Americans, but consider this hateful passage, “In the city of Philadelphia the increasing number of bold and daring crimes committed by Negroes in the last ten years has focused the attention of the city on this subject. There is a widespread feeling that something is wrong with a race that is responsible for so much crime, and that strong remedies are called for.” It was written in 1899 by that famous Nazi, W.E.B. DuBois, when he was best buddies with Adolf Hitler. Growing up in adjacent rowhouses, they’d split even a pretzel. So poor, they had to pool money over months to buy one Tastykake.

When Trump talked about solving urban crimes, his MAGA base plus many others immediately understood it as a resolve, finally, to tackle black crime, so they cheered, though not at work or in polite company. With Trump, though, it’s just another con and misdirection. He’s using black crime to normalize the presence of soldiers on American streets. Having engineered the worst economic collapse, he’s preparing for its attendant chaos and violence.

Baltimore, Maryland, USA: (L): 5/26/11 ; (R): 12/18/11

As a high school kid in Northern Virginia, I’d drive my Mustang II to Baltimore to catch my Mariners play the Orioles at Memorial Stadium. I’d head straight there from my McDonald’s job on Little River Turnpike. In my M’s jersey and waving a pennant, I once screamed so loud while sitting alone in the outfield, a player turned around to stare at the freak. I’d like to say it was Ruppert Jones, but he must have been retired by then.

As an adult in Philly, I’d take a Greyhound to Baltimore to spend another relaxing, near suicidal day. Away from its Inner Harbor, the city looked bombed. Wandering around Charm City, I started to understand why John Water’s Divine thought eating dogshit was so wonderful. With so many murals honoring murder victims, you also feel close to God, as in, “I’ll be there in a second, Jesus.” It’s a spiritual city.

You, too, should drop everything to visit Baltimore at the first opportunity. Its tourism slogan, “You won’t get it till you get here.” A preview, “A 13-year-old boy with 18 prior felony arrests has been apprehended again, this time for a series of armed carjackings and robberies that took place across Baltimore from July 26 to 27, according to the Baltimore Police.” Similar youths are liberally sprinkled across America.

Under Biden, there was a noticeable uptick in anti social behavior, including street takeovers, flash robberies, smash and grabs, dine and dashes, porch piracy and nuisance streaming. Far from going away, these have only increased under Trump, since their root causes, alienation, pathological self absorption, community breakdown, unaffordability of basics and meaningless existence, have only been exacerbated. Plus, Trump is himself a worldclass felon. Crime exudes from all his pores and orifices effortlessly. Trump emanates crime.

In 1992, Camden Yards opened in Baltimore. Now, there are retro ballparks all over. Inside these exclusive environments, the USA is still safe and wholesome. The cheapest seat for a game five days from now goes for $23, with the most expensive at $153. With the added cost of hot dogs, soft drinks, beer and parking, a typical family of four can’t come here. Triple locked inside some ghetto rowhouse or a suburban duplex, they can still enjoy this American mirage, on their bought-on-credit flatscreen. That’s how it will be, then, as their world cracks, crumbles and burns.

New York, 8/4/09

John Rocker, Prophet — Aug 18, 2025.

Twenty five years ago, an Atlanta Braves pitcher, John Rocker, said, “I’m not a very big fan of foreigners. How the hell did they get in this country?” With his team in NYC to play the Mets, Rocker observed, “Imagine having to take the 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing.”

It’s clear this 26-year-old had never been to Beirut or anywhere in the Middle East. Even today, you almost never see in Muslim nations purple haired kids, queers with AIDS, obvious felons or 20-year-old moms with four kids. Unlike in the USA, their criminals, degenerates and misfits don’t advertise themselves. Even American nerds pose as gangstas, for their culture glamorizes all crimes, including genocides.

When Rocker was born in Statesboro, GA in 1974, it had roughly 17,000 people. In high school, he lived in Macon (pop. 130,000). Though a city, it’s still in the same state, then he was drafted by the Braves. Nearly his entire minor league career was spent in the South.

There were plenty of Latino players in his organization, however, and the big club’s roster for 2020 included players from Venezuela, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Canada and Cuba. Even with so many foreign teammates, Rocker had plenty of white ones to socialize with, however. The appearance of everyone working together towards a common goal disguises the fact that, after the game, most players stick with their own race or at least those who speak their language comfortably. Even on the airplane home, they self-segregate.

New York, USA: (L): 10/8/11 ; (R): 11/3/17

Rocker’s disgust, fear and hatred of NYC is all too common. It’s not just the natural reaction of any bumpkin towards the city, but of every child when forced to enter school, or of any man on his first trip abroad, even if he’s going voluntarily, for pleasure. To be uprooted is always violent, but without this, almost no goals are achievable, especially today. Very few are allowed to be housewives or simply shopkeepers in their hometowns. Thrust into alien, bewildering environments, nearly everyone seeks to reclaim his hickishness by frequenting the same bar, café, cheesesteak joint or Chinese takeout, or he can watch the Braves or Phillies for 200 times a year, including the playoffs and Spring Training. Compulsive, addictive behavior is nearly an inevitable reaction to the terrors of displacement.

Retired, Rocker must be living in some Southern town, so he’s no longer displaced. Most people don’t have that option.

Trump’s decision to send National Guardsmen from Ohio, West Virginia and South Carolina to Washington DC made me think of John Rocker. Unlike the pitcher, they won’t be armed with fastballs and sliders, but M4 carbines and M9 pistols. Nothing will go wrong, I’m sure.

Deployed around Union Station, Georgetown, Chinatown and 14th Street, they’ll make a show of arresting sandwich throwing drunks and public urinators, but their real tasks, make no mistake, is to sow fear and disorder. When American cities go up in flames, American hicks will cheer.

Though the worst kind of New Yorker, Trump, with his red cap, is posing as a John Deere tractor driving peasant. You’d never find him plopped next to a John Rocker, though, at any good ol’ boys tavern. Served a pickled trotter, the Donald would retch.

Before college, I had been to NYC just once. At 15-years-old, I went there with my mother, stepfather and half brother on a day trip, a very long drive from Northern Virginia. That day’s highlight was a visit to the top of the World Trade Center. Applying for college, I was accepted at Pratt and Parson, but visited neither. Wanting to become an oil painter, I knew I’d have to confront NYC at some point.

New York, USA: (L): 10/8/11 ; (R): 11/3/17

From Philly, I’d take two local trains to NYC. At first, it was only to visit its museums. Eventually, I’d get to know many neighborhoods, including those across the Hudson in New Jersey. I gave poetry readings at St. Mark’s Place, the Nuyorican Café and a few other venues I can’t quite remember. I was paid to talk to a class at Yeshiva University, I’m not kidding. I was on a panel at NYU with Susan Sontag and Carolyn Forché, among others. I was a critic-in-residence at Art in General. Many of my college friends moved to NYC. My main publisher was there. On my last visit, I was interviewed by Chris Hedges for Russia Today. I wrote a long poem about Yankee Stadium. Despite all this exposure, I never warmed up to Manhattan. It’s too much about image, with every transplant remaking himself to be more worldly, even freakish. Even their speech changes.

At Philly’s Friendly Lounge, there was a regular, Johnny AC, who made it a point to never visit NYC, and he had been to Japan.

For thousands of years, we lived in villages. Now, 55% of the world’s population dwell in cities, with millions packed into cubicles suspended in smog. Last week, some tattooed asshole in Hanoi was caught on camera beating up a female neighbor by the elevators. He clearly didn’t care who she was, or even where he was. His soulless, arrogant face exudes alienation.

When I was born in November of 1963, Saigon had a population of 1.6 million. Now, it has 14. That’s why I’m living in a drowsy city by the ocean. At 4:06AM, I’m again sitting at a sweetly shabby café in a quiet alley. Mrs. Seven is still living in her childhood home. Through the open door of her bedroom, I can see an elegant pastel portrait of her late father. On her wall is a peeling mural of the Vietnamese countryside. Her two dogs’ one big trip was to the wet market, a quarter mile away. Behind her red cooler, a large green frog contently squats. Like everyone, he has had enough harrowing life experiences to brood over.

Clearly, our species’ existence is unsustainable. Though we know and sense this, there’s nothing we can do. Our elites, though, have firm, definite plans they’re already executing. Meanwhile, there are still baseball games to be stared at on our droning televisions.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Life 3

Like a much more famous billionaire, this pitiful man is boastful, exaggerates numbers and loves to play with girls. Insane people are lost in their fantasized greatness.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Well Prepared for the Worst! — Aug 13, 2025.

Washington DC, 12/6/11

This pre dawn at Coffee Seven, there’s a new half face. The other half is hidden behind a mask. With his mouth muffled, it’s not easy to understand what he’s saying. Plus, he’s speaking very rapidly.

Sơn, “You have a new vehicle!”

“Yes, just bought it, for three billion.”

Since $114,000 doesn’t sound right, I ask him, “Why so expensive? Why not buy a plane?” I tease. “Or a house?”

“My house is a hundred billion! I just bought a cemetery.”

Sơn grins, “A cemetery.”

“Why?” I ask. “You only have one body.”

“To sell lots.”

“How many?”

“A hundred.”

“That’s nothing. You need a plot for a thousand!” Then, “How much is your motorbike, brother Sơn?”

“Three billion.”

I say to Mrs. Seven, “Since all your customers are so rich, you shouldn’t be selling coffee for 10K,” or 38 cents. “Sell it for 100K.”

“He’s so rich, but sometimes he drinks my 10K coffee on credit.”

Already this insane in his early 30’s, he’ll just get worse, for sure, though his agitation will likely decrease with age.

Washington DC: (L): on 3/2/15 ; (R): on 7/28/17

For a nation, too, unchecked madness must increase. Even with violent crime down in DC, Trump has called in the National Guard. Preceding this by days was a photo of Big Balls sitting on the ground with a bloody face and body. Sure looks like he smeared it all over himself for the most dramatic shot. Why was this 19-year-old out, partying, perhaps, at 3AM? More mysterious is his hiring by Elon Musk for DOGE, that personal data harvesting scam that saved no one a dime, but why dredge up ancient history? We’ve so moved on.

Daily Beast on 8/12/25, “White House Wants Big Balls to Get Same Medal as Rosa Parks—The move would appeal to Trump’s MAGA base.” Who can deny Swollen Testicles has done much more than Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King?

Meanwhile in LA, masked goons arrested a handicapped 15-year-old at gunpoint, right outside his high school. This boy was standing next to his grandma’s car, with her inside. In their excitement, ICE agents dropped bullets on the ground. Warriors so professional must be sent immediately to Ukraine, Syria or deadly Washington DC, so they can return to claim a modest lot in a discount cemetery. As with thousands of other cases, this kid was targeted because he was brown. Handcuffed, he was whizzed away as terrified classmates looked on. After an hour, he was released without even an apology. Who are the retards here? With a moronic commander in chief, they’re free to terrorize.

Four decades ago, DC was America’s murder capital. Going there often, I was never mugged, however, because I didn’t wander around drunk at 3AM. I attended Bullets games before the team changed its name to Wizards. I had second row seat for a spectacular performance by George “Ice Man” Gervin. Fourteenth Street right in Northwest was as seedy as NYC’s Broadway. Taxi Driver’s Travis would have been perfectly at home. Since America’s rich and powerful didn’t care to live in shitholes, DC and NYC were much gentrified. I imagine Manhattan below 116^th and DC’s Northwest are still fine.

Washington DC: (L): on 11/30/11 ; (R): on 8/28/10

Meanwhile in Gaza, “Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, 28, has been killed along with three of his colleagues in a deliberate Israeli attack on a media tent sheltering journalists outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.” Al Jazeera also claims, “Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers since it launched its war on Gaza.” The Jerusalem Post begs to differ, “IDF kills Hamas terrorist doubling as journalist.” Unlike Israel, al-Sharif hasn’t killed one innocent civilian, but he’s the “terrorist,” while the genocidal Jewish state must be defended by the entire West.

After Kevin Barrett interviewed me recently, he posted our 1 ½ hour conversation at Unz with this headline, “Linh Dinh: ‘It’s a very systematic program to destroy opponents of the Jews’—Is the Great Replacement driven by economics—or by Jewish hatred of Esau (Europeans) and Ishmael (Arabs/Muslims)?” Nearly all 72 comments after it concern Barrett’s suggestion Europe would be better off by converting to Islam. Unlike Jews, Kevin isn’t advocating for Middle Eastern and Northern African Muslims to invade Europe, after their own societies are destroyed. That’s a Jewish project, gleefully executed. In any case, neither Kevin nor I have the power to effect anything. As American “influencers,” we’re a thousand tiers below Johnny Somali or Ice Poseidon. Big Balls wouldn’t spit in our direction. So invisible, we can walk through walls.

True to their Angry White Pussy code and calling, none of those enraged Unzians dared to say Jews. Quaking whites proudly wave white flags.

Going to meet Putin in Alaska, Trump said, twice, he was headed to Russia. A man this confused can’t be expected to formulate policies on Cambodia, Armenia or Azerbaijan, so he’s obviously not in control, so who is? Perhaps Big Balls. Just never say Jews. They’re the most misunderstood and discriminated against do gooders in history.

When a woman across the street asks our billionaire to help her lift a heavy pot, he simply says, “I can’t,” so creaky and slightly stooped Mrs. Seven has to do it. I’d have, of course.

Seeing his gaudy watch, I blurt, “That’s nice!”

“It cost eight billion!”

“So expensive! You should use that money to go out with your girlfriend.”

“I’m married.”

“Oh! How many kids?”

“Eight.”

“Eight!”

After he’s gone, Mrs. Seven tells me, “He’s not married. Who would marry him? His parents are rich, so he just rides around.”

He comes to Vung Tau to play with girls, chơi gái, meaning he visits whorehouses. Like a much more famous billionaire, this pitiful man is boastful, exaggerates numbers and loves to play with girls. Insane people are lost in their fantasized greatness.

As your people become increasingly destitute and outraged, you erect tallest flag poles, build the tackiest ballroom, stage a military parade on your birthday and, now, normalize having heavily armed troops on city streets, something unseen in any civilized country not at war. Who can claim, though, the USA is either?

Triggering the worst, Trump is well prepared for the worst, he thinks. Still, that constant stench from his own body is hard to ignore. It’s not just old age. Continentia in Latin means repression. Since this megalomaniac has never known any self-restraint, it’s all flooding out from every orifice as his cowed subjects endure his repression.

still from Jack from Thailand’s Thailand’s Father Day 2020 featuring Tony Cartalucci

Some Holes in Brian Berletic — Aug 13, 2025.

Between 7/26/25 and 7/31/25, I wrote five articles on the latest conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. Before giving you an update, let’s examine some contentions made by Brian Berletic, whose 28 minute video from 7/26/25 I saw just last night.

Though many of Berletic’s observations are astute, there are fundamental flaws in his world view. He keeps insisting Israel is doing America’s bidding, so Jews serve whiteys. More specifically, Israelis and all other bad actors globally are paid off, manipulated or fooled by the American empire. Ethnic or racial interests don’t trigger conflicts. If not for Uncle Sam, all nations and races would get along.

Like me, Berletic points out that many ethnic Cambodians live on the Thai side of the border, so they, too, were on the receiving end of Cambodian rockets. When there’s no war, Thais and Cambodians coexist well enough. This doesn’t mean, as Berletic contends, “There’s no real animosity between these two countries. A lot of people make this out as if it’s some sort of historical issue. People don’t go to war over history, over religion, over ethnicity. These are things people in power use to dupe people into fighting wars.”

(L): King Vajiralongkorn at Munich Airport, Germany, 2016 ; (R): Bangkok, Thailand, 1/3/23

People have always gone to war over ethnicity, race, religion or historical claims, even if these are grossly exaggerated or entirely fictional. Think six million Jews gassed to death in a Final Solution. To stoke Jews for genocide, Netanyahu said on 10/28/23, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” There’s no need for Bibi to cite the entire passage. Every self respecting Jew already knows it, “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” To a lesser degree, Christians have absorbed this bloodthirsty mindset.

Since Amalek is a long disappeared nation that has nothing to do with contemporary Palestinians, it’s simply a shorthand for any enemy of the Jews. Fueled by racial righteousness and hatred, plus a lust for revenge against an amorphic Amalek, Jews going berserk in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria or Lebanon aren’t Uncle Sam’s proxies. They’re acting out their nationalism, something most leftists insist only the worst whites have, when in fact, nationalism is weakest among those pale folks with blonde, brown or red hair. Blacks, browns and yellows still embrace nationalism without shame.

Berletic acknowledges this himself in a Jack from Thailand’s video, “Thailand Father’s Day 2020 feat. Tony Cartalucci.” Since Berletic is a Slavic name, his adoption of a pen name so Italian was certainly weird. Why the misdirection? Should I call myself Witold Wozniak or Levi Ben-Gurion? Names denote familial, clan or tribal relationship.

In Thailand, love of nation is directly linked with loyalty to king. Though I’d rather not live in such a society, I’m not Thai, it’s their business. My name is not Somchai Ayutthaya. More troubling is their current monarch, Vajiralongkorn. He’s a veritable creep who spends most of his time in Bavaria. Each appearance in Thailand, such as seen in this video, is pure theater. In private, he’s an abuser of women and borderline crossdresser. Since any criticism of the king will land Berletic in prison, he only gushes about Vajiralongkorn here. It is sweet, though, to see thousands of Thais gather to celebrate their heritage. They will survive Vajiralongkorn.

In Bangkok two years ago, I stopped at a high school to observe their lengthy morning ritual to honor Buddha, king and nation. Their national anthem begins, “Thailand unites the flesh and blood of Thais. The land of Thailand belongs to the Thais.” Then, “We will sacrifice every drop of our blood for our nation.” Around that time, I also noticed no photos of kings at one café. This was highly unusual. Talking to the barista, I found out his sister couldn’t stand the royal family. This was her silent protest.

Everywhere, there were photos of Princess Bajrakitiyabha. She had collapsed at age 43 while walking her dogs. During Covid, rich Thais would fly to the USA to get Jewjabbed. Thirty months later, the princess is still in a coma, supposedly. No Thai newspaper or blogger would dare to suggest she’s most likely dead.

Berletic, then, must be extra careful when talking about Thai kings and their policies. His encapsulation of Thailand’s role during the Vietnam War, though, is at best bizarre:

Thailand has had a relationship with the United States over many years. It is complicated. Thailand was in a region the US was bombing. They were bombing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Thailand was next. The US even encouraged a Communist insurgency in Thailand. Had nothing to do with actual Communism. Thailand decided they would host US troops and they would play along. Then as soon as the war was over, US troops went home. That relationship has gradually faded since and it has long since been replaced by a much closer, stronger and more constructive relationship with China.

Thailand: (L): Chanthaburi, 3/23/18 ; (R): Bangkok, 1/4/23

The US had no intention of bombing Thailand. In fact, it used Thailand as a base to bomb Laos and Cambodia, primarily to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trails. Thailand didn’t just play along but benefited financially from hosting American troops. Those not stationed in Thailand went there for sex vacations. Thailand’s sex industry became the world’s largest during this era. That legacy is on full display today in Bangkok and Pattaya.

Though US troops did go home after the Vietnam War, the Pentagon maintained its influence. One example are the ill fated guerillas headed by a Vietnamese-American, Hoàng Cơ Minh. I should know. He’s my great uncle. In Virginia, he actually asked me if I wanted to go to Thailand. From there, I could follow him back into Vietnam via Laos. Knowing exactly where he was, Hanoi tracked HCM when he crossed into Laos, just north of Pakse, then killed him near Attapeu in 1987. Having spent seven months in Pakse and Ubon Ratchathani, I’m familiar with the region, though not as a guerilla. Only with Pentagon coordination would Thailand tolerate Vietnamese-Americans staging an armed conflict against Vietnam. It was more farcical than the Bay of Pigs.

Berletic’s claim that Thailand’s Communist insurgency was “encouraged” by the USA and “had nothing to do with actual Communism” is also absurd. Its main backers were Vietnam and China. Vietnamese Communists played key roles in growing Communist movements in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and even Malaysia. That these relationships soured later was only due to each nation’s innate nationalism. Oriental tribalism trumped Jewish gibberish.

From 1975 to 1990, Thailand had to absorb waves of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laos fleeing Communism, so it responded, often, by allowing its soldiers and citizens to rape, rob and kill them. After all, the land of Thailand belongs to the Thais. During last month’s conflict, ethnic Cambodians in Thailand were attacked, so thousands have fled home. Half a century ago, thousands of refugees were forced to return to Pol Pot ruled Cambodia at gun point. Stepping on mines, many never made it.

Like Berletic, I’m no fan of American imperialism, but unlike him, I also acknowledge the selfish or evil aims that are at least latent in all nations, and in each man, too. To reserve such agency to only white men or nations is to be, simply put, the purest racists, even if you’re completely unaware or mean well.

Today in the Phnom Penh Post, “Fresh claims that Thai soldiers destroyed homes, installed barricades, in Banteay Meanchey.” So it can certainly flare up again. On 8/7/25, Prime Minister Hun Monet nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, so the Donald has five from world leaders. They include the heads of Israel, Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

West Point trained Hun Monet’s cozying up to Washington has angered Beijing. In December of 2024, the USS Savannah docked in Sihanoukville, not far from Ream, a naval base upgraded by the Chinese at the cost of billions. On 7/31/25, I wrote “Sam Landing Jab Means Chinese Troops in Southeast Asia.” I still stick with this assessment. Having invested so much into Cambodia, there’s no way China will let the US reap the benefits.

Plus, Hun Monet and his daddy, Hun Sen, are surrounded by powerful Chinese, many of whom have only been granted Cambodian citizenship recently. Counting underworld bosses, Cambodia is dominated by Chinese. Much of the Huns’ wealth comes from the Chinese.

The Cambodian economy depends on exports to the USA, however. That’s why Hun Manet has parked his skinny ass between two chairs. Kissing Trump’s rump, he’s also assuming the Donald will last a while. China, though, will be there until eternity.

Busan, South Korea, 7/15/20

Warring Societies — Aug 15, 2025.

Talking to Kevin Barrett just now, I pointed out the obvious. Language’s primary purpose isn’t to communicate but to prevent outsiders from having access to our thoughts, jokes, abject longings, battle plans, animosities towards outsiders and underhanded plots against them. Through vocabulary and accent, we can already tell who aren’t in our tribe, gang or cohort, and these are people who supposedly speak our language. Their mispronunciation of every word tests the limits of our superhuman forbearance and preternatural capacity for charity. Exiled to Morocco, Barrett must daily improve his Moroccan Arabic to blunt, most pitifully if rather sweetly, a universal irritation or amusement his strained babbling must cause. Knowing abject defeat to be inevitable, most expats cling to each other and more or less sleep in the same bed, night after night, in their own minuscule theme park.

Halfway through that paragraph, I looked out a second floor window at Pato’s Bingsu to see a woman in her early 30’s on a bicycle. Stopped in the middle of an intersection, she was cursing someone down Ba Cu Street, then she turned to a second target on Trưng Trắc. She would look left and right to find more enemies, or just to see if anyone was laughing at her. This went on for more than five minutes. I had to assume some motorist had cut her off. Her “fuck your mother” was distinctively northern. Perhaps wisely, no one tried to calm her down. My effort to do so would have been self-serving. The male fantasy of saving a damsel in distress is universal. It would be sci-fi creepy if manifested in a stinking old fart, with blood oozing from one big toe, no less. Two times in three days, I stubbed it, walking barefoot.

With Coffee House at that corner, I asked its security guard what had happened. Nothing, he said. No one had done anything to her. It’s a pity, we agreed.

“It’s stress,” he added. “From society, the economy.”

“And she has no one,” I speculated.

“No lover.”

“Lover?! She has no dog or cat!”

When there’s less to go around, divisions become accentuated. The more diverse a society, the more conflicts it will suffer. Knowing street fighting will erupt, Trump is prepping his masked goons.

The best allegory of human fragmentation is the 7th essay in Chronicles of Bustos Domecq, cowritten by Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar. Through the persona of a pompous critic, Borges’ erudition and occasional lapses into a tongue-in-cheek formal language are exaggerated most hilariously. It’s criminal that Norman Thomas di Giovanni’s translation, as published by Dutton in 1976, is out of print. Stuffed in a carton box in South Jersey, my copy is irretrievably lost. Luckily this morning, I was able to locate an online version at archive.org.

Consider its dedication, “To those three forgotten greats—Picasso, Joyce, Le Corbusier.” Penned by Borges, “forgotten” here doesn’t just jar, but is nearly a wish or prediction. These “greats” won’t be so great. Of course, it’s only Bustos Domecq talking.

Podgorica, Montenegro, 7/15/21

In the piece we’ll examine, “The Brotherhood Movement,” there’s also a mention of “Ezra Fishpond,” plus Quo Vadis?, but misattributed. Like Borges, Domecq the fictional critic has a fantastic reading list. Here’s the story’s central contention:

Human kind, he explained away, is made up, despite climatic and political differences, of a multitude of secret societies, or brotherhoods, whose members are not only unknown to each other but who may, at any given moment, change their status. Some of these societies are more enduring than others—for example, the society of individuals sporting Catalan surnames, or surnames that begin with the letter G. Others, inversely, quickly fade—the society of those who, this very moment, in Brazil or Africa, are inhaling the odor of jasmine or, more cultured minded and studious, reading a bus ticket.

Beyond who you are, everything you do, or even think, from moment to moment, aligns you further with a tiny, select “brotherhood” or “society,” while pitting you against the rest of the world. “The most trifling act—striking a match or blowing it out—expels us from one group and lodges us in another […] the person wielding a spoon is the adversary of he who brandishes a fork, but very soon both are at one over the use of the napkin, only to split again over their Postum or Sanka.” With “wielding,” “adversary” and “brandishes,” conflicts are introduced. Just as in real life, there’s no real ceiling. Evil is infinite.

After +30 years, the most enduring image from “The Brotherhood Movement” is of a man getting off a train pulling a switchblade on a boarding passenger. Performing opposites acts, they’re natural enemies. I laughed so hard back then.

Walking to Cóc Cóc, I passed another masked opponent. Now, I’m subjected to a ruthlessly targeted and sustained sonic assault from tattooed enemies wielding video games and TikTok skits. Clutching my bleeding toe, I collapse, my brain damaged and soul soiled. Vastly outnumbered, I must nurse my wounds until one day, perhaps tomorrow, I’ll make them all pay.

With Bustos Domecq’s contention so airtight and unimpeachable, any counter argument deserves to be hissed at, nuked, flushed away or aborted. This feeble example, then, is only dished up for your amusement. Days ago, I passed a puppy tied to a motorbike on Ba Cu. Noticing his entreating eyes, I came over to introduce myself, which sent him into a joyful frenzy.

When his owner appeared seconds later, I asked, “Does he have friends?”

“Who isn’t his friend?” she smiled.

Though what I meant was, “Does he have dog friends?” she and her puppy didn’t make a distinction between men and dogs. Plus, this innocent hadn’t learnt, most bitterly, the meaning of enemy.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Life 2

If Trump’s weapons overseas are bombs and missiles, his domestic ones are primarily words.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Biggest, Longest and Hottest Wordsmith Ever — Aug 09, 2025.

Michael Snyder’s The Economic Collapse Blog has been around for over a decade. Its gathering of raw statistics is most useful. Snyder has also published seven books on the rapture, including The Beginning of the End (2013), End Times (2022) and Chaos (2023). Having gained a following, Snyder decided to run for congress as a Republican in 2018.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 11/30/24

The Idaho News on 1/1/18, “Michael Snyder says he is not a politician—but a firebrand, fighter and 100 percent supporter of President Trump.

“‘He restored my faith in America,’ Snyder said.

“[…] If elected, Snyder says he wants to be Trump’s ‘best friend in Congress.’”

In the Republican Primary, Snyder got just 10.3% of the votes, so finished fifth. Not every boy can grow up to be a congressman. As for president, the morally depraved have the best chance, but keep in mind that nearly everyone is already excluded, so stick to your fireman job fantasy, and only fools dream of walking on the moon or Mars.

Of 47 US presidents, only one had German blood. None had French or Spanish. Old World feuds are still being fought. Nearly all POTUSes were Englishmen with roots in the English Colonies. Though Trump and Obama don’t have this pedigree, they can easily be blackmailed. The compromised will wreck his nation to save his sick, corrupt ass.

Chastened by defeat, Snyder has returned to what he does best. On 8/7/25, he wrote, “If everything is going to be just fine, why are thousands of stores closing all over the country? So far this year, the total amount of retail space that has been permanently closed has surpassed 120 million square feet […] Store closings spiked during the early days of the pandemic, but in 2025 stores are being permanently shuttered at an even faster pace.”

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/8/25

MAGA diehards would dismiss this as doom porn. It must be fake news that 5,822 stores have closed during the first half of 2025. What about all those newly opened? On 8/8/25, Trump posted at Truth Social, “Stephen Moore: ‘Mr. President, you gained ten times more income for the average family than Joe Biden… Every income group did better under Trump than Biden—by a wide margin…’”

Ten times?! With every income group doing better by a wide margin? Is this like gas at under two bucks and drug prices being reduced by 1,500 percent? Far from that madhouse, I’m appalled and fascinated by this information war. Having kissed Trump’s ass so heartily, Snyder can’t blame his (ex?) idol for the very economic collapse he’s documenting.

As with the Holocaust, Israel’s right to exist, 9/11, Bin Laden’s supposed assassination, Jewjabs, America as beacon of democracy and champion of peace, Arabs as head chopping fanatics and Jews as always persecuted for no reason, narratives matter very much. Words shape reality. With all eyes on him globally, any American president is most powerful, even if he’s just taking orders. With Trump, there’s the added horror of seeing English being degraded most tragically and farcically. There’s no more shame in spewing outrageous lies in the crudest, most cartoonish language. Sickest are those who worship this crass idiot. Again, Trump mirrors America.

Trump’s tariffs raise prices, so people shop less or shoplift, thus bankrupting stores. This generates many more desperately broke blokes who must travel further to stuff cans of tuna if not a whole frozen chicken into their pants. “Why you look so hard at my bulging crotch, man?!” If it doesn’t quite fit, you can unzip to release part of the cold cock.

There’s a new trend of grabbing snacks from Walmart shelves, to be eaten in situ, but this lifestyle revolution can only be practiced if there’s still a Walmart within 30 miles or so of the storage unit you call home. Since all your neighbors are similarly destitute, you can’t even turn tricks to earn gas money. Five must squeeze into a compact, then, to go raiding. Wilding will spread.

Those who don’t have a storage unit or car to sleep in soon go apeshit from being exposed nonstop to the elements and, much worse, fellow humans. There’s always a healthy percentage among them who can’t wait to rob or rape you, even if you’re just a fetid sack well past your expiration date. Since it’s only “best before,” a can of baked beans stamped “31.12.25” can still be consumed a century later. There are good news! If you haven’t been bludgeoned or sodomized at a hundred years old, Trump can now pack you into an insane asylum. If you’re a Hispanic or American Indian, you might even be rewarded with an open ended foreign vacation.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/8/25

Though Trump’s ICE’s targeting of brown people has cheered many whites, it’s only misdirection. He’s screwing whites, too, only differently. Most dangerously, he’s normalizing lawlessness, on top of vulgarity and idiocy. Unleashing mayhem and terror, Trump burps slogans, cliches and lies to an audience lobotomized over decades. If Trump’s weapons overseas are bombs and missiles, his domestic ones are primarily words. Since these still work well on nearly half his country, Trump must be America’s most formidable wordsmith.

Even before it stopped making stuff, America was mostly about branding, misnaming and marketing. The worst bread ever was called Wonderbread, the worst cream was dubbed Miracle Whip. As the US declined, its self promotion became absurdly infantile, to suit its own citizens. Who cares if billions outside are aghast? In the age of selfies, the world is reduced to your face, regurgitated opinions, TV stations, bookmarks, video games, favorite YouTube influencers and the same songs heard over and over.

With American literacy reduced by 1,500 percent, James, Whitman and Pound might as well have written in Chinese. Luckily, America still has Trump.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/9/25

Fart and Run Communication Among the Faceless — Aug 10, 2025.

On 5/12/23, I made a four minute video of the Sacred Heart Church in Pakse, Laos. Since my videos are among the worst on YouTube, I don’t expect likes or comments. In March of 2025, one blanchelobo4420 came on to ask for the time of the English mass on Ash Wednesday. I didn’t even know there was such a mass at Sacred Heart. I answered, “I left Pakse years ago. I don’t know the time of their masses.”

Though blanchelobo4420 was in Pakse, he somehow thought the comment stream of this barely seen video was the best place to get his info. After asking the same question over and over, he snapped, “It is so sad that my several queries regarding the English Mass on Ash Wednesday & what time it is is being ignored. If I don’t get any reply from you, it’ll be on your conscience for preventing me to hear Mass on Ash Wednesday. I plead of you to please reply to my query ASAP. THANK YOU.”

An American Catholic who must attend mass on Ash Wednesday shouldn’t have expected to find any Catholic church in a provincial Lao city, much less one with English services. Almost every Lao is a Buddhist. In Pakse, though, there are Europeans running an Italian restaurant, French bakery and French restaurant, all clustered together downtown. Also, his hotel receptionist must have spoken English, or he wouldn’t have been able to check in. Despite these options, blanchelobo4420 had to harass a Vietnamese who lived 450 miles away.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/8/25

Two weeks ago, I received a message from an admirer of my poetry, particularly my “Brand New Products.” Since Alex was too young to witness my banishment from the US literary scene, he asked me for an explanation. It started with my questioning of 9/11, I replied, then worsened with my straying from polite or correct versions of the Bin Laden “assassination,” Jewjabs and, most damningly, the Holocaust. My collaboration with Iran’s Press TV over several years didn’t help. As my career sank, I felt no regrets. All I cared about was articulating what I really believed to be true.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “I definitely don’t agree with the genocide being perpetrated by Israel and the USA right now, but your hate for Jews clouds your literary genius. May one day you be able to escape the chains of hate, for they tie us down rather than empower us. Thank you for the answers to my questions and I hope your weekend is enjoyable.”

So my revulsion over genocides stemming from a genocidal ideology is reduced to my being strapped to “the chains of hate.” I’m sure he has no use for my “Less Than Cockroaches.” Don’t lecture me without reading it.

Days ago, I got a message from Avi Shmoo. “I just listened to your conversation with Kevin Barrett, and I’d love to be in touch with you. Thanks Brother. Have a wonderful, beautiful day.” Sure, let’s talk, I replied. In the warmest tone, Shmoo said he was reading my Wikipedia page and had listened to two of my articles. Decades ago, he also had a Vietnamese friend. Learning that Shmoo was living in Moscow, I immediately suggested we do an interview. I also sent him two I had done with American expats in Russia. Who wouldn’t want to hear about how Shmoo had ended up there? Sure, he said, but, “I try to keep my head down. I stay off the radar. So I wouldn’t want to use the same name (pseudonym) in two places.” No problem, I answered. Below Shmoo’s messages were the flags of Iran, China, Russia, Palestine, not quite Syria or Iraq, and Malaysia. His fake photo was of some fat, clownish white guy in a black wig. Though I had started to formulate questions for this Avi Shmoo, I never heard from him again.

These sketches illustrate how the faceless communicate in 2025. Appearing suddenly, they can just fart then run. With chatbots, it will get even worse, they say. It’s hard to imagine. “Real men” are bad enough.

Tentative titles for this piece were “Tales of Madness,” “Edifying Sketches” and “Madness Buffet,” with the last particularly stupid. The word buffet, though, did make me think of a distant episode. Since insanity is our default state, men were also crazy in the 90’s, but somehow less so, I’d like to think, in my incurable madness.

Around 1990, Korean owned buffets spread across the USA. They didn’t just serve Korean dishes, but Chinese stir-fries, spaghetti, salads, meatloaves, mashed potato and Swedish meatballs, etc. You paid by the pound. It was a winning concept. Walking by one of these in Philly, I noticed its owner standing outside. Puffing a cigarette, his face beamed with a naked pride obvious to every businessman, secretary, construction worker and student strolling by. Starting out in Muju, Asan-myeon or Oksan-ri, this squat man had conquered America, so it was only natural for him so puff out his chest and suck in deeply, so deeply, in fact, that there wasn’t enough oxygen for anyone else within a quarter mile. Suddenly, everyone staggered, gasped and nearly fell down. Seeing this, he felt even more vindicated. I wouldn’t have been surprised had he started crowing like a cock, or pulled his pants down to more fully display his cockiness.

 No less vain, I made a video this dawn that’s even more pointless than usual. It depicts humans and dogs doing not much in silence and darkness. Mrs. Seven can barely be seen scooping some ice, emptying a bucket then making herself an iced coffee. Sơn the security guard is already exhausted before starting his shift. Pretending to give a shit, I hug Mrs. Seven’s two dogs.

zero star lunch chez moi in Vung Tau on 8/11/25

Sadistic Addicts Ready to Convict — Aug 11, 2025.

By the time I could sit down at my first café, it was nearly 4:30PM. Since I would normally be out by 4AM, then have an article done by 9 or 10, I had added 12 more hours to my enormous tally of wasted time. I had woken up with a headache continued from last night.

In Buchner’s Woyzeck, the captain hilariously says, “It’s frightening, how the world turns round in a day. What a waste of time! What does it amount to?” He also tells Woyzeck to slow down his barbering, since the captain has no use for ten extra minutes.

Before drinking my guava juice, I checked on Mo, Cà Phê Cà Pháo’s kitten. He had just returned from the vet, where he spent four days. Counting two days he lay immobile at home without eating, Mo had wasted nearly a week. When not sick, this alert, hyper active animal never squanders a second. You’d never catch him with a cellphone four inches from his face, or playing the same board game with each free moment for an entire lifetime, or watching hundreds if not thousands of sporting contests yearly, with millions of commercial breaks.

Lying half dead at home, I did catch up on some news. A green card holder from South Korea has been jailed for at least a week, after his arrest at San Francisco International Airport. Unlike President Trump, 40-year-old Tea Heung “Will” Kim never murdered or raped anybody. More than a decade ago, Kim was convicted of marijuana possession, for which he did community service. He’s now a doctorate candidate at Texas A&M, researching a vaccine for Lyme disease. Though Kim has been in the US since age 5, he never applied for citizenship, however. Under any other administration, this would not have mattered.

Kim’s attorneys haven’t been allowed to contact him. They don’t even know where he’s being held.

Most revealing are YouTube comments about this case. sheilawilliams2875, “So he had a DRUG charge. Deport him.” karenphu998, “Drug charges? This guy needs to go back to Korea.” georgieboy2432, “Green cards are not a free pass!” JHtx991, “they should also remind everyone you get like 10 yrs in jail for weed in korea [laughing to tears emoji] with a 99.9% conviction rate.” tamelabarr6601, “Blah blah blah blah… he’s not an American citizen.” Most comments are like these. Led by Trump, the US has turned into one hideous society.

How many drugs are Elon Musk on? How many have you tried?

My high school best friend, Brian Robertson, introduced me to weed. Under Trump, Brian became a Senior Policy Advisor and Speechwriter at the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services. He’s also a Policy Director for Republican Senator Sam Brownback. At every junior or senior high school across the USA, anyone could buy weed from a classmate without a problem.

In college, I did weed and lines of coke, once with a professor. This was the era of Cheech and Chong. Not so funny is how the USA will turn nearly everyone into an addict, with self destructive behavior nearly unavoidable. With each waking moment so empty and pointless if not painful, wasting time while dazed, delirious or numb has become the most common solution. Partying means getting fucked up. It’s almost impossible to talk at parties, bars or night clubs. Starved of meaningful conversations, brains dry up, souls shrink and language dies.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/11/25

Now at Cóc Cóc, I’m five yards from a teenaged boy who’s been possessed for nearly two hours by video games. Sickly thin with horrible posture, he wears the uniform of the Vietnam America School, where tuition for the 10th grade is $3,477 a year. This barely Americanized kid isn’t just lost to Vietnam, but anything pungent, tactile or visceral. His eyes are deader than crazed marbles in the dullest color. An aspiring global citizen, he’ll soon have a harem of AI girlfriends to confide and jerk off to. Sex, for him, will be purely visual. Though living next to the ocean, he will likely drown within seconds of being tossed into it.

Before leaving my room, I did make a hybrid dish of San Remo Spaghetti with Cuccina and Armore three cheese sauce, Kikoman Light Soy Sauce, cucumber and roast pork. Though neither Mo nor Mrs. Seven’s two dogs would touch this globalist travesty, it tasted fine to me. To be alive now is to be adrift, or lênh đênh in Vietnamese. That’s almost my name. We’re all Linh Đinh. Culinary miscegenation is perhaps globalism’s greatest contribution.

Sơn the security guard makes around $2,000 a year, so no Vietnam America School for his kids. Fresh again at 7PM, I’ll see this quiet, melancholic man before dawn tomorrow. Impossibly slumped, that 10^th grader’s chin has sunk into his bony chest as his skeletal thumbs dance frantically. Tinny clashes of swords erupt nonstop. Now he’s holding his phone right over his crotch.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Slices of Life

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Empty Bellies, Emptier Minds — Aug 06, 2025.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): $2.55 on 8/6/25 ; (R): $1.33 on 8/3/25

Arriving at Coffee Seven around 3:40AM, I sat on its one park bench to use the wifi. Five minutes later I could hear Mrs. Seven say to her white bitch, “Grandpa is here.” Knowing it already, the dog’s excited paws could be heard pattering on the worn tiles, then she came running out to greet me. After setting up a few tables and chairs, Mrs. Seven went inside to brush her teeth.

Nearly always, Sơn the security guard is the second to show. Once, he asked Mrs. Seven for two diarrhea pills. Of course, she didn’t charge him. Another time, she borrowed his motorbike to go to Cô Giang wet market, a quarter mile away. Mrs. Seven only has a bicycle.

Sometimes a 29-year-old would appear. After his coffee, he’d buy a pack of Saigon cigarettes for 61 cents, so her profit isn’t even four pennies! Worse, he’d sometimes pay her 15 instead of 16K đồng, then conveniently forget about the difference. He’s not too bright a young man. I know from trying to chat with him.

Hearing music from pre-1975 Saigon, Half Lit was surprised to learn you could be arrested for listening to it just a few years before he was born. Of course, he didn’t know Ho Chi Minh had a Chinese wife.

“Just about everything you’ve been taught about history is a lie,” I said. “How many kings were in the Hùng Dynasty?”

Though this knowledge is so basic, he didn’t know it, so I told him, “Eighteen! How many years did this dynasty last?” Of course, he went blank. I continued, “Two thousand! You can’t have 18 kings over two thousand years. Each would have had to live over 300 years. The name Hùng Vương is already bullshit. Hùng means brave. Vương means king. Both words are derived from Chinese. We didn’t have writing until the Chinese came. There’s no writing on our bronze drums. These so called “brave kings,” then, are merely mythical. It’s impossible to have any dynasty lasting two thousand years, period.”

Half Lit didn’t need to hear all that. You probably tuned out also. Though a college drop-out, I did teach at six universities in two countries. It’s the village explainer in me sputtering. Sorry! Understandably, Half Lit has made sure to ignore my presence entirely since.

$1.66 in Vung Tau on 5/18/25

My 61 cent black coffee came with a free pot of hot tea. Leaving Coffee Seven, I walked seven minutes to the grocer to buy four cucumbers, six tomatoes, ten brown eggs and 14 okras for $2.55. On the way, I passed an old lady selling sticky rice for breakfast. These come in many varieties, but even with bits of meat, none should cost more than 50 cents. I give you these prices to show basic food items shouldn’t cost much.

In the US, you’re not just paying for the tomatoes but its aspirin spray, ethylene gas, long distance transportation, attractive packaging, placement in a large, well-lit and air conditioned store, plus shoplifting and spoilage costs.

The US gets most of its tomatoes, avocados, bell peppers, strawberries and bananas from Latin America. Though some of these can be grown in the US, there just aren’t enough illegal immigrants around, unfortunately.

According to Trump, Americans are too “inner city” to farm, “They’ve tried. We’ve tried. Everybody’s tried. They don’t do it. These people do it naturally.” Trump meant all these illegal immigrants when they’re not whacking white retirees with baseball bats from behind, or running around looking for white teenagers to rape. That should be reserved for aging white creeps who must grab last minute pussies before high fiving Jesus. “Naturally! I said, ‘What happens?’ to a farmer the other day. ‘What happens if they get a bad back?’ He said, ‘They don’t get a bad back, sir, because if they get a bad back, they die.’ I said, ‘That’s interesting.’ In many ways, they’re very, very special people.”

Before Mexicans, there were blacks, I suppose, to bend over under an impossibly hot sun, all the time, every day, until they drop dead immediately from a bad back. If farming is only natural for brown folks, how did white Europeans survive for thousands of years? Easy, they just looted, raped and pillaged from assorted peoples of color. I’m just using Trumpian logics here. If Trump University was still around, I’d certainly be hired to teach history, anthropology, sociology, agricultural science or business administration.

Standing next to a Trump standee fingering Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood or Heidi, I’d lecture, “Y’all are paying more to eat shit. Milk, eggs, chicken, pork and just about everything else cost less, yet taste much better, the second you step outside the US fuckin’ A! Try it sometime. Go dip one toe into the Rio Grande and see if the burrito you just bought in El Paso or San Ysidro doesn’t taste a hundred times better?”

Raising one skeletal arm, some kid in a MAGA hat would moan, “But perfesser, many of us ain’t even eating.”

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): $21.81 on 3/7/24 ; (R): $2.36 on 12/14/24

It’s not fiction. After my recent article about American supermarkets closing left and right, Troy Skaggs comments, “The Western Avenue Kroger in South Bend closed last month. I called it ‘my’ store because it was one of the few major label groceries that I felt comfortable being in. With the influx of Latinos, it always had good Poblano peppers in the meager produce section. Struggling yet dedicated employees, the place had a downtrodden but friendly vibe. Chris, one of the checkout guys, had some obvious physical disabilities. You could tell that mobility was difficult, but he was always there doing his best. I was in there a couple of days before it closed for good. Half empty, with everything reduced, some customers were filling their carts while the employees did their best to keep the place clean. Knowing that I’d never be in the store again, I had a hard time keeping it together as I made my way to produce.”

Even a chain supermarket gave Troy a much needed sense of community. With fewer illegals farming, food prices rocketing due to tariffs and even mega stores going tits up, Troy will have to drive further to eat less. Like millions of other Americans, he might have to use food banks, until those, too, run dry.

Just in case you think only bums do so, consider this NBC News report on 8/2/25, “Twice a week, just outside of Fort Hood, Texas, the armed services YMCA holds a free food distribution for the military community, and every week, there are more families in the line than food to serve.” These are wives and children of American soldiers, mind you. With their husbands stationed at one of 750 bases at +80 countries, these women, many with jobs, must still rely on charity. “One in four active duty troops are now food insecure, more than double the rate for civilians.”

Trump on 3/9/25, “We’re going to be so rich, you won’t know where to spend all that money.” Though he hasn’t toned it down, many still believe this master grifter.

Finishing this in Cóc Cóc at 7:59PM, I had to move to a different seat because a young man, sitting right next to me, was shooting nonstop at cartoony enemies. On a phone held six inches from his face, he generated endless rat tat tats with his restless thumbs. Not quite 30, his world has shrunken to almost nothing. Vietnamese retards are also multiplying at a stupendous rate.

A month ago in Amman, I photographed some stray cats at a 1,800 year old Roman ruins. Troy Skaggs commented that those beasts looked “more vigilant and aware than many humans, myself included.” Unlike most of us, they’re not trying at each moment to avoid reality or their own thoughts, Rat, tat, tat, tat! 21st century man is the least human ever. The phone has just moved an inch closer to his deadened face.

An older, saner arrangement still exists. Just eight hours from now, I’ll reenter it. “Grandpa is here,” I’ll hear again, then be greeted by one joyous being unmolested by constant bullshit.

Vung Tau, 8/6/25

Post Attentiveness — Aug 07, 2025.

Born in 1963, I’m already among the last to remember when flying was civilized, and any half intelligent man was expected to read at least several books a year. Entering college during the Fall of 1982, I wasted no time in using its library, so no later than halfway through my sophomore year, I had read Gide, Gorky, Apollinaire, Cendrars, Stefan Zweig, Whitman, Shakespeare’s sonnets, Roger Shattuck and Robert Henri, on top of Erasmus, Thomas More, Machiavelli, Rabelais, Calderón de la Barca, Marquez, Conrad, Chekov, Tennyson, Eliot, Beckett, Kate Chopin and Flannery O’Connor, which I had to do for classes. Being so young and stupid, of course I missed much, but serious literature is meant to be reexamined repeatedly. I read other books I no longer remember. I couldn’t penetrate Chaucer and never cared for E. E. Cummings. Even with little life experience, I thought Dickinson embarrassingly dry when not hysterical. Dostoievski, Kafka, Kundera, Borges, Cortazar, Manuel Puig, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Artaud, Jarry, Neruda, Yeats, Ginsberg, Buchner, Hamsun, Milosz, Simone Weil, Evelyn Waugh, CK Williams and Robert Lowell I’d discover before finally dropping out of college in 1986. Of crazy Artaud, I can recall two lines, “I hate and denounce as cowards all so-called sensate beings.” “And you are quite superfluous, young man!”

Paying $25 rent to live in a dismal house that was more like a shell, I then read 900+ pages of Céline. Just sentences into Death on the Installment Plan, I thought, This is very dangerous, but I forged forward. I’m mapping out my intellectual beginning to show that even a habitually drunk immigrant with an accent and philistine parents could educate himself somewhat if not distracted by constant TV, nonstop music or, of course, the cellphone. I bought my first computer in 1995.

Had I been born in, say, 1985, I would most likely be a slobbering retard who can’t wait to vote again and again, “to make a difference.” Of course, I’d comment diarrheically online behind an original pseudonym appended with PhD. Even as my house, mama and society go up in flames, it’s important I keep the lowest profile, fly miles under the radar and never dox myself. Above all, I mustn’t hate a systematic, steady hatred nakedly applied against meaning itself. To even hint at it would be anti-schematic. Please don’t report me, sir! If unusually brave, I might risk waving a hand scrawled sign at mostly indifferent traffic for half an hour every five years, among masked comrades.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on 8/7/25: (L): Coffee Seven ; (R): Cà Phê Cà Pháo

In any new city, one must find great bookstores. Before the internet, this meant actually walking around. Bookish locals could also help you out, but they were very rare. In Philadelphia, South Street Books was pretty good, but Factotum, also on South but on the wrong side of Broad, was even better. Browsing books on shelves leads to discoveries. The internet killed this practice. Finding books by key words keeps you in the tiniest ghettos.

A college professor, Stephen Berg, was the editor of the American Poetry Review. Among English language poetry zines, it had the highest circulation at over 20,000. Published six times a year, it also appeared more frequently than all. Most were quarterlies. At Steve’s office and house, books were all over. Of course, as a powerful editor, he had thousands sent to him unsolicited. Though we became drinking buddies, Steve got angry at me for two reasons. Already knowing I didn’t respect his poetry, Steve ditched our friendship when I didn’t immediately intercede on his behalf at Seven Stories Press. Emailing Steve from Italy, I said I would talk to Dan Simon in person, but that wasn’t enough. At some Manhattan bar, Dan said he didn’t need anyone to tell him what to think. Nothing I said could change his mind about Steve’s manuscript.

All writers think they’re underappreciated, overlooked or slandered. With fewer readers paying attention, this bitterness has only increased tragically, or perhaps just pathetically.

Typing this at Cà Phê Cà Pháo, I have in front me a 2024 edition of Ngô Sĩ Liên’s history of Vietnam, first published in 1479. I’m the only one who has shown any interest in this 1,284 page volume. Though the café’s owner has only bought it as a decoration, Ngô Sĩ Liên shouldn’t complain. Five centuries after his death, he’s still visible, if only from the side and afar, to dozens of distracted zombies daily, when they’re not admiring their own selfies or playing video games. At least he wasn’t castrated like Sima Qian. Uppity, name dropping intellectuals deserve no less.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): Cà Phê Cà Pháo on 8/7/25 ; (R): Ngô Sĩ Liên’s Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư at Cà Phê Cà Pháo on 7/27/25

Living in Vung Tau four years, I’ve only seen three people with books. One had volumes by some new agey guru. Another was reading short stories by Nam Cao, so that was encouraging. Last night at Cóc Cóc, there was a guy reading a book. Before I got too excited, I noticed his earbud. To read with music is nearly as bad as reading on the toilet. His author was the super lame Nguyễn Nhật Ánh.

Twenty-first century man has stopped reading everything, not just books. It’s a question of focus. Neurologically damaged, he can’t read a face, the sky, his room, city or nation. Skimming or flitting while taking a shit or masturbating with the worst music on full blast is not reading.

Just yesterday, one “john henninger” emailed me, “You had preferred kamala for a week before teeing off on her!” No salution, introduction, context or, clearly, any real reading, since I’ve never said anything positive about Kamala Harris. What prompted this idiocy was the first 142 words of a 901-word article. I canceled his free subscription. There are people who subscribe to hundreds of SubStacks, just so they can leap into a few to fart and run. It’s an epidemic.

We’ve sunk a long way. In his The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell points out:

The American Civil War was the first, Theodor Ropp observes, “in which really large numbers of literate men fought as common soldiers.” By 1914, it was possible for soldiers to be not merely literate but vigorously literary, for the Great War occurred at a special historical moment when two “liberal” forces were powerfully coinciding in England. On the one hand, the belief in the educative powers of classical and English literature was still extremely strong. On the other, the appeal of popular education and “self-improvement” was at its peak, and such education was still conceived largely in humanistic terms.

Again, it’s not just knowledge you gain from reading, but how to be attentive. Without attentiveness, which doesn’t have to come from reading, of course, there’s no respect or love for anything, only the most narrow, hateful and desperate form of self love. Sunk in it, you’re literally in hell.

Referral Hospital in Stung Treng, Cambodia on 3/12/23

Bodies As Tests and Lessons — Aug 08, 2025.

Nhà thương, house of love, is what Vietnamese call hospitals. If you’re looking for a whorehouse, it’s on a different block, but who knows? Somewhere, perhaps everywhere, there must be hospitals cum whorehouses, where male and female nurses can mount near corpses to send them into the netherworld. “Goodbye, grandpa. You should have checked in much sooner. Trying to save a few pennies killed your fuckin’ ass.”

At Coffee Seven, three middle aged guys are talking about hospitals and various ailments at 5:30AM. Before leaving, Sơn the security guard showed me black pellets he’s taking for his joint pains. They looked like rabbit turds.

“You should take some, too,” I said to Mrs. Seven.

“Why?”

“To feel better.”

“But my joints are fine.”

“Taking those, your joints will feel even better!” I laughed.

(L): Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital in Bengaluru, India, 12/1/22 ; (R): First Town Hospital in Belgrade, Serbia, 7/25/20

Like me, Mrs. Seven is leery of medicines, especially Western ones. She’d massage any spot that’s hurting. To stimulate blood flow, I slap or scratch fiercely. Sơn soaks his ankles in a tub of hot water with sea salt. I must swim in the ocean more. According to Mrs. Seven, sea water can even cure ovarian cancer.

“This lady would sit at Front Beach. The water came in and out, you see. When she was diagnosed a while later, her ovarian cancer was gone! After that, she became a vegetarian.”

That’s very good to know. “Do you swim?” I asked Mrs. Seven.

“No, no! I almost drowned as a girl. Never again.”

“Many people have never seen the ocean. Living by the ocean, we take it for granted.”

Most days, Mrs. Seven doesn’t stray ten yards from her front door. As a young dancer, she did travel to Hanoi and Cambodia. Before her parents died, she was literally stuck in this very house for 17 years. After her mother’s stroke, she had to take care of her every need for 12 years. Though her dad wasn’t so messy towards the end, his senility forced Mrs. Seven to stay near him all day long. Witnessing all this, her husband hid his pneumonia from her, thus hastening his own death.

“Once, he called me after having checked himself into a hospital. It shouldn’t have come to that. His lungs could have been drained, but I didn’t know.”

Having an extended family means dealing with death and shit nearly nonstop. Somebody is always dying. Babies and the aged must be wiped and washed constantly. More advanced societies deal with these annoyances by inventing daycares, retirement communities and, just now, Jewjabs. Killing them off is always the most efficient and cost effective solution.

While murdering other people’s babies, as is now done in Gaza, you can import black, brown and yellow nannies to pamper your own. Just go to any Manhattan park during the daytime to see them push strollers with white babies. If you’d rather not have spooky bodies in your home, pale au pairs are ideal solutions.

Last week, I got an email from a Vietnamese-American woman I hung out with just once. In 2017, we wandered the streets of Hanoi into the night.

She shares, “Smart move leaving the US in 2016. I should’ve just stayed over there! I am in Chicago, have been since 2018 when I left Ha Noi. I have been in a layer of hell, my father was hit by a car in 2023 and suffered a traumatic brain injury, and I have been caregiving for him with my mother and brother. I never had kids so it’s a cruel twist that I’m changing diapers every day. Even so, there have been moments of joy in caring for him, like tucking him in at night and realizing that he looks like ET from the movies.”

(L): just outside Pennsylvania Hospital, America’s first, in Philadelphia, 8/24/13 ; (R): mock hospital room at the Death Cafe in Bangkok, Thailand, 10/11/22

Bodies are ultimate tests and lessons.

Think also of babies born deformed from Agent Orange. The US has denied any responsibility. In Gaza, starving parents must watch their children die. With weaker bodies, they succumb first. Many are also horribly injured. Among Judeo Christian Satanists, sadism has become a necessity, like food. In DC, that leader of the free world is fussing about gold moldings and statuettes as golden nonsense oozes from his puckering orifice.

Troubled by bodies, we also dress them up with words, ink or pigments in linseed oil. All of culture is a perfumed dress. Beautiful bodies overpopulate paintings. Static and well rendered, even the most hideous are dignified.

Just before leaving Philly, I hung out with my friend, Ian. Driving through South Jersey, we decided to stop at a go-go bar. It was laughably lame, however.

“Yo Ian, I know of a much better place. It’s in Pennsport. Since cops go there, they can show everything.”

Cringing, Ian explained he’d rather not look at that. It’s a wound that won’t heal. Very bookish, Ian lived with his mom in a spacious house that even had an indoor swimming pool. Like us all, Ian’s civility is well tailored.

No less pretentious, I wear a peasant shirt and go barefoot. Wading into the crowd, I will pass real peasants in their GUCCI, Prada, Balenciaga and Hermes pyjamas, made in China. It’s past time for my peasant breakfast, so goodbye!

The upholstered seats seen through the back doors of a mini bus resemble coffins. Seven minutes away is a dead gecko, apparently ran over by a motorbike. Most of his green and golden body is still intact, however, though dotted with bluebottle flies fattening themselves. Today has turned out so much better than expected! It pays to buzz to alien territories. Stooping to pick up some fallen papers, a woman in an indigo dress with white dots appears, for just one second, like the most refined Pre-Raphaelite painting. At the end of the street in the far distance, part of a freighter can be seen. Piggy backing on the vastest body, it imprisons and protects the most fretful. Within seconds, this house of imperfect love will disappear from our lives forever.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Cambodia Invites US to Monitor Border Mess of US’ Own Creation

Brian Berletic on his TG Channel

Cambodia Invites US to Monitor Border Mess of US’ Own Creation

US-backed parties on both sides of the Thai-Cambodian border precipitated the conflict, dragging the independent Thai military (the US seeks to remove/co-opt) into armed conflict lasting a week;

Cambodia, after a hard pivot toward the US over the past year including visits by the US Secretary of Defense and US naval vessels to Cambodia and senior Cambodian officers traveling to the US to sign military cooperation agreements DURING the Thai-Cambodian conflict, has now invited the US to “monitor” the ceasefire using US military & intelligence assets;

The arrangement allows the US to insert itself into yet another artificial conflict it created in the Asia-Pacific region, just as it has regarding otherwise minor South China Sea disputes – to further encircle & contain China & Asia’s rise;

Source (Cambodian gov): https://www.information.gov.kh/articles/166406

Brian Berletic & Jamarl Thomas: The Secret US Role That Shaped Thai-Cambodia Conflict

What can the US do against China?

Preparing for aggression and “just in case” exercises. 

By Rostislav Ishchenko at Ukraine.ru. 

(machine translation)

Trump found himself in a difficult situation. He failed to convince Russia to sign a peace treaty (or rather, a ceasefire) with Ukraine on American terms.

As far as I can tell, Trump’s confidence that Moscow would quickly accept his proposal was based on an incorrect assessment of the overall damage inflicted on Russia by its confrontation with the West. However, even in the United States, many conscientious scholars who began their careers in Soviet studies are still influenced by the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union.

To understand what Americans think, remember the phrase that is popular with us today: “Everything that was written in Soviet newspapers about the West turned out to be true.” In the early 90’s, American Sovietologists were shocked by the fact that everything that American propaganda, with their help, invented about the USSR turned out to be “true”.

It should be understood that the Americans’ fascination with the applied nature of science (research should be profitable) often plays a cruel trick on them, and in the field of political and social sciences, it happens all the time. At first, American politicians, using a flexible system of grants, give political and social research the desired propaganda bias. As a result, regardless of the outcome of these political efforts, whether they are successful or unsuccessful, political and social researchers do not have a clear understanding of the processes that actually led to the specific result.

The fall of the USSR was an impressive geopolitical catastrophe, and the Americans, who did not have a clear understanding of the internal processes that led to this outcome, concluded that their propaganda was correct and that the American system was the ideal that humanity aspired to, but that was not attainable for everyone. It was like in the joke: “I can only imagine what’s happening in America!””The only thing the Americans decided was that if Europe has been so affected by the sanctions war with Russia, and even the United States has felt some discomfort, then Russia, which is also fighting in Ukraine, must be feeling even worse!

Nowadays, it’s rare to find revelations from foreign agents and relocants in the media, but if you recall what they said and wrote in 2014-2022 about Russia’s “inevitable defeat by the collective West,” you’ll realize that the West itself was thinking about this, and in many ways, it’s still thinking about it. After all, these foreign agents adopted their ideas from their Western partners.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the scientific support for American foreign policy leaves much to be desired. And this is not limited to Russia. Similarly, Trump’s concept of quickly suppressing China by shifting the focus of American efforts to this direction is also failing. The threat of imposing draconian sanctions on trade with Russia has prompted a strong response from China.

Now the US has to either pretend that this was a bad joke, but in this case, the entire building of Trump’s foreign policy is crumbling: Ukraine has been surrendered, China has not been defeated, there are no results, the systemic crisis of the West is deepening, the US’s authority is declining, the midterm elections are getting closer, and the fate of Trumpism is becoming increasingly uncertain. Alternatively, the US must engage in a sanctions war with China, which, according to their own calculations, will be a two-way street and will cause at least as much damage to the US as it does to Beijing.

But there is a caveat. The Americans were unable to block Chinese trade routes in Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. The Americans were unable to organize a major war on the Chinese borders. The Indian-Pakistani conflict died down due to the inability of the Indian Air Force to adequately counter the Pakistani ones. The clash of the western aviation fleet, technologies and techniques of air combat (India) and Chinese (Pakistan) showed the convincing superiority of the latter. As a result, India’s previously wavering focus on BRICS and the SCO has strengthened. New Delhi is trying to maintain neutrality, but while this neutrality used to be more in favor of the West, it is now aligned with the interests of Russia and China.

There are ongoing battles with rebels in Myanmar, and there is unrest on the Thai-Cambodian border, but overall, these crises are not severe enough to pose a direct threat to China.

The United States has failed to create critical problems for China in the region and on its trade routes, which means that the United States has not gained a tangible advantage in a potential trade war. Washington cannot count on a rapid collapse of Beijing. This will be a long economic war of attrition, with Trump facing a real threat of losing the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 presidential election. They may not even make it to the “final” by losing the Republican primaries.

The problem is that an economic war will lead to a severe shortage of goods in the U.S. consumer market, and many U.S. businesses will lose their supply of components. Neither India (which the U.S. is also threatening with a sanctions war, thus pushing it towards a closer alliance with Russia and China) nor anyone else can fully replace China in the U.S. market.

Initially, it was assumed that China would be quickly broken by imposing a trade blockade, and that a quick strategic victory for the United States would overshadow the short-term difficulties. However, it is now clear that there will be no quick victory, and the domestic economic challenges that a trade war with China could pose could be fatal for Trump, Trumpism, and the Trumpists.

We have already seen in the Iranian example that in a difficult situation, “peacemaker” Trump, like his predecessors in the White House, chooses war. Europe should fight Russia, and it is preparing to do so, while Israel, which attempted and failed, is preparing for a second round.

The US is assembling a bloc of Pacific countries to fight China. The bloc is being formalized with Australia, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan, and the US is actively working with other countries in the Indo-Pacific region. However, despite having a strong naval presence, the US has not been able to establish a land-based foothold against China that could be used for a proxy war, similar to Ukraine’s role against Russia.

Meanwhile, in the event of a war at sea, the U.S. Navy is almost guaranteed to be involved in military clashes (at least during the delivery of military aid to its allies, without which they will not be able to fight for long). China, on the other hand, possesses a nuclear arsenal (albeit not as impressive as Russia’s, but still the third-largest in the world), and Washington does not want to take any risks.

The Republic of Korea has recently been considered as a potential land bridge from which a proxy war against the People’s Republic of China could be launched due to the failure of other options. Along the way, Kim Jong-un could be punished for his assistance to Russia in the special military operation.

It’s not an ideal option, but it’s the best we have right now. Judging by the fact that the United States has dramatically increased its pressure on Seoul in recent weeks, “persuading” it to join the Japanese initiative to create a “Joint Theater of Operations” in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, which has already been supported by the Philippines, Australia, and Taiwan, Washington is rushing to force China to make major concessions, if not through peace, then through the threat of war.

Trump needs at least some kind of “victory” before the midterm elections, otherwise he risks losing control of Congress (one or both chambers). Therefore, the Russian-Chinese and Russian-Korean exercises (both land-based and naval) are conducted with a specific goal in mind: to show a potential aggressor that China is not alone.

AHH: a reminder of his column of a year ago, and how finely the onion has been sliced ever since (A nuclear provocation…)

Flush, Of Course, Without One Glance Backward

… When an Asian says the American dream is dead, you know we are in deep trouble.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Six months into the Golden Age of America, manufacturing jobs are down, inflation and unemployment are up, despite fudged numbers, foreign tourists have mostly stayed away, and there are no real trade deals, only hyperbolic nonsense posted by an increasingly deranged Trump on his Truth Social. More enterprising Americans have gotten out, or are trying to. Stuck and impotent, the rest must wait for the next presidential election, when they can pretend to vote for another corrupt, sold out front man for the Jewjerked American empire.

After firing thousands of government workers, many essential, and stealing data from all Americans, Musk exited without reducing the federal deficit. That was never their intention. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill increased the Grand Fecal Swamp’s debt ceiling by $5 trillion!!! Trump solves all problems by gaslighting even more aggressively.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25

During the Biden era, hundreds of thousands of Orientals flew to Colombia to pursue their American dream. Risking death, they passed through a dozen countries before reaching the Rio Grande. Such a complicated trip could only be afforded by richer Orientals. Thinking they would be gone forever, they sold their houses and businesses. Now, many are being booted right back to China and Vietnam, where they have nothing. Many readers must be thinking, That’s what you get for being illegal immigrants, dumbshits!

The US doing so well has spawned hundreds if not thousands of YouTube videos by Americans saying they can’t afford to buy grocery, have given up looking for a job, are too depressed to get up in the morning, or are worn out by living in a freezing or sweltering car that must be moved from spot to spot. Just taking a dump has become a major problem, often unsolvable. Thousands regret taking on life wrecking debts for a useless college degree, and we ain’t just talking about lesbian lovemaking, breeding and child rearing strategies PhD, but nursing, computer science, business administration and IT ones.

One video by a 26-year-old American born Oriental states that just about everyone he knows is struggling, that rent and nearly everything else are way too costly, so millions who are well into adulthood must live with their parents, thus postponing marriage, perhaps forever. Though concluding the American dream is dead, he’s still lucky to be exactly where he is, “I’m fortunate to be born in America. You know, I could be born in China. China! I could be born in China and my life could be not that great. I mean, I don’t know what life is like in China, but you get what I mean. To be born in America, that’s top 1% in the human, in the human race, you know, and I don’t have to go through what my parents went through.” His folks emigrated from Southeast Asia.

A telling comment, “When I hear people say ‘being born in American is the top 1%,’ I know they haven’t lived outside the US.” Another, “Highly recommend that you travel outside the country. That will teach you more about life than any job or education.” And, “When an Asian says the American dream is dead, you know we are in deep trouble. I am really scared for my grandchildren [weeping emoji].”

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25

A few years ago, someone at Unz saw fit to juxtapose a photo of me, sitting alone in a Lao hotel room, with one of Hung Cao, a US Navy captain who had served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. After losing bids to become a congressman then senator, Cao is now Trump’s Under Secretary of the Navy. Cao in June of 2024, “With Trump back in the White House, we will Make America Great Again!”

Every so often, I post a self portrait to show how I’m doing. My few readers could see, for example, how bloated and unhealthy I looked in April of 2022. I had just returned to Vietnam after 2 1/2 years of Covid induced wandering. In Cape Town, I became too fond of Arnold’s mixed grill breakfast of two eggs, two hash browns, two thick slices of bacon, three pork chipolatas, two hunks of fried tomato, six chunks of eland steak and six chunks of ostrich steak.

Since my highschool days in Northern Virginia, I had used booze to ease the flow of thoughts, spoken words and, often enough, even writing, so I merrily went on like this through the Covid hysteria. All this changed when I got terribly sick in Ubon Ratchathani, so that photo in Vientiane was me at my lowest, when I was still in so much pain, it was impossible to sleep soundly for even an hour, when it took at least 15 minutes just to put on my pants. Despite all this, I would not have switched places with Captain Hung Cao, with his nice suburban house, social status, handsome family and proximity to power. His having fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia only proves he’s a willing mercenary who didn’t shy from committing war crimes to serve a nakedly Satanic empire. There’s a bunch of YouTube videos celebrating clueless or immoral pawns of all ethnicities. A Vietnamese American, 27-year-old Andy Huynh, even went to Ukraine to fight for Zelensky, Jews in general, NATO and Uncle Sam.

After his capture by Russia, Voice of America criticized Vietnam for not interceding on his behalf. Vietnamese media responded, “Andy Huỳnh is an American mercenary. After fighting many years in the American military, he only went to Ukraine as a mercenary because of his American “idealism,” so after his capture, the American government should have spoken up on his behalf, not Vietnam.”

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25

To be a mercenary, then, has become the American ideal. Aiming for the American dream, most Americans are more than willing to go along with any lie, war or genocide, even if it costs them a limb or two, their life or even the systematic destruction of their nation. Just give me those front and back yards, please, plus constant access to Fox News or CNN, and an occasional Happy Meal for my chillun. If told to head to Gaza to clear out some Injuns for Jews and Trump Gaza, I will most certainly holler, Yessa, massa!

Here in Vung Tau, Mrs. Seven has more urgent concerns. For three days, there’s been an unseen animal inside her house making unfathomable noises. “It’s too loud to be a rat, and it’s not a kitten.” This morning, one of her dogs also vomited.

When Cambodia was still fighting Thailand, I also teased her about war refugees flooding over. “You better learn how to curse in Khmer,” I advised.

“If they say anything to me, I’ll just say, ‘Fuck you!’” I had no idea this old widow living with two dogs was so fluent in English.

Sitting alone in the dark each dawn, BlueTooth is still immersed in Eminem. Fully recovered from his injury, Cà Phê Cà Pháo’s kitten is as insolent and cocky as ever. Glaring at me, he struts. Since returning from Jordan two weeks ago, I haven’t seen that hobbling black dog that daily roamed all over downtown. I hope he’s still alive. As for Andy Huynh, he appears to have been flushed away, just like Tyler Zeigel and so many others. This world has never lacked for tools, pawns and mercenaries. After each use, they flush, of course, without even one glance backward.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Brian Berletic: Range of updates on Thailand – Cambodia

It is time that we understand something. The destabilization is region wide, and it is not really a question of who is worse and who is better. Both Thailand and Cambodia are deeply complicit and need to do a lot of work to escape the clutches of the empire. It is becoming useless to argue that this one, or that one is a little more or less complicit than the other. This is as a result of the major change that the world is going through now. Everyone needs to make clear decisions and we will find countries begin to flip-flop and oscillate between multipolar realities. Up to now it may have made sense to play both sides of the divide but the time for that is over. “If you are not with us, you are against us”. That is a reality that cuts across a vision of non-alignment of States. It also raises a spector of a bunch of empirical lapdogs.

—

Three updates from Brian Berletic:

1. Trump’s Pick for US Ambassador to Thailand Begins Lecturing/Dictating to Thais Before Even Arriving…

Reuters reports ( https://archive.ph/RPaLT#selection-1273.0-1293.200 ):

“”I think the first thing I would do is to point out to Thailand, which is one of our only treaty allies in Asia, that wars like this, conflicts like this, do nothing to help their people.

O’Neill also said Thailand should not lend legitimacy to the military government in its neighbor Myanmar.

He said the State Department’s position was not to encourage Myanmar to hold “sham” elections the military was looking to hold in the autumn.

“If confirmed, I would encourage Thailand not to recognize an election that does not include the participation of over 50% of the country, while most of the opposition leaders are in prison,” he said.”

***

Myanmar, of course, faces a decades-long US-backed regime change operation which currently includes armed conflict attempting to reinstall US proxy Aung San Suu Kyi and her “National Unity Government” (NUG) which was literally created and harbored in the United States before flying to Myanmar to attempt to seize power.

O’Neill’s comments represent the Trump administration’s intentions to continue this meddling and regime change right where Biden and Obama left off.

This is just another example of continuity of agenda and how EVERY aspect of the Trump administration serves it without deviation – even in places less understood and talked about around the world.

This also represents a continued, dangerous threat to Thailand’s sovereignty and Southeast Asia’s stability – as the US obviously intends to continue meddling, supporting regime change, and the many subversive movements and armed conflict attempting to achieve it.

US President Trump continues where Biden/Obama left off – trying to transform Southeast Asia into another Europe to use against China the same way the US uses Europe against Russia.

2. Insult to Injury: US-Thai Trade “Deal” Strips Thai Economic Sovereignty – Rammed Through as Public Distracted by US-Fueled Border War

Thailand – currently headed by US-backed billionaire Thaksin Shinawara – agrees to nearly 0 tariffs for the US while the US maintains 19% tariffs on Thailand (which will be paid for by US consumers);

Thailand must buy Boeing aircraft and LPG from the US (Thailand produces hydrocarbons) as well as open up financial markets to US financial corporations;

ASW (Amazon) and Google also benefit – Thailand is forced to give tax exemptions for cloud services;

Thailand – a major agricultural nation – must now import and basically dump US agricultural goods into Thai markets;

Dangerous, Irreversible Damage if Not Countered Soon…

To reduce US tariffs from 36% to 19%, Thailand has surrendered a tremendous amount of sovereignty and is setting the stage to weaken itself further and irreversibly if this isn’t either reversed or countered by closer cooperation with China.

It is also reported that closer “defense cooperation” was also implied as a condition.

The Thai public wasn’t given a chance to debate this or protest it – as it was rammed through in the middle of a national security crisis precipitated by the US-backed politicians in the Thai government and Hun Sen of Cambodia who over the past year has been working closer with the US.

3. Cambodian Government Wants to Nominate US President Trump for “Nobel Peace Prize”

If you need more evidence that Cambodia over the past year has made a hard pivot toward Washington, Khmer Times reports:

“Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol has stated that Cambodia will nominate President Donald Trump to the Nobel Committee to receive the coveted Nobel Peace Prize.”

Link: https://khmertimeskh.com/501730985/cambodian-dpm-says-that-president-trump-should-get-nobel-peace-prize/

This is in addition to growing US military ties with Cambodia beginning last year…

US Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin visit to Cambodia mid 2024;

Dec. 2024 US Navy visit at facilities China helped upgrade;

July 2025 agreement Cambodia signed with the US for wider military cooperation;

Together with the current US-backed gov in Thailand (which is at odds with Thailand’s other institutions including the military), the US is working both sides to destabilize ASEAN and create chaos along China’s periphery.

Sam Landing Jab Means Chinese Troops in Southeast Asia

Sweating and farting bodies are comforted and reassured by metallic extensions. Admiring a car or watch, we imagine ourselves to be just as clean and immortal.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

In 2018, a Vietnamese in Phnom Penh told me about a miraculous rescue. After being knocked over by a car, he was thrashed by its driver until another Vietnamese showed up. His savior didn’t just speak fluent Khmer but was a Cambodian general! From 1979 onward, Vietnam embedded Viet officers into the army of its client state, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. Some of these crypto Viets must still be around.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: (L): Vietnam Cambodia Friendship Monument, 3/4/18 ; (R): Covid vaccinated Hun Sen wearing a 2.7 million dollar Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime watch in 2021

Hun Sen’s military has plenty of room for suspect officers. With 125,000 soldiers, Cambodia has well over 3,000 generals. With 2.86 million grunts, the US has just 900. Granting titles and salaries to clowns is Hun Sen’s way of buying loyalty. Others can pay him to dress up like a generalissimo.

Kristie Noem would fit right into Phnom Penh high society. Seconds after arrival, she could be anointed as goddess, empress or legendary chauteuse, for a negligible fee in American dollars.

With so many phony Pattons, Cambodia has no air force to speak of, and no air defense system. That’s why it’s being knocked around by Thailand. One real general, 67-year-old Luong Samneang, has already been killed, with another rumored dead.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: 73-year-old Hun Sen keeping abreast of something, 7/27/25

Seventy-two-year-old Hun Sen, meanwhile, has released photos of himself looking through a magnifying glass at a military map, or maybe it’s just the menu of Le Langka, where an Australian Black Angus ribeye steak, truffled purée and salad can be had for just $34, barely a penny, so to speak, to this tycoon.

Though his official salary is just 2,500 piddly bucks a month, Hun Sen can afford a 2.7 million dollar Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime watch, which he obscenely flaunted on his naked arm, after being Covid “vaccinated” in 2021. This modest dude has also been caught with a Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Grand Complication Phoenix, an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Grand Complication 26582CE, a Richard Mille RM57-05 Tourbillon Eagle and a Richard Mille RM57-03 Tourbillon Sapphire Dragon, etc. His wife, too, ain’t walking around with no $9.99 IBSO piece of shit.

Sweating and farting bodies are comforted and reassured by metallic extensions. Admiring a car or watch, we imagine ourselves to be just as clean and immortal.

Promoting every busboy to general and shopping for watches, Hun Sen has neglected basic duties of state. Crisscrossing Cambodia, I couldn’t help but notice all its bridges were built by China, Japan or Vietnam. Once Southeast Asia’s greatest builders, Cambodians have become its worst. With his nation’s economy steadily improving, Hun Sen must have felt he’d done enough, however. On each visit to Phnom Penh, I saw new highrises, shops and restaurants, including super elegant ones. Costing 1.5 billion bucks, the Chinese constructed Techo Airport would have been opened had this war with Thailand not erupted. It will make DC’s Dulles look like some bloated Greyhound Station. Though there’s abject poverty even in the capital, it’s easy enough to ignore, just like they do in LA, San Francisco, Chicago and New York.

In a faraway land, there’s another leader who’s as superficial and vain. As his subjects work two or three jobs to pay off student loan, car loan and credit card debts, while clipping coupons late into the night to save pennies on eggs, onions and reconstituted chicken hot dogs, he’s fussing over golden cherubs, eagles, medallions, mirrors and even TV remote controls. He spent an entire morning gushing over two steel poles that must be stiffer and longer than any in human history. Erect, he admires their erection in full view of all chesty chicks strolling by, and cute little girls, too, with their made-in-China dolls. He’s never neglected such angels.

Despite its recent genocide and current misrule, Cambodia will outlast that distant empire, for they still know who they are, and they haven’t lost their souls. If you’re fine with your leader screwing pubescent girls or funding blatant Satanists who enjoy shooting teen boys in the testicles, you’re beyond fucked. So numb yet angry, you can only feel half alive with serial sadism.

Two funerals: (L): General Duong Samneang in Phnom Penh, 7/28/25 ; (R): The Golden Age, 8/01/2025

The US has gained much from this Southeast Asian conflict. Don’t rule out the possibility it may have prodded both sides. Chilling, it can now gloat over a Chinese ally humiliated, China appearing weak and the economies of Southeast Asia disrupted, with billions of dollars already lost. Southeast Asia is a bigger trading partner with China than the European Union. Just as in Europe, the US must block or sabotage all relationships that threatens to leave it out in the cold.

Having ruled for 38 years, Hun Sen is certainly a dictator, but whatever his flaws and miscalculations, he’s never served hidden masters to wreck his country. Further, he and his family have properly maintained their public personae. They’re dignified, even regal. Trump, on the other hand, is a social engineering monster. His belligerent crassness, arrested development, shameless mendacity and joyful sadism have set the tone for his mess of a nation.

As regressive and inverted Americans emulate Trump, the rest of the world is simply appalled. They see videos of masked thugs manhandling not just illegal immigrants, but citizens and even members of congress, with each arrest excessively brutal. ICE goons mirror the Donald, except Trump would have a hard time tackling a Rosie O’Donnell standee. Only his slimy tongue is half virile.

As for China, it can use Cambodia’s setback to increase Phnom Penh’s reliance on Beijing. You will need more Chinese weapons and troops, permanently installed, to prevent future disasters. The US having won this skirmish is the perfect pretext to move Chinese soldiers into Southeast Asia. Like Putin, Xi knows he’s already at war with the USA. Visiting Darwin on 7/27/25, UK Defense Secretary John Healey said his nation was ready to fight alongside Australia to defend Taiwan! That’s like me saying I’m ready to join the Armenian Army to fight Azerbaijan!

At 61 years old, I’m also qualified to defend Zelensky’s bank account. Most magnanimously, that pantless clown is now allowing creaking, limping old skulls like me to dive headfirst into his meat grinder.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Missiles Fly, Missives Tossed in Mud

… Hun Sen must be disappointed, at least, at the Middle Kingdom’s relative silence through all this, but who knows what Xi Jinping is up to. Sun Tzu’s ghost must be giving Xi an endless stream of great advices.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Consider this astounding statement, “She is not only misleading the public but deceiving herself—trapped in the very illusion she has fabricated. Her actions go beyond misinformation; they represent a deliberate attempt to construct a false reality to obscure her side’s misconduct and evade accountability […] The international community must not allow such ‘verbal illusions’ to obscure the truth.”

I have only replaced her name with “she.” Otherwise, it’s an exact quote, so who is this she? Anyone with a correct answer will receive four Melania meme coins (worth 88 cents), a made-in-China “MAKE AMERICANS GREAT AGAIN” hat, complete with the official emblem of the Chinese Communist Party, a Depend “Long Lasting Dryness” diaper with an exact likeness of President Trump strategically placed over what’s left of your disabled schlong (in honor of the Donald), plus your name entered into a most exclusive drawing for a possible tête-à-tête with JD Vance at the Dairy Queen of his choice. Only one quarter pounder cheese Grillburger, please, and no Coke Zero refill.

With all these clues, undoubtedly you’re screaming she must be Karoline fuckin’ Leavitt! Or at least Baghdad Bob in a thrift store dress and blonde wig! Sadly, those above prizes won’t be yours. You must pay for your own Melania meme coins. She, drumroll please, is Lieutenant General Maly Socheata, a spokesperson for Cambodia. Just ten hours after their ceasefire, Thailand accused Cambodia of breaking it, while Socheata insisted everything was fine. No one was shooting at anybody.

Somebody is lying. Since even truthful statements leave out key details, nothing ever said paints the full picture, but still, many people don’t even try to be honest, even if it’s just at the dinner table while talking to their children, or in bed while bullshitting with their habitually deceived spouse.

Thep Nimit, Thailand, 3/24/18

Knowing all this, even flawed accounts are telling and, often enough, even entertaining, if only in a macabre manner. This morning, Sơn, my buddy at Coffee Seven, told me another fascinating story about his time in Cambodia.

Drafted at age 18 to fight the Khmer Rouge, Sơn was never told explicitly he was headed to Cambodia, so he, along with all the other soldiers, didn’t know they would soon experience ungodly fear, privation and horror until they were packed onto over 100 American leftover trucks. With roads so bad, it took them three days just to reach the border.

“We were so young. Most of us hadn’t even dared to touch a girl’s hand.”

With 40 soldiers on each truck, this convoy had over 4,000 fresh recruits, all unarmed. As southerners, most had relatives in the just defeated South Vietnamese Army. Hanoi couldn’t risk giving assault rifles and hand grenades to boys whose dads were in reeducation camps. Among them were also ethnic Khmers. They’re all over the Mekong Delta. It’s their land not long ago.

Knowing they might not see their families again, these boys wrote letters which they tossed at passersby and street vendors, in the hope these strangers would send them to their folks. Many of these desperate missives landed in ditches or mud.

Inside Cambodia, their panic increased. Suddenly, there were no more Vietnamese signs or faces that were definitely Vietnamese. The proliferation of palmyra palms made the landscape itself alien. With each mile, home thus normality became more unreachable, so many tried to jump off. Knowing this, drivers were instructed to step on the gas. Dangling from the backs of trucks, boys waited until there appeared a softer patch.

“But how could they walk home?” I asked.

“They were scared.”

“Seeing someone trying to escape, the other soldiers didn’t do anything?”

“No, we loved each other more than brothers.”

After one truck hit a mine, the next one, traveling too fast, hit that crater, so both tumbled down the ravine. Just like that, 80 soldiers were gone.

Sơn, “They were scattered all over. Looking down, we couldn’t even recognize their faces. There was nothing to do. We drove on.”

Sơn himself crawled over a mine soon after. Released from the hospital, he was given guard duty, a relatively soft job. It was still terrifying. The Khmer Rouge were seemingly just beyond sight, and he was surrounded by Cambodians.

“We had a curfew at 7. After that, anything that moved could be shot. Mostly, we just shot cows and water buffaloes. It was completely dark. Some soldiers on guard climbed onto trees just to be safe.”

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on 7/28/25: (L): woman selling cold soymilk for 38 cents a bottle, 7/28/25 ; (R): “RUSSIAN DONUTS”

A while back, an elderly ditz said this when complaining about war refugees flooding into Europe, “When there’s a war, the men should stay and fight, and women should stay to help them.” Whenever there’s a war, cushy lady, people flee in terror, and you would too, with your panties worn backward and at least dewy. Just ask your silver spooned Trump with his chimeric bone spur.

Checking the Bangkok Post just now, I see that Thailand is still accusing Cambodia of violating their ceasefire. Sitting in sunny Vung Tau next to an avocado smoothie, I can’t even speculate what’s going on, but consider these facts.

From mid to late May, China and Cambodia conducted its 7^th Golden Dragon joint military exercise. This involved not just ground but air and naval troops. This cooperation between their militaries must have given Hun Sen the confidence to mess with Thailand.

The first Cambodian casino on the Thai border was opened in 1999. Since then, dozens have sprung up, with the ones in Poi Pet luring thousands of Thais daily. In this miniature Las Vegas, they could lose their savings or become enslaved in scam centers. Such a naked hub of criminality had to enrich Hun Sen himself. Why else would he tolerate it?

Similar crime centers exist across Thailand’s border with Myanmar. Embroiled in civil war, it’s even more lawless than Cambodia. This January, a well-known Chinese actor, Wang Xing, was lured to Thailand for filming, only to be kidnapped then taken to Myanmar. Frightened by this, millions of Chinese tourists stopped coming to the Land of Smiles. Finally, Thailand had to act. Its war against Cambodia, then, is an attack on Hun Sen himself, for he has allowed so many Thais to be robbed, kidnapped and enslaved, right on Thailand’s border.

Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): 7/29/25 ; (R): lunch chez moi, 7/28/25

Though the US couldn’t care less about Thais, Cambodians or whoever, it was delighted to see Thailand zap a Chinese ally. Don’t think for one second Bangkok has failed to get a green light from Washington.

Having just performed his martial dance with China, Hun Sen must be disappointed, at least, at the Middle Kingdom’s relative silence through all this, but who knows what Xi Jinping is up to. Sun Tzu’s ghost must be giving Xi an endless stream of great advices.

Here’s another twist: Hun Sen’s son, Hun Manet, studied at West Point! If Cambodia must pivot from China to the USA, Hun Manet seems ideal, but that’s assuming daddy and son will survive.

As for casinos as crime hubs, it should be obvious to any non retard over 12 years old. Promising you instant riches, casinos rob you blind while keeping you somewhat entertained with garish settings, cartoon figures, color lights, jingling noises, flashes of titties and booze. Casino owners, then, are expert at manipulating infantile fools.

As legalized criminals, they hobnob with all types of crooks, including pimps. Gaudy whores swarm tacky casino. In the USA, the construction industry also teems with Mafiosi types.

As a tireless purveyor of wars, coups, assassinations and weapons of mass destruction, the US government has been labeled the world’s largest criminal gang. It’s only fitting, then, that it’s fronted by a seasoned casino hustler, construction magnate, sexual trafficker, child rapist and mother of all carnival barkers. Everything Trump hawks must be the biggest and best in history, but only to fools who don’t know any.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Brian Berletic: Update on Thailand & Cambodia

Amid Thai-Cambodia Clash – Cambodian Military Visits US INDOPACCOM For Closer Military Ties…

Link: https://www.pacom.mil/Media/NEWS/News-Article-View/Article/4257748/royal-cambodian-armed-forces-delegation-visits-usindopacom-for-bilateral-defens/

Even as the Western media claims Cambodia is “China backed,” the US has spent the last year building back influence over Cambodia since West Point-educated Hun Manet took power;

This included US navy ships visiting Cambodia for the first time in years in 2024 ( https://www.voanews.com/a/us-ship-departs-cambodia-after-first-port-visit-in-nearly-a-decade/7911676.html );

And a visit by US Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin, and now this – amid armed conflict with neighboring Thailand ( https://apnews.com/article/cambodia-us-defense-austin-china-f05671e61c267f630b27b826a4e42d1f );

Together with a US-backed political party taking power in Thailand, both sides conspired to trigger a conflict, destabilizing a rising, increasingly unified region, putting Thailand’s independent military in the middle, and creating an opportunity to not only blame China, but attempt to sideline it while “resolving” the conflict in Malaysia;

When Obama, Biden, and more recently, Sec. Pete Hegseth, said they were distracted with endless war elsewhere and needed to focus on Asia – this is exactly what they meant – chaos, destabilization, and destruction;

Peace Breaks

With that, everything was solved, at least this morning in this drowsy city by the ocean, where corpses are no longer washed back onto shores.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

We’ll see if this ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand holds. If I hadn’t just returned from Jordan, I would take a bus to Phnom Penh, then go westward, most likely to Siem Reap. There, I’d sit in Best Mom because that lady is so sweet and lovely, and she makes the most comforting food, whether Khmer or Western. Every morning, her serene daughter in a blue school uniform cleans each plastic covered menu with a wet rag. There can’t be a sweeter emblem of Cambodia at peace. Mom used to rent out the cheapest room to Max, an American expat. She even fed him if he was broke, which was often. I imagine Max has finally managed to secure his Social Security payments. If so, Max can afford to sip Angkor Beer with his meals. It’s telling Max would rather be destitute in Cambodia than return to Iowa.

Bavet, Cambodia, 12/26/24

Talking to Alexander Wolfheze yesterday, I tried to explain why poorer, more backward societies are actually saner, and I’m making this assertion without romanticizing poverty. Civilization is a progression towards isolation. With each invention, you’re further removed from nature, community, God and even yourself. Air conditioning, recorded music, television, the automobile, shoes and the cellphone all do this. Looking up at me, Coffee Seven’s white bitch clearly agrees. Every few minutes, she drops by to make sure I haven’t lost my mind.

With Wolfheze in the Hague and me in Vũng Tàu, we conversed via Zoom, so 6,000 miles of separation were, just like that, gloriously erased, thanks to progress. Next time, we’ll talk from Saturn and Mars.

Before he left just now, Nali Beach’s security guard, Sơn, recounted his time in Siem Reap. He was there in 1979 as a half starved soldier. The Khmer Rouge weren’t content to shoot you in the head, he said. They had to chop your head off. This they did quite expertly with one clean hack of a machete. Like all invading armies, the Vietnamese also committed atrocities against civilians, of course.

With so many people freshly killed by all sides, ghosts were everywhere. “I’d be choked during sleep,” Sơn remembered. “An arm would reach in through an open window.” Waking up terrified, he’d run outside.

“This happened repeatedly?”

“Yes, so I’d sleep clutching my AK and a hand grenade.”

“Why would ghosts be afraid of guns or hand grenades?”

“But they were.” Whatever works, man. I wasn’t there.

Being in Siem Reap allowed Sơn to visit Angkor Wat. Four decades later, he still remembers one large statue of Aspara. She’s a Hindu spirit of clouds and water. Since Sơn brings up Cambodia often, his time there must have been most vivid, instructive and meaningful. Stripped of all comforts and constantly threatened by both the living and the dead, Sơn couldn’t forget his animal self while still insisting, at each moment, why he was still a man. He was the furthest away from any braindead, glazed eyed zombie not even laughing at some asinine TikTok skit. There’s one right in front of me.

Coffee Seven is two miles from Sơn’s home in Bến Đình. His going so out of the way made his wife suspicious, so she showed up one morning to check out Mrs. Seven. That lithe dancer with an angelic face is now withered, wrinkled and even slightly stooped. For his part, Sơn wouldn’t know if she’s screwing some plumber or housepainter from down the street.

“He says chicken, she says duck” is one saying. Then there’s, “He eats pork roll, she eats fermented pork roll.” People don’t just disagree but have divergent needs, too often incompatible. Perhaps Sơn can’t unclog his wife’s plumbing?

Stuffing exactly what we need into our insatiable mouths, we pass each other as shadows, if not ghosts. Sometimes, though, we do manage to reach through half open windows to throttle or caress a beloved’s neck.

Cambodia: (L): Phnom Krom, 1/31/23. (R): Preaek Prasab, 10/14/23

Before reaching Coffee Seven, I paused to chat with BlueTooth. Again, he was sitting alone in the dark to listen to Eminem, without understanding one word. This 42-year-old was also reassured by his usual LA baseball cap.

He knows what he needs, and so do I. “As long as we don’t starve!” I philosophized.

“No one starves!” he blurted.

“Of course, people starve.”

“The body knows what it needs. I know this one woman. Lying in bed for two weeks, she didn’t eat, but only drank water. Her landlord thought she had died, but she didn’t die.”

“So what happened?”

“She was returned to her family.”

“She would have died if she didn’t have her family.”

“There’s no would have. She didn’t die.”

Our mental flaws and physical deformities are our artistic signatures. Bluetooth is as delighted with mine, most likely. That’s why we talk.

Yesterday with Wolfheze, I did ramble a bit. Perhaps the most important theme we discussed was demographics. I’ve said the Philippines, despite four centuries of Western colonialism, is paradoxically more intact than nearly all Western countries. Though Pinoys have lost their names and native religions, they’re more socially coherent than Spaniards or Americans, their former masters. Yesterday, I also cited the example of Albania. The isolation it suffered under the harshest Communism actually preserved its true character. With Communism gone, Albanians are more themselves than the Germans, Dutch, French or English. I have the fondest memories of Albania, where I spent six months. Such lovely people.

Ubon, Ratchathani, Thailand: (L): 6/24/23. (R): 6/22/23

Europe’s methodical destruction continues. In Scotland, Ursula von de Leyen could only look sheepish and dejected as that bloviating child rapist boasted of how Europe will have to buy hundreds of billions of dollars of American weapons and natural gas, with cash it doesn’t have. Even if the US hadn’t blown up the Nord Stream pipelines that delivered cheap Russian gas to her continent, Europe wouldn’t buy it anyway, since Putin is so evil, you see. When von de Leyen and Kaja Kallas of Estonia traveled to China to chastise it for supporting Russia, the Chinese were so contemptuous of these girlish clowns, they sent a bus to pick them up at the airport. At least it wasn’t a DiDi Chuxing Scion iQ as driven by some retired garbageman. Scheduled to stay three days, this ditzy pair escaped Beijing after one. Having piously and coolly committed so many massacres against the rest of the world over centuries, Judeo Christian Satanists are still posing as peace loving respecters of human rights.

In Southeast Asia, too, Trump got his deal. Losing badly, Cambodia had to beg for peace. Having grabbed some land and taught their foe a lesson, Thailand agreed to cease bombarding helpless Khmers with Israeli made Spike missiles and American bombs delivered from F-16’s. Most importantly, the American backed Thais had managed to humiliate a Chinese ally without engaging China.

Mere spectators, we must wait to see what happens next. Often enough, we can’t even choose what to eat.

After Coffee Seven, I walked home for a spaghetti lunch, then wandered over to Pato’s Bingsu. Three middle aged ladies were already there. Their chattering, only half caught, was most amusing.

“My husband won’t fly. He’s afraid of dying.”

Second woman, “We all must go. My husband is convinced he’ll go long before me. He says, ‘You will take care of everything.’” She giggled.

Third, “Mine says, ‘Just throw me into a river.’ Not even the ocean, just any river!”

First, “You know what we should do now? We should go to that store and look at dresses.”

Second, “We can’t. If we don’t buy, she’ll curse at us!”

Third, “That’s just how she is.”

First, “It’s fine! It’s fine! We’ll buy!”

With that, everything was solved, at least this morning for three middle aged women, in this drowsy city by the ocean, where corpses are no longer washed back onto shores, where each morning, you can hear cocks and crickets, if not a fog horn from some unseen ship, with only its lights glimmering through darkness and mist.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Why Thailand and Cambodia Are at War in the Heart of ASEAN

what toxic confluence of factors has crystallized into a hot war in the heart of Southeast Asia? It starts with a family feud – involving the Thai Shinawatra and the Cambodian Hun Sen clans

By Pepe Escobar at Sputnik.

Fog of war rules. A crack Thai analyst worries about the intersection of so many vectors not making sense: “There’s something so odd about this war. It feels like someone is pushing both sides to escalate.”

Escalation, so far, also rules. Even with Tariff Temper Tantrum Trump (T4) now repositioned as Peacemaker and touting his own Art of Ceasefire “deal”.

Yet this Monday, it’s actually Malaysia – currently the chair of ASEAN – that de facto mediates, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim hosting ceasefire talks in Putrajaya. As previously confirmed by Foreign Minister Mohamed Hasan, “this is an ASEAN matter, and as chair, we should lead.”

Malaysia, in the end, did lead. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim personally broke a ceasefire between the belligerents.

And that brings us to the inevitable question: what toxic confluence of factors has crystallized into a hot war in the heart of Southeast Asia?

It starts with a family feud – as stated by a top Thai intel source, involving the Thai Shinawatra and the Cambodian Hun Sen clans. Thaksin Shinawatra, from Chiang Mai in the north, billionaire, former prime minister, recently pardoned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, is the perennial strongman of Thai politics. One of his daughters, Paetongtarn, is the current Thai Prime Minister.

Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier — he defected in 1977 — former Prime Minister in two stints (1985-1983 and 1998-2023), currently President of the Senate, is the perennial strongman in Cambodia.

The Shinawatra-Hun Sen clans used to be very close, but they recently had an “irreconcilable” falling out, partly due to Thaksin’s daughter Yingluck’s new husband — by the way, she is also a former Prime Minister — planning to open a large casino in the tourist paradise Phuket, something directly connected to the relaxation of Thai gambling laws.

The new venture will heavily affect Hun Sen’s enormous profits from his casinos located in Poi Pet, along the Thai border.

It gets way more complex when we factor what lies behind the long unresolved border dispute, now flaring up again because of — what else — Pipelineistan: it’s all about oil and gas exploration.

The current Thai-Cambodian border is demarcated mostly along the watershed of the Dangrek mountain range. Hun Sen is eager to gain even tiny pieces of land on the Thai side of the watershed, using ancient Khmer temples as an excuse. The whole area was once part of the mighty Khmer empire.

Hun Sen’s gamble is to set up a legal precedent for the border to be adjusted at the coastline. That of course would affect the maritime borders in the Gulf of Thailand, and who controls how much of the oil and gas fields. Currently multiple Western companies — including Chevron — hold drilling rights on the Thai side of the maritime border, hence the Western ‘support’ for Thailand.

Enter China. Beijing has a very significant trading relationship with Thailand: a $135 billion turnover. Compare it to a mere $12 billion when it comes to China-Cambodia. The Chinese and Thai militaries are very close. In terms of strategic interest, as much as China may be investing a lot in Cambodia modernization, including a mega new business hub outside of Phnom Penh, Beijing will not support Hun Sen’s — now backfiring — gamble.

Now we enter the most sensitive part of the equation. Thaksin was essentially brought back to the Thai political chessboard by the King’s close advisors in order to keep the liberal “menace” at bay. But now the optics are that Thaksin has messed up. And the echoes coming from the monarchy circles is that the King is extremely angry — and has taken the conflict with Cambodia personally.

There are several factions in the Thai military — an extremely complex environment. The commanders currently in control of the situation at the border are known as the ‘King’s men’.

So what next? For quite a while, insiders of the highly volatile Thai political environment have been stressing that the Kingdom has once again played a complex balancing act, in many aspects getting both the US and China on its side.

So there is a strong possibility the Thai military would push deeper into Cambodia, fulfilling irredentist demands coming from deeply nationalist quarters. In parallel, that might turn out to be a priceless opportunity to correct the colonial borders drawn by the France-Siam treaty of 1907.

To make it even more intractable, the moves overlap with powerful comprador elites in Bangkok abhorring — and bribed into blocking — increased Global South cooperation.

Yes, this is also part of the war on BRICS

Now for the Big Picture. Both Thailand and Cambodia, important nodes of the 10-member ASEAN, are deeply China-connected – from geography to geoeconomics. Ergo, imperial divide and rule applies – in spades, and subordinated to the maximum imperative, as in Mackinder and Mahan revisited: burning down the Rimland all around the Heartland.

That’s the current thrust, on steroids, by the Empire of Chaos. We ain’t seen nothin’ yet. And never forget: Thailand is also a BRICS partner. Chaos simultaneously destabilizes both ASEAN and BRICS.

The 6,000 km Pan-Asian Railway, transforming Southeast Asia.

Now for blood on the tracks — literally. A key New Silk Road project is the 6,000 km plus high-speed rail line that will eventually connect Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Southeast Asia all the way to Singapore.

Kunming-Vientiane in Laos is already up and running; a roaring success. The Thai extension all the way to Nong Khai – plagued by immense corruption problems – may finally be up and running by 2030. A Vietnam-Cambodia extension will link Ho Chi Minh city and Phnom Penh to Bangkok.

The current war broke out exactly at the Thai-Cambodia border. The Desperation Row playbook is as predictable as ever: blow up ASEAN’s new connectivity corridors from the inside, with a tariff war coupled with a possible regional war.

Globalsouth.co has been providing invaluable analysis, even suggesting a roll call of Highways to Hell promoted by the Empire of Chaos. So here’s a not exhaustive list of divide and rule instances encircling China, Iran and Russia, what I call the revamped “RIC” Primakov triangle.

It all starts with Gaza – and Palestine, on the forefront of the War on the Axis of Resistance.

Then there’s the ongoing disintegration of Syria via rehabilitated Salafi-jihadis; the projected carve up of Lebanon; Sultan Erdogan’s perennial double/triple game; and most of all the Zionist Axis to-be-renewed attack on Iran.

Russia will have to deal non-stop with several new fronts beyond the collapsing proxy war in Ukraine: the new Iron Curtain in the Baltics, and the dream of turning it into a ‘NATO lake’; terror in the Black Sea — the supreme MI6 obsession; instrumentalization of Moldova and the planning of an attack on Transnistria; MI6’s inroads among budding jihadis across Central Asia; and Azerbaijan’s mafioso game spearheaded by Aliyev.

Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, is warning that the proposed US take over of the strategic Zangezur corridor is a geopolitical gamble by “the US, Israel, NATO and pan-Turkist movements” to “weaken the Resistance Axis, sever Iran’s link with the Caucasus, and impose a land blockade on Iran and Russia in the region’s south.”

Moving to South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia, we have on-and-off chaos to be imposed on India-Pakistan relations (both SCO members); every possible attempt in the book and off the book to destabilize the South China Sea – all the way to forcing Taiwan into a final provocation against China; renewed shenanigans on China-Japan via the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands; and attempts at fostering a regional war between Thailand and Cambodia coupled with possible color revolutions — Myanmar all over again.

All of the above does not even feature the Africa front — from Somalia to Nigeria, a BRICs partner, all the way to the Alliance of Sahel States and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). And in South America, the target of choice is of course Brazil, especially after the success of the BRICS summit in Rio; Brasilia, regarded as a BRICS weak link in DC, is now under relentless trade and geo-economic attack by Trump 2.0.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, unfailingly polite, has at least summarized the pulse of the Global South: “The United States has lost its legitimacy to lead the world in the eyes of nations. It is no longer morally qualified to speak of values or peace while supporting genocide in Gaza.”

That means virtually no takers across all Asian latitudes to become a Ukraine 2.0 subordinated to CIA/MI6/NATO plans to manufacture a war on China. That’s exactly what Malaysia’s rotating presidency of ASEAN will be imparting today on both Bangkok and Phnom Penh. The ASEAN annual summit will take place in Malaysia next November. [01][02]

So what should BRICS do in the short run, as incandescence prevails? Move with discretion and cunning, and take the long view, for instance privileging “ASEAN centrality”. In the end the US may turn out to be the swing state after all, as the core divide and rule power centers of the West remain Tel Aviv and London.

Until Someone Like You Bleeds

…any division within ASEAN benefits the USA, and Uncle Sam loves nothing better than any ally of China to be roughed up.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

On 7/24/25, just hours after conflict erupted between Cambodia and Thailand, a 24-year-old was assaulted in Chanthaburi, 300 miles from the actual fighting. Employed at a slaughterhouse, he was just returning from work when two strangers jumped out of a car to ask if he was Cambodian? When he said yes, they jumped him.

Since Cambodians are generally darker than Thais, they could identify him. Notice how it took two assholes to beat up one unsuspecting dude, but that’s how it usually is. Most men are cowards. The bravest drop bombs on old ladies and babies from 50,000 feet. With its bloody, stinking and exhausting work requiring the strength and stamina of athletes, American slaughterhouses, too, are filled with immigrants.

going from Pong Nam Ron, Thailand towards the Cambodian border on 3/24/18

In 2013, I was stuck at Kansas City’s Greyhound Station due to a snowstorm. Having not bathed for days, I went outside to gently scrub my balls with snow. Back inside, I met a Vietnamese with white GI blood who was returning to his job in Minnesota.

My note from 4/6/13, “Tùng, 43, had been in the US 11 years, and was working as a boner at a pork processing plant in Greenbush, MN, making $16 an hour, for $400 net a week. He had been employed at a beef plant in Sioux City, Iowa, but that place only paid $300 per week. Greenbush is near the Canadian border, and the region is almost entirely white, but 80% of the workers at this pork plant are non-white, with many Africans, Mexicans and Asians, with the Burmese so adept at this grueling work, they’re allowed to chew betel leaves on the job, with trash cans nearby to catch their spittle. Saving what he could from his modest pay, Tùng had returned to Vietnam eight times, with six months his longest stay. Back in tropical Can Tho in the Mekong Delta, he would eat and drink well, and idle his time away, but that too would get tiresome, and his dollars would evaporate, so back to frozen Minnesota he would fly. Recently he passed out at the slaughterhouse and woke up in an emergency room, but since it happened just before he clocked in, it wasn’t considered a work place incident. Tùng spoke wistfully of a fellow Vietnamese who had gotten clipped by a forklift. The lucky man broke his chin, so thereafter was assigned the easiest tasks, on top of his medical compensation.”

A version of this is already in my Postcards from the End of America, but hey, I’m allowed to cannibalize myself. Plus, Dan Simon hasn’t sent me a royalty check in years. Jewish accounting can be most creative. One of Dan’s writers once barged into his office to grab him by the neck.

looking at Kamrieng, Cambodia from Thep Nimit, Thailand on 3/24/18

Back to Southeast Asia! With borders between Thailand and Cambodia closed, that roughed up Cambodian can’t go home anyway. Thousands are actually trying. Half a million Cambodians are working or studying in Thailand. A million Thais are ethnic Cambodians. Fifty thousand Thais live in Cambodia. Demographic realities are always messier than maps, with their clean, often straight borders and countries separated by colors. Green Poland abuts orange Ukraine abuts blue Romania.

The most visible minority in Chanthaburi are not Cambodians but Vietnamese, with their magnificent Catholic church. Though Wikipedia English claims it was built by the French, how many Frenchmen, let me ask you, ever lived there? Red and gold in its altar already proves it was erected by Vietnamese, and surrounding it are nothing but Viet businesses. By 1707, there were already Vietnamese Catholics in Chanthaburi. Visiting this parish in 2018, I heard people praying in a language that was neither Thai nor Vietnamese. Having been there so long, they could no longer speak or even pronounce a single Vietnamese word. Still, they thought they were praying in Vietnamese. Their ethnic solidarity is reinforced by a common religion.

Cambodians in Thep Nimit, Thailand on 3/24/18

Through an interpreter, I asked an old man who would he fight for should war between Thailand and Vietnam break out? Looking alarmed, my interpreter refused to translate.

During the Mexican-American War, hundreds of Irish immigrants defected from the US Army to fight for Mexico. Seventy one died in battle or were hanged, after capture. In the Mexico City suburb of San Angel, there’s a plaque honoring these San Patricios, also known as “Los Colorados” for their red hair. Many were actually Germans, Canadians, English, French, Italians, Poles, Scots, Spaniards, Swiss and even a few black ex slaves.

The more multicultural a nation, the more fragmented its citizens’ loyalties. Would Mexican Americans fight against Mexico? Would Chinese Americans cheer an American attack on China? What about Chinese majority Singapore? Despite the European Union, there are still only Frenchmen, Spaniards and Poles, etc., with each group further divided by regions. A Milanese is not a Napolitano. Bavarians can’t stand Prussians.

Poi Pet, Cambodia on 11/22/22, among travelers about to cross into Thailand

Everything is cool, though, until someone like you bleeds.

On 7/24/25, the FaceBook page of Warin Chamrap, a Thai district of 163,000, posted this letter, “I’m a Cambodian studying at the University of Ubon Ratchathani for nearly a year. Honestly, everything here is fantastic. I can feel the kindness and generosity of Thai people. Each day, everyone encourages and assists me everywhere I go, to help me learn Thai and absorb Thai culture. But ever since conflict broke out, my heart has sunk. I’ve never been so depressed. Each day, I worry about the future, about how people see me, and I’ve started to ask myself if Thai people will hate me just because I’m a Cambodian? To think this way is very painful because I’ve stopped seeing Thailand as a foreign country, but my second homeland, from my very first day here. I’ve never had any bad intention. My only goal is to learn and respect everything about Thailand while living here. With this current tension, I feel like an isolated Cambodian, but despite my fear and constant worries, I still believe in peace, and in the goodness of man. I wish with all my heart both sides will choose dialog instead of prolonging this conflict.”

Earlier this year, there was a 17-day mini war between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers. After it cooled off, Trump claimed credit despite strong, indignant protest from India. The American buffoon had nothing with this ceasefire.

Now, Trump is again pretending to be a peacemaker, but let’s be clear here: any division within ASEAN benefits the USA, and Uncle Sam loves nothing better than any ally of China to be roughed up. Thailand is using American planes and Israeli drones to punish Cambodia while accusing China of supplying Phnom Penh with new, more advanced missiles.

departure gate in Poi Pet, Cambodia, right on the border with Thailand, on 11/22/22

As I finish this at 8:01PM on 7/27/25, Bangkok and Phnom Penh time, this war continues. For years, the world has expected the USA to use Taiwan to attack China. Though that will, most likely, still happen, we have another front opened by the Empire of Chaos. When you manufacture nothing but missiles, bombs and bullshit, it’s all you can do. For Uncle Sam, mass death isn’t just a motto but survival tool.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks

Sam Backed Siam Slaps Hun Sen’s Kampuchea

As always, us fleas are squashed when geopolitical mammoths collide. 

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

This flareup between Cambodia and Thailand deserves a much closer scrutiny. Before you go to Brian Berletic, Danny Haiphong or, God forbid, Scott Ritter, it’s best you pay the utmost attention to every syllable, pause and mispronunciation tumbling from my tea washed mouth, as I perch most pompously on this concrete bench at Coffee Seven at dawn on 7/26/25, with a white bitch at my feet.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 10/28/23

In 1970, an 18-year-old Hun Sen joined the Khmer Rouge. In 1977, he defected to Vietnam with most of his battalion. In 1978, Hun Sen was a part of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Having helped to dislodge his ex comrades, Hun Sen was installed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of a new, pro Vietnamese government. By 1985, Hun Sen had become Cambodia’s top dog. He still is. His son, Hun Manet, is Prime Minister.

Though Cambodia’s democracy is as corrupt and fraudulent as the USA’s, at least their young men aren’t sent all over the world to die for bullshitty reasons. Like Trump, Hun Sen has used his office to enrich himself, but unlike that grotesque self lover, he’s doing what he thinks is best for his nation. He’s not cynically discrediting and bankrupting it to global laughter and mockery.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 11/13/22

Having installed Hun Sen, Vietnam saw him drift towards China. On 7/26/16, the ten members of ASEAN couldn’t release a joint statement about its beef with China in the South China Sea, which the Vietnamese label the East Sea, by the way. This statement was blocked by Cambodia, China’s favorite Southeast Asian tagalong buddy. (I didn’t want to say eunuch or courtesan.)

From 2022 to 2025, China overhauled Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base. In 1974, this pitiful installation near Sihanoukville had just 20 Swift Boats and 4 River Patrol Boats, plus, possibly, a tin tub large enough for a tiny general and his mistress to bathe in. After ousting the Khmer Rouge, Vietnam improved this base, but it’s China’s now, though warships from the USA, Canada and Japan have visited. This is China’s closest port to the critical Strait of Malacca, where most of its Middle East oil must pass. [01][02]

In August of 2024, China began constructing the Funan Techo Canal. When finished, it will allow Cambodian container traffic to bypass, almost entirely, Vietnamese ports, most notably Vũng Tàu’s Cái Mép. Regarding concerns this canal will also dry up Vietnamese agricultural land downstream, Cambodia says it will actually reduce floods, so shut up already! [03][04][05]