Wednesday, January 1, 2020 Trump Bet He Could Isolate Iran and Charm North Korea. It’s Not That Easy. President Trump assumed that economic levers would guide national interests. Our correspondent analyzes the challenges Mr. Trump must confront.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020 The Fog of Imperialist Propaganda Decriminalizing Crime The major difference between a common criminal and a state is that the latter owns the law enforcers and hence a state is immune from apprehension by its own cops. But that isn't enough for a modern imperialist state. Even as it commits crimes in the interest of its elites, it must appear to be morally perfect. Secrecy is the primary method for sustaining this hypocrisy, but, for instances where this is impossible, the state's propaganda apparatus springs into action to decriminalize the crime by renaming it. The Times, on its home page recreated to the left, gives a perfect example. Regarding the DPRK, the U.S., in its relentless effort to exterminate communism from the face of the Earth, is attempting to blackmail the DPRK into giving up its goal of a socialist economy. This crime is decriminalized by the NYT as follows: President Trump assumed that economic levers would guide national interests. whereas objectively reported, the sentence should have read: President Trump assumed that economic blackmail would guide national interests. For a propaganda apparatus, such objective reporting is limited to the crimes of designated enemies.