Analysis

I’ve been following Ed Calderon for a few months now. This is the first real, in-depth interview I’ve seen with him. I’d love to sit down with him for a while, myself. Everyone needs to listen to this, as long as it is. He touches on the nature and worsening levels of the violence, outside influences, and the superstitions that fuel much of the cruelty. A recent one-star review for Crimson Star, from a reader in the UK, denounced the situation I outlined in that book as “American conspiracy theory.” I’ve run into other people (Larry Correia, JL Curtis, and I had a long conversation with Peter Orullian at LTUE back in February that was a bit eye opening on this subject) who have no idea what’s happening south of the border, not really. They think that the most vicious irregular war on the face of the planet is just racist, xenophobic propaganda from Americans. Truth is, it’s worse than even most of those with an eye on the situation up north realize. Ed Calderon was a cop in Tijuana, starting before Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels. He’s seen the war up close for years, and now he trains

Maelstrom Rising and the Wuhan Coronavirus

So, the question has come up, whither the Maelstrom Rising series in the aftermath of the Wuhan Coronavirus? It was originally floated as question about whether people would really want to read more about the world unraveling while it appears to be doing just that in real life. It’s since turned into a different question: Since the original backstory was written before the coronavirus outbreak, how would it effect the overall storyline? After all, there’s no mention of a global pandemic in the backstory. And how would the current crisis play out in such a way that the backstory remains mostly intact? I think it’s actually somewhat simpler than I might have thought. The economic fallout from all of this is going to be far worse than the death toll from the disease itself. The global economy is taking a huge hit, that will only get worse as quarantine measures continue. At the same time, global interdependence has also taken a blow that it might not recover from. (There were op-eds published several weeks ago, bemoaning the fact that the coronavirus has dealt a blow to globalization that it might never recover from.) The rapid spread of the coronavirus, both due

Hong Kong Crackdown

As the People’s Armed Police gather with their vehicles in Shenzen, it looks like Hong Kong’s semi-autonomy may soon be at an end. I haven’t exactly been shy about casting the Red Chinese as villains in the past. Despite the propaganda that they’ve been spreading around, and that has been often parroted by those with financial ties to Beijing, they’ve certainly earned it over the years. (Try to get any official Chinese outlet to talk about Tianamen Square sometime.) While it might be tempting, given the sheer weight of Chinese products sold to the West, to think that China has truly “embraced” the free market, the Chinese Communist Party is still firmly in charge.