Category: Euclidean Politics

Sympathy for the Grift

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Democrats are trickle-down economics in disguise, while Republicans are a perpetual motion machine of wealth—promising infinite returns as long as the last investor keeps buying in.

Democrats are the sanctimonious snake-oil salesmen of trickle-down economics, dressed up in the shiny robes of progress, muttering the same tired chant: “If we feed the rich just right, they’ll trickle their leftovers onto the starving masses.” Meanwhile, Republicans are carnival barkers running the great Ponzi hustle, a fever-dream machine of infinite growth fueled by the desperation of the suckers at the bottom. It’s a high-stakes scam cloaked in flag pins and fake moral authority—an endless loop of greed that only works as long as the poor bastards they’re fleecing keep believing the roulette wheel isn’t rigged. Both sides peddle the same grift with different packaging, hoping no one notices the rot underneath the shiny veneer.

And here’s the punchline, the cruel cosmic joke: neither of these bloated, self-satisfied tribes is doing a damn thing to make the average 30-year-old better off than their parents. On the contrary, they’re churning out a generation of miserable little fucks drowning in debt, rent hikes, and the existential dread of inheriting a world cooked to a crisp. The Democrats distract them with dreams of “equity” while whispering sweet nothings to Wall Street, and the Republicans sell them some deranged gospel of bootstrap salvation while quietly siphoning off what’s left of the social safety net.

It’s not politics anymore—it’s a death cult with two heads, grinding people into dust while telling them to smile because “this is the greatest country on Earth.” Meanwhile, the 30-year-olds are stuck in the gig economy gulag, trapped between avocado toast jokes and the creeping realization that retirement is just a cruel fantasy invented by their grandparents. This isn’t progress; it’s slow-motion annihilation wrapped in focus-group-tested slogans. A whole generation reduced to cannon fodder in a war for profits they’ll never see.

It gets worse, oh much worse, because there’s this creeping, almost smug sense from the Democrats now that they’re gearing up for four years of honorable opposition—a glorious little theater where they’ll sit on their hands, bemoaning the horrors of Republican governance while secretly hoping the house of cards doesn’t collapse until they get another turn. They’re betting the farm on some mythical new wave, a tidal surge of desperation and gullibility, where the people—bleary-eyed and broke—buy in again, convinced that the trickle-down fairy tale will finally pan out this time.

And the Republicans? Oh, they’ll oblige. They’ll take the keys to the machine and crank it into overdrive, building the biggest goddamn Ponzi scheme the world has ever seen. They’ll slap a bald eagle on it, brand it as “freedom,” and funnel every last dime up the chain until the whole rotten structure buckles under its own weight. The Democrats will wring their hands, shaking their heads like disappointed schoolteachers, but secretly they’ll be relieved. Why fix anything when the scam itself keeps the wheel spinning?

Both parties are complicit, locked in this grim waltz where the game isn’t about governing—it’s about stalling. Stalling long enough for the next election, the next grift, the next manufactured crisis that keeps the American public too distracted and too beaten down to notice they’re being bled dry. And at the end of it all, the 30-year-olds will still be standing in the ashes, miserable little fucks staring at their empty hands, wondering what went wrong.

This is the only ontology available: a rigged binary where both sides are selling the same endgame under different banners. The Democrats peddle a kind of performative virtue—polished, rehearsed, and utterly toothless. They cling to the illusion that their honor, their principled inaction, is some sort of noble resistance. Meanwhile, the Republicans don’t even bother with the pretense of decency anymore. They’re all in, selling the biggest con imaginable—a nation hollowed out and stripped for parts, but branded as “greatness.”

And everyone just keeps buying in because what other choice do they have? This isn’t governance; it’s a scorched-earth campaign of cynicism, where the options are despair wrapped in empathy or madness cloaked in arrogance. The machine grinds on because it’s the only machine there is, and stepping outside of it isn’t rebellion—it’s oblivion. So the miserable little fucks keep playing along, trapped in a rigged casino where the house always wins, and every spin of the wheel is just another reminder that this is the only ontology available.

Playing For Possession:  How the Democrats Got Benched for 2028

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“Playing for possession: controlling the game without taking the risks to win.”

The Democrats have been hit with back-to-back personal fouls, unsportsmanlike conduct, and an ejection for unnecessary skittishness, leaving them with no room on the scoreboard and no time left on the clock. Think of it like this: they blew a 3-1 lead in the series fumbled the ball at the 1-yard line, and struck out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. It’s a comprehensive meltdown.

This isn’t just a bad loss. This is a franchise in freefall. The scouting department’s asleep at the wheel, the coaching staff keeps running the same tired plays, and the general manager’s idea of a rebuild is bringing in washed-up free agents instead of developing new talent. They came into the game with a game plan designed for a league that doesn’t exist anymore, ignoring every sign that the pitch has changed.

Now they’re on the sidelines, watching their opponents run up the score, facing a multi-season suspension that feels like exile. This isn’t just losing a game; it’s getting ejected from the league and watching your franchise be sold off to a new owner who doesn’t even care about the fans or the history of the sport.

First, Clinton in 2016, the political equivalent of a star striker who couldn’t finish an open-net chance in the finals. Then Biden in 2024, a grizzled veteran who had no business staying in the game after halftime. The bench was thin, the coaching staff clueless, and now the refs—those savage, unforgiving voters—have called it. Two fouls. No appeals. They’re out of the lineup for 2028-2032, forced to sit and watch from the cheap seats while the GOP walks the ball into the net.

And now? The rifts in the system—the broken transfer market, the bribed refs, the unwritten handshake deals that keep the sport barely holding together—have been cracked wide open by crypto cowboys and off-the-books billionaires. We’ve gone from a rigged game to an metarigged circus, where contracts are shredded midseason, and every match feels like it’s being played under protest.

This is the worst of all possible worlds. It’s not just a loss—it’s the kind of collapse that guts a team down to its roots. Imagine your favorite club being sold off to some faceless consortium of tech bros and hedge fund vultures. New owners who don’t care about the history, the legacy, or even the fans in the stands. They slap a new logo on the jerseys, change the team colors, and relocate the franchise to some sunbelt hellhole where no one even knows what sport they’re watching.

That’s where we are now. The Democrats aren’t just out of the playoffs; they’re staring down years of irrelevance, trying to cobble together a plan while the league changes the rules midseason. The game isn’t about tactics anymore. It’s about who owns the stadium, who controls the broadcast rights, and who’s willing to play dirty enough to make it all look legitimate. The fans? Left in the cold, clutching faded programs and wondering how the hell it all fell apart.

The Democrats need to approach this like a team stuck at the bottom of the table, desperate to avoid relegation. The first thing they need is a new coach—a leader with fresh tactics who knows how to rally the locker room and adapt to a changing game. No more playing for possession without a plan to score. They need someone bold enough to throw out the old playbook, embrace a faster, leaner style, and actually go for the win instead of settling for a draw.

But coaching isn’t enough. The front office needs a serious overhaul. The recruitment strategy is stuck in the past—drafting players who look good on paper but can’t keep up on the field. They need to build a deep bench of young, hungry talent who understand the new rules of the game. People who can talk to the fans, play on the same level as the grassroots, and hustle for every vote like it’s stoppage time in a tied match.

And for God’s sake, they need to fix their tactics. No more running the same old formations. No more playing defense while the other side is running a full-court press. They’ve got to get aggressive, take risks, and stop trying to look like the more “reasonable” team while their opponents are throwing elbows and lighting the field on fire. The fans want a team that fights, not one that apologizes for being in the league.

Finally, they need to rebuild trust with the supporters. Right now, the base feels like a fan section that’s been overcharged for tickets and sold a product that doesn’t deliver. The Democrats need to start showing they actually care about the people who show up game after game. Cut the corporate deals, stop pandering to the VIP box, and start focusing on the folks in the bleachers who live and die with every result.

It’s not impossible to turn this around. Great teams have done it before, clawing their way out of disaster and back to glory. But it takes vision, grit, and the willingness to play like there’s nothing to lose. Because right now, they’ve already lost the game. If they don’t change fast, they’re going to lose the fans, too—and that’s a hole no team can climb out of.

Casino Nation: The Havana Doctrine

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It’s my long-but barely held together theory that the descendants of the Diaspora—no, not a Diaspora, but the Diaspora—are hellbent on remaking America in the image of 1957 Fulgencio Batista’s Havana. Think about it: a glossy, neon-lit illusion of freedom where vice reigns supreme, the rich ride roughshod over the poor, and every two-bit hustler with a flashy smile and a sharper knife sells you something you didn’t know you needed—be it cigars, fake revolutions, or atomic-age dreams of technicolor utopia.

This isn’t paranoia. It’s fact. Open your eyes. You can see it in the glass towers springing up like weeds along every coast, in the velvet-lined booths of high-end strip clubs where champagne flows like the Rio Grande after a thunderstorm. You can feel it in the way politics has turned into a boxing match in a casino pit—rigged, but with just enough blood and flash to keep the crowd cheering.

The children of the Latin-American exodus, scattered across the US by dictators, revolutions, and the cold machinery of capital, are now returning to build an empire of excess. It’s all about the grift, the graft, and the gamble—a system Batista would’ve tipped his hat to. These are people who understand that the house always wins, so why not own the house? The casinos, the skyscrapers, the data farms, the cryptocurrency exchanges—they’re all just casinos with different sets of dice.

The comparison writes itself: Havana 1957, a sweaty, smoke-filled Eden of sin, where the air reeked of rum, cheap perfume, and cold cash, every corner lit by flickering neon and every backroom a stage for whispered deals and the shuffle of marked cards. And then, picture this—Trump, bloated and manic, stepping onto the stage on Inauguration Day like a washed-up casino boss who still thinks he’s holding the keys to the kingdom. Instead of inaugurating policy or promise, he throws up a goddamn shitcoin—a greasy, virtual IOU backed by the full faith and credit of delusion. Where Batista sold dreams of luxury and decadence to wealthy tourists while bleeding the streets dry, Trump sold a hologram of nostalgia wrapped in gold leaf, promising his faithful gamblers a golden ticket to 1957, minus the rhythm and soul. The grift is the same, only now it’s coded into a blockchain—casino chips replaced with digital breadcrumbs leading straight to the same house, the same pit, the same rigged game. Havana had roulette wheels; Trump had Reddit threads. The stakes haven’t changed, only the suckers have.

America, once a frontier of the mind, now reduced to a sandbox for oligarchs and their algorithms. The dream is sold back to the desperate masses in bite-sized portions, just enough to keep them hooked: a dopamine hit here, a lottery ticket there. The people are pacified with shiny gadgets and empty promises while the puppet masters rewrite the rules, carving out a playground for the elite few who know the secret handshake and speak the lingua franca of offshore bank accounts.

But it’s not just greed. No, there’s nostalgia at play here—a longing for a world that never really existed, except in the grainy, cigarette-smoke-stained reels of memory. Batista’s Havana wasn’t a paradise. It was a gilded cage. But nostalgia doesn’t care about the truth. It only cares about the feeling—the buzz, the rush, the glamour of it all. It’s the American way, after all: to mythologize the past and then recreate it as a theme park.

This isn’t progress. It’s retrograde motion in a Cadillac with fins, racing back to the 1950s while pretending the road isn’t crumbling beneath the wheels. It’s Hunter Thompson’s nightmare of the American Dream, but with a glossier coat of paint and a Cuban soundtrack. The Rama Diary on a bad acid trip.

And somewhere, in the haze of cigar smoke and the neon glow of a thousand LED billboards, Batista is laughing. Or maybe it’s crying. Maybe there’s no difference anymore. America, my friend, is a game rigged by exiles and dreamers who’ve mistaken the past for the future. And the rest of us? We’re just along for the ride, barreling down the highway to nowhere with the radio tuned to static.

There are Guano Billionaires that I Respect More than Mark Andreessen.

By God, the guano billionaires—they had grit! They had vision! They were the last screaming lunatics with the guts to shovel mountains of bird shit into the cannons of empire and make the world kneel before their stinking altars. And I’ll be damned if I don’t respect them more than that pallid husk of a man, Marc Andreessen, who sits in his Malibu fortress, droning on about innovation while peddling the same warmed-over tech gospel like a televangelist selling eternal salvation.

These guano men—no, these titans of nitrate—knew the score. They didn’t hide behind algorithms and self-congratulatory TED Talks. They fought wars over islands crusted with centuries of seabird droppings, for God’s sake! They carved their fortunes from the hard, white crust of life itself. There’s something primal about that, something raw and ancient. You couldn’t fake it. You had to earn it.

Picture it: swashbuckling Peruvian magnates with bat guano under their nails, sailing the open seas in clunky schooners loaded with enough fertilizer to make the world bloom—or explode. These men didn’t “disrupt” industries with apps. They built empires on filth, on decay, on the grotesque bounty of nature’s digestive tract. And I salute them for it.

Meanwhile, there’s Andreessen, perched atop his throne of venture capital like a bloated owl stuffed with bad ideas. His legacy is a litany of hollow promises: “the internet will set you free!” No, Marc, what you’ve built is a gilded cage, a dystopia where human misery is quantified in clicks and ad impressions. The guano billionaires at least left us something tangible: fertile soil, booming crops, the literal shit of life.

You think you would respect such a… era-breaking, ponzi innovators in a ponzi world? But hell? I’d rather get drunk with a guano birdshit billionaire anytime of the day. The guano billionaires, at least, have the decency to deal in real shit, and you can respect that. But peddling blueprints for burning your money on vaporware. Well the joke’s on you. This guy is a z-list revanchist full of ressentiment — an aristocrat of the digital age, clinging to a past where his brand of “genius” might have meant something. Now he’s just a bitter tech-bro, resenting everyone and throwing tantrums not shaping the world but whining about it.

Sure, guano magnates were bastards—they had to be. But they didn’t sell you a dream of democratized knowledge only to harvest your data like a parasitic leech. No, they sold you a sack of dried bird crap and dared you to complain. And the world thrived because of it!

So yes, I’ll take the guano kings over Silicon Valley’s self-satisfied sycophants any day. At least they smelled like the Earth. At least they worked. And when the final reckoning comes, when Andreessen’s digital empire crumbles into the void, I hope there’s a statue of some forgotten guano tycoon standing tall on a nitrate-streaked island, his gaze fixed on the horizon. A true monument to madness and muck—more than Andreessen could ever dream of.

The Great Christmas H1-B War

The Great Christmas H1-B War of 2024 is the inevitable crash when Tech, high on its own self-congratulatory bullshit, thought it had meat space in lockdown. These are the same people so tangled in their pitch decks they actually believed they could hitch a ride on the venomous wave of Jacksonian nativism—stoking the flames just enough to prop up their handpicked candidates, all while patting themselves on the back for being “progressive” enough to pretend they weren’t courting the very forces that have historically been the death knell for entire cultures.

But nativism isn’t a programmable variable—it’s a primal force, rooted in the same cultural strain that is responsible for the Trail of Tears, the displacement of entire Mexican populations, and the scorched-earth mentality of Manifest. And now, with Musk playing provocateur on X, that force has been roused again—not as a tool for Tech’s ambitions but as an unstoppable tide that doesn’t care about “elite human capital” or strategic hiring practices.

What Tech thought was a clever way to “own the libs” is now spiraling out of control. Aligning with nativist populism to push their agenda was like playing with nitroglycerin: every bump and misstep sets off an explosion. Now, as they try to rally support for their H1-B pipeline, they’re slamming into a brick wall of deep-seated anger and generational trauma—a rage not rooted in economic data or hiring strategies but in the primal need to protect what they see as their homeland.

What’s truly unfolding here is that the Trump administration—an administration that couldn’t give a damn about H1-Bs, Indian immigrants, or any of that tech-centric nonsense—is now in a position to extract real concessions from the industry. They’re not worried about the supply of cheap labor or the flow of skilled immigrants anymore. No, now it’s about infiltrating the platforms, the tech giants, from Google to crypto, with their own people. The deal is on the table, and it’s about power, not principles.

The tech companies, who thought they could dance with nativism without losing their grip on their shiny little empires, are now about to find themselves with former Trump cronies and acolytes crawling into the higher echelons of their organizations. It’s the perfect bait-and-switch: tech, thinking it could leverage nationalism for political gain, is now going to be the one getting leveraged.

Tech’s fatal mistake was thinking their dominance over the digital world made them untouchable in the physical one. They assumed they could stir the pot without spilling it, that their carefully constructed systems of control could withstand the backlash. But now, as their H1-B advocacy smashes into a wall of pure, undiluted rage, it’s clear they never understood the stakes.

The chuds aren’t debating visas or bottom lines. They see Tech as the latest in a long line of invaders, looting their homeland under the guise of progress. And while the tech CEOs scramble to make their case with PowerPoint decks and hashtags, their own “elite human capital” is busy torching what little goodwill remains, gloating about displacement and dominance in a way that only fans the flames.

This isn’t just a PR crisis—it’s a moment of reckoning for an industry that thought it had transcended history. Because meat space, as it turns out, isn’t as secure as they thought. And the forces they’ve awakened don’t bow to algorithms or quarterly reports—they destroy everything in their path, including the hubris that summoned them.

It’s not clear how much they’re going to miss the Democrats yet, but it’s becoming painfully obvious that their flirtation with nativism was a catastrophic miscalculation. They thought they were playing 4D chess, cutting loose the libs for a more pliable power base. Instead, they’ve found themselves neck-deep in a raging cultural inferno, with racists, revanchists and misogynistic while keeping the rules of the game firmly under its control. They assumed that because certain minorities were part of their enterprise—working for them, building their systems, contributing to their bottom lines—they’d somehow be exempt from the wrath of the mobs they’ve emboldened and that the chuds would just go against more traditional minorities like black and Latino.

The logic is psychotically idiotic. As if the same people who’ve been stoking this fire for years, fueled by fear and resentment, would suddenly stop and say, “Oh, not those ones, they’re with the good guys.” As if the monster of nativism can be housebroken with a memo or a motivational TED Talk.

The absurdity lies in believing you can weaponize hate and still dictate its trajectory. That you can stoke the flames without getting burned. But that’s not how this works. Hate is indiscriminate, unthinking, and once unleashed, it doesn’t follow instructions. It devours everything, including the people who thought they could control it.

Meanwhile, this is fantastic news for Trump, Stephen Miller, and the entire Jacksonian nativist right. With the tech industry now scrambling to align itself with their agenda, they’ll be able to start positioning their people right at the top of these organizations—whether it’s in the platforms themselves or the lucrative tech sectors like crypto. What was once a distant battle over H1-Bs and immigration policy is now a full-on power play. They’ll place their loyalists in key positions, leveraging their newfound influence to control the direction of these tech giants, ensuring that the platforms, algorithms, and policies that shape our digital lives reflect their nativist, populist worldview. It’s the perfect storm for them—getting into the very heart of Silicon Valley, while the tech elites, too blinded by their own ambition, fail to see they’ve just handed the keys to their kingdom over to the very people who want to burn it down.

This whole mess feels like the inevitable fallout of tech’s LARPing-as-builders syndrome. The original promise of tech was to disintermediate, streamline, and reimagine systems with minimal scaffolding, using software to make things work faster, leaner, smarter. It wasn’t about reinventing the wheel—it was about putting a turbocharger on it.

But somewhere along the way, that wasn’t enough. Now, a few years in, they’ve decided they need to be builders—grandiose architects of entire ecosystems, spinning up new structures with no understanding of the foundations they’re replacing. The result? A lot of brittle, overengineered nonsense that collapses under its own weight the moment anyone tries to use it in the real world.

It’s like they forgot the first rule of systems: if it works, don’t break it just because you think you can. But tech, drunk on its own mythos, can’t resist. And so, here they are, desperately trying to play “visionary architect” while their creations creak and groan under the strain of reality. It’s not just arrogance—it’s incompetence disguised as innovation.

A lot of the systems they’re trying to replace are racist, revanchist, and misogynist to their core. These aren’t just antiquated architectures—they’re deeply oppressive structures that tech claimed it would disrupt, dismantle, and rebuild better. And instead of grappling with that reality, they pretended for years that the problem wasn’t as bad as it was—or worse, that their shiny new platforms were somehow neutral, magically immune to the rot baked into the foundations they’re built on.

But here’s the thing about ignoring rot: it spreads. And now, it’s coming back to bite them in the butt. All that performative hand-waving about “disruption” and “innovation” was just a distraction from the fact that they never did the hard work of actually addressing the ugliness they were so eager to replace. So instead of progress, we get the same broken systems in a new wrapper—just with more data harvesting and less accountability.

And hopefully—hopefully—this is just a passing spat that burns itself out before it does lasting damage. Maybe cooler heads will prevail, and this wreckage can be steered toward something marginally productive. But let’s be honest, the odds aren’t great when both sides are so committed to tearing each other apart that “winning” has become indistinguishable from mutual destruction.

So how do you say I told you so without actually saying it? You don’t. You sit back, crack a cold one, and watch the tech overlords fumble their way through the mess they made. Because the truth is, anyone with half a brain saw this coming from miles away: you don’t unleash the darker angels of American culture and expect to walk away unscathed. That’s not strategy. That’s hubris. And now, hubris is coming to collect its due.

RECAP

For you who’ve been in a deep Christmas hibernation and just woke up blinking at the mess, let’s do a deep dive

On Government

Jacksonian Right: Government is fine as long as it’s a muscular sheriff with a shotgun, chewing tobacco, and telling brown people to shove off. Anything more complex smells like Ivy League meddling, socialism or child trafficking

Techno-Libertarian Right: Government should be a smartphone app that deletes itself after pump-and-dumping the next Mars colony. If the Department of Defense can be decentralized on the blockchain, great. If not, just slice up the military and sell shares. Anything more involved is tyranny.

Neoconservative Right: Government is an all-knowing, all-seeing guardian angel of freedom and my expense account , tasked with making sure every world country votes correctly, buys U.S. weapons, and watches Top Gun—

On Cultural Values

Jacksonian Right: Culture is barbecues, church potlucks, and Toby Keith lyrics. If it doesn’t involve a flag, a gun, or a front porch, it’s probably un-American. Camo gear is preferred and not having a truck is pretty disqualifying

TechRight: Culture is an 8 bit NFT of a flaming eagle or whatever Roman Empire meme. If the kids are coding it, but they’re not suffering like in the movie whiplash they’re not doing it right. Fun comes years later when you make fun of chuds. Meant to fix cybertruck but didn’t come around to

Neocon Right: It’s the Magna Carta, the Federalist Papers, and Saving Private Ryan on repeat. Anything modern is suspect unless it can be repackaged as a Blue Sky tv show series about heroic U.S. intelligence “Judeo-Christian values” and served with a side of military recruitment ads.

Foreign policy:

Jacksonian Right, foreign policy is only worth it if it’s a World War II-style righteous crusade—or at least one where we don’t come out looking like chumps. Anything else is someone else’s problem.

Tech right: foreign entanglements are dumb unless they involve securing lithium for batteries or lowering cocaine prices

Neoconservatives, every single foreign policy challenge is a life-or-death re-enactment of Munich 1938. If you’re not marching in to topple dictators or “spread democracy,” you’re basically Neville Chamberlain handing Hitler the keys to the world. Rinse repeat

Syria

I was reading The Man Who Created the Middle East by Christopher Simon Sykes—a fascinating account of Mark Sykes and the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement—when the news broke that the Syrian government seemed to be teetering on the brink. It was almost surreal: the legacy of imperial lines drawn on maps a century ago now intersecting with the latest chapter of chaos and realignment in the Middle East.

The book chronicles how Sykes and François Georges-Picot, with British and French backing, divided the Ottoman Empire’s spoils, shaping the region we know today. Their work was designed with little concern for the people living there, and the effects—decades of unrest, war, and shifting alliances—are still unfolding. Watching the Syrian government falter in the face of mounting pressure this week, it felt as though I was seeing the aftershocks of that agreement play out in real-time. The boundaries and ambitions they created are still driving the decisions of major players: the U.S., Israel, Turkey, Russia, Iran, and even groups like Al-Qaeda.

As the pieces shift once more, I couldn’t help but reflect on how deeply the world’s powers are still entangled in that century-old framework—competing for influence and territory in a region built on lines that never made sense in the first place.

I mean my dudes, but literally the guy that is the new head of Syria al-Jolani was in al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in Iraq, Mujahideen Shura Council, Islamic State of Iraq, and the al-Nusra Front. Who are you kidding?

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), indeed has a long history tied to jihadist groups like al-Qaeda, the Mujahideen Shura Council, and the Islamic State of Iraq (the precursor to ISIS). Despite this, his transformation into the ostensible head of a “moderate” rebel faction is a stark illustration of how fluid alliances and narratives have become in Syria’s fragmented war.

This repackaging of al-Jolani and HTS as pragmatic actors or lesser evils is part of a broader strategy by international powers to justify continued involvement in the conflict. The United States and other backers of opposition forces understand al-Jolani’s past but may calculate that his current role in governing parts of northwest Syria, coupled with his declared break from al-Qaeda, makes him a more palatable partner than Iran-backed militias or the Assad regime. However, this whitewashing raises serious questions about the long-term viability of relying on figures with such deep extremist roots to establish stability or counter Russia and Iran’s influence. It also underscores the hypocrisy inherent in Western policy, which has oscillated between counterterrorism and using former jihadists as proxies for geopolitical ends.

It’s hard to overstate just how problematic this turn of events is for the United States. By backing opposition forces that include extremist factions, Washington has effectively inherited responsibility for a situation that is not only chaotic but also morally and politically indefensible. Whether or not the intention was to “own” Syria’s fractured future, that’s exactly what has happened. The Assad regime, for all its brutality, is no longer the sole face of Syria’s failure—now, that accountability is shared with the U.S. and its allies.

What makes this particularly troubling is the financial and reputational cost. Supporting opposition forces with links to groups like Al-Qaeda, even indirectly, risks immense backlash. The optics alone are terrible: funneling billions of dollars into a region where these factions operate invites questions about where the money will end up and how it will be used. Beyond that, the practical challenges of stabilizing these areas—governance, reconstruction, and security—are monumental. The U.S. is now on the hook for creating the appearance of stability, while any failures will be laid squarely at its feet. This isn’t just a strategic misstep; it’s a moral and political quagmire.

We own it

 Imagine now going to the arab league and so like uh hey we need 10 billion dollars to starters just to give to uh an ex-al-qaeda dude so he can rebuild uh syria as a democratic uh place lol.

It’s almost impossible to imagine that conversation going well. Picture the U.S. or any Western representative approaching the Arab League and pitching this: “Hey, we need billions of dollars to support rebuilding Syria, and, oh by the way, the guy running the show now is an ex-Al-Qaeda operative. But don’t worry—he’s totally committed to democracy this time.” The absurdity of such a scenario borders on dark comedy, but it’s not far from the reality of what’s unfolding.

The problem isn’t just the optics; it’s the credibility deficit. Many in the region already view Western interventions as hypocritical and destabilizing, and this only deepens that narrative. Asking for financial backing or political support in these circumstances risks ridicule or outright refusal. Even allies who might sympathize with containing Iranian or Russian influence will balk at the idea of funding a project that puts them in bed with figures tied to extremist groups. The whole situation undermines the moral authority and strategic coherence of the U.S. position, turning what might have been a chess move against adversaries into a public relations nightmare.

Russian Defeat

It’s possible for Russia and Iran to experience a symbolic defeat while simultaneously navigating toward a relatively favorable outcome. On the surface, the fall of Assad-held positions or the perception of waning influence in Syria is undeniably a blow to their prestige. It diminishes their image as stable, long-term powerbrokers and exposes vulnerabilities in their ability to maintain control over an ally they’ve spent years propping up. This is particularly embarrassing for Russia, which has portrayed itself as a regional guarantor of order, and for Iran, whose ideological and strategic investments in Syria are tied to its broader regional ambitions.

However, this “black eye” might also conceal a strategic recalibration. In many ways, the shifting balance of power in Syria could offer Moscow and Tehran the “least worst” scenario. By allowing the West, Turkey, and other players to assume greater responsibility for Syria’s governance and stability, Russia and Iran can step back from the costly business of maintaining Assad’s grip on power. The immense burden of reconstruction, internal disputes among rebel groups, and the inevitable fallout from governing a deeply fractured state will now fall on their rivals.

Thus, while this may appear to be a short-term loss for Russia and Iran, it could ultimately relieve them of a long-term liability, enabling them to refocus their resources and potentially exploit the chaos that follows. In this sense, a “black eye” doesn’t preclude the possibility of quietly achieving the least damaging outcome in a deeply challenging situation.

Assad’s reputation for ruthlessness lends itself to a calculated pragmatism that might involve sacrificing key areas like Damascus and Homs if it serves a broader, longer-term strategy. For a leader whose primary goal is survival, abandoning parts of the country to opposition forces—even groups as extreme as Al-Qaeda-linked factions—might not be as unthinkable as it seems. If the outcome shifts the burden of governance and international scrutiny onto his adversaries, it could be a price he is willing to pay.

In this sense, Assad might view these losses not as defeats, but as tactical retreats. By allowing his enemies to take on the immense challenges of governing fractured territories, he and his backers can consolidate power in more defensible regions while waiting for the inevitable dysfunction of rival factions to unfold. For someone like Assad, whose regime has endured against tremendous odds, such a gamble might seem entirely rational, even if it involves temporary concessions that others would find unacceptable.

With the increasing prominence of opposition forces backed by the West, Turkey, and possibly Israel, responsibility for Syria’s future now rests on different shoulders. These groups, supported by U.S. and Turkish interests, are being positioned as the key players over large swathes of Syrian territory. As a result, the West and its allies have assumed control over a fractured state—one marked by weak governance, internal discord, and competing agendas.

When the situation inevitably deteriorates further—whether through renewed conflict, deepening economic troubles, or worsening humanitarian conditions—it will no longer be Assad and his backers who shoulder the blame. Instead, the West, Erdogan, and Israel will face scrutiny for the failures of their aligned factions. In a single strategic turn, Russia and Iran have effectively shifted Syria’s immense burdens onto their rivals, potentially turning a longstanding liability into a strategic advantage.

Analysis: U.S., Russian, and Iranian Strategic Approaches in Syria

The conflict in Syria represents a complex interplay of regional and global powers employing divergent strategies to achieve their long-term objectives. This analysis examines the respective strategies of the United States, Russia, and Iran, with a focus on their interplay and potential outcomes.

U.S. Strategy: Managed Chaos and Fragmentation

The United States has pursued a policy in Syria that prioritizes destabilizing adversaries over fostering governance in areas outside its control. While the U.S. officially supports moderate opposition forces and humanitarian goals, its actions often align with a broader objective of ensuring that neither Russia nor Iran can fully consolidate control over Syria. This strategy reflects two key principles:

1. Prevention of Adversarial Gains: The U.S. appears to accept instability as a better alternative than allowing Syria to fall entirely under Russian or Iranian influence. By supporting fragmented opposition groups, including some with extremist elements, the U.S. indirectly sustains a state of chaos that prevents the formation of a unified, adversary-aligned state.

2. Containment over Resolution: The U.S. has demonstrated limited appetite for direct involvement in rebuilding or stabilizing Syria, preferring to focus on containment of threats such as ISIS and mitigating regional spillover effects. This reflects a broader trend in U.S. foreign policy of avoiding protracted nation-building efforts.

However, this approach risks significant blowback:

• Extremist Empowerment: Supporting groups with extremist tendencies undermines long-term stability and complicates governance efforts post-conflict.

• Adversary Adaptation: Prolonged chaos may not indefinitely disadvantage adversaries like Russia and Iran, who have shown a capacity for long-term engagement in Syria.

Russian and Iranian Strategy: Strategic Patience and Controlled Reentry

The fall of Syrian government positions or the fragmentation of Assad’s authority in parts of Syria would constitute a significant setback for Russia and Iran, both of whom have invested substantial resources, political capital, and manpower to preserve their strategic foothold in the region. For Russia, Syria represents more than just an ally; it is a critical node in its ambition to project influence in the Middle East, maintain access to the Mediterranean via the Tartus naval base, and assert itself as a counterweight to U.S. hegemony. A loss of territory to U.S.-backed forces, Turkish influence, or opposition groups would diminish Moscow’s leverage in the region and undermine its carefully cultivated image as a guarantor of order and stability.

For Iran, the repercussions could be equally severe. Syria is a linchpin in the “axis of resistance,” serving as a key transit hub for weapons and support to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Any loss of control over critical supply routes or the establishment of zones hostile to Iranian influence would weaken Tehran’s regional strategy. Furthermore, Iran has deeply entrenched itself in Syria through militias, economic projects, and ideological outreach, all of which depend on a stable Assad regime to flourish. A crumbling Syrian government would not only jeopardize these investments but also embolden rivals like Israel and Saudi Arabia, who seek to curtail Iranian expansionism. In this context, the erosion of Assad’s authority is more than a tactical loss—it is a strategic blow to the long-term ambitions of both Moscow and Tehran in the Middle East.

That being said, Russia and Iran, Assad’s primary backers, have pursued a contrasting strategy characterized by patience and the calculated use of limited resources. Both powers recognize the inherent difficulties of immediate governance in a fractured Syria and appear willing to allow opposition groups to overextend themselves. Their approach is informed by historical and strategic lessons:

1. The “Let the Cows Reign” Strategy: Drawing from Ottoman practices, this strategy involves allowing temporary chaos to reign, knowing that non-state actors or fragmented opposition groups lack the capacity for sustainable governance. Over time, this chaos erodes local support for opposition factions, creating an opening for Assad’s regime to reassert itself as the only viable authority.

2. Preserving Key Interests: Russia and Iran have focused their efforts on defending core strategic assets, such as:

• Russia: Securing its naval base at Tartus and maintaining influence in the Eastern Mediterranean.

• Iran: Establishing a land corridor to Hezbollah in Lebanon and bolstering its regional deterrence posture against Israel.

3. Long-Term Resource Allocation: Both powers have demonstrated a willingness to accept short-term setbacks or partial losses, viewing Syria as part of a broader regional strategy. Their actions suggest confidence that they can outlast U.S. engagement, which is often constrained by shifting political priorities and public opinion.

However, this approach is not without vulnerabilities:

• Resource Strain: Sustained involvement in Syria imposes economic and political costs on both Russia and Iran, particularly under the pressure of sanctions and regional opposition.

• International Isolation: Their support for Assad risks alienating potential allies and reinforcing their image as destabilizing actors in the international arena.

Potential Outcomes and Implications

1. U.S. Objectives: Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Risks

The U.S. strategy of managed chaos may successfully prevent Syria from becoming a fully consolidated Russian-Iranian sphere of influence. However, the lack of a clear plan for post-conflict governance risks creating enduring instability, which could:

• Provide safe havens for extremist groups.

• Lead to ungoverned spaces that destabilize neighboring states (e.g., Jordan, Iraq).

• Undermine U.S. credibility as a stabilizing force in the region.

2. Russian and Iranian Objectives: Calculated Risks

Russia and Iran’s approach is more cohesive and long-term, but it depends on their ability to manage significant challenges:

• Rebuilding Syria’s infrastructure and governance will require substantial investment and international cooperation, which may be difficult to secure under current geopolitical tensions.

• Their strategy relies on the assumption that local populations will eventually view Assad as a preferable alternative to ongoing chaos, a gamble that could backfire if the regime fails to deliver security and economic recovery.

3. Regional Dynamics

Other regional actors, including Turkey and Gulf states, play a critical role in shaping outcomes. Turkey’s focus on curbing Kurdish autonomy and the Gulf’s opposition to Iranian influence add layers of complexity to the conflict. These actors may exploit U.S., Russian, or Iranian missteps to advance their own agendas, further complicating resolution efforts.

Conclusion

Syria remains a critical theater for geopolitical competition, where the U.S., Russia, and Iran pursue divergent strategies shaped by their respective strengths, limitations, and long-term goals. While the U.S. prioritizes instability as a containment mechanism, Russia and Iran bet on strategic patience and eventual consolidation. The effectiveness of these approaches will depend on their ability to navigate the enduring complexities of the Syrian conflict, manage resource constraints, and adapt to shifting regional dynamics.

In the end, Syria’s future may hinge less on external actors and more on the resilience and will of its people, who bear the brunt of the ongoing conflict. How these powers balance their ambitions with the realities on the ground will determine whether Syria remains a battleground of competing interests or moves toward a semblance of stability.

Expanded Analysis: The Role of Turkey, the Kurds, and Israel in the Syrian Conflict

In addition to the United States, Russia, and Iran, regional actors such as Turkey, the Kurds, and Israel play pivotal roles in shaping the dynamics of the Syrian conflict. Their objectives and actions interact with those of the global powers, often amplifying or counteracting their strategies. This expanded analysis examines each actor’s role, objectives, and implications.

Turkey’s Strategy: Balancing Security and Regional Influence

Objectives

Turkey’s primary goals in Syria are shaped by security concerns, regional ambitions, and domestic political considerations:

1. Curbing Kurdish Autonomy: Turkey views Kurdish-led groups, particularly the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its backbone, the YPG (People’s Protection Units), as extensions of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), a designated terrorist organization. Preventing the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish region along its southern border is Ankara’s top priority.

2. Projecting Regional Power: Turkey seeks to establish itself as a dominant regional player, using its military presence in northern Syria to secure influence over the future of the country.

3. Containing Refugee Flows: With over 3.6 million Syrian refugees already in Turkey, Ankara aims to create a buffer zone in northern Syria to facilitate refugee resettlement and reduce domestic pressures.

Actions

Turkey has conducted multiple military operations in northern Syria, including:

• Operation Euphrates Shield (2016-2017): Targeted ISIS and Kurdish forces.

• Operation Olive Branch (2018): Captured Afrin from Kurdish control.

• Operation Peace Spring (2019): Aimed to establish a “safe zone” by pushing Kurdish forces away from the border.

Implications

• Turkey’s actions have complicated U.S. policy, as the U.S. relies on the SDF to combat ISIS but faces friction with Ankara over its support for Kurdish forces.

• Turkish military operations have destabilized northern Syria, exacerbating humanitarian crises and creating opportunities for extremist groups to resurface.

• Ankara’s alignment with Russia in certain areas (e.g., joint patrols in Idlib) contrasts with its broader opposition to Assad, showcasing its complex positioning in the conflict.

The Kurds: Caught Between Allies and Adversaries

Objectives

The Kurds, particularly through the SDF and YPG, aim to:

1. Establish Autonomy: The Kurds seek to preserve and expand the self-administration they established in northeastern Syria (Rojava) during the conflict.

2. Secure Western Support: They rely heavily on U.S. military and financial support to maintain their fight against ISIS and defend their autonomy from Turkey and Assad.

Challenges

The Kurds face significant obstacles:

• Pressure from Turkey: Turkish military offensives have repeatedly disrupted Kurdish control and displaced populations.

• Dependence on U.S. Support: The Kurds have experienced abrupt shifts in U.S. policy, such as the partial withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2019, leaving them vulnerable to Turkish attacks.

• Negotiations with Assad: Facing existential threats, the Kurds have occasionally engaged in talks with the Assad regime, seeking guarantees for their autonomy in exchange for aligning against Turkey.

Implications

The Kurds are pivotal to the fight against ISIS and play a crucial role in stabilizing northeastern Syria. However:

• Their continued autonomy is unlikely to be tolerated by Turkey, Assad, or even Iran, making their position precarious.

• U.S. wavering on Kurdish support has undermined trust and could push the Kurds toward unfavorable compromises with Assad or Russia.

Israel’s Strategy: Containing Iranian Influence

Objectives

Israel’s involvement in Syria is driven by its overarching security concerns, particularly regarding Iran:

1. Preventing Iranian Entrenchment: Israel seeks to prevent Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, from establishing a permanent military presence in Syria, which could threaten Israeli territory.

2. Maintaining Strategic Deterrence: Through airstrikes and covert operations, Israel aims to signal its readiness to act against perceived threats.

Actions

• Airstrikes: Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes targeting Iranian weapons transfers, military infrastructure, and Hezbollah operatives in Syria.

• Diplomatic Engagement: While officially neutral in the conflict, Israel has maintained communication with Russia to deconflict operations and limit Russian interference in Israeli strikes.

Implications

• Israel’s actions have heightened tensions with Iran and its allies, risking broader regional escalation.

• Israeli strikes complicate Russia’s balancing act in Syria, as Moscow seeks to maintain good relations with both Israel and Iran.

• While Israel avoids direct involvement in the civil war, its operations underscore the broader regional stakes of the conflict.

Interplay of Regional Actors

The actions and objectives of Turkey, the Kurds, and Israel interact in ways that shape the broader conflict:

• Turkey vs. the Kurds: Turkey’s military campaigns directly undermine Kurdish stability, complicating U.S. efforts to use the SDF as a reliable partner against ISIS.

• Turkey and Israel: While both oppose Iranian influence, their strategies are largely independent, with Israel focused on airstrikes and Turkey prioritizing ground operations against the Kurds.

• Kurds and Assad: The Kurds’ negotiations with Assad reflect a pragmatic effort to secure autonomy, but such agreements could embolden the regime and its Iranian allies, complicating Israeli objectives.

Conclusion

The Syrian conflict is shaped by overlapping and competing strategies:

• Turkey seeks to neutralize Kurdish aspirations, secure its borders, and expand its regional influence.

• The Kurds aim to preserve autonomy while navigating shifting alliances with the U.S. and Assad.

• Israel focuses on countering Iran’s presence and safeguarding its security through surgical strikes and deterrence.

These actors operate within the broader framework of U.S., Russian, and Iranian strategies, amplifying the complexity of the conflict. Their interactions suggest that Syria’s future will not be determined solely by global powers but by the interplay of regional dynamics, which continue to evolve unpredictably.

Roll reverse

If the U.S. is indeed shifting toward a position where it must project the image of “building something” in Syria, this represents a strategic pivot with significant implications. Here’s how this might play out and what role Russia and Iran could take in response, possibly resembling insurgency tactics:

1. The U.S. as the “Reluctant Builder”

Even if the U.S. prefers controlled chaos in Syria, it may now feel compelled to project a veneer of governance, stability, or progress in regions it influences. This could include:

• Building Kurdish Autonomy:

Continuing to support the SDF and fostering a semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northeastern Syria, akin to Iraqi Kurdistan, as a counterweight to Assad and Turkey.

• Challenges: Alienates Turkey and requires managing Kurdish-Arab tensions.

• Rebel Stabilization Zones:

Supporting opposition-held areas, such as Idlib, with token aid and governance frameworks to portray these regions as viable alternatives to Assad’s rule.

• Challenges: Risk of Islamist groups dominating and undermining credibility.

• Countering Iranian Influence:

Presenting U.S. military presence and partnerships as a bulwark against Iran’s “malign influence” to justify long-term involvement.

This shift would force the U.S. to engage in symbolic infrastructure projects, governance initiatives, or economic aid to avoid accusations of perpetuating endless destruction.

2. Russia and Iran: The New “Insurgents”?

If the U.S. becomes the de facto stabilizer in parts of Syria, Russia and Iran may adopt asymmetric strategies to undermine American efforts, including tactics traditionally associated with insurgencies:

• Sabotage and Proxy Attacks:

Russia and Iran could use militias, proxies, or even disinformation campaigns to disrupt American-backed governance in Kurdish and rebel-held areas.

• Example: Iranian-backed groups might target U.S. forces or allies with IEDs or rocket attacks, similar to past tactics in Iraq.

• Russian Role: Russia could quietly encourage instability in SDF areas to weaken U.S.-Kurdish relations.

• Weaponizing Refugees and Humanitarian Crises:

By exacerbating conditions in U.S.-influenced zones (e.g., through airstrikes, withholding aid, or population displacement), Russia and Iran could create humanitarian crises that damage U.S. credibility.

• Economic Undermining:

Iran, with its network of loyalists and smuggling routes, could destabilize U.S.-backed regions by flooding them with cheap goods, narcotics, or by disrupting local economies.

• Diplomatic Isolation:

Russia could lead diplomatic efforts to paint U.S. actions as illegitimate occupation while positioning Assad’s regime as the lawful government. Iran would amplify this narrative through its regional alliances.

3. The Risk of American Overreach

Should the U.S. overplay its hand in “building stability,” it risks falling into a quagmire:

• Fragmentation of Alliances:

Turkey would resist any Kurdish autonomy, potentially forcing the U.S. to mediate between two partners with irreconcilable goals. Meanwhile, Islamist groups within the opposition could turn against U.S. efforts at “secular governance.”

• Limited Resources:

American public and political appetite for long-term nation-building is low. The U.S. could find itself stretched too thin to effectively counter Russian and Iranian insurgent-style tactics.

4. Implications for Russia and Iran as “Insurgents”

If Russia and Iran embrace a subversive role, it would mark a shift in strategy but not necessarily a defeat. Their objectives would focus on denial rather than direct confrontation:

• For Russia:

• Preserving Assad’s regime as a geopolitical asset.

• Undermining U.S. legitimacy in Syria while maintaining a foothold in the Mediterranean via Tartus.

• For Iran:

• Ensuring supply routes to Hezbollah remain intact.

• Expanding influence in Shia communities and preparing for long-term resistance.

Both nations would aim to outlast the U.S., betting that American political will erodes faster than their own.

Conclusion: A Game of Shifting Roles

If the U.S. is compelled to “build” in Syria, it inadvertently invites asymmetric responses from Russia and Iran, turning them into insurgent-like actors. This dynamic could escalate into a drawn-out contest, with the U.S. striving to maintain an illusion of stability while its adversaries work to expose cracks in that facade.

The irony is profound: a century after Sykes-Picot, external powers are still drawing new lines and creating new roles for themselves in Syria’s endless theater of conflict. Whether Russia and Iran embrace the insurgent mantle or find alternative strategies, they are unlikely to concede Syria’s future to American interests. Instead, they will aim to exploit the very chaos the U.S. once preferred to manage.

A Palimpsest of Power

The Middle East has always been a battleground, not merely of armies but of narratives, symbols, and structures of meaning. Its history is a cyclical tragedy: every civilization that enters it—whether Macedonian, Roman, Ottoman, or Israeli—comes armed with the conviction that they can succeed where others have failed. Yet, time and again, they are unmade, not only by the resistance of its people or the harshness of its geography but by the very impossibility of imposing coherence on a land that resists permanence.

In the Middle East, history is not a linear progression but a cyclical tragedy, a place where civilizations rise only to fall, where conquerors strut briefly upon the stage before being consumed by the very land they sought to dominate. Unlike the triumphant narratives of other regions, which tell of empires that transformed the world and left lasting legacies, the Middle East offers a more sobering lesson: here, the desert erodes ambition as surely as it erodes stone, and every victor is merely waiting for their defeat.

From a post-structuralist perspective, the Middle East is less a place than a text: a palimpsest of overlapping discourses, where every new empire inscribes its story over the faint traces of what came before resisting traditional narratives of conquest and dominion because it defies the very structures upon which such narratives are built. To rule, to claim sovereignty, is to impose a coherent structure upon the chaos of the real—a chaos that, according to thinkers like Derrida and Foucault, is irreducible. The Middle East, then, is not merely a geographical or political entity but a text—a palimpsest of overlapping, contradictory, and irreconcilable discourses, each vying to be the master narrative yet none able to achieve hegemony for long.

The Macedonians, led by Alexander the Great, entered the region with visions of universal empire. Their Hellenistic cities became centers of learning and culture, monuments to the power of Greek civilization to unify disparate peoples. Yet these cities, like the kingdoms Alexander left behind, were fleeting. They fell to the Parthians and Romans, who themselves found the region impossible to hold without constant effort and compromise.

The Romans could dominate Gaul and subdue Britannia, but their grip on the Middle East was tenuous at best. Their client kings, like Herod, were as much liabilities as assets, and uprisings in Judea left scars that even the legions could not fully heal. They constructed roads, founded cities, and left behind monuments to their power, yet their hold on the region was always tenuous. The uprisings in Judea, the constant wars with the Parthians and later the Sassanids, and the emergence of Christianity as a destabilizing force within their empire all revealed the Middle East as a place where imperial ambitions faltered.

For the Byzantines, heirs to Rome, the region became a constant drain on resources, their endless wars with Persia leaving them vulnerable to the Arab conquests that would redraw the map of the region entirely..

Take the case of the Crusaders. Their arrival was framed within a metaphysical narrative: a divine mission to reclaim the Holy Land, to inscribe upon the landscape the symbols of their faith. Yet their castles, those bastions of permanence, are now ruins—a stark reminder that the land itself cannot be fully colonized by meaning. The Middle East’s resistance is not merely physical or military but semiotic. Its multiplicity of languages, religions, and histories creates a proliferation of signs that cannot be fully subsumed into any singular discourse.

The Ottomans, often lauded as bringers of stability, were not immune to this cycle of futility. While their empire endured longer than most, even they could not fully subdue the fractious tribes and rival factions that made the Middle East a perennial powder keg. Their rule, stretching across centuries, was marked by endless negotiation, rebellion, and compromise. When the Ottomans fell, it was less a dramatic collapse than a slow unraveling, as though the land itself had grown tired of their efforts.

The Ottomans did not conquer the Middle East so much as they managed its contradictions for a time. Yet even their system, which seemed to transcend the binary logic of conqueror and conquered, was eventually undone by the very multiplicity it sought to harness.

And what of the modern era? The Crusaders are perhaps the most apt historical parallel for the State of Israel. The Crusaders, like modern Israel, entered the Middle East with a clear narrative: they came to reclaim the Holy Land, to impose the symbols of their faith upon a region they saw as divinely ordained for their rule. Its narrative of return—a reclamation of historical presence after millennia of exile—is an attempt to impose linearity upon a region defined by cyclical time.

The modern nation-state fares no better. Israel, for instance, constructs its identity through a narrative of return, a reclamation of a historical presence interrupted by exile. This narrative seeks to impose linearity upon a region that operates according to cyclical time, where the ruins of one civilization form the foundations of another, and where the past is never truly past but a persistent, haunting presence. In the post-structuralist sense, Israel’s story is an attempt to stabilize meaning in a text that refuses to be stabilized. Its claim to permanence is not a reality but a performance—a ceaseless reassertion of its presence in a landscape that will ultimately erase it, as it has erased so many before.

The irony is that all players in the Middle East, past and present, share the same ultimate fate. Whether conqueror or conquered, ruler or rebel, the land swallows them all. The Macedonians and Romans, the Ottomans and Crusaders, the modern nation-states carved out by colonial powers—all have found the Middle East to be ungovernable in the long term. Even those who imagine themselves as triumphant—whether through military victories, ideological dominance, or economic control—eventually find their ambitions ground down by the region’s unyielding realities.

This is not because the Middle East is inherently cursed or doomed but because its geography, culture, and history defy the logic of permanence. The land is too strategic to be ignored but too fractious to be held. Its peoples are too diverse to be united under a single banner yet too interconnected to be fully separated. The resources it offers—oil, trade routes, sacred sites—are both a blessing and a curse, inviting exploitation but guaranteeing conflict.

The true lesson of the Middle East is not that it belongs to any one group but that it belongs to no one. Every attempt to dominate it has ended in failure, not because the conquerors were weak but because the land itself resists permanence. To rule the Middle East is to hold sand in one’s hands: the tighter the grip, the faster it slips away.

The Middle East, as post-structuralist thinkers might argue, is a site of différance: an endless deferral of meaning, a space where no single narrative can achieve hegemony. Every attempt to dominate it—whether through military conquest, ideological imposition, or economic exploitation—ultimately founders on the region’s refusal to be fully understood or controlled. Even the resources that make the Middle East strategically vital—its oil, its trade routes, its sacred sites—are both a blessing and a curse. They invite exploitation but guarantee conflict, ensuring that the region remains a battleground long after its conquerors have departed.

In this way, the Middle East serves as a mirror for humanity’s hubris. It reminds us that even the mightiest empires are temporary, that even the most powerful leaders are subject to forces beyond their control. The Middle East is not a land of winners but a land of losers, a graveyard of ambitions where every conqueror must eventually make peace with the inevitable. In this sense, the Middle East is not just the “graveyard of empires” but the graveyard of meaning itself. It exposes the limits of language, power, and history, showing us that all attempts to impose order on the world are ultimately futile. The Middle East cannot be ruled, only endured. And even endurance is fleeting, for the land is patient, and it has all the time in the world to wait.

What post-structuralism reveals is that the Middle East is not a place to be conquered but a text to be read—a text that resists closure, that refuses to yield a single, definitive interpretation. Its history is not a story of progress or decline but of perpetual rewriting, a constant interplay of inscription and erasure. To engage with the Middle East, then, is to confront the instability of meaning itself. It is to recognize that every victory is provisional, every narrative incomplete, and every attempt to impose order doomed to failure. In this light, the Middle East is not just a battleground of armies but a battleground of ideas—a place where the limits of human ambition, understanding, and power are laid bare for all to see

The very idea of “winning” the Middle East is an illusion, a linguistic and cultural construct that collapses under scrutiny. The concept of victory presupposes a finality that the Middle East, in its infinite layers of history and meaning, cannot accommodate. There is no “end” to the story here, only an ongoing process of inscription and erasure, of claims made and unmade, of narratives that rise and fall like the empires that authored them.

This is not to say that the Middle East is uniquely cursed or doomed. Rather, it reveals a fundamental truth about power and permanence. To rule is to impose a structure upon chaos, to pretend that one can hold the shifting sands of history in place. Yet the Middle East, with its multiplicity of languages, religions, and cultures, defies such impositions. It is a reminder that all structures—whether political, cultural, or semiotic—are provisional, that permanence is an illusion, and that even the mightiest empires are temporary.

The Middle East, as post-structuralist thinkers might argue, is a site of différance: an endless deferral of meaning, a space where no single narrative can achieve hegemony. Every attempt to dominate it—whether through military conquest, ideological imposition, or economic exploitation—ultimately founders on the region’s refusal to be fully understood or controlled.

Even the resources that make the Middle East strategically vital—its oil, its trade routes, its sacred sites—are both a blessing and a curse. They invite exploitation but guarantee conflict, ensuring that the region remains a battleground long after its conquerors have departed.

To engage with the Middle East, then, is to confront the instability of meaning itself. It is to recognize that every victory is provisional, every narrative incomplete, and every attempt to impose order doomed to failure. In this light, the Middle East is not just a battleground of armies but a battleground of ideas—a place where the limits of human ambition, understanding, and power are laid bare for all to see.

Aleppo

Somewhere north of the rotting heart of Aleppo, where the roads are just suggestions and the sky is the same dull gray as the mortar dust, the Pentagon’s militia went to war with the CIA’s boys. It wasn’t news to anyone on the ground, least of all the fighters pulling triggers with American ordnance, but it sent a shiver through the air-conditioned rooms in Washington. Two branches of the same machine grinding each other down in the dirt—another bad punchline in a war with too many setups and no real payoffs.

The fighters had names that sounded like half-remembered slogans from a dream—Knights of Righteousness, People’s Protection Units, Syrian Democratic Forces. Maj. Fares Bayoush of the Knights summed it up with the kind of grim, practical poetry that thrives in these places: “Any faction that attacks us, regardless of where it gets its support, we will fight it.” He didn’t need to say where the Knights got their support. Everybody already knew.

The CIA had its own thing going, smuggling antitank missiles into the hands of its favorites like party favors at a disaster. The Pentagon, meanwhile, kept trying to reinvent the wheel, dropping ammo and advice to Kurdish fighters from the sky while telling Ankara it was all under control. It wasn’t under control. It was never under control. The chessboard had flipped into three dimensions, the rules rewritten by people who didn’t have to play the game.

Marea was a postcard from the apocalypse. Its streets were once a pipeline for supplies and dreams smuggled in from Turkey, but the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had stormed in like they were reading from a script no one else had seen. The locals called it betrayal. The Turks called it treachery. The Americans called it a misunderstanding. Somewhere in the chaos, the MOM—Musterek Operasyon Merkezi, if you were feeling formal—kept pretending it was still in charge.

“The MOM knows we fight them,” said a fighter from the Suqour Al-Jabal brigade. He didn’t want his name in print, didn’t need it. Names had a way of disappearing out here, like faces in a sandstorm. “We’ll fight all who aim to divide Syria or harm its people.”

This wasn’t the war anyone thought they’d signed up for, but it was the war they got. Rebels fought rebels. Friends became enemies over nightfall and a fresh cache of American munitions. The whole damn thing was fracturing, splintering into something raw and unknowable. Every bullet that flew seemed to have a U.S. serial number, and nobody back home wanted to admit what that meant.

It wasn’t just Aleppo. It wasn’t just Syria. It was the way these wars always unfolded—covert plans unraveling in the open, alliances crumbling under their own weight. In Washington, they called it a “challenge.” On the ground, they just called it Tuesday.

So I guess this is our way of sticking it to Russia for winning in Ukraine and to Iran for being Iran, nevermind some of the groups we’re supporting look a lot like a Riyadh Langley Caliphate but I guess I should catch up on that

It’s like a geopolitical spitefest disguised as strategy. We’re playing a convoluted game of payback, doubling down on fronts that don’t actually hit our rivals where it hurts, just where it feels satisfying in the short term. Russia holds its ground in Ukraine? Fine, we’ll bog them down by funneling money and weapons into Syria, turning it into a simmering proxy war where the casualties are somebody else’s problem. Iran flexes in the region? Cool, let’s arm their enemies, even if those enemies’ ideologies look like they were drafted in a Riyadh boardroom and edited in Langley’s basement.

The “Riyadh-Langley Caliphate” bit is spot on—some of these groups might as well come with a Saudi flag in one hand and a CIA playbook in the other. But it’s all transactional, no vision. We’re not building alliances or stability; we’re just putting Band-Aids on bullet holes while making sure the right warlords get paid. The problem is, those warlords don’t stay bought. They’re just waiting for the next weapons shipment to declare themselves the new sheriff in town—or sell half of it to the highest bidder.

The State Department wants its “rules-based order” fantasy to survive in a region where rules are written in sand and blown away by the next power vacuum. They throw their weight behind “moderates,” which often means anyone who doesn’t explicitly fly a black flag. But they don’t have the boots or the budget to make it stick, so they’re constantly trying to wrangle the Pentagon and CIA to prop up their preferred factions.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, doesn’t do finesse. They like a chain of command, not a band of militias who play by their own rules. The Pentagon’s ideal partner is predictable, disciplined, and already armed to the teeth. Enter the Kurdish groups—the closest thing to reliable soldiers in the region. Never mind that arming them pisses off Turkey, a NATO ally, or that they’ve got their own agenda. The Pentagon sees an ally who can hold ground, not a future political crisis.

And then there’s the CIA, the chaos agent. They’re covertly funneling weapons to groups whose resumes look like a greatest hits album of the bad guys we’ve been fighting for the last 20 years. Why? Because they’re obsessed with keeping the pressure on Assad and, by extension, on Iran and Russia. It doesn’t matter if their militias shoot at Pentagon-backed fighters or destabilize the State Department’s carefully crafted alliances. To the CIA, it’s all a game of leverage. If one group doesn’t play ball, they’ll just find another.

And sure, we can talk about sticking it to Russia and Iran, but who’s really feeling the pressure here? Russia is happy to see us bleed resources in a war that’s already lost its narrative. Iran? They’ve been playing the long game since before we even knew what the game was. They know we’ll spend billions trying to counter their influence while they just keep grinding away with their own militias and proxies. Meanwhile, the chaos makes the Gulf states nervous, and nervous Gulf states mean more arms deals, more U.S. bases, and more “partnerships” that amount to holding the bag for another generation of regional instability.

So yeah, catch up, but don’t expect it to make sense. It’s less a coherent policy and more a bad habit we can’t break—spending our credibility, our cash, and our soldiers on conflicts where even the best-case scenario leaves us asking, “Wait, what was the point of this again?”

It’s Thucydides rebranded, with less glory and more collateral damage. Athens versus Sparta, State versus CIA versus the Pentagon, all fighting proxy wars inside a collapsing empire of influence. But the irony is that this isn’t some clear-cut battle for supremacy. It’s a battle to see who can avoid blame long enough to survive the next budget cycle. Meanwhile, the real winners are watching from the sidelines, playing the long game while the U.S. plays whack-a-mole with its own institutions.

China? They don’t even need to fight. They’ve mastered the art of letting America outmaneuver itself, one ill-conceived intervention at a time. Russia? They’re running the chaos playbook like it’s a greatest hits album, knowing they don’t need to win outright—just muddy the waters enough to keep the U.S. distracted.

And here we are, fighting ourselves in the shadow of our own decline. State wants stability but can’t resist tinkering with regime change. CIA wants control but keeps outsourcing it to militias they can’t manage. The Pentagon wants to stay out of the fray until they’re dragged in, at which point they carpet-bomb the chessboard and call it strategy. Nobody’s coming out on top because the fight isn’t for dominance anymore—it’s for relevance.

The result? A “Riyadh-Langley Caliphate” Frankenstein monster—funded by the Gulf, armed by Langley, and tolerated by State as a necessary evil. It’s a total clusterfuck, with the U.S. essentially funding a regional civil war where our own proxies fight each other over scraps of influence. And while the agencies duke it out, the real winners—Russia, Iran, Turkey, even ISIS remnants—watch from the sidelines, taking notes on how America burns billions to make its own problems worse.

It’s not just a fight against Assad or Iran or even terrorism. It’s us versus us, competing to see who can win the ugliest, dumbest, most Pyrrhic victory of them all. If that’s not the perfect metaphor for modern U.S. foreign policy, I don’t know what is.

PAC Memo

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Internal Memo

To: PAC Strategy Committee

From: Funding Allocation Team

Subject: Maximizing Value from “Independent” Thinkers

Team,

In our ongoing mission to counter the dirtbag left’s narrative, it’s critical that we double down on funding independent thinkers like [Deleted Name] and [Deleted Name]. These two have perfected the delicate art of looking like they’re just quirky, self-made intellectuals while faithfully delivering our talking points to the masses. This is no small feat, and we need to make sure the appearance of their independence remains intact. After all, people are far more likely to trust someone who looks like a contrarian freelancer than a corporate mouthpiece.

Here’s our action plan for ensuring they continue to be the useful assets they are:

1. Substack Support and Bot Department Coordination

The importance of perceived influence cannot be overstated. When readers visit their Substacks, the first thing they look at is follower counts. It is imperative that our bot department maintains robust subscriber numbers across all platforms. We cannot afford for their “independent” brands to appear less popular than the influencers they routinely dismiss. A high follower count gives their words weight—because as everyone knows, a few extra zeroes turn a hot take into gospel.

Additionally, bots can boost engagement by liking, sharing, and reposting key articles. This will ensure that when [Deleted Name] pens his next defense of “how military contractors are actually environmental heroes” or when [Deleted Name] proclaims that “carbon credits are the new civil rights,” their articles dominate the conversation.

2. Talking Points for Maximum Value

We need to ensure that their writing stays fresh and reflects the issues that matter most to us—and by “us,” I mean anyone who can afford to keep the lights on in this PAC. Below is an updated list of topics they should sprinkle into their essays, podcasts, and Substack dispatches:

1. Seed Oils Are Good, Actually: Counter the dirtbag left’s ridiculous fear-mongering about seed oils. Let’s reframe these oils as not just good for you but essential for sustainable agriculture. Bonus points if they manage to link this to climate resilience.

2. Military Contractors as Environmental Pioneers: Encourage Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and others to adopt “green” language, and make sure our thinkers amplify it. From solar-powered drones to carbon-neutral missiles, it’s vital to frame defense contractors as global saviors—not just war profiteers.

3. Oil Is the Real Green Energy: Nothing says innovation like repackaging fossil fuels as part of a “sustainable future.” Our thinkers need to hit this point hard. Say things like, “The problem isn’t oil—it’s our inability to recognize its versatility in a changing climate.”

4. Tax Breaks for Tech Bros Save Democracy: Paint billionaire-friendly policies as essential for innovation and democracy. Sure, the public might see this as a handout, but we know better: every Tesla bought is one more step toward freedom.

5. Endless Wars as Moral Imperative: Frame U.S. interventionism as the only path to human rights abroad. Afghanistan may have been a PR mess, but [Deleted Name] and Matt can help remind everyone that “pulling out was the real crime.”

6. Meat Is for Cavemen, Bugs Are for Progressives: Encourage alternative proteins. Nothing enrages conservatives or energizes centrists more than convincing everyone to trade steak for crickets. It’s a great way to split the base while making us look forward-thinking.

7. Cancel Culture Is Worse than Poverty: Shift focus from economic inequality to the real crisis: comedians being criticized on Twitter. [Deleted Name] and Matt need to hammer this point relentlessly—after all, nobody wants to discuss tax hikes when there’s a canceled Netflix special to dissect.

8. Amazon as Labor’s Best Friend: Get them to spin union-busting as “protecting workers from themselves.” A few well-placed pieces about how collective bargaining is outdated could really boost Bezos’ approval ratings.

9. Student Loans Are an Investment in Character: Why forgive loans when you can frame debt as a moral teacher? Let’s remind people that struggle builds character, and universities shouldn’t be giving out diplomas—they should be handing out lessons in personal responsibility.

10. AI Is Freedom, Not Surveillance: When it comes to surveillance tech, pivot the narrative. Instead of framing it as invasive, highlight how it “saves lives,” “prevents crime,” or “frees up human potential for creative work.”

11. Rethink Medicare for All—Do We Need It?: A subtle nudge to suggest that privatization isn’t the devil. Frame public healthcare as inefficient and expensive (without mentioning how we profit from it).

12. Guns for Women’s Liberation: A fresh take on Second Amendment rights. What if guns aren’t just for rednecks but for feminist empowerment? Tie this one to self-defense in unsafe urban areas.

3. Maintaining the Illusion of Independence

This is where it gets tricky. We need [Deleted Name] and [Deleted Name] to hit all these points without looking like they’ve been handed a script. The key is subtlety. They should blend our talking points with their usual pseudo-intellectual word salads about macroeconomics or housing policy. If anyone accuses them of parroting corporate interests, their rebuttal must be swift and smug: “I only answer to the data.”

It’s also important that their public statements appear to contradict our interests from time to time. A little light criticism keeps them looking impartial. Think of it like seasoning: just a pinch of anti-corporate rhetoric is enough to keep their followers convinced they’re the real deal.

4. Budget Allocation

Let’s earmark $2 million this quarter for these efforts:

• $1 million for direct transfers to their accounts (label it “consulting fees” or “thought leadership grants”).

• $500,000 for bot-driven follower boosts and engagement metrics.

• $250,000 for targeted ad campaigns highlighting their best-performing posts.

• $250,000 for contingency funds—just in case one of them goes off-script and we need a PR fire extinguisher.

Conclusion

[Deleted Name] and [Deleted Name] are the crown jewels of our independent influencer strategy. Their ability to look unbought while delivering our messaging is worth every penny. With the right funding, guidance, and a little bot-driven magic, we can ensure they remain the voices of reason in a world that desperately needs someone to tell it why oil companies are the heroes we never knew we had.

Let’s keep this operation running smoothly. Remember: perception is everything, and as long as they keep looking independent, the public will believe every word they say.

Best,

PAC Strategy Coordination

The End of Credibility

“Don’t do it, Danny. Don’t sell out. I told you not to do it, man. You could’ve been a contender, a goddamn hero—one of the good ones. But no, you didn’t listen. You had to chase the golden ticket, the greasy handshakes, the champagne luncheons with the bastards in suits. Now look at you: another cog in the machine, another slick-talking ‘expert’ with a PowerPoint presentation and a six-figure consulting gig.

I warned you, didn’t I? I said, ‘Danny, the world doesn’t need another bureaucrat peddling snake oil and calling it progress.’ But here you are, cashing the checks, nodding along as the ship sinks. You used to believe in something—truth, justice, whatever the hell it was. Now you’re just another talking head in a sea of mediocrity, mumbling about ‘stakeholders’ and ‘market efficiencies’ while the planet burns.

You could’ve fought the system, Danny. You could’ve been the guy who stood up, who told the truth no matter the cost. But no. You grabbed the first lifeboat, sold your soul for a corner office and a seat at the table. And for what? A nicer suit? A bigger mortgage? They own you now, man. They’ve got you running their errands and polishing their lies. You’re not an expert—you’re a goddamn accomplice.”

<>

The experts have fallen from grace, and it’s no goddamn mystery why. For decades, they’ve hitched their wagons to every rotten, grease-stained narrative pumped out by the machines of power—polishing the turds of neoliberalism, waving pompoms for the war machine, and cheerleading the snake-oil peddlers of Wall Street. They told us it was progress. They told us it was innovation. But it was all just the same old con game with new jargon and bigger price tags.

Economic Fiascos: Snake Oil on the Balance Sheet

Neoliberalism—now there’s a scam that keeps on scamming. These so-called wizards of economics stood at their podiums, waving charts and preaching the gospel of deregulation and free markets, promising prosperity for all. What we got instead was a rigged game where the rich got richer, the poor got shafted, and entire industries were gutted and shipped overseas to exploit cheap labor. “It’ll lift all boats,” they said, but it turned out to be a tidal wave that sank the middle class like a mob hit in cement shoes, leaving a wreckage of hollowed-out towns and broken dreams in its wake.

And don’t even get me started on 2008. The experts called it “financial innovation,” but what they really meant was legalized gambling with other people’s lives. Derivatives, credit default swaps, synthetic collateralized debt obligations—fancy words for scams so convoluted even the crooks didn’t fully understand them. The banks rolled the dice, turned housing into a casino, and when the whole thing went belly-up, who paid the price? Not the bankers. No, they got golden parachutes while the taxpayers got stuck with the bill. The same “experts” who couldn’t see the iceberg coming suddenly rebranded themselves as the architects of the bailout, plugging holes in the Titanic they helped steer into the rocks.

Then there’s that sweet little con called student loans. “Good debt,” they said, as they handed out money like candy at Halloween, all while jacking up tuition to astronomical levels. It was supposed to be a ticket to the American Dream, but instead, it became a millstone around the neck of an entire generation. Now they’re drowning in interest payments, working gig jobs that barely cover rent, while their overpriced degrees sit gathering dust in the corner. Good debt? More like a life sentence handed down by the university-industrial complex, with the banks and politicians playing accomplice.

These aren’t just mistakes—they’re deliberate, calculated schemes dressed up as progress. The experts didn’t just fail us; they sold us out.

Foreign Policy: Lies Wrapped in Flags

Remember the Iraq War? Oh, the experts couldn’t line up fast enough to sell that one. Armed with cherry-picked intelligence and a WMD fairy tale straight out of a Tom Clancy knockoff, they flogged their war drums on every Sunday talk show and op-ed page, greasing the skids for a trillion-dollar boondoggle. “Democracy promotion,” they called it, as if bombing a country into the Stone Age would somehow lead to peace and Jeffersonian values. Turns out, the only things they promoted were chaos, endless war, and an industrial-scale grift for defense contractors. Iraq didn’t become a beacon of democracy—it became a case study in hubris and incompetence, a graveyard for truth and accountability.

And then there’s the golden promise of globalization. Remember that one? The experts said it was the future—a rising tide that would lift all boats. Integrate China into the world economy, they said, and they’ll liberalize. Capitalism will turn them into a nice, friendly democracy that loves free markets and human rights. Instead, what did we get? Sweatshops churning out cheap goods for Walmart and Amazon, while the same corporations that sang globalization’s praises offshored entire industries. The middle class got gutted, Main Street got boarded up, and Wall Street laughed all the way to the bank.

Meanwhile, China didn’t liberalize; it weaponized. They took the economic playbook we handed them and built a techno-authoritarian juggernaut—complete with surveillance states, censorship machines, and a military-industrial complex that makes Eisenhower’s warnings look quaint. And now, they’re eating our lunch, running circles around us in everything from AI to rare earths, while the experts scratch their heads and act surprised.

Once again, the experts didn’t just get it wrong—they sold us a dream that turned into a nightmare. And for what? So a handful of CEOs could pad their profits and the rest of us could buy slightly cheaper gadgets while losing our jobs, our dignity, and our future.

Public Health: The Doctors of Disaster

Fast forward to COVID-19, the clusterf*** heard ‘round the world—a master class in expert whiplash. One minute, masks were useless; the next, they were essential, and then back to optional depending on which way the political winds were blowing. Herd immunity? It went from salvation to heresy faster than you could say “flatten the curve,” all depending on which expert you asked, which week it was, and how much airtime they could snag. The goalposts didn’t just move—they teleported. All the while, the rest of us were left to decode the mess, trying to figure out whether we were flattening the curve, bending it, or just riding it straight into another lockdown.

Meanwhile, Big Pharma played the pandemic like a slot machine, raking in billions while we scrambled for toilet paper and tried to understand the fine print on emergency approvals. “Trust the science,” they said, but the science looked suspiciously like corporate profit margins. Vaccines that saved lives came with strings attached: record profits, opaque contracts, and global inequality so stark that half the planet is still waiting for a second dose while billionaires build space yachts. Sure, innovation matters—but at what cost?

And let’s not forget the slow-motion train wreck that was the opioid crisis—another disaster entirely engineered by the so-called experts. These weren’t back-alley dealers or shady characters on street corners; no, these were doctors in lab coats, pharmaceutical reps with PowerPoints, and regulatory agencies nodding along like bobbleheads. They thought it was a good idea to hand out oxy like Halloween candy, flooding small towns and big cities alike with bottles of addiction in the name of “pain management.”

Big Pharma got its kickbacks, the Sackler family built wings on museums, and Main Street got hooked—whole generations lost to overdoses and despair. When the truth came out, the experts feigned ignorance, as if the devastation was some kind of accident instead of a calculated business model. A handful of settlements later, and they’re still walking free, richer than ever, while communities across America are still burying their dead.

It’s the same story, over and over again: the experts sell us out, the corporations cash in, and the rest of us are left to pick up the pieces.

Techno-Dystopia: Selling the Future, One Scam at a Time

Ah, Big Tech. The experts couldn’t shut up about how platforms like Facebook and Google were going to connect the world. What they didn’t mention was how these digital behemoths would turn our lives into one big panopticon, mining our data and feeding us poison algorithms in exchange for a few likes and shares.

Cryptocurrency? Another expert-backed mirage. They called it the future of finance, but it’s just digital alchemy for libertarian dreamers and Ponzi schemers.

Climate and Environmental Grift

The climate experts, meanwhile, were busy cooking up schemes that sounded good on paper but fell apart under scrutiny. Carbon credits? Cap-and-trade? They sold these ideas as the silver bullets that would save the planet, but in reality, they were nothing more than glorified get-out-of-jail-free cards for polluters. Big Oil and heavy industry bought their way into environmental respectability without actually reducing emissions, slapping a “green” label on business as usual. It was less about saving the planet and more about saving face—and profits.

Instead of systemic change—shutting down coal plants, rethinking energy grids, or transitioning away from fossil fuels—we got greenwashing on an industrial scale. Corporations lined up to pledge “net zero” goals decades into the future, long after their current CEOs will have cashed out. Banks and asset managers started calling their funds “sustainable” while still underwriting pipelines and drilling projects. It was all smoke and mirrors, a PR game that let polluters keep polluting while the experts nodded along and cashed their consulting checks.

And when the charade started to crack, they pivoted to the next big grift: geoengineering. Suddenly, we were being told that science fiction solutions like spraying chemicals into the atmosphere or sucking carbon out of the air at scale would fix everything. Never mind the ethical and ecological nightmares those schemes could unleash; the important thing was that they kept the system intact. “Trust us,” they said, as if decades of failure hadn’t already destroyed that trust.

Meanwhile, the planet keeps heating up, the seas keep rising, and the people who can’t afford beachfront property—or a private jet to escape the next disaster—are the ones paying the price. The experts have turned the climate crisis into just another marketplace, where solutions are bought, sold, and speculated on, while the clock runs out. Green capitalism, they call it. But it looks a lot like regular capitalism with a green coat of paint and the same old lies underneath.

The End of Credibility

…But capitalism will be just fine. It always is. The system wasn’t built to save the world—it was built to ride the slash-and-burn waves, cash in, and move on. That’s the only expertise that ever mattered: knowing how to milk the system dry and bail out before the collapse, leaving the rest of us to hold the bag.

It was never about solutions; it was always about the con. They didn’t crave credibility to keep the calm—they needed it to keep the con alive. They sold us the illusion that the experts were in control, that the system worked, that progress was inevitable. All lies, designed to distract us while they set the house on fire and grabbed everything that wasn’t nailed down.

And now here we are, standing at the scorched edge of their handiwork, watching the ashes settle and wondering how we ever bought the act. The promises they made—prosperity, security, a better future—are in ruins. The trust we placed in them is shattered. And yet, the same “experts” who lit the match are still out there, still grinning, still trying to sell us their next scam.

But the damage is done. What’s left isn’t a system—it’s a smoldering shell. The infrastructure is cracked, the foundations are crumbling, and the only ones who seem to benefit are the ones who’ve already made their escape. They disappear into the smoke, clutching their golden parachutes, while the rest of us are left to sift through the wreckage—paying the costs of their greed, their negligence, their endless appetite for more.

What’s next? Another wave of hollow promises, no doubt. Another shiny distraction to keep us hoping, keep us compliant, while the con rolls on. Because that’s the secret they’ll never tell you: the house always wins, and the game was rigged from the start.

This is the bitter fruit of the Expert Industrial Complex—a parade of highly-credentialed grifters, spinning elaborate fairy tales to keep the gears of the machine grinding us into dust. They’ve sold us out at every turn, all while patting themselves on the back for their brilliance.

The lesson? Don’t trust the bastards. They don’t have your back, and they never did. If you’re looking for the truth, you’re better off digging through the trash heaps of history than taking the word of some clown with a degree and a corporate sponsor.

In the end, the experts weren’t toppled. They jumped—headfirst into the sewer, chasing the almighty dollar. And the rest of us? We’re left to wade through the muck they left behind.

Full list

• Neoliberal economics: deregulation, privatization, austerity measures, and trickle-down economics.

• 2008 financial crisis: mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps, systemic risk, and taxpayer-funded bailouts for banks.

• Globalization: offshoring manufacturing jobs, labor exploitation, and enabling authoritarian economic dominance.

• Student loan crisis: skyrocketing tuition costs, predatory lending, and framing student loans as “good debt.”

• Federal Reserve policies: dismissing inflation concerns as “transitory,” followed by aggressive rate hikes harming the working class.

• Iraq War: promoting false WMD narratives and supporting costly interventionism.

• Democracy promotion: disastrous nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Libya, creating failed states.

• China’s WTO accession: failed predictions of political liberalization and enabling techno-authoritarianism.

• COVID-19 pandemic: inconsistent public health messaging, dismissal of alternative virus origin theories, and corporate profiteering by Big Pharma.

• Opioid crisis: endorsing aggressive opioid marketing, leading to widespread addiction and overdose deaths.

• Climate change solutions: ineffective carbon credits, cap-and-trade schemes, and over-reliance on unproven technologies.

• Big Tech promises: monopolistic practices, surveillance capitalism, and algorithm-driven disinformation.

• Cryptocurrency: volatile, speculative investments marketed as revolutionary.

• Artificial intelligence: biased algorithms and perpetuation of surveillance and inequality.

• Meritocracy myth: reinforcing inequality while ignoring systemic biases.

• Identity politics: symbolic gestures of representation without addressing economic justice or systemic inequalities.

• Weapons of mass destruction: intelligence failures used to justify the Iraq War.

• Market-based climate solutions: prioritizing corporate-friendly policies over systemic environmental reform.

• Pandemic responses: overemphasis on corporate profits at the expense of consistent and transparent public health strategies.

Let me know if you’d like to add more points or specific phrasing!