At the security conference in Germany we just saw Trump make a classic adaptation of John Boyd’s OODA-loop to destroy his NATO and EU enemies.
Outside the 2025 Munich Security Conference, Bayerischer Hof, Feb. 14. (Courtesy MSC/Daniel Kopatsch)
“The man’s enlarged my mind. He’s a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he’ll, uh, well, you’ll say hello to him, right? And he’ll just walk right by you, and he won’t even notice you. And suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say do you know that “if” is the middle word in life?
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you – I mean I’m no, I can’t — I’m a little man, I’m a little man, he’s, he’s a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas…”
—Unnamed photojournalist, Apocalypse Now
By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News
Lately I have been asked to try and make sense of Donald Trump and the first three weeks of his presidency.
And, more specifically, to comment on the drama that unfolded in Munich these past few days.
As I stumble through the mental gymnastics of trying to explain the unexplainable, my brain takes me to the classic Francis Ford Coppola film, Apocalypse Now, and the character of the “unnamed photojournalist” played in manic fashion by Dennis Hopper.
In a world strewn with freshly killed villagers, with war-painted murderers dressed as soldiers posturing in the background, Hopper’s character tries to tell a disbelieving Captain Willard (played magnificently by Martin Sheen) that the madness he sees around him represents a portal to a higher plane of thinking.
Just don’t pay attention to the truth your eyes are dispatching to your brain.
“The heads,” the unnamed photojournalist tells Willard. “You’re looking at the heads. Sometimes he goes too far. He’s the first one to admit it.”
The unnamed photojournalist is derived from the character of the Harlequin in Joseph Conrad’s classic novel, Heart of Darkness, from which Coppola fashioned the warped narrative of Apocalypse Now.
The Harlequin is a Russian sailor who served as Kurtz’s only European companion in the months leading up to the arrival of Marlow’s steamship. What Marlow sees as evidence of insanity, the Harlequin explains away as part of Kurtz’s grand design, incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t lost his own mind in the detached reality of Kurtz’s universe.
When asked to explain Trump, I feel like I have been cast into the character of the Harlequin, asked to interpret the unnamed photojournalist’s ramblings to a world of disbelieving and unknowing Marlows and Willards.
Trying to explain what happened the past few days in Munich is like trying to explain an acid-infused trip down the rabbit hole with Alice.
You can’t.
Especially to those who didn’t drop the tab and join you on that magic carpet ride.
“Understanding Trump” is an exercise in futility for those who still choose to see the world through a prism of what passes for normalcy.
Trump’s motorcade arriving for the Daytona 500 at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida on Sunday. (White House Photo, Daniel Torok)
Who believes in norms defined by established practice?
There is nothing normal about Trump.
And he is breaking with established practice at a pace that belies comprehension.
There is no more room for established practice.
It’s a revolution, baby.
And if you do not understand that, then nothing makes sense.
I have been riding the Trump magic carpet for some time now, convinced that the alternative to this journey into America’s heart of darkness was nothing short of nuclear Armageddon.
I didn’t drop the acid.
I am the equivalent of Marlow and Willard, except I have the longevity of a Harlequin or the unnamed photojournalist when it comes to seeing patterns in the chaos.
I have been partaking in the Trump trip since 2015.
And here is my take.
Munich Security Conference 2025
U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance addressing the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14. (Courtesy MSC/ Lennart Preiss)
The Munich Security Conference (MSC) is an annual conference on international security policy that has been held in Munich since 1963.
Its motto is “Peace through Dialogue.”
While the MSC attracts a global audience, it caters almost exclusively to the trans-Atlantic crowd, the acolytes of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU).
The role of the United States has been to serve as an overbearing mentor, nodding approvingly from the front rows of the audience, and dispatching high-level officials to speak to their European minions from the podium of power.
The MSC is an audition of sorts, where Europe’s political and security elites scramble to share the stage with a member of the American establishment who will pat them on the head, feed them a treat, and tell them what a good job they’re doing.
In the post-Cold War era, Europe allowed itself to be uniformly influenced by this master-servant dynamic.
The MSC was born from the pragmatic caution exhibited by its founder, Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin, a co-conspirator in the plot undertaken by Count Claus von Stauffenberg to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944. Von Kleist envisioned the MSC as a forum to promote peace in Europe, to use dialogue as a mechanism to prevent a future European war.
Von Kleist’s vision, however, faltered in the face of America’s post-Cold War ambition to sustain its role as the world’s sole remaining superpower, using trans-Atlantic and European institutions such as NATO and the EU as facilitators for continued U.S. hegemony through the uninterrupted implementation of the “rules-based international order.”
The hypocrisy of the West — NATO, the EU and their overlord, the U.S. — was masterfully called out by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2007, during his brilliant presentation at the MSC.
Putin addressing the Munich Security Conference in 2007. (Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
But the elites who gather at the MSC are not there to be lectured to, or to learn, but rather to promulgate the strategic objectives of the U.S. by disguising them as European initiatives born of European values.
Except, as anyone who has studied the dynamics of the MSC knows — there are no true European values anymore. The once laudable goal of avoiding a repeat of the Second World War on European soil has been replaced by a mindless, slavish echo chamber of American imperial warmongering.
Serbia. Libya. Afghanistan.
Ukraine.
The MSC has become nothing more than a rubber stamp for American foreign and national security policy.
European values today are nothing more than a veneer of artificiality, the equivalent of a spoon full of sugar to help Europeans swallow the bitter reality of their collective servility.
Any student of America, however, would have picked up on a growing discontent among the American people with the endless wars being promoted and promulgated by the so-called Military Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address of January 1961.
The American establishment allowed itself to be consumed by the predatory practices of the MICC.
The American people did not.
And starting in 2016, the American people began to let the establishment know that they were not going to stand for these predatory policies, which infected every aspect of American life, anymore.
The Trump Revolution began in 2015, when he came down the escalator of his Trump Tower castle to announce his candidacy for the office of president of the United States.
And it hasn’t stopped since.
Trump destroyed the corrupt edifice of classic Republican politics by sweeping the Republican primary in 2016.
Trump at a campaign rally in Phoenix, October 2016. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)
His victory in the 2016 presidential election sent a shockwave through the establishment, which spent the next four years undermining the Trump Revolution from within and without.
And the next four years, under the auspices of its poster child, Joe Biden, the establishment used every tool in the establishment bag of dirty tricks, (including politically motivated prosecutions on multiple fronts and, possibly, assassination), to prevent a Trump resurrection.
But the revolution was real, something the establishment opted not to believe, and Trump — against all the odds — won a second term as the most powerful man in the world.
Except this time, he had learned the lessons of the past.
That he could only trust those people who came from his personal orbit, and not the past servants of the deep state.
That the institutions of power that were deeply cast within the body of the massive unelected bureaucracy that guided America regardless of who was at the helm of executive power were the enemy.
And that, as president, he had virtually unlimited power to enact the change the American people were demanding.
The OODA-Loop
Trump appears to have incorporated aspects of John Boyd’s OODA-loop into his strategic thinking.
Boyd was an Air Force fighter pilot who believed that if you took control of an aerial engagement — a dog fight — by making the opponent react to you, then you would win every time.
Boyd called this “getting into the decision-making cycle” of the enemy, which he broke down into a four-phase cycle he called the OODA-loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).
If you could implement the OODA-loop faster than your enemy, then you were “inside” his decision-making cycle.
And they would die.
The key aspect of the OODA-loop is the “loop” — this wasn’t a one-time exercise, but a series of connected actions, each feeding off the other.
You took an action and then observed the enemy’s reaction. You orient on the reaction, and decide which option is best before acting.
The enemy now reacts.
And the cycle repeats.
Until the enemy dies.
The goal is not to let up once engaged, to keep the enemy reacting to your actions until you have them where you want them.
In Munich we see the classic adaptation of the OODA-loop by Trump to destroy his NATO and EU enemies.
Now, at this juncture, some might ask, “Wait a minute. How did NATO and the EU become the enemy of Donald Trump?”
The answer is quite clear — because they are an extension of the very establishment elites Trump has declared war on in America today.
These are the European elites who conspired against Trump during his first term, who pined for former President Barack Obama while delaying enacting Trump-mandated reforms in the hope that the American electoral cycle would purge Trump from the American political stage.
These are the people and institutions that doubled down on American warmongering, allowing themselves to sucked into a Ukraine trap that was designed to destroy Russia for America’s exclusive benefit, destroying Europe in the process.
The Europeans, ever the compliant minions, were too blinded by their willingness to serve to see that they were as much the sacrificial lambs as was Ukraine.
And, when it looked as if Trump was going to emerge victorious, it was the Europeans — in NATO and the EU — who conspired with the Biden administration to “Trump proof” policies in hopes that they could, once again, simply ride out four years of Trumpism while the U.S. establishment contained and undermined Trump from within.
But Trump had learned his lesson.
The revolution began on Day One by destroying the establishment Europe was counting on to contain Trump.
The Department of Justice, which had been so effectively weaponized during Trump’s first term and employed to destroy Trump in the intervening four years, has been castrated.
The intelligence community, which the senior Democratic senator, Chuck Schumer, once bragged had “six ways from Sunday” to destroy Trump, has been turned over to Tulsi Gabbard, who will bring it to heel.
The American foreign policy establishment has been exposed as a giant money laundering scheme focused more on regime change than foreign aid.
And the U.S. Congress is implicated in all of this.
Trump decapitated the very establishment Europe was counting on to contain him.
This is what happens in revolutions.
And then Trump turned his attention to Europe.
Keep in mind that in the world of Donald Trump, the Europeans — especially their twin institutions, NATO and the EU — are not allies, but enemies.
Trump’s new secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, travelled to NATO and put Europe on notice that it was not business as usual, and that perceptions Europe had about key issues such as the war in Ukraine were, in fact, misperceptions.
Hegseth, center, arriving at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Feb 12. (DoD, Alexander C. Kubitza)
No NATO for Ukraine.
No return to the 1991 borders with Russia.
No American troops in Ukraine.
No NATO cover for any European “peacekeeping” force that might be deployed to Ukraine.
And Europe was paying for everything going forward.
Enter the OODA-loop.
Hegseth was the initiating action.
Europe scrambled to react.
Enter Vice President J.D. Vance.
Vance addressing the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14. (Courtesy MSC/Marc Conzelmann/)
His speech at the MSC was not designed as a piece of rhetorical genius that would go down in history for its eloquence and intellectual concepts.
It was a turd in the European punchbowl, a deliberatively provocative punch in the face of political norms designed to inject chaos into the sense of order that Europe thrives on.
Even as Europe strove to respond to the provocation of Hegseth, it now had to adjust to the frontal assault on its sensibilities that J.D. Vance had unleashed.
The OODA-loop was in full operational mode.
Whatever the Europeans thought the MSC was going to be — perhaps the forum for a forceful rejoinder to the insults of Pete Hegseth — fell apart as they scrambled to respond to the new insults laid out by J.D, Vance, who openly questioned Europe’s role as a partner of the United States.
For the European elites gathered in Munich, who had spent their entire adult existence perfecting their roles — individually and collectively — as America’s compliant servants, to suddenly be told they were bad girls and boys whom America no longer identified with was too much.
Munich may be remembered by J.D. Vance’s unorthodox — indeed, revolutionary — presentation.
But the Munich experience is best encapsulated by the sight and sound of Christopher Heusgen, the chairman of the MSC, breaking down in tears as he closed the MSC, overcome by the reality that Europe was never more than a tool of American power, and now there is a different American master who has decided that Europe is no longer useful as a tool.
In the aftermath of Munich, Europe is scrambling to respond to the new reality manifested during the MSC.
Action-reaction.
The OODA-loop.
As French President Emmanuel Macron rallies his European allies to cobble together a coherent response to Trump’s Ukrainian apostacy, Trump dispatched a high-level negotiation team, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to Saudi Arabia, where they will meet with a similarly high-level team from Russia, led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict and a revival of U.S.-Russian relations that will spell the end of NATO and EU relevancy.
Neither the EU nor Ukraine was invited to the table.
Game. Set. Match.
How do I explain Munich?
It is the revolutionary application of Boyd’s OODA-loop, a masterful case-study in disruptive politics conducted in an atmosphere of chaos brought about by the disembowelment of deep-seated political establishments the world relied upon for stability.
It’s an acid trip down the rabbit hole chasing a White Rabbit that won’t stop to explain what’s happening.
It’s a magic carpet ride to the unknown, piloted by a man who long ago stopped caring about the things we all had grown accustomed to believing served as the core aspects of the lives we led.
It is the opening salvo of revolutionary change experienced by people who do not understand revolutions and are not prepared for one to break out all around them.
It’s beautiful in a horrible way.
It’s Donald Trump personified.
“Do you know that the man really likes you?” the unnamed photojournalist tells the unbelieving everyman, Captain Willard, in the final apocalyptic scenes of Apocalypse Now.
“He likes you. He really likes you. But he’s got something in mind for you. Aren’t you curious about that? I’m curious. I’m very curious. Are you curious? There’s something happening out here, man. You know something, man? I know something you that you don’t know. That’s right, Jack . The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad. Oh, yeah.
He’s dying, I think. He hates all this. He hates it! But the man’s a – he reads poetry out loud, all right? And a voice – he likes you ’cause you’re still alive. He’s got plans for you. No, no. I’m not gonna help you. You’re gonna help him, man. You’re gonna help him. I mean, what are they gonna say when he’s gone? ‘Cause he dies when it dies, when it dies, he dies! What are they gonna say about him?”
Welcome to the Revolution.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
The idea that the American people know what they want is not credible. Whenever a poll shows something the citizens want by a strong majority that thing is opposed by both parties: 80% opposed bank bailout, 60+ % want universal healthcare, majority wanted a ceasefire backed by an end to military aid for Israel. There are a number of similar polls. The idea that Trump is what people want is equally dubious. People do not vote for what they want. They vote against whoever they hate the most at the moment. Sortition would be more likely to produce representative government.
Wow, Scott, you have been on fire lately. The last two reads from you were incendiary and magic. I loved it. It seems to me that great heavy weight has been lifted from your soul recently, and you are soaring.
JFC. There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about Trump or his hyper-nationalist, capitalist domestic and foreign policies. To paraphrase Caitlin Johnstone: “he’s as unremarkable a president as he is a man”. To put the torpedo directly into the engine room of this fever dream of DT as “revolutionary”: how do you square that with his uber-reactionary policies on Israel and China? Yeah, you can’t. Also, is his intentional lying revolutionary? Or does he call people like Biden and Harris “communists” because he’s that much of a fool? Still waiting on an answer to this one from literally every DT stan to whom I’ve put it.
Just give it a couple years-all the bs about “anti-censorship” and “neutering the intelligence community” (by the way, I’ll assume none of us missed that Gabbard only got the nod after giving up her main criticism of that community) will fall away and all we’ll be left with is belligerent foreign policy, a domestic economy where the stock market is doing great and fuck everything else, continuing blank checks for Israel and fellating of the billionaire class. Don’t act surprised.
Revolution does not necessarily mean what you might think is a positive outcome. It means, as explained here, a “fundamental socio-political transformation.”
“Revolutions are commonly understood as instances of fundamental socio-political transformation. Since “the age of revolutions” in the late 18th century, political philosophers and theorists have developed approaches aimed at defining what forms of change can count as revolutionary (as opposed to, for example, reformist types of change) as well as determining if and under what conditions such change can be justified by normative arguments (for example, with recourse to human rights).”
hxxps://iep.utm.edu/pol-rev/
H. L. Mencken (1880 – 1956):
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents…
the inner soul of the people.
On some great and glorious day
the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last
and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Thank you for this condemnation of Trumpanzee arrogance and stupidity.
Frantz Fanon:
“They realize at last that
change does not mean reform, that
change does not mean improvement.”
Trump’s moronic attacks on America’s closest friends, neighbours and allies
show that Washington hasn’t changed,
that everything Washington says or signs
issues from a shit-filled swamp.
No one should trust or believe anything uttered by an American,
by a nation suffering from military lobotomies.
Let’s see what government by oligarchs does to the US.
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson:
“…nobody now gives the United States any respect,
apart from a handful of fascist Brits
and that simpering little whore Tony Blair.”
Joseph Schumpeter:
“Politicians are like bad horsemen
who are so preoccupied with staying in the saddle
that they can’t bother about where they’re going.”
On what basis does Scott believe Trump opposes ‘establishment elites’? He is part of the establishment. There are various elite factions; Trump appears to have sided with the faction that wants war with China. Hence this doomed attempt to suborn the Russians.
It’s hilarious and pathetic watching the PBS “Newshour” trying to figure out why most Americans voted for Trump and what his agenda is. These are “reporters” and they don’t know what’s going on in their own country.
Or they cant’ report it. Because there is a revolution against the “oligarchy of unbridled greed”, as Jimmy Carter termed it. And the “Newshour” is an arm of this oligarchy of organized crime.
For example, the “Newshour” is still lying about the Ukraine war, lying about Russia’s “unprovoked” aggression. They have NEVER mentioned the US promise to not move NATO one inch eastward under Bush I, and then breaking that promise under Clinton and again under Bush II. They conceal the US overthrowing Ukraine’s elected government under Obama – a stepping stone to moving NATO’s border even closer to Russia. They omit the Biden administration’s massive censorship operation at Twitter, and omit Musk’s ending that operation after buying Twitter. Instead they demonize Musk for buying Twitter, insinuating nefarious intentions with not one shred of evidence. (I paid attention.)
Co-anchor Geoff Bennett sneers at “conspiracy theories, while vast numbers of people now know this tactic was devised by the CIA to suppress facts about the JFK assassination. Bennett resembles a slippery mob lawyer. And this tactic has been subsequently used as a censorship technique on the RFK assassination, the actual scientific data on COVID and the mRNA shots, and the oligarchy’s attack on Russia through Ukraine.
This oligarchy of organized crime needs to be overthrown, and that includes their subservient, censored, oligarchy media. Anybody who still takes seriously any of the corporate news media has no idea what’s going on in the world.
The PBS Newshour has sold its soul. It was the only televised televised news worth watching. Not so any more.
In the lead-up to the Ukraine proxy war with Russia, reporter for PBS and NPR, Nick Schifrin, interviewed a mayor of one of the towns in Ukraine. The mayor told Nick Schifrin he cannot wait to use his American-made high powered automatic rifle on the Russians, as he held it up showing it off the weapon. Behind this mayor was a large picture of Stepan Bandara. The image of Bandara was pixelated just in case some of Newshour’s audience could identify Stepan Bandara . Obviously, the producers knew and doctored the reports by their distortion of Bandara’s image.
That was the last straw. From their coverage of the 2020 presidential election, Covid 19, and all the in-between reports leading up to Russia’s SMO, it was enough for me. My husband still watches the Newshour and they are still perfecting the propaganda they deliver to its viewers.
It is time these onetime government funded news shows, now dependent on large donations from agenda-driven-sponsors be revealed to its viewers.
Outstanding Scott; Kurtz is the perfect metaphor for Trump. With one exception that others have pointed out, which is the Zionist G-clamp around his balls. The Left won’t be cheering for long when the Trump’s fascist revolution takes hold. But in all honesty, I’m not sure they’ll be miserable for long either. Like Hitler, Trump will be a light that burns twice as bright for half as long.
I read somewhere that true revolutions occur not when its the people v the state, but when it’s 2 elites are vying for control of the state. That’s what we have now; the first true revolution in the West since .. 1789?
The love-in with Russia will last only as long as the Ukraine war lasts. Then I believe the focus will be on Iran (Israel-driven) and China / Taiwan (US-driven). Fortunately, I believe the BRICS countries are ready, and it will be in the Middle East Trumpism and Zionism will be destroyed, potentially at the cost of a badly damaged Iran.
Options for the Eurovassals could be to admit they re conned in Ykraina, scrap NATO and sanctions on Russia, repair Nordstream, buy Russian gas and oil, and not bother to replace the junk they sent to Zelensky with arms purchased from the US.
Now THAT is real common sense. I hope Europe wakes up, since I am an expat American living here.
how about this
The OODA loop is now a brand new breakfast cereal named Kellogg’s FROOTA Loop T eats every morning .
Using Scotts paper towels for spills and to wipe his chin
just a bad joke by myself , really no disrepect intended
Well, what a targeted assessment. Bravissimo, Senore Ritter!
As the Hopi prophecy predicted in 1948 a man with a red hat would initiate the worldly human purification.
With his remarkable chutzpah, royal narcissism, Roy Cohn’s impudent mentoring and Teflon Don’s legacy to supersede, the man from Queens has succeeded in ascending to the center of the worldly universe. Perhaps his swift (40 year bean counting Project 2025) actions can metaphorically be equated with current quantum computing, insofar as both paradigms are thrusting us humans into cauldrons of incomprehensible transmutations that will “blow our minds”.
As the Brits said during WW II: “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON”. And, I say: breathe deep and sway like a tree in a hurricaine.
wow Scot fantastic, love it, viva la revolution! or something French like that.
(and that mine shaft in PA for federal documents is real – who knew?)
Viva the eVOLUTION!
I say.
Many of these comments echo my analysis of the Trump2 administration. Europe has been subservient to US/global agenda for years but, concerning my take from Vance’s anti-censorship speech, I still envision the Zionist leash around Trump’s neck, that of his cabinet and of congress. He will do what ever they want for their benefit, concerning land, $, censorship and power.
So where does Trump’s plan and Vance’s speech benefit their coterie – in Mid-East domination and prime real estate land along Gaza’s beachfront, then onto total world domination. No concern for Palestinians – people, ALL people, be damned. Oh, “The horror! The horror!”
Poetry
Scott Ritter and indi.ca and Caitlin Johnstone – poets of the necessary revolution.
Poetry
Anyone who is “on the left” has to applaud the termination of the NED and USAID, but the “turd” Trump dropped in that punch bowl will, no doubt, morph into something less digestible. I predict austerity measures resulting in a societal breakdown reminiscent of 1930s Italy and Germany. Then what.
Scott, I humbly suggest that you take your head out of Trump’s OODA-loop and bury it instead in the exalted Wisdom of Chris Hedges’ recent piece, The Mafia State, where he opens with this trenchant cut about Trump without naming him:
“Kiss the ring. Grovel before the Godfather. Give him tribute, a cut of the spoils. If he and his family get rich you get rich. Enter his inner circle, his “made” men and women, and you do not have to follow rules or obey the law. You can disembowel the machinery of government. You can turn us and the natural world into commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. You can commit crimes with impunity. You can make a mockery of democratic norms and social responsibility. Perfidy is very profitable at first. In the long term it is collective suicide. “
sounds like a very apt description of the clinton/ biden crime families to me.
With the Trump ‘tsunami’ rolling towards us and no visible way to escape…I feel as if I am being asphyxiated.
Excellent essay, Mr. Ritter. Here’s another quote from Apocalypse Now: “Ah, there’s nothing like the smell of Napalm before breakfast.”
Isn’t that “napalm in the morning.”
Not having seen Apocalypse Now, I hesitate to engage in evaluation of Scott Ritter’s analysis, though I tend to agree with comments so far that go back to Trump’s record of erratic, inconsistent spinning of false tales and the need for caution before attributing to him well-thought out plans.
There was a Cree Indian who was testifying before a French Canadian tribunal regarding hydro-electric developments affecting native lands. He spoke neither French nor English but was asked through a translator whether he swore to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” There was a pause and his answer came through the translator: “He says he does not know the whole truth. He can only say what he knows.”
In the spirit of that Cree Indian, I will only comment on what I know. That is, that the testimony of J.D. Vance was at odds with the tradition of free speech in the English-speaking world, going back to John Milton and especially, John Stuart Mill. According to Vance, truth is advanced by hearing every person’s viewpoint, right or wrong. What he gets wrong is omitting the limitation explicitly mentioned in the case of Mill, and assumed by others, that the persons are sincere in expressing their view of the truth. Once you introduce deliberate lying speech into the picture, the whole idea of truth emerging from the exchange of ideas is no longer clearly true.
That is especially so in the case of modern communications, where large numbers of people can be reached in a timely way by people who deliberately set out to mislead them. That is also true of Trump himself, as he has a large audience that he reaches instantly, ahead of the legacy media, and can shape perceptions through a false set of claims that resist the truth when it appears. The idea that he won the first election where he was a contender for president, for example. For the theory justifying free speech to work, you have to assume honesty, and a desire to speak the truth, on behalf of the speakers.
“For the theory justifying free speech to work, you have to assume honesty, and a desire to speak the truth, on behalf of the speakers.”
This is not true … the value of free speech does not reside in the perceived truthfulness of each use of speech.
It’s true that a certain amount of lying can be usefully tolerated, assuming that there are people free to expose the lies. What is not consistent with the rationale for free speech is that the “free speech” is embedded in a universe of discourse where sources of information are practically excluded, while others are promoted aggressively, not necessarily by government, but also by a plutocracy that holds sway over the mass media.
Caitlin Johnstone makes good points in this connection.
And how do you propose to remedy the “problem” of free speech you cite? By allowing the Ministry of Truth to censor speech of those it deems untruthful?
Think again.
I’ve already thought this through. I agree that a Ministry of Truth censoring speech is not the answer. Perhaps the answer lies in education. One of my favorite quotations is from Judge Learned Hand:
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.” Neither Donald Trump nor J.D. Vance seem to recognize “a check upon their freedom.”
truth is advanced by hearing every person’s viewpoint, just so long as they don’t criticise israel, in which case they are kicked out of college, blacklisted from jobs, and thrown into jail.
And, thrown out of foreign countries…if they are not stopped from entering in the first place. Ask Varofakis, Abunimah, and now Albanese. Everyone is ‘officialdom’ in ‘The West’ is in thrall to Israel.
When I watched the press conference following the meeting by Trump and Netanyahu I saw evil. I saw two deranged men plotting
to destroy the Palestinian people in Gaza, either/or blowing them to pieces by the bombs about to be given to Netanyahu that are
so destructive that even Biden latterly refused to give them to him, or dragging them from their homes to an alien land, so Trump
can enjoy a real estate fantasy I see in America that he is about to destroy the Education Department, and is removing social services
making life bearable for the people. He will be throwing immigrants out of America. So while he may be doing a few things right
at the moment in reversing Biden’s deranged ambition to sacrifice Ukraine to his desire to weaken Russia, i can see him stuffing that
up too.
Biden offered us WW3, Trump offers chaos, I’ll take that, I’ll choose life.
However: Not sure the people have ‘had enough’, let’s not forget the MIC is deeply embedded in american working life, cutting back on wars and death is going to mean job losses for the workers. Can they afford that ?
The rich have their money, what do the working class have ?
Biden was a pathetic, senile puppet.
You contradict yourself, chaos means the likelihood of nuclear war is still elevated. Look at the Doomsday Clock. The Bulletin of Atomic scientists are clear. There aint gonna be no rainbows and unicorns from the Orange idiot.
The DT2 regime does not give a fuck about the 99%. Wishful thinking aint gonna change anything. The DT2 regime will continue to provoke China and attack Russian interests. If you can’t see the flagrant kakistocracy, imperialism and the corruption, you must have blinders on. Hooray for kakistocracy!
I don’t really feel convinced that Trump has any kind of strategy, let alone a specific commitment to concepts like the OODA loop. I can agree that he considers chaos a useful tactic to keep opponents on their toes.
Am I the only one in the room that sees the white elephant(s) loitering near the trough waiting for feeding time? Perhaps its time you did the acid Scott…maybe you’d be able to see Trump and his econ-class aren’t really moving at light speed in that direction and then this direction to convince the marks that “…he is breaking with established practice at a pace that belies comprehension.” You should also allow your eyes to show your brain the truth as it appears…Trump and his gang of econ-class facsimiles are going straight towards the money: yours, mine, Xi’s, Putin’s, the Chinese people, the Russian people, (perhaps I should have simply said they’re going after everybody’s money except their own personal stashes).
Yes, they are following the same method that’s been tried and true for thousands of years. Meaning they’re goal is to take everything from everyone that’s not nailed down. My teen-age, high-school soccer son explained to me how he could defend/stop the top offensive players in the state: “The really good players” he said are easy to defend because they are so predictable. His eyes work with his brain to note a certain head fake, a subtle stutter step, a certain type of pass (I hope you’re getting the picture) to allow him to be in the perfect counter spot before the top offensive players know what hit them. Point is, no matter what the hell gymnastics our modern day, media/AI assisted confidence men/women try to convince us they are doing, we must prepare ourselves (and our entire society) with effective and repetitive training in class warfare/relations to be able to counter/stop Trump and his econ-class facsimiles (sorry for being repetitive) by fully understanding that no matter what they say or do, they’re only/main goal is to grab the money.
Back to the son’s story….he also said “the most difficult players to defend against are those who don’t really know what they’re going to do and so their moves can’t be so easily anticipated. Which one is Trump? It doesn’t really matter, top pro or rank armature, he is always going after the money. Conclusion: The best resistance against these fascists (aka Trump and his econ-class facsimiles) is to make everything cost them dearly and don’t let them get anything easily (maybe one version of “class consciousness). Oddly enough, this is all simply common sense if all the so-called chaos is viewed and studied through a well ground and polished lens of class-warfare/relations. Brothers, we all better organize, organize, organize because Trump and his econ-class facsimiles are going full blown terrorize, terrorize, terrorize against us to get every last nickel and dime.
“Meaning they’re goal is to take everything from everyone that’s not nailed down.”
This may in some measure be the case at the end of this process, and I keep hearing the likes of Schumer and Sanders saying this, but where is the evidence that they are stealing money for themselves? At this point this seems like pure speculation.
money=power=narcissism=money=power=etc
This is their code, as far as they have one.
Same code is everywhere in this psychocapitalist world. They’re simply the extreme end.
Their regrets only turn up in the hospice end days, if at all.
it is very likely that it’s who they are and it’s what they do. they have as much ‘agency’ as the ukrainians on maidan in 2014.
I agree.
A lot of people have the TDS virus and cannot think rationally about Trump. I don’t think they can even follow what Ritter is saying. Which is definitely not dependent on any reading of either Apocalypse Now or Heart of Darkness. Those are just trimmings.
People who ignored the truth staring them in the face during Trump I—that there was a multilevel conspiracy or whatever you want to call it among different Deep State players and the UK MI6 to destroy Trump and sabotage his presidency—of course they don’t “get” what he is up to now. It was obvious the day after the 2016 election that Trump was to be treated like scum. This “resistance” and refusal to respect even the office of the presidency, not to mention the person elected to carry out its duties—this reaction basically destroyed, among other things, the credibility of the ACLU. I was a life=long registered Democrat and ACLU member up to that point. That was the end for me. I was that disgusted with what I saw happening.
Fast-forward: I welcome the Gaza ceasefire but abhor Trump’s comments on Gaza qua real estate and his allowing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank as much as I abhorred, and protested against, the Biden administration’s enabling of the Gaza genocide.
The problem for liberals and I suspect many who read CN is that it is a symptom of TDS to react with horror and protest only when Trump is the actor. Not Biden and Harris.
Randal Marlin states that he can state only what he knows. Then he goes on to clarify that he knows a lot about John Stuart Mill and also about the truth. Marlin can tell beforehand what is the truth and what is not and therefore feels authorized to shut down messages before they are even uttered.
Huh.
I certainly don’t trust Marlin as an assessor of what JD Vance said in Munich. Perhaps Marlin is unaware of the free speech crackdowns—arrests of people in their homes—even now taking place in Germany. They give the lie to Marlin’s interpretations.
No matter how many wrongful free speech crackdowns may exist, they do not justify the wrong-headed statement of free speech principles embodied in JD Vance’s remonstrations.
Hey… that was besides being spot on, it was pretty entertaining! I stayed up past my bedtime to finish it. I didn’t know you wrote that well.
Thanks so much for the analysis. Similar insights are also being suggested by others like Doctorow, Mercouris, and McGovern. This view certainly seems to lend some coherence to the events that are unfolding around us. And it is notable that Putin and Russia seem also to be taking Trump’s efforts seriously. Ironically, it seems that Trump, unlike Mr. Biden, is unafraid to speak with adversaries.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs has so many times repeated the absolute necessity for world leaders talk with each other, continuously. He highlighted that this was key to the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in ’62; Kennedy and Krushchev had been exchanging letters and speaking about things over the prior year. Without that modicum of trust and understanding, we would not now exist. JFK is another who was not afraid to speak with adversaries for the benefit of all.
As we have seen over the last four years, cowardly leaders refuse to talk. Instead they spin narratives.
“being slow” is the translation. True for European elites for a long, long time. Their system of class which always vastly limits them in choosing their leaders has always led to a lot of ‘slow’ European leaders. America would not be independent except for slow English leaders. Europe remembers a leader who isn’t slow for centuries because Europe always has a lot of slow leaders. Predictable for a system that discriminates against talent that doesn’t come from the Elite class.
Anyone who is surprised or not ready for Donald Trump at this point, at nearly 80 years old, with decades as a public figure, a friggin TV show, a first term, then the four years out of office where he was never quiet ….. geez, how slow can you really be? This is slow, really slow, even by the standards of historically slow Europeans.
It was predictable that Trump would win back six months before the election. At least enough to start a plan for Trump and a plan for the less likely Harris triumph. After all, one never really knows who the computers and TV sets will say wins an American election? But, there’s only two possibilities to plan for. I know this is different where normally there was only one plan to plan for no matter who won, but two isn’t that hard.
-Even though Trump denied his Project 2025 plan for domination, since Trump is a known liar, surely this was foreseeable?
-Trump, and the people around Trump and the people backing Trump are known quantities. No Rumsfeldian unknown-knowns or known-unknowns involved here.
-Not to mention that supremacist tactics traditionally involve straight lines and frontal assaults and attempts to steam-roller those inferior people who can not possibly stand up and fight us exceptionally superior people. Supremacist tactics are predictable because they have to assume that they are superior.
This is Trump’s 2nd Term! How slow do you have to be to be surprised by a 2nd term President? And these people are caught outside their OODA loop? Geez! Embarrassing. On a sane continent, none of these people would have become leaders, and certainly none would ever be allowed to serve as village dog catcher in the future. Any dog would obviously be able to out OODA them.