Wait A Minute… What?

That sums up, for me, the state we live in at the moment. All that we took for granted, the rule of law, diplomacy, even veiled attempts at lying, seem to be a thing of the past, in global terms. In the United States, the current government is making a mockery of everything that is decent and fair.

They are attacking their own citizens, openly lying about the repercussions that their policies have provoked, they are skirting their own courts, breaking their own laws, and above all, they are attacking sovereign states without discussion or even disclosure. They wield their sword at will, while those that represent us sit by and twiddle their thumbs, some even excusing or even siding with the Trump administration’s crimes. So, when asked to comment on what I expected from 2026, for the first time that I can remember, I was at a loss. I’m, by nature, a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but the absolute farce that we are living at the moment leaves me questioning, what’s going to happen next.

There is a greedy, demented fool running the largest economy in the world, invading Venezuela, kidnapping their president, (no matter how corrupt he may be), an in the very next sentence claiming that he must have Greenland, and that Cuba and Columbia are also on the list. All of this without barely a word of opposition, especially from Europe, which he has already claimed is doomed to fail, and he would make it so. He’s got his greedy thumbs in everyone’s pie and is getting away with it. Why, you may ask? For starters, globaly, we’ve allowed them to set up nearly 1000 military bases across the planet. Maybe even more important, is the fact that most of the world trades in American currency. We feed these criminals on a daily basis through our governments. Not to speak of the addiction we have to their exports and the cash that comes in from their imports. They have been very clever in deal-making because the world has overlooked their international criminal interference, for the convenience of ‘free money’ that was never meant to be free, as have all come to understand. The only difference today from the last number of decades, or even longer, is that they gave up hiding behind their malicious diplomacy. Now it’s in our faces. The reason is that the largest economy has galvanized its relationship with big business. A seemingly unstoppable team of a handful of global players that control most of the world’s markets, hand-in-hand with a self-serving government.

Who’s going to deter them?

The Russians and the Chinese are formidable, (and I am not referring to weapons), but they share similar interests with the Americans, although I still have some faith in China. The only way to push back is by condoning the actions of the US and drawing lines in the sand. Hit them and their corporate buddies where it hurts, the profit margins. It’s the only way to get them to stop and think. Right now, they are convinced that Trump’s bullying tactics will work, and at the moment they are, but only because the rest of us, barring a few, are afraid to poke the bear. But I’ve said before that the bear is a coward and he must be poked. As soon as that wall begins to crumble, big business will quietly fall in line, awaiting a future opportunity to pounce. One thing is certain, looking the other way will not protect our already precarious way of life, which, after all this is resolved, is the next serious global issue to tackle.

To sum it up, I cannot possibly look into the next 12 months and see anything but this long running cartoon, and it isn’t even remotely funny.
Fiquem bem,

Raul freitas/MS