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Journalism and other myths.

Illegal Orders

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Otto Ohlendorf stood tall in the courtroom in Nuremburg. His demeaner was as cold and unflinching as always during his trial for crimes against humanity. He easily recounted every detail of the murder of nearly a million people under his watch. After all, his conscience was relatively clear. “Befehl ist Befehl,” he told the court, “Orders are orders.”

More roundly translated, this has come to us as the famous “I was just following orders” defense. It didn’t work for Ohlendorf. He was convicted and hung for his crimes.

Workers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today may feel that they are simply doing their job, that they are simply following orders. However, in the process of doing so they are violating the terms of the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, which as a signed treaty is also a violation of US law.

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The Real Enemy

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The big summit is on after all. Trump will meet his most feared adversary face to face in an attempt to avert war.

No, not Kim Jong-Un. Those two are practically buddies, what with the same ambitions to be emperor and all. I’m talking about the G7 Summit where Trump has to meet his only real enemies – leaders of actual democracies.

This goes especially for the enemy next door, Canada. Now that Washington has taken their most prized possession, the Stanley Cup, you know that they are out for revenge. You can see it in the cold, murderous eyes of Justin Trudeau.

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US vs The World

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced the addition of 223k jobs in May, bringing the unemployment rate down to 3.8 percent. Labor markets are tighter than they have been since the Managed Depression started in 2000, and there is upward pressure on wages. What could possibly screw it all up?

How about a global trade war pitting the US against every other nation on the planet?

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Distraction

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On a hot Friday before a holiday, it’s hard to stay focused. In this chaotic world, it’s usually hard to stay focused on anything, especially with supposed “leaders” relying on distraction and buzz rather than anything of substance.

So let’s play a little game of speculation. I have little to back up anything I’m about to say here, other than the simple and obvious fact that where the US has the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel, China is always playing a long game. As a colleague once told me, “China has had a bad 200 years, but we think the next 200 will make up for it.”

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Moving Beyond the US

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The United States is typically a very self-absorbed nation. As the largest economy in the world, and separated by two oceans, US based news and the opinions it shapes have always been centered on domestic concerns projected out into the world. This has only been exacerbated by the a pathologically self-absorbed president.

Because of this problem, the simple fact that the world is fleeing away has escaped many Americans. What has been a growing practical reality as the US share of the world economy slips is becoming a necessity thanks to severe foreign policy mistakes, all of which cater to a domestic audience. “All politics is local” remains true, even though it clearly should not be.

The two biggest foreign policy areas, a trade war with China and sanctions against Iran, appear to be two different situations with the US at the center of both. They are not, and increasingly will become less and less about the US. This simple fact is going right past us, too – making our policies even more ridiculous and harmful to our own interests.

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