Records show that on December 10, 2023, a group of four Dunwoody police officers, including Patrick Krieg, initiated an investigation into Kendra’s vehicle, despite not reporting the activity as official police work until days later on December 14.

The investigation began when Patrick Kreig spotted Kendra’s vehicle, followed it, and flagged it as suspicious to fellow officers. According to officers’ statements in case records obtained via FOIA request, they opened an investigation despite Patrick Krieg describing the matter as a “personal issue” related to the couple’s “ongoing divorce.” The group explains they were all together that Sunday evening, and spontaneously encountered Kendra’s vehicle while working an “extra job.”

No existing laws prevent officers from searching family members in surveillance databases, however, Georgia’s Department of Public Safety Code of Ethics describes restrictions for law enforcement’s conduct in regard to conflicts of interest as follows:

Members shall make every effort to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. An appearance of conflict exists when a reasonable person would conclude from the circumstances that the member’s ability to protect the public interest, or perform public duties, is compromised by personal interests. An appearance of conflict could exist even in the absence of a true conflict of interest. (3.03.4A.1.a.)

Robert Frommer, attorney with the Institute of Justice (IJ), explains how easy it is for law enforcement officers to obtain information from Flock’s database, “license plate readers create a pervasive weeks-long log of every driver’s movements, one that officers can access without a warrant or other prior permission.” Frommer tells The Counterprogramming Club:

Unsurprisingly, when officials can act on their own say-so, abuses follow: The Institute for Justice has identified over a dozen cases of officers abusing ALPR systems to track their exes and romantic rivals. If a private party did that, it’d be considered stalking. That’s why IJ is fighting so that it’s the courts, not officials, who decide when and how these powerful technologies may be used.

Subscribe now

Detective Haviland was one four officers present on the evening of December 10, 2023. He describes how the investigation began as follows:

LT Krieg, believed he saw a suspicious vehicle drive past the three of us. After the vehicle passed LT Krieg looked at SGT Fecht and asked if a white Palisade just drove by. LT Krieg then followed the vehicle to the intersection of Olde Perimeter Way and Perimeter Ctr W, then returned to briefly explain an personal issue.

Sergeant T. D. Fecht’s account:

On December 10th 2023 between 1630 and 2000 hours I, Sgt. Fecht, was working a city of Dunwoody approved extra job at 4510 Olde Perimeter Way with Detective Haviland and Lt. Krieg. During the event Lt. Krieg observed a white Hyundai Palisade they gave him concern. I observed the Palisade traveling south through the shopping center at Olde Perimeter Way which then turned left onto Perimeter Center West. The vehicle in question is owned by Kendra Krieg.

Detective Ehlbeck, who pulled the data on Kendra’s vehicle from Flock’s system, also wrote that Krieg disclosed the potential conflict of interest: “in speaking with Lt. Krieg, he advised me that he and his wife, Kendra Krieg are separated, going through the process of a divorce.”

The Counterprogramming Club requested comment from the Dunwoody police force, including Detective Ehlbeck. Instead, the City of Dunwoody Communications Director, Jennifer Boettcher sent a statement, describing the case as follows:

The Dunwoody Police Department took the initial report because the GPS device was discovered on the police vehicle within the City of Dunwoody. The case was assigned to Detective R. Ehlbeck, who conducted the initial investigation. Through investigative efforts, which included the use of LPR, Kendra Krieg was identified as the offender.

It turns out, the tracking device was not installed within the City of Dunwoody, so an investigation by local officers would be out of jurisdiction. City spokeswoman, Jennifer Boettcher explained to Counterprogramming that “once it was determined that the tracker had been installed in Cherokee County, Georgia, the case was transferred to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, the agency with proper jurisdiction.” Kendra Krieg was charged with stalking in Cherokee County.

Detective Ehlbeck’s court testimony tells a different story than what the city spokeswoman describes. Ehlbeck revealed under oath that he didn’t use the Flock data to place Kendra at the scene:

Q: ..Did you do a Flock check on that area for that day?

A: Yes, I did. Flock only goes back for 30 days. It doesn’t keep data past that. I downloaded all the data for that 30-day period, which is a ton of license plate reads on the vehicle owned by Kendra Krieg.

Q: But as of now, you haven’t found her vehicle anywhere in the area on any of the days it was installed or removed, is that fair to say, as of today?

A: I didn’t look into that.

Q: Okay. That’s all I have. Thank you.

The key question here is not whether or not an investigation into Kendra Krieg was warranted, but rather how we address a growing divide between the general public and police force in the age of mass surveillance.

An officer can initiate an investigation and discover the whereabouts of a person over a 30-day period, while the same tracking by a private citizen is considered stalking. This case exemplifies how that double standard plays out in a police force that has fully embraced surveillance technology.

Patrick Krieg has been an outspoken supporter for Dunwoody’s use of Flock cameras, and on at least one occasion, cited Flock’s automated audits as an exceptional protection against misuse and “biased” searches. Krieg spoke at a City Council Meeting on February 23, 2026, appearing alongside Flock’s Public Affairs Manager Kerry McCormack. In his words:

We do an annual audit, we do it similar to the Georgia crime information center, so we do 10%. So we’ll pull our overall logs, we’ll pull 10%, we’ll adjust that to case numbers, cases associated, or identifiers and then look for anomalies also. This database is actually the only of many that we use in law enforcement for searching capacities that advises that there’s anomalies, that alerts us of bias, or things like that, outside of our audits. We honestly wish that all databases that we use would inform us that there was a potential concerning search. This is the only database that actually does that for us.

It’s entirely possible that by law enforcement standards, the actions of all officers in this case acted entirely above board. While the audit system may be acceptable to the law enforcement officer running the real-time crime center, is it acceptable to the public the cameras are deployed on? Mass surveillance systems like Flock’s have spread across the country faster than regulatory bodies can adequately assess risks.

The situation reveals an unsettling disparity between law enforcement officers and the general public, as IJ’s Frommer points out: “The Institute for Justice has identified over a dozen cases of officers abusing ALPR systems to track their exes and romantic rivals. If a private party did that, it’d be considered stalking.”

Whether or not Officer Krieg acted ethically is a matter for the Department of Public Safety and City of Dunwoody to determine. The rest of us will grapple with the reality that our society is being segmented into new groups of “haves” and have-nots”: those with access to surveillance data, and those without. This imbalance can be especially dangerous for those in personal relationships with those with access to vast surveillance networks like Flock’s.

The asymmetry of power between people with access to surveillance technology, and the rest of us, is a growing inequality that will increasingly define our modern era if present trends continue.

Everyone deserves relationships free from domestic violence. If you or someone you know is at risk, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text BEGIN to 88788.

This week I’ll be publishing a Kevin Warsh deep-dive: what we can expect from his leadership as Fed Chair, and full analysis of his confirmation hearing. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

While publicly pushing the narrative that AI has been, and will be, great for the U.S. economy, Warsh has been heavily invested in, and working for artificial intelligence (AI) driven tech companies and incubators. Warsh directly invested in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) consumer lending platforms, capital investment firms that are heavily leveraged in Pentagon contractors, and an asset management firm suing for $1 billion in Puerto Rico’s defunct municipal energy bonds. Since 2018, Warsh has also been the sole proprietor of his own financial advisory firm, Vicarage.

AI

Among the assets dumped by Warsh are hundreds of thousands of shares in Coupang, of which Warsh serves on the board. According to Coupang’s CEO Harold Rogers, the corporation is “building the future of commerce with AI.” The U.S.-based tech company specializes in end-to-end AI-powered “global logistics infrastructure.” Coupang operates in “over 190 countries and regions.”

Rogers describes their niche in a haunting way, essentially using AI powered surveillance to sell us the stuff they’ve predicted we’d by:

Because of that machine learning and that predictive ability, we know in a certain region, up to a certain neighborhood, what’s most likely to be ordered in that area that night, and we get it within five miles before they click order.

Warsh executed two separate sales of his Coupang holdings: one for 76,077 shares, another for 280,662. A conservative estimate (at $15 per share) suggests the sale of Warsh’s Coupang holding brought in about $5.4 million.

Warsh sold his portion of the venture capital and private equity firm that helped launch Anthropic, Waymo, ElisaAI, Legora, Abridge, and more. Boasting over 150 IPOs and more than 420 portfolio companies, Bessemer Venture Associates LLC’s work has recently focused on bringing “together the next generation of AI founders,” and helping “visionary thinkers transform bold concepts into viable AI startups.”

Warsh has been singing the praises of AI while being heavily invested in it. Warsh argued in a November op-ed that the Fed should rescind its prediction of continued low economic growth and price increases (stagflation), arguing that not only will AI reverse inflation, AI is increasing productivity. In his own words for the Wall Street Journal:

First, the Fed should discard its forecast of stagflation in the next couple of years, as if subpar growth and inflation 40% above target is the best that can be done. AI will be a significant disinflationary force, increasing productivity and bolstering American competitiveness. Productivity improvements should drive significant increases in real take-home wages. A 1-percentage-point increase in annual productivity growth would double standards of living within a single generation.

Warsh entered into an agreement with OGE to divest from “virtually all” of his current holdings on April 10, 2026. Eleven days later, on April 21, 2026, Warsh walked back his claims about AI during his confirmation hearing in the Senate:

Senator Kennedy: I’ve heard your argument the last few months about, ‘artificial intelligence has made us so productive, labor so productive, that companies don’t have to raise prices, therefore inflation isn’t a problem, therefore rates can be cut.’ Do you really believe that right now?

Kevin Warsh: No, that is not how I would characterize the story on AI.

Senator Kennedy: Okay. But you’ve said what I just said, haven’t you?

Kevin Warsh: Uh, I’ve said this is the most disruptive moment in modern economic history, in the US and the world, I’ve said that artificial intelligence, AI, should—

Senator Kennedy: Ok let me stop you–

Kevin Warsh: –It’s gonna have a big effect.

Senator Kennedy: –the chair is gonna cut me off.

Kevin Warsh: Oh sorry.

Senator Kennedy: Here’s my worry, that a lot of the stuff about artificial intelligence making us more productive, is a bunch of hype by people who want to sell stock and an IPO. Okay, I’d be careful there. (To Senator Tim Scott) Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Kennedy ended his line of questioning there, seemingly uninterested in any more of Warsh’s waffling on the subject. Warsh had nothing but positive things to say about AI while directly invested, but took a more measured approach after initiating his divestment. It’s unclear if Warsh’s investments in Coupang and Bessemer were sold prior to the Senate hearing and walking back his claims about AI and productivity, because Warsh’s Certificate of Divestiture does not list a date of sale.

Senator Kennedy’s point about AI productivity being “a bunch of hype by people who want to sell stock and an IPO” is well taken. AI doesn’t seem to be increasing economic productivity in a meaningful way. 95% of AI pilot programs delivered no return on investment (ROI) for organizations, despite an estimated $30-40 billion investment in generative AI, according to one MIT study. 73% of executives reported AI ROI falls short of expectations, per Globalization Partners.

Financial Firms

Though Warsh’s AI investments are particularly sexy given the broader context, his other holdings are arguably more interesting. He reports 82,878 shares in Arcana Analytics, a market analysis tool for investors. According to their website:

The Arcana system puts together single-stock options, implied earnings moves, macro exposures, consensus estimate revisions, positioning, factor drivers and more to make sure you’re not missing what is driving the vast majority of stock movement.

Considering the Fed’s monetary policies directly impact macro conditions, it feels like a conflict of interest for Warsh to be so heavily involved in a company whose success may be influenced by how accurately they predict Fed decisions. I have yet to hear back, but sent the following question over to Arcana this morning:

How might arcana help anticipate or invest according to macroeconomic shocks to the system, such as changing interest rate policies? Or Quantitative Easing by the Federal Reserve?

Warsh has also been running, since at least 2018, his own financial consulting and advisory practice under the name Vicarage LLC and Vicarage Corporation. In April, Warsh disclosed to OGE that he is the sole proprietor of his advisory firms, telling OGE, “I will cease providing advisory services through these entities.” Either thanks to my lack of imagination or general ignorance of the world above my tax bracket, I was unaware of the fact that someone can pay a former Fed governor to be their financial advisor.

The new Fed Chair also had holdings in billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s Juggernaut Fund, which appeared on his Certificate of Divestiture, which is managed by the Duquesne Family Office. In an April 17th letter to OGE, Kevin Warsh committed to resigning from his position at the Duquesne Family Office.

Tax Break

Kevin Walsh is also deferring capital gains tax on his sold assets, utilizing a section of the tax code typically used for force sale of assets due to natural disaster, condemnation, and eminent domain.

According to OGE, Warsh is only eligible for this tax break if he submitted his Certificate of Divestiture before selling his assets. I have reached out to OGE for comment on that matter but have yet to hear back.

Resigning from Condoleezza Rice’s Think Tank

In addition to promising to divest his assets, a lesser-discussed portion of Warsh’s OGE agreement was his promise to resign from his official positions upon confirmation:

The Hoover Institution is a conservative think tank run by Condoleezza Rice. When California passed a new minimum wage for fast food workers, Hoover ran a series of stories with a misleading finding: that a spike in unemployment occurred as a result of the wage hike. In reality, California saw employment growth in the fast food sector. Hoover had to retract their publications and issue corrections. I reported this for Drop Site in December 2024.

It is shocking that the Chair of the Federal Reserve was affiliated with an institution that spread a glaringly biased economic narrative under the banner of empirical research and evidence-based policy despite the egregiously sloppy mathematical errors—or worse: intentionally misrepresentation data.

Cerberus: Defense Contractor Investor

Another resignation that stood out to me in this list is Cerberus Capital Management, a firm at the center of perhaps the most stunning example of government corruption this year. Cerberus is a global private equity firm co-founded by billionaire Steven Feinberg.

Feinberg currently serves as the deputy Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration. Upon stepping down as CEO of Cerberus and taking office at the Pentagon, Feinberg took on the “Iron Dome” project. Officially titled: Missile Defense Agency Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD), the project has a ceiling of $151 billion.

The Pentagon now has awarded SHIELD funds to several firms Cerberus has major holdings in: North Wind, Stratolaunch, Red River Technology, and NetCentrics. In December 2025, Stratolaunch, Red River Technology and NetCentrics were quietly given SHIELD contracts. However, when North Wind got theirs, they boasted on linkedin.

During Warsh’s tenure working for Cerberus as an advisor, he collected $750,000 in consulting fees.

Vultures in Puerto Rico

Warsh also promised to resign from his position at GoldenTree, after raking in more than $1.5 million in consulting fees. GoldenTree is one of the firms trying to profit off of Puerto Rico’s energy crisis, demands the Puerto Rican public power company (PREPA) to pay bondholders over $8 billion, leading a group of investors that claim to be owed around $1 billion.

It is a major misconception that the vultures forcing PREPA to settle debt through raising taxes and energy prices are honest investors that just want to be made whole. Some of these investors, including GoldenTree, purchased bonds after the bankruptcy declaration and devastation following major hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017. Court proceedings show GoldenTree attempted to capitalize on the crisis, purchasing bonds from the duressed municipality as late as November 2018.

Predatory Lending: Buy Now, Pay Later

Kevin Warsh has directly invested in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) companies, including: Cherry, Tilt, and Kikoff. Cherry specializes in medical lending. Specifically, deferred interest loans to patients who cannot afford medical, dental, or veterinary care.

Cherry has had 585 complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) over the past three years, ranging from incorrect information on credit reports, to attempts to collect debts that are not owed.

Tilt offers cash advances, and markets their consumer lending platform as some kind of populist answer to economic inequality. This is directly from Tilt’s “about us” page:

Today, over 100 million Americans, and billions more globally, lack reliable access to fair credit. But we see a side of people that traditional lenders don’t care to. We see the hard work they’re putting in and how far they’ve come, and we think that should count for something. So we’ve created our own way of underwriting that credits the working, whatever they’re working toward.

Tilt has had 209 CFPB consumer complaints over the past three years, ranging from surprise fee charges, to an inability to stop bank withdrawals.

Kikoff markets itself as a credit building company, offering lines of credit in exchange for a monthly fee.

Kikoff has had a whopping 5,886 CFPB consumer complaints over the past three years, ranging from unwarranted debt collection, to threats of taking negative action.

Excuse me for being blunt on this one, but as someone who grew up working class and knows how hard it is for families to make ends meet, it doesn’t sit right with me that the guy running our central bank is comfortable profiting off of working people struggling to get by. Keeping food on the table and paying medical bills is not an opportunity for leeches to squeeze pennies out of the poor.

To see the rest of Kevin Warsh’s Public Financial Disclosure Report, click here.

Wife & Heiress

The OGE disclosure includes a Certificate of Divestment from Kevin Warsh’s spouse, heiress Jane A. Lauder, who sold 196,616 shares in one of Canada’s oldest publicly traded funds. This sale alone likely brought in over $7 million, and that’s a conservative at $36 per share.

Where We Are Now & What’s To Come

During Warsh’s confirmation hearing, Elizabeth Warren raised concerts about his conflicts of interests, citing that while Warsh may have made an agreement with OGE, the code of ethics for the Federal Reserve—an independent body—has its own laws that insist active members are prohibited from conflicts of interests like having investments that are directly impacted by decisions at the Fed. That was brushed off by Senate Banking Committee Chair, Tim Scott.

The whole situation reveals a clear gap in our checks and balances, perhaps by design:

• The Fed Board of Governors is responsible for enforcing the laws that regulate the actions of their own “independent” body.

• The Federal Reserve Chair is to be confirmed by Congress.

• Majority rule in the Senate Banking Committee has decided to only hold the nominee to OGE standards when it comes to financial disclosures, not Fed law.

• OGE made a backroom deal directly with the nominee, allowing him to be the first Chair to not disclose current assets to the committee.

See full Certificates of Divestiture for Kevin Warsh and Jane A. Lauder below.

Subscribe now

I will continue to secure any information on Kevin Warsh’s disclosures during this 90-day period, and will publish a deep dive on his confirmation hearing within the coming days.

How exciting it is to pull our rope off of the traffic cone. As I write this, I’m remembering our neighbors donkey breaking loose yesterday morning. She was bucking and frolicking through a field. That’s me right now I guess. Hopefully that’s the Democratic Party soon too. Once revolutionaries take it over. The donkey analogy is going much farther than I planned.

My point is, if candidates want attention from non-traditional media, so let’s have them meet us on our terms. As independent journalists, if we don’t make demands of candidates, conversations like this one might never happen. Candidates have to talk to me about the revolution and ending mass surveillance, or else I won’t have them on the show.

I hope more independent media figures do the same. If continues being enjoyable I may do another series like this one, but focused on the real economy.

Let me know what you think! There was a lag between us on my rural wifi but Joshua was great to chat with. Surprisingly forthcoming and based on the revolution questions. Enjoy.

Next up will be Aisha Farooqui in Michigan!

How exciting it is to pull our rope off of the traffic cone. As I write this, I’m remembering our neighbors donkey breaking loose yesterday morning. She was bucking and frolicking through a field. That’s me right now I guess. Hopefully that’s the Democratic Party soon too. Once revolutionaries take it over. The donkey analogy is going much farther than I planned.

My point is, if candidates want attention from non-traditional media, so let’s have them meet us on our terms. As independent journalists, if we don’t make demands of candidates, conversations like this one might never happen. Candidates have to talk to me about the revolution and ending mass surveillance, or else I won’t have them on the show.

I hope more independent media figures do the same. If continues being enjoyable I may do another series like this one, but focused on the real economy.

Let me know what you think! There was a lag between us on my rural wifi but Joshua was great to chat with. Surprisingly forthcoming and based on the revolution questions. Enjoy.

Subscribe now

Next up will be Aisha Farooqui in Michigan!

Read more

Despite the cancellation of Scarsdale’s contract with Flock, the village didn’t budge. Now, Frankel is suing with NYCLU backing.In response, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has now brought a precedent-setting lawsuit against the Village of Scarsdale.

After I reported with Drop Site in 2025 that the surveillance company Flock Safety had surreptitiously landed a $2.1 million contract in Scarsdale, the village board canceled the deal.

https://open.substack.com/pub/dropsitenews/p/nyclu-lawsuit-surveillance-camera-location-public-record-flock?r=1ogshv&utm_medium=ios

Economic narratives cater to the middle and upper classes, who are majorly the producers and consumers of economic news. Media coverage of wealth inequality typically revolves around the top 1% and 0.1%. The bottom 50% are hardly mentioned.

Infographics and statistics that grace our feeds shape how we see the world. If we’re constantly told wealth inequality is worsening, we believe it. We think the top 1% is getting more wealthy, while the rest of us are getting a smaller slice of the pie. That’s not the real story.

Compared to 1989, do you think the bottom 50% control less of the nation’s wealth, or more?

The bottom 50% refers to a wealth percentile—which is less complicated than it sounds.

If we took the entire U.S. population, and lined everyone up in order of who has the least to the most wealth, then cut the line exactly at the middle, creating two groups, the half with less money is the bottom 50%.

If you guessed that the bottom 50% has less wealth today than in 1989, you are correct. Before I reveal to you how much their wealth share changed, consider: how much wealth should be in the hands of half of the U.S. population? An equal distribution would suggest they control 50% of the nation’s wealth.

It’s definitely less than that.

What percent of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of the bottom 50% of al households? Take a guess. Come up with a number in your mind before reading ahead.

How much of our nation’s wealth is controlled by the bottom 50% in the United States today?

2.46%. That’s it. Half of the population controls just 2.46% of our nation’s wealth.

Give yourself a moment to process that. Really absorb what that means about the current state of the U.S. economy.

If wealth is concentrating in the hands of the richest few, this is probably a smaller proportion compared to a few decades ago.

How much of the wealth share do you think the bottom 50% controlled in 1989?

Think about how the wealth share of the bottom 50% might have changed since Reagan left office. Today it’s 2.46%, what was it 37 years ago?

Ready?

In 1989, the bottom 50% controlled only 3.52% of the nation’s wealth. Over the past four decades, the wealth share of the bottom 50% decreased by precisely 1.06%.

The total wealth in the U.S. economy has increased, but this proportion has remained nearly the same. If we were to just look at raw numbers (total dollars), here’s the wealth distribution compared to 1989:

The top 0.1% has grown their share of the nation’s by about 6 percentage points since 1989.

If you’re looking for the bottom 50% on this chart, it’s the little sliver of yellow along the x-axis.

In 1989 Q3, the top 0.1% held 8.6% of the nation’s wealth. As of 2025 Q4, the top 0.1% controls a whopping 14.5%. For context, the minimum wealth cutoff for the top 0.1% is over $46 million (latest data 2022).

The top 1% have grown their wealth share by 9.1% since 1989.

If the bottom 50% only saw a minimal reduction in their wealth share (1%), where did the top 1% pull from?

• The wealth share of the 90-99% decreased by 1.6% since 1989 (from 38% to 36.4%).

• The wealth share of the 50-90% decreased by 6.4% (from 35.7% to 29.2%).

Dominant narratives suggests wealth is being transferred from the bottom to the top. The data tell a different story. The bottom 50% has hardly seen a change in their wealth share. It’s the middle and upper classes’ wealth share that’s shrinking.

Wealth isn’t necessarily being transferred from the middle/upper class to the top 1%. It’s not even necessarily changing hands from one private household to another.

The U.S. government routinely adds dollars to the economy. If new dollars are created, to fund defense contracts for example, that’s a direct wealth transfer from the government to the owners of defense companies or their stock—these people are typically the top 10%. This would increase their wealth share while not directly syphoning any assets or cash from members of the 90%.

When it comes to wealth distribution, the folks at the bottom 50% are nearly as worse off as they were 40 years ago.

Note: The bottom 50% is much worse off economically compared to 1989 when we consider wage stagnation and affordability. Economic inequality has grown for the bottom 50% if we look at income percentiles (how much money is coming in)—but the focus of this piece is wealth percentiles (net worth or total cash & assets after liabilities).

The Top

The top 10% holds $119.7 trillion in wealth, compared to the bottom 90% with $55.6 trillion (31% of total wealth). When the top 10% controls most of the nations capital (68%), the bottom 90% is cut out of economic decision making.

88% of stocks and funds in the United States are owned by the top 10%—a significant spike compared to 81.8% in 1989. The top 0.1% is responsible for the entirety of that increase: growing their share from 14.8% to 24% since 1989.

The bottom 50% doesn’t own a smaller share of total stocks and funds, since 1989, the bottom 50% actually made gains over the last 40 years, all the way up to 1.07% from 0.96%.

If we remove the top 0.1% from the top 10%, and analyze just the 90-99.9%, we see they saw a decrease in ownership. The 90-99.9% currently own 63.1% of stocks and mutual funds, a 3.9% decrease from the 67% share they held 1989. The upper middle class also saw their share of stocks and fund ownership. The 50-90% now own 11.5%, compared to 17.2% in 1989, a 5.7% reduction.

We live in an authoritarian economy. The top 10% controlling 68% of our nations wealth and 88% of corporate stocks and mutual funds means they decide where capital investments go. This gives them power over which businesses grow, when industries thrive, how products are made, if innovation happens, and what ideas spread.

If we care about the top 10% controlling 69% of the nation’s wealth, or that share having grown by 9 percentage points over the last four decades, we should probably also care that: that growth alone is three times the amount of wealth held by the entire bottom 50%.

It seems the narrative focuses so much on the top 1% and 0.1%, rather than the top 10% or bottom 50%, is because the people who write the articles about economic inequality are typically upper and middle class, meaning they belong to a group with a shrinking wealth share. Their power is waning to the waxing top 1%.

I agree that billionaires have too much power, and wealth concentration by the top 0.1% makes a fair society impossible. The top 0.1% holding $24.89 trillion of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50% (a group 500 times as large) only has $4.25 trillion, is a power imbalance that compromises a just economic or political system. The top 0.1% includes just 136,453 total households, compared to the bottom 50% with 68.2 million.

Any media coverage on wealth concentration and economic inequality is better than none, but it’s disappointing this increase in attention is the result of the issue beginning to affect the upper classes. If wealth was more equally distributed among the top 50%, and the wealth share of the bottom 50% was around 10%, I think a lot of economic reporters and political analysts would be fine with that (because a lot of them were).

Anyone who is fine with an economic underclass so long as they aren’t the ones in it is not someone I respect.

Politics

Knowing the economic realities facing the bottom 50% helps us understand the rise of populism. Wealth concentration by the top 1% hasn’t been a talking point that deeply connects with working class people because it isn’t a new problem for the bottom 50%.

This why a populist economic message from Bernie Sanders, who focuses on worker power and social programs, connects more with the working class than a message focused on taxing the ultra-rich. When our tax dollars fund multi-million dollar contracts with McKinsey to address the opioid crisis, when McKinsey also consults for opioid manufacturers, it’s hard to imagine a tax on the ultra-rich will truly benefit regular working people—or if that money will be recycled through the top 50%.

Trump speaking negatively about the upper classes, framing himself as an existential threat to the establishment, was well received by working people upset about economic inequality, even though he belongs to the top 0.1%. One guy from the top 0.1% threatening the power of the top 50% (who keep the bottom 50% struggling) seems better than someone promising to redistribute the wealth of the top 0.1% to the next 49.9%.

Bourgeoise Myths

Because the majority of economic analysts are from upper middle class families, this means they grew up with bourgeoise myths, like the belief that an economic underclass exists because they are simply less capable and less worthy than the top 50%. I’m not interested in reading economic analysis produced by anyone who thinks that way.

As a child of the bottom 50, I know this is how the upper 50 think. I’ve been in the room with them. I went to graduate school with people who think like that. I’ve been mistaken for a member of the top 10% in my classes at Brown and Harvard, and scholars are more honest with classmates assumed to be from the same class. I’ve sat across from top economists who make clear this is an operating assumption they have.

I have a lot of questions for anyone who insists inequality is a natural human condition. What kind of person do you think belongs to the bottom 50%? Are they unwise? Are they incapable of achieving what you have with every comfortability and means of assistance?

Why is the working class never invited to consider solutions to, nor study, systemic issues? In a democratic society, shouldn’t those considerations be had by everyone?

Shouldn’t economic education be available to all members of an economy? Why isn’t it? Why are the trades taught in separate institutions from universities and colleges? Why can a student of finance easily enroll in philosophy or politics classes, but a plumber only ever learns plumbing?

Why not go deeper? Does it crumble the illusion of meritocracy to consider such basic questions?

Why are wages lower for physical labor jobs, despite the work being most essential? Why does a farm worker, who ensures food is available to eat, earn less than a day trader—who only turns money into more for those who already have plenty?

When we consider the value workers contribute to our society, against dollars earned, the crisis of the U.S. economy becomes abundantly clear. Money is severely disconnected from real value. This means that those with the most dollars are not the most valuable. For the upper classes, for the elite, the people born of a fine pedigree, who often associate their value and identity with the money they control, this reality is too sickening to face.

The intentional subjugation of the lower class is the most essential story of economic inequality in America. It’s more than numbers, it’s more than money. It is both a mental and spiritual predicament to see others as less than—it is the moral and ethical crisis that defines our time. People are not less because they have less. People do not deserve less simply because they are unwilling to exploit others.

If this is the first time you’re learning the bottom 50% controls under 4% of our nation’s wealth, I am curious what your reaction is. Please leave a comment below.

If you think more people should be aware of the economic reality of the bottom 50%, share this article.

Share

If you’re curious to explore the latest numbers on wealth inequality, here is a data visualization tool published by the Fed. You can also download the source data to analyze it yourself.

Thank you for reading. For more economic coverage and analysis for the 99%—that doesn’t exclude the bottom 50, consider subscribing to my Substack:

Subscribe now

This project will be a vehicle for us to provide consistent coverage of big tech news and analysis of their growing global power.

Two episodes are available now:

Episode 2: World Models, Surveillance Glasses, and AI Warfare Ethics

This is our first real episode. It’s exemplary of what you can expect going forward from a regular Tech, Marry, Kill episode.

Apple & Spotify

Episode 1: From Quit GPT to Military AI - The Dark Side of Tech?

My co-host, Aya Jaff, comes from the world of tech start-ups. Aya brings an insider perspective, you can hear more about it in this introductory episode. (Please comment & tell her you’d like to hear the chicken story.)

Apple & Spotify

Recently I learned that when John’ was a kid, his dad wasn’t really around. My mom (his older sister) told me he would wait on the porch for his father to come pick him up, sometimes for hours, only for him to never show. I wish I could go back in time and show up for him. Give him a hug, make up a silly song and dance, and carry his backpack to the car, like he always did for me.

As an adult, John was a great uncle and father without having an example to follow. John gave us a different story than the one he had. He didn’t have a playbook for being a father or provider, and most people would let that be a reason they don’t show up for their own kids. Not John. He broke the pattern, and wrote his own. And it was a pretty damn good one.

John broke a lot of generational curses. As a child, he would tinker with anything mechanical. John took apart small appliances around the house, like alarm clocks, and then would get yelled at for it, for “breaking them.” He’d cry and go back to his room, and come out later with the fully reassembled alarm clock and say, dejected, “see, it still works, I didn’t break it. I just wanted to see what was inside.”

John eventually became mechanic, but he was fascinated by machines from the start. As a child, he was scolded for using his gift in life. I wish I could go back in time, and be there for him as a child, give him a hug, and praise him for his gifts like he always did for me.

When I was about 7 or 8, uncle John said to my mom, “there’s something special about that kid. Jess doesn’t have a bad bone in her body.” Most adults talked about kids being “special” it was because they were well behaved, ahead of their peers, or got good grades in school. Uncle John saw things differently. He always praised me for two things: my creativity and my kindness. Things most adults (at least around us) didn’t really notice in kids.

He’s the reason I developed my creativity. My uncle John is one of the first people who saw me for who I really am, at my essence. I’m writing this because I think people should also know his. Uncle John saw me shrink when my sister got praised for her success in school (I wasn’t a great student), and tried to make me feel just as valued. He didn’t care what others thought, or typical societal metrics of success. Change happens slowly, and I think people like John make the world a better place.

Recently, he was sick in a way none of us could fix. He was always doing the best he could with the cards he was dealt. It was a bad hand, but he played it well. It reminds me of one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs.

Since it cost a lot to win
And even more to lose
You and me bound to spend some time
Wondering what to choose

It goes to show you don’t ever know
Watch each card you play and play it slow
Wait until that deal come ‘round
Don’t you let that deal go down, no, no

I been gambling hereabouts
For ten good solid years
If I told you about all that went down
It would burn off, off your ears

(Deal - Grateful Dead)

I think grief isn’t just missing a person, it’s missing a timeline we don’t get to live out—the future relationship we no longer will have. When John started to get better, he started talking to me more. Now I think about what we might talk about if he was still here. He still had things to teach me about music. Probably a lot to say about life, and our family.

When you decide to get healthy, your life is supposed get easier. It feels like instead, John was in more pain. He lost his life after making better choices. I grieve the relationship that he was trying to rebuild with me, that now we’ll never get to have. I wish I could go back, even a few years, and be there for him even though I didn’t know how.

People use drugs because the pain of our world can be too much to bear, not because they’re bad people. Everyone I know who uses, or has used, it’s because their hearts and spirits are too kind for this world. They numb the pain they feel physically, or emotionally. They look at the evils of the world and can’t take it, so maybe at the end of the day, people who struggle with addiction are some of the best people we have to offer. I think John would probably agree with that, even though he saw politics differently from me in some ways, he was always proud I had a strong sense of justice, and fought “the man.”

It’s hard not to be angry when someone dies like this. He was on a lot of medications to help with health complications and getting better. Healthcare is always worse for people without a lot of money. I hate that. Most people would agree that his life wasn’t worth less than anyone else’s, so why are people okay with an economic system that treats it like it is?

John would’ve lived in less pain if our economic system ensured working people had healthcare, and money wasn’t so rare for families like ours. I wonder what kind of man he would’ve been in a better world. I have a lot of grief for that too.

My uncle John introduced me to the Grateful Dead. He would play burned CDs with 40 minutes of Jerry Garcia on mandolin during long car rides. As an 11 year old, I thought my uncle John was the greatest musician in the entire world. When he told me that the best guitar player ever was actually this guy named Jerry Garcia, I immediately knew Jerry was a legend. Can you imagine? A deadhead at age 11.

Even today, this music is everything to me. It’s been there for me my entire life. The dead got me through some of my hardest days. A few of those were this week.

My two tattoos are both are the emblems from Jerry Garcia’s guitars: tiger and wolf. John always loved the instruments as much as the music. I see music as a means of travel between the physical and spiritual world. Instruments are a vehicle.

When I was 11, I mentioned I wanted to start learning guitar. For my 12th birthday, Uncle John got me a Fender Squire. Just small enough for my fingers. He painted it in the style of Van Halen’s 5150 guitar. A few years ago, I gave it to a young dad whose kid was learning to play. When someone gives you the gift of music, you give it back to the world.

There this famous Grateful Dead song, “Uncle John’s Band.” Older deadheads always ask me, “how did you get into the dead?” I love shocking them with, “my uncle John!” “Really!? Your uncle named John?” It’s always a whole thing.

As I was driving here, 17 hours from Iowa to Connecticut, I avoided playing the song for the first 5 hours or so, knowing I’d fall apart. Finally, I put it on. I heard the song differently than I ever have. That’s the beauty of the dead. The music morphs into whatever you need it to be.

The song starts like this:

Well, the first days are the hardest days. Don’t you worry anymore.

It was the first day after he died. Lost it immediately. How did they do that? Why did I never hear it like this before?

John always made sure “the cousins” could be together, driving us 40+ minutes from Stamford to Shelton. Following his death, the cousins would be together for the first time in about 8 years.

As we all were traveled across the country, to come home, the lyrics came through my car speakers:

Come hear Uncle John’s Band

Playing to the tide

Come with me or go alone

He’s come to take his children home

I never expected these lyrics to describe a death. Let alone my Uncle John’s death. Now it feels like it’s what the song was always about.

It’s the same story the crow told me

It’s the only one he know

Like the morning sun, you come

And like the wind you go

Ain’t no time to hate

Barely time to wait

Woah-oh, what I want to know

Where does the time go?

That’s the thing about the dead, they have so much to teach the living. They shape our world in death in ways they couldn’t while they’re alive. When John passed, it felt like a part of me got ripped out. But it wasn’t. I get to keep it. Those are the parts of me he made. They stay.

I get to be the person that shows up for the young ones in my life. I get to praise their creativity, and kindness. I get to make jokes for the kids, and sing them silly songs. I get to be there on time. I get to play them the music. And the next time someone in my life is struggling, I get to show up for them better. Even though I didn’t have a playbook for that. I get to decide that the story that has been written for me doesn’t have to be the one I tell for the rest of my life. I can win on a losing hand.

I usually don’t talk about personal matters so publicly, but I recently decided to change that. John is the third uncle of mine to die under unusual circumstances. I used to think that I came from a crazy family. Unfortunately this story isn’t unique at all. After traveling around the country, doing grassroots organizing and journalism, hearing stories from regular people across America, I know this story is one that belongs to all of us.

I’m not politicizing John’s death, because you can’t make things political. They just are. Growing up in a struggle is inherently political. Being working class brings a new radicalizing experience every day. John hated the system for what it does to people. It’s an honor to keep fighting “the man” after his passing.

So, yeah. That’s my Uncle John. Raise hell, praise Dale.

Here’s Ripple by the Grateful Dead.

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine

And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung

Would you hear my voice come through the music?

Would you hold it near as it were your own?

It’s a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken

Perhaps they’re better left unsung

I don’t know, don’t really care

Let there be songs to fill the air

Ripple in still water

When there is no pebble tossed

Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand, if your cup be empty

If your cup is full, may it be again

Let it be known, there is a fountain

That was not made by the hands of men

There is a road, no simple highway

Between the dawn and the dark of night

And if you go, no one may follow

That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water

When there is no pebble tossed

Nor wind to blow

You who choose to lead, must follow

But if you fall, you fall alone

If you should stand, then who’s to guide you?

If I knew the way, I would take you home

The comments are open for everyone, if this brought something up for you, feel free to share. I’m all ears.

A limitation of social science is the depersonalization of language used in system-level analysis. Who benefits from the study of power dealing with it only in passive and abstract terms? This would offer a veil for the powerful, a level of anonymity they do not deserve. It’s important we name precisely who does what.

As capital concentrates in fewer hands, analyzing power feels less abstract and more personal. The greed of the elite has produced a world where systems-level thinking is no longer a barrier for the subjugated classes to overcome in order to comprehend power. Put simply: the ruling class having less faces make them more recognizable.

Exploring how syndicates of capital gained military control, and more power than nation-states over 100 years, is crucial in understanding the nature of their power today. To this end, there is perhaps no case more elucidating than the Foster Dulles syndicate.

The Foster Dulles Cromwell Syndicate

There’s an airport named after the Foster Dulles syndicate. On two occasions, I flew into it. I found the name quite fitting. The vibe of the place is eerie and cold. The building is brutalist and dated, but everything is still shiny. The high ceilings and ample negative space make you feel small—like you’re in a liminal space you ought to get out of before it swallows you.

It’s also fitting that it’s D.C.’s international airport; the family had dealings all over the world, but hung out in Washington quite a bit.

As our world was being divided into spheres of economic influence by the monopoly capitalists,1 the Foster Dulleses were essential in distilling the imperial power of American hegemony into a modern phenomenon, tying tightly many new puppet strings to the arms of the federal government so that the wealthy could perfect their marionette performances.

To achieve their next form, the transnational spheres of economic influence established by capitalists required non-economic power: genuine military control. In the hegemonic U.S., the Foster Dulles syndicate and their associates were essential in breaking the state’s monopoly on violent physical force. As Stephen Kinzer put it, the Dulles brothers “set in motion many of the processes that shape today’s world.”

Baby’s First Coup

Our countries are much more than the stories we tell ourselves about them. What stories are told in the regimented curriculum of United States public schools? That the U.S. was founded on one key principle: freedom.

If anyone is mad at us, it is because they hate freedom. Especially freedom from colonial rule. All great Americans believe people have an inalienable right to self-govern. The Yankees’ rage against the tyranny of British colonial rule would only quell with the success of their own colonial project.

It’s true, the U.S. is a nation born in the dark night of a great irony. The land that would become home to the promise of freedom and self-determination was not even rightfully the land of the founding fathers, but those guys never let reality get in the way of a really nice idea. Bless their hearts.

The United States becoming an imperial nation was not an accident, it was actually the last great philosophical debate the country had. All future politics were poisoned by the conditions determined by its winner. The debate hinged on one thing: whether or not the United States should sign a treaty to annex Hawaii.

You might be thinking: “Annex Hawaii? But of course Hawaii is a state!” To that, I ask: how did it become one? Do not let engrained ideas of American exceptionalism prevent you from absorbing the meaning of this tale. Hawaii is a colony. Any thought to the contrary is a weed sprouted from a seed of propaganda planted in primary school, and should be plucked from the mind to make room for sound thoughts to flower.

For syndicates of capital to form, state-sanctioned imperialism needed to thrive. For imperialism to thrive, imperialists needed to lie.

Americans are stubborn. Condemning faraway rulers right up until the point we became one—and then kept on condemning those tyrannous bastards. Americans see themselves as exceptional, deserving of every exception to every rule. Especially the ones we write.

The Foster Dulles Syndicate starts with John Watson Foster, a man of humble beginnings. Living in Indiana, he got an education, and eventually became a lawyer. Then, John Watson Foster took an interest in the newspaper business. Editing a paper in Indiana was a politically important project: it was a swing state. He used the newspaper to promote the Republican party and get their candidates elected.

With the help of John Watson Foster, in 1888 Benjamin Harrison was elected. The outcome was determined by just two states: New York and Indiana. All politics is local. Harrison won the electoral college running on a platform of high tariffs and “rejuvenating” the Republican party. He lost the popular vote and became President.

Political campaigns become administrations. In a classic display of partisan politics, Harrison rewarded Watson Foster’s efforts with a high appointment: Secretary of State. At the time, this was a prestigious post, but more symbolic and less powerful than it is today. It was awarded to someone who could represent the U.S. in visits to foreign countries, intended for a well-spoken, diplomatic figure the President could trust. Harrison’s appointment of John Watson Foster was one of those seemingly sound and procedural decisions that would go on to change the course of history.

John Watson Foster became the first U.S. Secretary of State to overthrow a foreign government in 1893. Leading up to the coup in Hawaii, newspapers across the U.S. fomented support for the project. Articles described the Hawaiians as uncivilized, devoid of functioning government and cultural morality (Christianity). If Watson Foster’s work in Indiana taught him anything about politics, it’s the influence of news media.

Watson Foster was not a demagogue as much as a capable idiot, he ascribed to the exact perspective pushed on the public, once writing of Hawaii: “the native inhabitants had proved themselves incapable of maintaining a respectable and responsible government.”2 Exposing his depth, Watson Foster was apparently convinced of the propaganda he promoted.

Hawaii was taken by force. A land with no written legal system was given a constitution, enforced by bayonet. The Hawaiian monarchy was replaced when the Queen Liliʻuokalani behaved unconstitutionally, of course. An American man named Sanford Dole was made President.

Sanford Dole kept things in the family. His cousin, Edmond Pearson Dole came to Hawaii and became the Attorney General. Sanford’s other cousin, James Dole, came to Oahu and founded the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, which later became Dole Food Company.3

The Hawaii coup became a great political scandal, condemned by the next President, Grover Cleveland. Though John Watson Foster’s stint as Secretary of State was short, his stay in Washington was long. To make it to the White House, Watson Foster didn’t slip through the cracks, he walked through a door held open. Harrison’s successors would not decide to put security at those doors, but replace them with revolving ones. Then, with the rise of modern technology, motion-sensing automatic doors. Soon, biometric-activated AI-powered doors.

President Cleveland called the coup in Hawaii a “perversion of our national mission.” The perversion continued while John Watson Foster was out of office. He paid Hawaii a visit in 1896. He wrote of the trip in his Diplomatic Memoirs:

While I had no mission from any authority whatever respecting the annexation of the Islands, I welcomed the opportunity to visit them and to study upon the ground the question of annexation, which I regarded as vital to our country and which could not be decided permanently in the negative without grave peril to our interests in the Pacific Ocean. It seemed apparent to me that if the Islands did not soon become American territory, they would inevitably pass under the control of Great Britain or Japan…4

Watson Foster returned to Washington and delivered what he described to be the most influential public speech of his career. On March 26, 1897, he delivered remarks on the annexation of Hawaii to a large audience including Senators, Representatives, and Diplomats. Soon after the speech, a pro-annexation group printed and distributed ten thousand copies of it.

Despite John Watson Foster meeting with many Hawaiians who opposed annexation during the 1896 visit, he delivered two key lies about Hawaii in this speech:

1) “It is to-day virtually an American colony. The paramount influence is American.”

2) “To my mind annexation presents no political or administrative difficulties… The Islands should be admitted, not as a State, but as a part of the territory of the United States, to be organized in such manner as Congress in its wisdom may determine….”5

Convincing people of realities on a land they’ll never see is easier than insisting the nation betray its founding principles. Having succeeded in the former task, John Watson Foster set his mind to the latter. He made his case for U.S. imperialism on grounds of commerce:

As a rule, I do not believe in the extension of our territory beyond our present ocean limits. I think we should develop within our own domain a great English-speaking nation, controlled by the principles marked out for us by the fathers of the Republic. But it is precisely because I want to see a great and powerful nation—much greater and more powerful than the one we now have—developed on this continent that I hail the opportunity now offered of securing this outpost of our Pacific frontier, and thus protecting for all time our future mighty commerce and rapidly growing interests on that coast from the encroachments of the Great Powers striving for ascendency in that quarter of the globe.

John Watson had no authority to take a diplomatic trip to Hawaii, nor an official position that warranted speeches on a treaty to be reviewed by Congress. His experience as Secretary of State did not credential him to speak on the matter, which was a catastrophe of his creation. As such, John Watson’s trip to Hawaii, and subsequent speech, were scrutinized. It was a scandal to determine U.S. foreign policy as a non-state actor, but the punishment began and ended with newspaper articles.

John Watson Foster’s decision to take a trip to Hawaii, without the support of the newly elected President and his administration, was the same kind of extralegal action that sponsored a coup in 1893. He behaved in a manner laws would not prevent.

The limitations of the state were clear to John Watson: wherever state power ended, his power began. Despite President Grover Cleveland’s opposition to the annexation of Hawaii, his position as head of state and commander and chief of the U.S. military mattered not. The matter was being pursued anyway. John Watson Foster’s international operation and domestic media influence surpassed the President’s political authority.

After John Watson Foster’s speech, the annexation of Hawaii became a great ethical dilemma for the nation. Any contemporary assumptions that ‘when the U.S. took Hawaii as a colony, those were different times!’ are unfortunately nothing more than collective delusion.

There is no doubt to benefit that the ethics of today are the same as the 1890’s.

Any assertion to the contrary serves as a convenient excuse for Americans who enjoy vacations on Hawaii’s islands. Those same people, who hold sacred the hypocritical adage that the politics and justice of today are of a better standard than when the land was taken, do so as their visit depletes the native population of its water supply.

There is nothing we could say today that was not expressed during the 32 days of debate in 1898 on the annexation of Hawaii. The cases we make against intervention today are echoes of anti-imperialist sentiment in 1898. Moreover, like an echo, contemporary arguments are less full and clear than their first recital in 1898.

The annexation of Hawaii became a nationwide debate with the imperialists having enjoyed a 5-year head start. The official deliberations began on July 15, 1898 when several hundred private citizens turned out to Faneuil Hall in Boston, as a simultaneous debate took place on the floor of the House of Representatives. The halls of Congress were occupied by titans of politics like Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Fitzgerald (grandfather to John, Edward, and Robert).

This wasn’t just about the Hawaii annexation treaty. An ideological conflict over whether the U.S. should take colonies abroad engulfed the great thinkers of the time. Imperialists also participated.

As Grandaddy Fitzgerald put it in Washington:

My colleague emphasized the pleasure that he felt in voting for annexation because of the fact that the islands had been redeemed from savagery by the devotion of American missionaries. In thinking over the matter, I’ve come to the conclusion that the native Hawaiians view of the Almighty and justice must be a little bit shaken when he sees these men who pretend to be exemplars of Christianity and honor, take possession of these islands by force, destroy the government that has existed for years, and set up a sovereignty for themselves.6

The Speaker of the House was Thomas Reed, who said the U.S. might as well “annex the moon.” Reed was not in attendance on June 15, 1898. He was either genuinely in bad health, or made ill by the prospect of attending. His role’s requirements could include the confirmation of a vote to annex Hawaii. Perhaps Speaker Reed couldn’t stomach the idea of his gavel’s banging as the first blow delivered by the new American empire.

The imperialists’ arguments were emotionless aside from occasional appeals to pathos in a strategic sort of way. Even then, their contentions revolved around commerce. No one better embodied this approach than Edwin Ridgeley of Kansas, who said:

We need not, nor do I believe we will, enter into a conquest of force but, to the contrary, our higher civilization will be carried across the Pacific by the white and peaceful wings of our rapidly increasing commerce.7

A Representative from Kentucky, Albert Berry, insisted intervention wasn’t an intrusion as much as the Hawaiians required it. Instead of coming up with something new, Berry recycled the same logic applied to excuse the genocide of natives on the mainland during westward expansion:

When the Americans sent missionaries there for the purpose of civilizing the natives, they found them in an almost barbarous condition, and set to work to bring about a condition of civilization.8

William Alden Smith, the Representative from Michigan put it more plainly:

The United States is a great manufacturing nation, eventually we must find new markets for our energy and enterprise.9

Reed was correct to say that ‘we may as well annex the moon.’ Americans could not comprehend the consequences of their decision in a land so foreign. Hawaii was an incredibly far away place, the prohibitively high cost of traveling there made its sheer existence unimaginable.10

Mark Twain, staunchly anti-interventionist, was a key character in the cast that debated against American imperialism. He bore witness to the gruesome nature of European imperialism, something the American camp had not—at least not yet.

In this sense, Twain’s opposition to imperialism made him a foil to Theodore Roosevelt, of equal proportion in terms of popularity and passion. The two formed opposite poles in “an argument that consumed the United States 120 years ago, and it still consumes us.”11

Twain’s strength was prose, Roosevelt’s was action. Twain once described Roosevelt as “clearly insane” and “undoubtedly the most formidable disaster that has befallen the country since the civil war.” Less eloquently, Roosevelt said he’d like to “skin Mark Twain alive.”12

The Democratic Senators who opposed annexation had constitutional grounds to prevent a vote on the matter. John Watson Foster called this “delay” and “obstruction.” The imperialist camp decided to “bring about the annexation by joint resolution.” Joint resolutions are meant for urgent or temporary matters related to national security, war, or emergencies.13

John Watson Foster admitted “such a course was repugnant… because of its evasion of the constitutional provision and the creation of a bad precedent.”14 His excuse for proceeding anyway was simple: “...it was felt that the exigencies of the war justified this extreme measure.”15 He shared no details on the source of those feelings. Wartime was good for one thing: getting things done that you can’t during peacetime.

The legislative maneuver worked. John Watson Foster recalled in his memoir: “We were greatly relieved, however, that upon the passage of the joint resolutions they received a vote of two thirds of both houses, which practically met the constitutional requirement as to treaties.”16

The Law

John Watson Foster’s novel application of the law was career-making. He truly understood what laws are: rules made by whoever is able and willing to enforce them. In a sense, John Watson Foster was a lawyer with no laws. He made up the rules as he went. This made him incredibly useful to multinational corporations who sought to secure global markets by any means at the turn of the millenium.

No real international laws govern corporate contracts across borders, especially not in the early 1900s. If a foreign land had no legal system, or applicable laws, John Watson Foster would create them. This anecdote summarizes his approach quite well:

I was engaged with Mr. Elihu Root and other attorneys in arranging the terms of transfer of a railroad concession in China. Some preliminary consultation had taken place, but a meeting was fixed for a definite settlement of the only remaining question in dispute, the price to be paid. The Chinese Minister accompanied me, and we soon reached an agreement. As we came away, the Minister, who was a young man and little experienced in financial matters, impressed with the celerity of our action, half-soliloquizing, said to me : “Seven millions of dollars in five minutes !17

John Watson Foster is regarded as one of the earliest, if not the first multinational corporate lawyer. Just as he saw beyond the typical parochial aspirations of life as a lawyer in Indiana, he imagined a legal world beyond the box built by statesmen.

Around the time Watson Foster was growing his novel law practice in Washington, the rest of the country grappled with the aftermath of what he set off in Hawaii. Rather than repair the situation, good Congressmen were left to fiddle with tools antiquated by the inventions of John Watson Foster’s imagination.

Watson Foster’s most important and lasting impact on our world doesn’t stem from any of his career work, but in being a grandfather. He shaped the impressionable minds of Allen and John Foster Dulles. Grandaddy John was a man with a peculiar destiny spanning beyond his own lifetime. A legacy that lived on in spirit wouldn’t suffice, only blood. John Watson Foster filled the void of royalty in America by manufacturing his own pedigree, ensuring the direct continuation of his precise vocation with a guarantee only heredity provides.

Canals

President McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt spent 1897-1909 solidifying the initial American imperial projects kicked off by Watson Foster. American troops helped “liberate” Cuba from Spanish rule in 1898, which came at the cost of Cubans living under the boot of U.S. imperialism. When Theodore Roosevelt went to Cuba on a diplomatic trip, he received a letter from Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who directed him to not make peace in Cuba until the U.S. takes Puerto Rico.18

U.S. forces took control from the Spanish over: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. On the 4th of July, in 1902, Twain wrote the following, painting a picture of his idea of a sufficient holiday parade:

–Waving from a float piled high with property—the whole marked with Boodle. To wit: 12,000 islands

–Crowd of slaughtered patriots–called “rebels”

–Fillipino Republic–annihilated

–Crowd of deported patriots–called “rebels”

–A Crowned Sultan–in business with the United States and officially-recognized member of the firm.

–Motto on the Flag: “To what base uses I have come at last”

–The Pirate Flag. Inscribed: “Oh, you will get used to it, brother. I had sentimental scruples myself at first.”19

William Nelson Cromwell, a lawyer and lobbyist, helped negotiate U.S. control over the Panama Canal, which became a great project under Roosevelt’s Presidency. Cromwell’s work clinching the agreement earned him $800,000 from a group that owned land in the region, known as the French Canal Syndicate.20 Cromwell’s law education, paid for by Algernon Sydney Sullivan, an Indiana lawyer, turned out to be a worthwhile investment. The two would form Sullivan & Cromwell, a multinational corporate law firm, paving with cement the trail blazed by John Watson Foster.

Grandbaby’s First Coup

Allen and John Foster Dulles were steady on the path laid by grandaddy Watson at the time of his death in 1917. They brothers became lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell, representing their many multinational corporate clients. Upon their grandfather’s passing, Allen and Foster began looking up to their “Uncle Bert,” a man the rest of us know as Robert Lansing—Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson.21

When the war created a demand in Europe for American goods, it was Robert Lansing who wrote a letter to the President in 1915 insisting the United States begin purchasing foreign bonds. By Uncle Bert’s account, from “December 1st, 1914, to June 30, 1915 our exports have exceeded our imports by nearly a billion dollars.”22 The growing trade gap was framed as a national emergency, another example of the Foster Dulles syndicate taking advantage of a wartime opportunity.

This move established global financial infrastructure. Freeing up capital to finance multinational corporate expansion was an important precedent to set: growing markets by simply providing states with the dollars necessary to purchase American goods. That same year, under Woodrow Wilson, and at the direction of Robert Lansing, the U.S. began purchasing foreign bonds.

In 1917, Uncle Bert gave the Dulles babies a glimpse of how foreign policy is really made. The “pro-American” regime in Cuba lost the election, jeopardizing the profit margins of Sullivan & Cromwell’s clients, who were extracting resources and relying on cheap labor in Cuba. Their total assets tied up in Cuba exceed $3 billion in today’s dollars.23

Foster went to his Uncle Bert with the matter. Warships were sent to Cuba within hours, which marked the beginning of a five-year occupation, and military action taken for the benefit of a syndicate.

Did the U.S. benefit at all from this? Citizens would be able to purchase goods from the companies, but would Uncle Sam ever get his cut? The evasion of taxes is something Sullivan & Cromwell is credited for helping multinational corporations with. Despite the corporate owners and shareholders being American, it’s unlikely Uncle Sam gained a dime protecting their assets in Cuba.

The syndicate achieved two key objectives by the end of 1917: 1) the creation of global financial infrastructure, and 2) the use of military force for the benefit of syndicates of capital at the expense of the state.

First It’s Oil, Then It’s Bananas

Though documentation on Sullivan & Cromwell’s work negotiating with heads of state on behalf of multinational corporations is near non-existent, they occasionally represented their clients in court. Records show that both British Petroleum/Anglo-Iranian Oil and Standard Oil were clients of Sullivan & Cromwell.2425

In 1919 Standard Oil met with the U.S. Government and expressed an interest in “Mesopotamian Oil,” according to a declassified Federal Trade Commission report on “The International Petroleum Cartel.”26 The “problem” of wanting the oil and not having it, was left unresolved. Standard Oil “was advised that the efforts of any single company to obtain concessions in Mesopotamia would not be supported, but that the Government would act in behalf of the entire American Petroleum Industry.”27

By November 1921, the oil syndicate was no longer asking. A group of seven American companies “notified the State Department that they were prepared to send a party of geologists and engineers to Mesopotamia for a reconnaissance survey.”28 This group included Sullivan & Cromwell client Standard Oil.

From 1925-1950, the oil syndicate became interested in oil concessions in Iraq, including Standard Oil and Sullivan & Cromwell’s British client, the Anglo Saxon Oil Company. By January 1950, the corporate structure of the Iranian Petroleum Company looked something like this:

The concessions came with an arrangement between the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) and the Iraqi government: the IPC would pay 400,000 pounds of gold per year until “regular exports of crude commenced.”29 Then, the royalty structure “was to be 4 shillings (gold) per ton on the quantity of petroleum produced annually, with total annual payments to be not less than 400,000 (gold).”30

The IPC had a complicated legal structure that prevented the Iraqi government from genuinely receiving a cut of profits made off of the oil exports. This contract is a very Watson-Foster-eqsue legal arrangement. The declassified FTC report describes the royalty agreement as follows:

The purpose of this royalty provision was to enable the Iraq Government to obtain a higher royalty if the profits of IPC increased, while the company would be favored by having smaller royalty payments if profits declined. However, it was practically impossible to obtain a workable definition of the terms included in the royalty provision in view of the manner in which IPC was operated. As has been noted, the crude produced in Iraq was sold to the IPC groups at an arbitrary price; the crude was then refined by the respective groups, and the profits obtained from the refined products were retained by the transporting, refining, and marketing affiliates operated by the respective owners of IPC. Therefore, most of the profits from IPC’s operations could not be used as a basis for adjusting royalty payments. Moreover, IPC could not supply data on costs and prices of refined products; these could be obtained only from the records of the refining and marketing subsidiaries of the groups.31

Think of the poor international corporate lawyers. What a hassle it must have been, always doing all this paperwork and negotiating? Constantly inventing new legal frameworks and corporate structures to trick foreign governments into signing away their resources must have been exhausting. Taking direct military action to ensure the heads of state at the negotiating table were friendly to the syndicates’ interest would be much more efficient.

The development of the deep state provided syndicates consistent and routine access to military force. In 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established with the signing of the National Security Act under President Truman. The CIA essentially replaced the 5-year-old Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a non-departmental civilian intelligence agency, intended to serve the allied forces during World War II.

Then came Eisenhower. John Foster Dulles served as Secretary of State, his brother, Allen Dulles directed the CIA (1953-59). The syndicate’s first target would be democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, who nationalized the country’s oil.

Iranians celebrated at the Abadan oil refinery, formerly owned by the Anglo Iranian Oil Company. It was now theirs, but not for long.

Mossadegh’s move upset the owners of the profitable Anglo-Iranian oil company, who put years of legal fees into arranging the extraction of Iranian oil. A handful of American companies wanted in.

The CIA proceeded with a media narrative that labeled the new Iranian leader “communist” and therefore a direct threat to American foreign interests.32 In 1953, a CIA backed coup deposed Mossadegh, putting the Shah in power. In 1954, the Anglo-Iranian oil company rebranded to British Petroleum (BP).

From the outside, the 1953 coup of Mossadegh might seem like classic imperialism, done on behalf of the British state, which owned a majority stake in the Anglo-Iranian oil company at the time of the coup.

This isn’t the real story. A newly-created agency of unelected men who recently represented every major U.S.-based multinational corporation at S&C organized a coup that resulted in 5 American oil companies gaining control of 40% of Iranian oil production.33

34

35

This was much easier than decades of negotiation for oil concessions in the Middle East. Imagine how much time this new approach saved the lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell? Having syndicate leaders in official state leadership positions at home and lackeys leading states abroad changed everything.

Though much of the internal documents on the coup of Mossadegh (TPAJAX) were destroyed by the CIA in the 1960s, the detailed plan was obtained by The New York Times and published in full. According to an internal report, the coup of Mossadegh was executed against the recommendation of CIA analysts, but was supported by the British, U.S. CIA Director Allen Dulles, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower, and regional CIA chief and military commander Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of Theodore).36

According to the CIA, this was a case of leaders “ignoring analysis” by staff.37 Under Dulles’ direction, the CIA was no longer an agency that existed to provide intelligence to support U.S. foreign interests. Sure, they provided intelligence and that was the CIA’s primary purpose on paper, but that role was tertiary to its newest and most essential function: covert operations—providing the military force necessary to pursue syndicates’ interests.

The well-oiled machine of the Dulles Foster syndicate was ready to go bananas. The year was 1954, the coup playbook would be put to the test in Guatemala. In decades prior, one of Sullivan & Cromwell’s clients, the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Banana), enjoyed an excellent legal arrangement with the Guatemalan government. Jorge Ubico gave the company a 99 year lease occupying much of the country’s arable land, along with a significant tax exemption.38

The democratic spring came in 1944, when thousands of protestors took to the streets, demanding democracy, and an economy that benefited the hardworking people of Guatemala. Young officers staged a coup, successfully deposing Ubico “at the cost of fewer than one hundred lives.”39

A schoolteacher named Juan José Arévalo was elected President, inaugurated on March 15, 1945. He spent the next 6 years working with the National Assembly, building strong legal protections for workers, welfare systems like social security, and creating a tax on large land owners. As Stephen Kinzer puts it: “each of these measures represented a challenge to United Fruit.”40

A man named Jacobo Arbenz was elected when Arévalo’s term ended. Democracy was working in Guatemala. The transfer of power to the new administration was peaceful. Arévalo went out with a profound farewell address:

The banana magnates, co-nationals of Roosevelt, rebelled against the audacity of a Central American president who gave his fellow citizens a legal equality with the honorable families of exporters… It was then that the schoolteacher, ingenuous and romantic, from the presidency of his country, discovered how perishable, frail and slippery the brilliant international doctrines of democracy and freedom were. It was then, with the deepest despondency and pain, that I felt, with consequent indignation, the pressure of that anonymous force that rules, without laws or morals, international relations and the relationships of men.41

Elected the same year as Mossadegh, Arbenz got to work, promising to:

convert our country from a dependent nation with a semi-colonial economy into an economically independent country; to convert Guatemala from a country bound by a predominantly feudal economy into a modern capitalist state; and to make this transformation in a way that will raise the standard of living of the great mass of people to the highest level.42

Arbenz was clever to promise capitalism, but that did not prevent him from being called a communist for seizing and redistributing unused land under The Agrarian Reform Law of 1952. This was a big blow to United Fruit, which owned over 550,000 acres, but only used 15 percent of the land. The Arbenz government would seize 234,000 acres of unused land from United Fruit, offering $1.185 million in compensation.43 Arbenz was legally clever in his own right. The land valuation relied on United Fruit’s own documentation, pulled from its latest tax documents. The company admitted this was an undervaluation by about 16-fold, and demanded $19 million instead.44

The Dulles Foster syndicate was preparing for a larger-scale operation in Guatemala. On December 3, 1953, they devoted $3 million to the coup of Arbenz.45 Members of the CIA began training for operation “PBSUCCESS.” Declassified documents show this preparation included a study of “Assassinations.”46 They also identified individuals who would be involved in the Junta coup.47 The CIA reviewed many assasination proposals from 1952-1954.48

The Guatemala coup was a great display of political theater, almost as if following Iran, the Dulles Foster syndicate met and agreed, “now let’s do a silly one.” It truly was bananas. The CIA painted planes to look like they belonged to a guerilla insurgency. They ran a fake revolutionary radio broadcast out of Miami. Dulles received hour-by-hour reports on the status of their manufactured uprising against Arbenz.49 His foreign minister wrote to the United Nations Security Council, asking them to condemn the aggression in his country “at the instigation of certain foreign monopolies.”50

Arbenz gave a speech over the radio, from the government station:

Our crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which affected the interests of the United Fruit Company. Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win an economic independence that would match our political independence… It is completely untrue that communists are taking over the government… we have imposed no terror. It is, on the contrary, the Guatemalan friends of Mr. Foster Dulles who wish to spread terror among our people, attacking women and children by surprise with impunity from pirate airplanes.51

The Dulles Foster’s handpicked successor to Arbenz, Castillo Armas, found himself in a pickle when one of the CIA planes was shot down. In response, the Fruit Force intensified their bombing campaign. Arbenz addressed the public one last time on June 27, when the palace was taken and there were no troops left to mobilize. He had no choice but to surrender, and protect every state’s foremost interest: the continued existence of the state.

Workers, peasants, patriots, my friends, people of Guatemala: Guatemala is enduring the most difficult trial. For 15 days a cruel war against Guatemala has been underway. The United Fruit Company, in collaboration with the governing circles of the United States, is responsible for what is happening to us…

I’ve not violated my faith in Democratic liberties, in the independence of Guatemala, and in all the good that is the future of humanity… I’ve always said to you that we would fight, regardless of the cost, but the cost should not include the destruction of our country and sending our riches abroad. And this could happen if we do not eliminate the pretext that our powerful enemy has raised.

A government different from mine, but always inspired by our October revolution, is preferable to 20 years of fascist, bloody tyranny under the rule of the bands that Castillo Armas has brought into the country.52

Colonel Diaz accepted the Presidency, handed to him by Arbenz, saying “the struggle against the mercenary invaders will not abate.”53 That night, CIA pilot Jerry DeLarm bombed the government radio broadcasting station, and a nearby military base. The Fruit Force decided to replace Diaz with Colonel Elfegio Monzón, who would usher in Castillo Armas’ Presidency.

The Junta collaborators were paid $100,000 each, and placed at diplomatic posts under the new regime.54 The decision to pledge their loyalty to a syndicate, and rid themselves of whatever loyalty a citizen should have to their country, paid off.

The Cold War politics of the era insisted Secretary Foster Dulles should frame the situation in Guatemala as a win for freedom and democracy over “communist Imperialism.”

The Guatemalan government and Communist agents throughout the world have persistently attempted to obscure the real issue, that of Communist Imperialism, by claiming that the U.S. was only interested in protecting American business. We regret that there have been disputes between the Guatemalan government and the United Fruit Company… But this issue is relatively unimportant… Thus the situation is being cured by the Guatemalans themselves.55

Nothing to throw us off the trail quite like ‘it’s not what they said it was.’

Arbenz and Arévalo eloquently defined and condemned syndicates of capital in the 1950s. Iran and Guatemala were the first recipients of military force directed by syndicates of capital. The Foster Dulles syndicate spent 1898-1960 laying the foundation for a new world order. To read more about their misadventures, I recommend Stephen Kinzer’s The True Flag, Overthrow, The Brothers, and All The Shah’s Men.

A Deserving Question

A prescient political economist of the late 18 and early 1900s, who wrote around the same time John Watson Foster was alive, warned of late stage capitalism bringing imperialism and monopoly capitalists, who could form cartels and develop spheres of economic influence beyond states. He wondered whether or not this influence would extend beyond economic means, to non-economic power such as military control. He said this question deserved to be dealt with.

Thanks to the work of the Dulles Foster’s syndicate, imperialists and transnational monopoly capitalists that relied on states’ militaries to sponsor the violence began operating in a manner that routinely circumvented the state. They established systems that cemented this process as standard. The distillation of their power produced new behaviors and norms in the global political sphere. In the coming decades, direct military control would be transferred to syndicates of capital. And so a great question of the early 20th century is answered, the non-economic power of syndicates of capital has actualized.

The ethical analysis remains the same, imperialism is no more or less wrong if it is done at the hands of the state in partnership with capitalists, or at hands of syndicates of capital. The form global power takes is a tactical knowledge, not an ethical analysis. It is an ethical phenomenon only in that it is an essential understanding for anyone interested in pursuing a more just world.

As I have done with Marx’s work as well, I will now reveal to you the name of the brilliantly prescient political economist I referred to earlier: Vladimir Lenin. In his preface to Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, he wrote: “I shall try to show briefly, and as simply as possible, the connection and relationships between the principal economic features of imperialism. I shall not be able to deal with the non-economic aspects of the question, however much they deserve to be dealt with.”56 Lenin proceeds to describe how capitalists’ strength changes under imperialism/late stage global capitalism. The only example he gave of potentially non-economic change to capitalist strength, was control over the military.

Thank you for reading. The next essay will focus on how syndicates of capital operate today.

In this episode, Jessica Burbank gives her first lecture introducing her analysis of global power: "Syndicates of Capital.”

(@SamRaeRoy on Instagram, June 2025)

As soon as the couple made it through customs, all flights were cancelled out of Abu Dhabi. They’ve since spent 6 days stranded “in the missile targeted UAE” with no assistance from the U.S. State Department, Roy tells TCC.

The Al Dhafra Air Base is just miles from the Zayed International Airport where Roy landed.

Abu Dhabi is a waterfront city on the Persian Gulf, directly across the southern shores of Iran.

Roy is spending her time sheltering in place, “manifesting” and “praying.” Working out a new travel plan with the airline is challenging. The couple tried to get on a flight to Thailand, they were told it was full, but later learned from a passenger that it took off with 13 empty seats. The only flight available for less than $2,000 per person takes off on March 9th, but it departs from an airport in Muscat, Oman, a 5 hour drive from Abu Dhabi.

The misadventure began when Sam Rae Roy and her partner took off from the Boston Logan airport on Friday, February 27th at 4pm. The Trump Administration would launch Operation Epic Fury within hours of their flight departing.

TCC reached out to the State Department and Department of Defense for comments as to why flights took off from U.S. airports with destinations within the area of Operation Epic Fury, within hours of the first offensive strikes, but has yet to hear back.

Subscribe now

Sam and her partner arrived in Abu Dhabi at 1pm local time, just before Iranian retaliation strikes made landfall in the UAE. 15 minutes after landing, an emergency alert came through on their phones “that the UAE had intercepted missiles fired by Iran at the Al Dhafra U.S. air base in Abu Dhabi.”

At this point in time, Roy didn’t know how much their travel plans would change. She told TCC: “We thought ‘oh I guess we shouldn’t go to the grand mosque on our layover.’ But as we deliberated our options, we saw that all flights had been cancelled.”

“We hit the internet and realized that not only was the air space closed in the UAE, but how close we were to landing around the time of Iran’s retaliation, which I believe was ~1:15pm.”

The couple, now stranded in the UAE amidst a regional war, went to the airline for next steps.

“‘As we made our way to the Etihad counter to find out our next steps, we heard three loud explosions overhead followed by the sound of jets. A 2nd attack. The airline told us to book our own hotel and request a refund later and off we went.”

The couple followed the State Department’s instructions, and registered for the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), which allows U.S. citizens and nationals abroad to receive emergency information from. They also “emailed the embassy” with their “information and whereabouts,” then proceeded to stay “inside the hotel.”

The U.S. Department of State Consular Affairs posted on Instagram, “We have no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans,” and instructed Americans in the Middle East to enroll in STEP.

Roy detailed the couple’s first few nights in the Abu Dhabi:

“It was eerie to us how calm everyone seemed, trusting in the UAE government to keep us safe despite the sonic booms we would hear every so often. On the third night, at ~2:30am we were woken up by the booming. It went on for 30-45 minutes pretty consistently. An alert came around the 15 minute mark. We were terrified but remained safe. It was the next morning that the state Department urged Americans to flee countries like the UAE by whatever commercial means necessary but there was no guidance for how.”

The couple made a constant effort to relocate, but to no avail. Attempts to solicit guidance from STEP were fruitless. “Calling the number posted by travel.gov led to a recording.” That recording communicated the following: “Please do not rely on the US.. government for assisted departure or evacuation at this time. There are currently no U.S. evacuation points.” Roy shared a video of the automated recording that plays when you call the State Department number for “24/7” assistance:

Share

Roy shared a message with Americans back home, writing:

“USA please reach a ceasefire agreement. It’s so easy to ignore what the US is doing until you are in the middle of it. Until you are hearing missiles get intercepted by the UAE from your bed.”

She’s documented the couple’s unplanned stay in Abu Dhabi on her travel-focused Instagram page.

Unlike the Dubai and Doha-based influencer crowd, some of whom arranged an evacuation by private jet with the help of Saudi and Qatari officials, Roy’s travel plans don’t revolve around luxury high-rises and private flights. She was just passing through the UAE, and hoped to see the local landmarks during her layover in Abu Dhabi.

Roy describes her travel-style since 2017 as “off the beaten path”, typically wearing hiking attire and carrying backpack, Roy frequents national parks and spent weeks in Central America roadtripping “potholed roads over dicy border crossings in a manual car.” For the typical American traveler, like Roy, getting caught in the Middle East at the beginning of the U.S. war on Iran is a harrowing experience.

After 5 days in the UAE, the couple didn’t give up on finding a flight anywhere outside of the war zone. “We are hopefully, possibly, manifesting, praying that all goes well, potentially getting on a flight to BKK [Bangkok, Thailand].” Roy told TCC. The couple found a potential route out of the Abu Dhabi, not thanks to the U.S. State Department or the airline, but a business class passenger on Etihad who flew to Thailand Tuesday, on a flight with “13 empty seats.” This was shocking news, as Roy had inquired about getting on that flight, but was told it “was completely full.”

After hearing flights were taking off to Thailand with more than enough room for additional passengers, the couple “called the airline to ask about this, essentially begging to get seats on [Wednesday’s] flight to Thailand and after two hours of pleases and thank you’s they finally agreed to,” Roy told TCC.

She was relieved and “interested to see how full it is, knowing there are thousands of people who would gladly go to Thailand instead of staying in the missile-targeted UAE. But still no flights to the U.S. are happening,” Roy explained to TCC.

Subscribe now

The young traveler managed to keep her spirits up, joking that she now runs an “Abu Dhabi fitness influencer account” from the hotel gym.

In a sad but inspiring way, Sam Rae Roy turned her situation into a teaching moment for Americans watching back home, writing on her Instagram story: “When it’s calm, it’s a beautiful place. Hopefully we can continue on soon. For those that live here, it’s not an option. Our actions have consequences.”

Roy and her partner made it safely to Thailand on Thursday, March 5. They enjoyed a cold beer in Bangkok. Roy shared a photo with the caption: "I have a lot to unpack from our last ‘travel experience’ but I’ve never needed to live in the moment more.”

Share

As U.S. aircraft travel back and forth from the region, and a multi-billion dollar offensive against Iran continues, it’s clear the U.S. has both the capacity and funds to bring Americans in the region to safety. The decision to abandon U.S. citizens and nationals in a war zone, especially after initiating the conflict, will be a permanent stain on the Trump Administration’s legacy, — not just in the minds of Americans, but for the rest of the world, who now see the U.S. government can no longer be depended upon to keep Americans safe while they travel abroad.

$24 trillion of natural resource wealth sits within the Democratic Republic of Congo.1 By contemporary estimates, the most of any state in the world. The people of Congo have scarcely enjoyed the wealth of the land they inhabit, Belgium established colonial rule in 1908 and multinational corporations proceeded to extract resources and exploit labor. Upon taking office as Prime Minister in 1960, Lumumba challenged this scheme, and declared independence from imperial rule.

Patrice Lumumba was killed shortly after this. His assassination was ordered by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).23

Syndicates of Capital

A new world order is here. States (countries) are no longer the highest form of power globally. Power has shifted to wealthy individuals who work in groups and operate across borders: syndicates of capital.

Syndicates of capital cannot be categorized as legal or illegal. They exist primarily in the extralegal sphere, where either no regulations apply to their behavior or, where laws do exist, there is no entity powerful enough to enforce them in a manner that asserts control over the syndicates’ behavior.

In many occasions, capital is both the power source for syndicates, and the shared goal. Wealthy individuals form syndicates if their strategic objectives align. Those objectives typically revolve around securing new capital flows and preserving existing ones. Syndicates’ power is vast but fragile. If all members of a syndicate were cut off from accessing capital and the resources they control, they would lose their power.

Author’s Note: ​​Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists, but I am not speaking of secret societies, the illuminati, or a cabal. Syndicates of capital do not hide their power, nor do they operate in secret. Their multi-billion dollar deals and contracts are publicly disclosed. They are also not united in ethnic background, religious, or political beliefs.

Subscribe now

It is not enough to say: ‘democracies are being replaced with oligarchies because wealthy individuals have too much power in society.’ That may be true, but is not the full picture. Oligarchies are states run by a small group of wealthy individuals. That may accurately describe the politics of one nation, but it does not suffice to describe how power is organized on a global scale.

‘Global oligarchy’ also falls short of describing how power is organized in our world, because there is not one small group of wealthy individuals, there are many, and they compete. Still, the identification of oligarchs is useful for global political analysis because many of the oligarchs within a state also operate globally as leaders or members of syndicates of capital.

Share

The new world order emerged before it could be identified. Platitudes like: “our world has gone crazy,” served as an emotional crutch, and an implicit acknowledgement that we lack a sound analysis of contemporary global power. What has felt like an ineffable force, an inexplicable undercurrent of darkness, is the ambiance of global dominion by syndicates of capital.

Though abstract, examining how global power is organized is essential to understanding the world we live in. Developing a coherent framework for evaluating global affairs allows us to more effortlessly make sense of current events. You’ll be surprised how quickly things click and how easily your mind makes connections when you absorb the news with a conception of syndicates of capital.

Theoretical Framework

Since 1648, global power has been organized in an anarchic system of states. Not ‘anarchy’ in the sense of chaos, but anarchy in the sense that no higher authority controlled states’ behavior. While international organizations exist, they do not rival the power of states. Instead, they provide the institutional structure necessary to facilitate agreements among them. International laws only apply when states enforce them.

American political scientist Joseph Nye identified the three different forms in which power has been organized globally: an imperial system, a feudal system, and an anarchy of states.4 Nye’s analysis is widely accepted, and foundational for the fields of political science and international studies. Syndicates of Capital serves as an extension of Nye’s contributions, not a refutation.

Despite globalization, states have not developed a functional framework for democratic decision making at the international level, though there is a common delusion that exists. Multilateralism, the collaboration of states toward shared goals, has been the most effective way states exert control over other states. The United Nations is an institution that facilitates multilateralism, not global democracy.

Rather than states cooperating to develop a system of global governance, or succumbing to exogenous threats to sovereignty, state power eroded from within. Official government leaders today have less power than wealthy private citizens who demonstratively exert more control over economic policymaking and the use of military force. State leaders often directly serve syndicates of capital instead of the public or the state, though some try to do both.

State-level puppeteering is never the extent of syndicates’ power, but government leaders’ power rarely extends beyond the state, unless working with a syndicate. Syndicates of capital use state power where useful or necessary, but circumvent the state wherever possible.

The end the anarchic system of states is difficult to identify precisely because syndicates did not replace states. Instead, syndicates developed a new global power structure that includes states. The transition occurred slowly and quietly, unlike the clear conception of the anarchy of states, marked by the signing of the peace of Westphalia in 1648 which established the global norm of state sovereignty.

The shift toward syndicates of capital began around the 1920s, and completed sometime before 2020. Syndicates started exercising power over states in the 1920s, and within one hundred years, were using legitimate force at the global level, independent of states.

To understand how systems of global power change, we can learn from previous transitions. Sociologist Max Weber defined the state as a human community with a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.5 “Physical force” does not only refer to police, militaries, security, etc., Weber considers economic systems an essential component to states’ monopoly on physical force. Weber points out that when the feudal system was replaced by an anarchic system of states, economic control shifted to state leaders:

[Translated from German] ...the state has combined the material means of organization in the hands of its leaders, and it has expropriated all autonomous functionaries of estates who formerly controlled these means in their own right.6

Post-1648, feudal lords/kings no longer directed the means of production, running the economy became the exclusive domain of state leaders.

Which came first, economic or military control? Were states able to take control of economic production because they had a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a given territory? Or, was controlling the economy a necessary precursor to establishing a monopoly on violence? That debate is an interesting one, but not the point here.

A monopoly on physical force is the consistency across all three previous forms of global power. In an anarchic system of states, state leaders controlled economic systems. In a feudal system, feudal lords/kinds did. In an imperial system, empires did. Global power belongs to whoever exerts the most control over economic systems and militaries.

Today, power over economic decision-making has certainly shifted to syndicates of capital. Most official state leaders do not control the material means of production. Two important economic conditions allowed syndicates to hoard capital. 1) The existence of global financial infrastructure, allowing for the transfer of currency across borders and overseas, and 2) a global system of financial regulation does not exist.

On some occasions, leaders of syndicates possess more wealth than small states. That reality alone indicates a collapse of the nation-state, and a transition from the anarchic system of states to syndicates of capital.

State control over militaries is a global norm, though a fading one. The military industrial complex analysis brought us closer to discovering that, for the past century, syndicates have forced states to outsource military control to syndicates. This includes: technology innovation, weapons manufacturing, and even geopolitical strategy and foreign policy.

Syndicates actions independent of states are usually complimented by the coerced or willing support by states. State leaders cooperate with syndicates to increase the power of their regime and/or for personal financial gain. Private individuals choose to belong to syndicates, pledging more loyalty to their syndicate than the nation(s) they are citizens of.

Share

Liberal Hegemony

Syndicates of capital did not spontaneously alchemize upon required conditions materializing, political ideology pushed people to build the foundation necessary to create this new world order.

The dominance of liberalism was essential for syndicates of capital to emerge. Though the two political philosophies are complimentary, ‘liberalism’ here refers to a global historic political philosophy, which is different from American liberalism within the U.S., for example, some older conservatives within the U.S. are classic liberals.

Liberalism, as categorized by Harry Chernotsky and Heidi Hobbs, is a political philosophy that stems “from the democratic tradition that emphasizes the potential for cooperation among states.”7 Liberals focus on states’ central role in world affairs have cost them power globally. Their worldview fails to capture our new reality, though it helped create it.

In the mid-nineteenth century, a new iteration of liberalism emerged: neoliberalism. While believing in state sovereignty, neoliberals simultaneously believe states have a duty to establish and maintain the fundamentals of a “good” society according to liberal values: individual liberty, democracy, secularism, privatization, and free enterprise. The liberal worldview emphasizes individual liberty while leaving little room for the economic self-determination of states, or cultural relativity of their political processes.

Liberals insist that a right to sovereignty is lost when any of the fundamental principles of liberal society are missing within a state. This is when liberals label countries ‘failed states,’ and insist intervention by other states is justified. For example, if a state nationalizes natural resources through legitimate democratic processes, and therefore jeopardizes free enterprise (resource extraction by global ‘market’ forces), that state loses their right to liberty and self determination.

At the global level, liberalism allows states to enjoy individual liberty or sovereignty only conditionally. The liberty is lost once they produce policies that prevent private control of capital. Within a liberal state, an individual has a right to their own political views, so long as they do not act on any which are incompatible with liberal philosophy.

This is a key contradiction of liberalism: state sovereignty and individual liberty are conditional on compliance with liberal ideology. This is why interventions, though illiberal in nature, have been entirely compatible with, and at times driven by, liberal political philosophy.

Liberalism was the driving dogma behind the establishment of free markets globally, which, in practice, was the violent enforcement of resource extraction and labor exploitation my multinational corporations. These conditions facilitated the accumulation of global capital in the hands of the few. Those few formed syndicates. Therefore, neoliberal hegemony catalyzed the shift of how world power is organized, facilitating the fall of an anarchic system of states, and the rise of syndicates of capital. Liberalism effectuated a new world order in which liberalism is obsolete.

The Rise of Fascism

The global rise of fascism is not a response to neoliberal hegemony. Instead, it is a response to the emergence of syndicates of capital. Reclaiming national identity is a desperate attempt to return power to the state. By returning military and economic control to state leaders, fascists could actually check the power of syndicates. This is where liberals fall short, their laissez fare approach to economic regulation insists they should not put their hands in syndicates’ pockets.

Though nationalists could threaten syndicates’ power by returning the monopoly on military force and economic decision making to state leaders, that playbook has generally failed in the west. Syndicates respond by directly working with fascist leaders before they take office to ensure these policies never materialize. Leaders of syndicates have carefully traded power and capital with heads of state in exchange for deregulation and preservation of syndicates’ global control.

Liberalism declining while fascism spreads is not indicative of changing moral values among the masses. Unlike liberals, who tend to ideologically match liberal leaders, fascist leaders differ greatly from their ideologically inconsistent base.

Fascist followers react to material conditions, while fascist demagogues weaponize reactionary behavior. Modern states have the material means to cover the basic needs of their citizens and beyond, but existing systems fail to allocate resources accordingly. This is a political choice, not always made by the leaders of a state, sometimes it is made for them, through multilateral economic coercion.

Manufactured economic scarcity has produced a fear for survival in the populace. That fear has been preyed on by political actors, who direct blame to global factors, like migration. “Globalism” is a consistent political enemy by the far right. This discourages the public from looking globally for any political answers, which is why leaders of syndicates favor anti-globalist ideologies — any meaningful analysis of power across borders reveals their control. The spread of open-minded thinking that centers our shared humanity is an existential threat to syndicates.

Syndicates deem globalization an enemy for a different reason than the masses. Globalization that involves the increased efficacy of international financial regulation is a direct threat to their power.

Syndicates actively work to spread narratives in media that preserve their global power. This includes religious doctrine, factual and non-factual news reporting, economic theory, and political philosophy. This is why media campaigns by billionaires are no longer confined to an election cycle, or even one country.

While there are genuine ideological fascists who do not cooperate with syndicates, they protect syndicates’ power by demonizing globalism. When any right-wing nationalist, communist, or socialist leader rises and truly attempts to threaten syndicates’ power or capital flows, syndicates coup or kill them.

Syndicate Motivations

The behavior of syndicates is difficult to predict beyond securing new capital flows and methods of capital preservation. There is little evidence of any coherent political ideology guiding syndicates’ decisions. Some leaders have professed unusual political philosophies and religious doctrine, but it is unclear if these are authentic beliefs or intentional diversions.

Syndicates have no founding documents or philosophies, and no constitutions. At least, not yet.

While it would be interesting to psychoanalyze the leaders of syndicates, because their motivations may be pathological rather than political, that is a task for the psychologists. (Good luck.)

Cases

Some world events dominate our memory, despite involving less prominent figures or human casualties than others: the 1953 coup in Iran, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, 9/11, billionaires going to space, and Jeffrey Epstein’s failed prosecution(s), just to name a few. Events like these are remembered as extraordinary for one reason: they do not fit the mould of how we know the world works (or so we thought). They feel like unbelievable anomalies, and occupy an outsized portion of our imaginations. That is because these cases exemplify a new world order emerging: they are all instances of syndicates of capital exercising more power than states.

Over the coming days and weeks, I will be publishing a series of detailed essays that explore cases that demonstrate how syndicates of capital gained power over the last 100 years, and how they operate today.

Subscribe now

I will devote a lot of time to doing interviews and fulfilling media requests in order to spread and further develop this thesis. Send any requests to kaburbank.inquiry@gmail.com

Share

Dedication:

For Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo, Patrice Lumumba, Kent Klitgaard, Stephen Kinzer, and Warren Mosler.

Dear reader,

Thank you for taking the time to read this essay. People like me don’t usually get to learn about how power is organized in the world, let alone write about it. I come from a regular working class family, and was the first in my household to get a college degree, let alone go to graduate school.

Over the holidays, my dad was telling stories about his younger days. While driving a box truck around Manhattan, doing deliveries, he walked into the lobby of a building, and was stopped by security.

Walking to meet him at the door, the guard said, “deliveries are around back!” Then he pointed to the door, shooing my dad away like he was a sparrow that hopped through a motion-sensing door. The guard was incredulous that my modestly dressed father had the nerve to walk on the polished floors of their prestigious lobby, tainting the air of their corporate sanctuary with every cigarette-laced breath.

Every time I imagine my father’s warm smile falling, I get a lump in my throat. My dad would never tell a story for sympathy, and probably rejects whatever pity this invokes in others. Instead, he insinuates that these guys are pricks who’ve got it all wrong.

Like my father, I never quite accepted the world’s treatment of the lower class as lesser. Anyone who treats people poorly is an asshole. That’s an easy mentality to maintain at an interpersonal level. But once you start thinking about how systems are run, it gets complicated. You can’t dismiss the actions of someone who runs the economy. We live at their mercy.

In a stroke of luck, I got a leadership scholarship to Wells College. There, I met a man named Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo. He taught the class “Introduction to International Studies.” I was told it was the hardest class at Wells, and to wait until my 3rd of 4th year. I took it first semester freshman year.

One day, the upperclassman told me that Professor Lumumba-Kasongo’s uncle, Patrice Lumumba, was killed by the CIA, but he doesn’t like to talk about it. Nothing about how Tukumbi operates in the world or the classroom indicates his family has been betrayed in the most complicated way possible. Tukumbi is peaceful but intense, lighthearted but wise, and explains the world in a way that is simple but not simplistic.

Across every topic, Tukumbi ensures all relevant perspectives are presented, but never indicates which he favors. Even perspectives which, I now know, belong to those who orchestrated a murder in his family. His only passion is to spread a comprehensive understanding of the world, and power, to his students. A lot of who I am, I owe to Tukumbi.

When Pell Grants ran out, I didn’t enroll again in the fall. I took a job as a waitress and told my friends I was doing an internship. Tukumbi reached out, and made me his teaching assistant so I could return in the spring. I did, and eventually graduated on time with a double major in International Studies and Political Science.

Before graduation, Tukumbi asked what graduate schools I was applying to. He suggested Brown, Columbia, Harvard, etc. But, I hadn’t considered going to graduate school at all, let alone an Ivy. I thought he was delusional.

I went back to bartending, and applied to a few programs. On my last day behind the bar, my manager said to me: “don’t get so smart that you’re stupid.” I never forgot that. I could’ve used my prestigious education to do so many stupid things. Like taking a corporate job to save a bunch of money. I never sold out to the man. Not even ideologically. I was a bit of a menace to the posh professors.

At Brown, I met Stephen Kinzer. I was hired to be the teaching assistant for his sensationally popular class, “The History of U.S. Intervention.” Admittedly, I learned more working on Stephen’s course than I did in some of the graduate-level courses – including some new things about Patrice Lumumba’s assassination.

If it weren’t for my mentors’ dedication to liberatory education, I wouldn’t be who I am today. They never cared about my family’s legacy. Instead of patronizing me for the shitty public school education I came in with, they treated me like everyone else, and valued me for trying harder.

It’s the honor of my lifetime to follow in their footsteps, empowering people of all backgrounds to critically analyze power and gain access to information that refutes the relentless propaganda of our modern age. It is our right to understand the world we live in.

The study of power no longer belongs to the powerful.

This is the sort of thing I would have dismissed a few years ago. But, I spent the 2024 election cycle across the news desk from right-wingers who swore Project 2025 had nothing to do with Trump, his campaign, or his plans once in office. We’ve all witnessed the complete destruction of Gaza and the genocide of its people.

Differentiating legitimate proposals from imperial fever dreams has become impossible. So we don’t need to act as if this is a plan in motion, but we should at least be aware of it.

Bombing the Negev desert (south of Gaza) to establish a new canal connecting the Red Sea, via the Gulf of Aqaba, to the Mediterranean, is a fantasy of the “blob” in Washington that dates back to the 60s, and Israel under Ben Gurion in the late 40s.

It may seem like a strange and unlikely move, nuking land to excavate a canal, but 10-15% of all global trade passes through the Suez Canal (the waterway currently connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean).

Another important fantasy at play is Israel’s desire for regional hegemony. Securing a shipping lane from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic would provide Israel with long-term global economic power.

Subscribe now

Compared to the complications of Trump’s coup in Venezuela, dream of reclaiming the Panama canal, or taking Greenland, the creation of the Gurion canal is a simpler imperial project. Once the bombs go off, he can claim success and joint ownership of the canal with Israel before a regional response can materialize. He might even have someone else name it the “Trump” canal to cement (or nuke?) his legacy. It’s an outcome that allows Trump to claim victory in a war that has no clear goal.

In the coming days, the U.S. may start narrative building: ‘Iran’s decision to close off the Strait of Hormuz was an act of war.’ This claim is disputed, it’s unclear if Iran is truly preventing carriers from passing through, but I can see the Trump Administration running with this. The U.S. and Israel will say closing the strait was an ‘inhumane escalation that harms innocent people who have nothing to do with the war.’ The economic fallout will be blamed entirely on Iran. The Trump administration will position themselves as the heroes taking on the bad guys: they used nukes to save the economy.

Israel and the U.S. may start targeting Houthi rebel bases that threaten the Bab al-Mandeb strait (the waterway between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea). Trump’s personality suggests he would cite the Houthi’s disruption of shipping while taking the position that Egypt did a bad job securing the Suez Canal, and it can no longer can’t be relied on, so we’ll build our own (or rather bomb our own).

In May 1956, Israel delayed pursuing the canal project to “eliminate, or at least postpone, one potential cause of a Middle East war this spring.” 70 years later, we already have a Middle East war this spring.

In 1963, the United States Department of Energy funded an analysis of the “Use of Nuclear Explosives for Excavation of Sea Level Canal Across the Negev Desert.” The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory produced the report under contract. The DoE still primarily funds the California-based lab today — it has a $3 billion+ budget.

The 1963 report determined “conventional methods of excavation at this magnitude are prohibitively expensive… but it appears that nuclear explosives could be profitably applied to the situation.”

A map shows the canal would pass by the Gaza Strip and Beersheba:

The report concludes that bombing the canal is “within the range of technical feasibility.” The document repeatedly references Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, an act that is a permanent scar in the minds of Washington foreign policy elite, who prefer the U.S. have total control of global commerce.

Share

The canal isn’t just about shipping. The difference in elevation between sea level and the Dead Sea would allow for hydro-electric power generation. So, it’s basically a green energy project. Trump may not go for it because it’s too woke.

The authors were careful to include the limitations of this plan, mostly that Arab countries around Israel may “object strongly to the construction of such a canal.” Israel’s genocide in Gaza has weakened their ability to respond. Egypt is already struggling with Houthi’s blocking shipments. The region is weakened as Iran exchanges fire with America’s allies.

For a minute, I want you to imagine Trump absorbing the prospect of bombing the Negev desert to excavate a canal the U.S. and Israel could control. A quick act of destruction creating something new and profitable. No construction, no contractors, no waiting. He’d probably gleam knowing he could launch nukes without the immediate loss of life (because he really wants to go to heaven).

I can also imagine a team running the calculations for precisely what munitions should be dropped at which coordinates, with the help of the many AI tools in the Department of Defense arsenal.

Subscribe now

Israeli media seem to be interested in the canal project as of late. In February 2024, The Times of Israel ran a few pieces on the subject. Including a rather striking one by Bepi Pezzulli on the renewed excitement over the canal project. Under the header, “The Ben Gurion Canal: A Vision Revived,” Pezzulli writes:

“Charting a course through the rugged terrain straddling Israel and Jordan, its proponents envisioned a route that would circumvent traditional bottlenecks and alleviate congestion plaguing the Suez Canal. This bold infrastructure endeavour held the promise of reshaping global trade patterns and reducing reliance on existing maritime routes. Today, it holds the added promise of expanding on the Abraham Accords, by seamlessly connecting to Saudi Arabia via NEOM, the futuristic new city poised on the shores of the Red Sea…

With Saudi Arabia as the world’s top oil exporter and the United Arab Emirates serving as the financial hub of the Middle East, both nations have long sought to secure their vital commercial and energy corridors against potential disruptions. Recent events, such as the conflict in Gaza and assaults on vessels in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, have heightened concerns. Consequently, major stakeholders in the shipping sector have temporarily suspended the use of Egypt’s Suez Canal.

The Ben Gurion Canal would have a world-scale impact: the redundancy of waterways would put an end to the congestion of the Suez Canal. Additionally, the fragility of the connection between the two seas, as exemplified by the Ever Given incident, would be reduced.”

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-ben-gurion-canal-vision-amidst-upheaval/

In July 2025, a piece credited to Preechayana Wongaroon proposed a “One-Plus-Two-State and A-Canal Solution…” Another in June 2021:“After years of delays, Jordan said to nix Red Sea-Dead Sea canal with Israel, PA.”

I hope Trump isn’t crazy enough to do it. But today, March 2, 2026, the State Department urged Americans in Egypt to immediately evacuate the country. Considering the entire western coastline of the Gulf of Aqaba belongs to Egypt, the Gurion canal project immediately came to mind.

This morning, the Russian Ministry for Emergency situations visited the Gulf of Aqaba:

A K-135 Stratotanker took an uncommon rout, passing through the Negev desert, after taking off from Tel-Aviv:

An Airbus A400M Atlas, with no call sign, also visited the Gulf of Aqaba later today. This is a plane designed to carry heavy equipment and/or troops:

Tonight 14+ Stratotankers all head to the Middle East, as sun rises over Iran:

These could all be unfortunate coincidences. Let’s hope some imperial fever dreams remain our nightmares, because both the Israeli coalition and U.S. leadership have been emboldened to pursue them in reality.