Hiroshima, Japan, moments after the US bomb was dropped
It’s Friday afternoon Sentients and all hell is breaking loose on the US Stock Market following Trump’s “doubling down on a busted flush” roll of the Tariff dice. We’re in economic no mans land now. Earlier this morning, Trump laughingly chided China’s 38% tariff response as not “playing” the “game” right. It’s all a game to him. His money’s safely offshore, no doubt.
The thing about the US is everything is a high noon shoot out. No time for introspection, self reflection or pause for consideration of the effects on others or in the long term. Americans leave that up to others. Luckily for my Beloved Sentient readers I have an excellent source of introspection and reflection–a poster I just discovered on X – Sony Thang. He’s a Vietnamese who lives in Europe now.
In the selections from his poetic analysis that I have copied below he reflects first on Japan. Last week some pundits in the US opined that it was an okay strategy to threaten and insult allies like Canada–because as they said: “Look at Japan, we nuked them at the end of WWII and they’re our best friends now.” Well, said Thang, hold on a bit. Is Japan really the friend of the United States? Read what he says below keeping in mind that Thang was born in a nation that stood up to the US and defeated it, kicking it out of their territory at great cost:
********
by X Poster Sony Thang
ʙᴏʀɴ ɪɴ ᴠɪᴇᴛɴᴀᴍ ɢʀᴇᴡ ᴜᴘ ɪɴ ᴇᴜʀᴏᴘᴇ ʟɪᴠᴇ ɪɴ ᴀꜱɪᴀ
ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏrʟᴅ ɪs ʏᴏᴜrs nxt.vn Joined March 2009
They didn’t nuke Japan to win a war.
The war was already ending.
They did it to make a point.
To show the world what happens when you defy them.
To turn Hiroshima and Nagasaki into warnings.
Mushroom-cloud monoliths carved with the words: Obey.
And now, decades later, they look at Japan’s bowed head and call it peace.
But it isn’t peace. It’s post-traumatic obedience.
It’s colonized memory wrapped in consumer electronics.
It’s a spine shattered by fire, held together by trade deals and shame.
And the saddest part? They still mock Japan for kneeling—after they were the ones who broke its back.
This is the American disease: To kill, and then demand gratitude.
To humiliate, and then expect loyalty.
To annihilate, and then preach about freedom.
And they wonder why the world is turning.
Why Iran refuses to bow.
Why Cuba still holds its line.
Why Vietnam bled for a thousand years but never broke.
Because there is a force they will never understand:
Dignity.
Dignity does not forget.
Dignity does not stay buried beneath rubble forever.
Once awakened, it waits.
It watches. It remembers. Japan may still kneel—for now.
But history has a long memory.
And I hope, one day, it teaches every nation still licking American boots the same lesson we learned in the jungles of Vietnam: It is better to die on your feet than live in the shadow of a mushroom cloud, calling your executioner “friend.”
*********
Greencrow continues: X is now full of interesting stats re Canada that most Canadians never knew–here’s one:
Most educated countries:
* % of 25- to 34-year-olds having completed tertiary education Source: OECD
South Korea – : 69%
Canada : 66%
Japan : 64%
Luxembourg : 63%
Ireland : 63%
Russia : 62%
Lithuania : 57%
UK : 57%
Netherlands : 55%
Norway : 55%
Australia : 54%
Switzerland : 52%
United States : 51%
Belgium : 51%
France : 50%
Sweden : 49%
Denmark : 49%
Spain : 48%
Slovenia : 48%
Portugal : 47%
Israel : 46%
Latvia : 45%
New Zealand : 45%
Greece : 44%
Estonia : 43%
Austria : 42%
Iceland : 42%
Poland : 40%
Chile : 40%
Finland : 40%
Turkey : 40%
Slovakia : 39%
Germany : 36%
Czechia : 35%
Hungary : 33%
Colombia : 31%
Costa Rica : 30%
Italy : 28%
Mexico : 27%
China : 27%
Saudi Arabia : 26%
Brazil : 23%
India : 21%
Argentina : 19%
Indonesia : 18%
South Africa : 15%
* % of 25- to 34-year-olds having completed tertiary education Source: OECD
************
Greencrow continues: Here’s a meme I’ve started on X to mess with the minds of Americans and Canadians alike. It is actually the truth as I see it:
In the long planned CIA/CSIS plot to assassinate Canada, the role of patsy has been assigned to China; the role of limousine driver has been assigned to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith; the roll of Lyndon B Johnson has been assigned to Donald J. Trump; and the role of Israel will be played by Israel.
*********
Greencrow continues: Here’s an Economics 101 analysis of the Trump tariffs by Harvard Economics Professor Jeffrey Sacks. I found it easy to understand and right on the money.
JEFFREY SACHS: 20 year teacher of economics at Harvard University
“Tariffs are going to lower living standards. They’re going to wreck the US economy, and they’re being put on for unbelievably bizarre and mistaken reasons that are completely fallacious.
Let me explain. The United States runs a large deficit in its trade in goods and services — what’s called the current account of the United States — and that deficit is about a trillion dollars. Trump says, ‘Oh, that’s because other countries are ripping off the United States.’ I can’t even begin to say how absurd that line is. [The word is childish.]
Running a current account deficit means — and it means precisely — that the United States is spending more than it’s producing. That’s what leads to a deficit. You spend more than you produce. And we spend more than we produce because we have very low saving in this country.
We have an enormous budget deficit. So the government is like the national credit card — it runs on credit. It transfers money, pays for wars, pays for Israel’s wars, pays for military bases in 80 countries around the world, pays for that more than a trillion-dollar-a-year military establishment, and hundreds of billions more of associated spending on the military-industrial complex.
And it gives tax cuts for the richest Americans. It allows for tax evasion by the richest Americans — and I mean evasion, because it doesn’t do audits, and it guts enforcement of the tax laws.
So we hemorrhage deficits and have rising public debt. And because of all that, the spending of our country is much larger than our national income. It’s a trillion dollars more than national income. It is exactly the imbalance of our imports of goods and services over our exports of goods and services.
All of this is to say that what Trump calls a ‘ripoff’ is just the absolute irresponsibility of the political class in Washington. It’s a corrupt, plutocratic gangsterism that gives away the taxes and tax cuts to the richest people and goes on war after war — on credit. And that leads to these large deficits that Trump then blames on other countries.
Now he’s going to correct these deficits, he thinks, by raising tariffs. And of course, it’s going to do nothing of the kind. The deficits are going to continue because they come from the profligacy of Washington. They don’t come from the fact that other countries are ripping us off. So he’ll raise the tariffs. Americans will shift their spending, say, from an imported automobile to domestic automobiles. That’s true. They’ll pay higher prices for those domestic automobiles. And our auto industry will export less abroad. So yes — there will be fewer imports and fewer exports, and the balance won’t budge.
And none of it’s going to change the fiscal recklessness. Because what’s Trump’s highest aspiration? It is to continue tax cuts for the richest Americans, which is going to cost another $4 trillion over the next 10 years in the budget. Because these tax cuts are supposed to end, but he says, ‘No, no, no — these are taxes for my rich donors, so they’re going to continue.’ So he’s not going to solve the budget crisis. He’s not going to solve the trade deficit — because that comes from the budget crisis.
But what he’s going to do is lower the living standards of our country and the world. Because trade is beneficial in living standards — it’s called gains from trade. We buy more cheaply. We sell goods that we have a comparative advantage in. And both sides gain from trade. Of course, we overdo it, because we overspend — but that’s a completely different thing.
No one’s ripping off the United States by these numbers. I don’t know whether it’s just rhetoric or ignorance or confusion, but it’s unbelievably bad economic policy. It will come to no good. And incidentally, you mentioned rightly that tariffs are, of course, a tax. So who’s supposed to have authority over taxes? [Congress.] And Congress has nothing to say in this.
This is a one-person show. What did we become in this country? Even King George wouldn’t levy taxes without the British Parliament in the 18th century. So what happened to this country? Trump just says, ‘Oh, it’s an emergency,’ and now we have one-person rule — and one-person rule on completely fallacious premises that don’t pass the first day of study of what a trade deficit is.
I taught that for more than 20 years at Harvard University — what is a trade deficit, how does it relate to the excess of spending over production, how does it relate to the excess of investment in a country over a low saving rate? Well, none of this seems to register. No one asks a question. There isn’t a day of hearings. There isn’t any analysis.
It’s a one-person show based on economic fallacies that are going to wreck our economy, wreck the world trading system. And I can tell you — all over the world, because I am talking with leaders all over the world, and recently in Asia — the words to describe this, you can’t say in polite company.”
*********
Greencrow continues: Another poetic geopolitical analysis from X poster Sony Thang:
“America has repressed its shadow for too long.
America has repressed its shadow for too long.
The wars, the coups, the debt, the militarism, the tax cuts for the rich, the collapsing infrastructure, the propaganda dressed as patriotism.
All of it denied.
All of it externalized.
So now it projects.
It imagines enemies in every mirror. China. Russia. North Korea. Iran. Venezuela. Europe. Anyone but itself.
And tariffs are just the latest projection. A child’s tantrum with adult consequences.
You see, an empire doesn’t go mad all at once. It rots slowly.
One lie at a time.
One war at a time.
One delusion at a time.
And eventually, the lies become policy, the delusions become doctrine, and the madness becomes normalized.
Institutionalized.
Legislated.
That’s where we are now. A trillion-dollar military. Eight hundred bases. Permanent war.
And now tariffs to punish the world for not collapsing alongside America’s mythology.
Trump didn’t create this. He channeled it. He gave the madness a voice.
But the madness was already there—buried beneath layers of flag-waving and free-market fantasies.
He just made it louder. Cruder. More honest.
And what’s most disturbing is that no one truly pushes back. Not the press. Not the economists. Not Congress. Not the so-called opposition.
Because deep down, they all serve the same illusion: That America is still “exceptional.” Still entitled to rule.
Still innocent.
Still above the consequences of its own behavior.
But the world has changed. The myth is cracking. The empire is naked.
And tariffs—these absurd, self-harming, inflation-driving, ally-alienating tariffs—are just the scream of a wounded giant who can no longer hide the limp.
This isn’t about trade. It’s about identity. It’s about a nation that cannot admit its own economic model—war, debt, consumption, greed—is unsustainable.
It’s about a superpower having a psychotic break on the global stage, screaming at its reflection while everyone watches in silence.
But not all of us are silent. Some of us have lived on the receiving end of this madness. Colonized. Bombed. Embargoed.
Sanctioned.
Some of us remember when the U.S. called us “the threat”—just before it rained hell on our homes.
We learned then what America is only learning now: If you never face your shadow, your shadow will rule you.
It will distort your judgment. It will destroy your allies. And eventually, it will consume you.
Tariffs won’t save America. Nothing will—until it looks in the mirror and stops seeing monsters everywhere but in itself. But empires don’t heal.
They collapse.
And sometimes collapse is the first honest thing they do.“
**********
Greencrow concludes: I have decided not to vote at all in the upcoming Canadian Federal Selection. This is the first time in my entire life I have not voted federally. At some points in time I have spoiled my ballot rather than voting for the parties available but this time I don’t think I will even bother to spoil my ballot.
I can’t vote for the Liberals because it was the Liberal CovID hoax and Mandates and hospital protocols that took the lives of two of my brothers. One died isolated and alone from hospital malpractice/covid protocols in the Collingwood Ontario hospital in March of 2021 and the other died a year ago from a brain bleed caused by five shots of the experimental mRNA injections, which he was forced to take because he was handicapped and lived in a staffed resource. So I will never vote for the murderers of my brothers.
And I will never vote for the Conservatives because Pierre Poilievre has been dog whistling to Donald Trump and the US Zionists for years but particularly in the following quote he made a month or two ago:
“Israel bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities would be Israel’s gift to humanity.”
In my opinion, that statement alone made him unfit for office.
I have voted for the PPC led by Maxime Bernier for the past three elections but have decided not to do so this time because Maxime has also dog whistled Trump and Trump Supporters and has not spoken out in support of the Palestinians in their effort to survive the relentless Israeli genocide. In my opinion this is the major issue of our times and anyone who sits on the fence and by their silence supports genocide–does not deserve my vote. So, there you have it. I will close this post with one more comment by Sony Thang copied off X::
And, finally, more from Sony Thang:
No tariff can fix the fact that the United States is addicted to unsustainable war, unsustainable consumption, unsustainable lies.
No tariff can reverse the psychological damage of 80 years of global dominance without introspection.
No tariff can make up for the fact that this country has become what it once claimed to oppose: an empire governed by force, fraud, and fear.
The fantasy is over.
The numbers don’t lie.
And neither do the empty shelves. The falling wages. The decaying cities.
The rage. The despair. The loneliness.
These are not foreign imports.
These are homemade.
Greencrow as the crow flies 