Loading video...
Video Failed to Load
One target. Twenty hours. One impossible choice. Watch the full official trailer for "Stuck on You" now. Production/Executive Producers: PicPac Pictures, Backyard Productions Co-Producers: Shirley Asistio, Stage Post, Terminal Six, Cyril Bautista Director: Mikko Baldoza Cast: River Joseph, Xyriel Manabat, Roger Naldo, Bob Jbeili, Bombi Plata, Viggo Franco, JM... show more
33 Comments
xyriel manabat, goat of chemistry! 🥰 river joseph, the new breed of leading man! 🥰 my xyver, i'm so looking forward to this!! STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #SherylBungaNgPagibig #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo
ano yan sheryl??? STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
galing! di ko akalain yung chemistry nila river ay xyriel
sherep be? HAHAHAHAHA STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
Grabe naman sorry? STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
Si Xy paldong paldo hahaha STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
teaser is teasering. sana all sheryl sayo lahat yan!? STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
Xy and Riv, a refreshing screen partners ! just wow! STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
Grabe kana xyriel. Pinagpala ka sa lahat haha STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
We're seated for this STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #SherylBungaNgPagibig #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo
xy tabi ako na ang bahala hahahaha STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
xyriel our girlie pop STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #SherylBungaNgPagibig
omg bat may ganon STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
Super excited na! STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #SherylBungaNgPagibig #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo
@rivernation96 Max de Dios nangaakit !!!! STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
Excited na! STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #SherylBungaNgPagibig #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo
Ang ganda!!! Congrats agad team SOY!!! STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
Omg naman! Ready na STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
@Inari_Luna08 jusko bagay na bagay!!? STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
di na ko makapaghintay sa showing nito jusko STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
lezgo na xyver STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #SherylBungaNgPagibig #MaxDeDiosKo #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo
This is it!! STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #SherylBungaNgPagibig #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo
Ganda! Wow congrats xy and River! STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
@rivernation96 OH MY GAD SHERYL BUNGA CAN YOU DO IT STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
Ready na po. Bukas na pls STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
Ywa may chemistry ha
Sheryl Nakita mo ba STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
Xy bat ka ganyan haha STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
Sana lumitaw sa feed ng Puregold to. STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo
wow xyver galing STUCKONYOU OFFICIAL TRAILER #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo #MaxDeDiosKo #RiverJoseph
What's that, #xyver?
hahaha di ko kaya to #StuckOnYouSaCinePanalo
@rivernation96 ANONG NANGYAYARE DITO
![Just in $AMD Anush "Speed is the moat"|ROCm🎙️ In the race to define the future of AI, what's the one advantage that truly lasts? It's not proprietary tech, argues Anush Elangovan Elangovan, VP of AI Software at AMD , but the sustainable speed of innovation. He explains why AMD is rejecting the "walled garden" model for its open source ROCm stack, betting that an open community flywheel is the key to victory. Listen to understand how this open strategy is designed to out-innovate closed systems by empowering developers to solve everything from frontier-model challenges to the mundane, everyday problems that define the "last mile" of AI. AMD ROCm Software: Part 1 Transcript [00:00:00] Andrew Zigler: Joining me is Anush Elangovan, VP of AI software at AMD. And when people talk about AI compute, the conversation often stops at hardware specs, but it's more than just physical chips that win the game. It's also the software ecosystems supporting them. [00:00:18] Andrew Zigler: The prevailing strategy in the industry has been to build something like a walled garden. You know, something closed, proprietary locks, developers in. But AMD is betting on an entirely different play, open source acceleration, and with rock, their open source AI software stack. AMD is building not just hardware parity, but an innovation flywheel that's powered by the community with interoperability and the freedom to scale without all of that pesky lockin. [00:00:48] Andrew Zigler: And in this world, speed is your moat and how fast you can innovate while your platform remains open, flexible, and standardize across all of its applications. That's what we're gonna explore [00:01:00] today. So Anush, I'm really excited to have you here. Welcome to Dev Interrupted. [00:01:04] Anush Elangovan: Thanks for having me. Uh, super excited to chat about it. [00:01:07] Andrew Zigler: Amazing. Well, let's go ahead and dive right in with kind of what I laid it out with in the beginning, the idea of the moat and it being about speed. I wanna unpack that a bit because that came from you when you and I first spoke. And I, and I want to know, you know, how do you define speed inside of AMD beyond just things like hardware, benchmarks. [00:01:27] Anush Elangovan: Yeah, that's a very good question. So when we typically talk about speed, everyone's like, Hey, hardware benchmark specs, right? Like, uh, memory bandwidth or, or flops. And that is one important part of it, uh, AMD does very well. With that, we do have, a, a very good history of executing on that axis. [00:01:47] Anush Elangovan: But when I say speed is the moat, it is about, uh, how we prepare, how we build the muscle to run the race for a long time and run it fast. And it is [00:02:00] not about a single point in time that you've, you've beat some you know, benchmark and, and you declare victory. It's about building the ability to consistently develop and deliver. [00:02:13] Anush Elangovan: Both hardware and software innovation at scale and do it fast, right? Like, you know, we we're increasingly getting to a point where models come out and they're, uh, you know, a year or two ago it was like, Hey, they work on AMD on day zero, which is great, but now they are performing on AMD the day it releases, right? [00:02:32] Anush Elangovan: So, what does it take to Prefetch where the industry is going? Be prepared to intercept. At that point is what you know, I, I refer to as you know, the, the speed factor in, in creating this mode, right? And the mode is just shed all things that hold you back and run as fast as you can. [00:02:53] Anush Elangovan: Uh, because the pace of innovation that is, uh, being seen in, in AI [00:03:00] industries is just. Amazing. Right? And it's like, it's transformational at at how you generate electricity. It's transformational as at how you build data centers. It's transformational at how you deploy compute, networking. It's transformational at what kind of use cases you, you know, uh, use AI for. [00:03:17] Anush Elangovan: Uh, and for that, you need to be prepared to, see what comes tomorrow and be prepared to run the race tomorrow. [00:03:23] Andrew Zigler: Yeah, it's a really great perspective because it highlights that it's not just like a checkpoint that you run through. I like how you called out, like it's not just hitting that benchmark or being the best in class at that moment, in that snapshot, it's about having a. The throughput and about having that dedication to the idea and continuing to deliver on it. [00:03:43] Andrew Zigler: It's not just crossing the threshold, but it's also being the engine. And that's what, that's what protects a business. That is the moat, because the moat is that innovation layer, the faster and more, uh, future forward. That you can work and think, [00:04:00] you know, the better. Uh, we, we talk a lot about like future forward work styles. [00:04:04] Andrew Zigler: Like what are the things I could be doing right now today that are gonna be like, way more useful tomorrow? Let, let's abandon those, workflows that are older and that kind of like, that translates into. An advantage when you work that way. You know, what kind of things have you learned working with, uh, like across all spectrums of people who would use ROCm, right? [00:04:23] Andrew Zigler: You have like the developers, but then you also have the enterprises and you have this large span of adoptees, right? So what is the, what does that look like that you learn? [00:04:32] Anush Elangovan: Yeah, so, so the way I look at it is there are gonna be pockets of different, uh, you know, cadences, right? Like, so people who are deploying in enterprises, for example, right? The validation and how long it takes for them to deploy an LLM that's secure. It's, with guardrails, et cetera, maybe longer. [00:04:52] Anush Elangovan: but you still have to go through the process and you have to be prepared to like, walk that walk to deploy an enterprises. That doesn't mean it's [00:05:00] not fast, that's as fast as you can do for that industry, right? And if you are deploying AI in healthcare, right, it's, it's got its own, uh, cycle. [00:05:07] Anush Elangovan: but in each one of these, you want to see how, like, go down to the essence of what is it that you actually have to do. And, you know, I, I, I like how you framed it. It's like it's, you shed your prior assumptions of how things are done, right. And, and you kind of build up from a, uh, first principles, uh, approach to say, this is how I could use AI to unlock, whatever I'm doing. [00:05:33] Anush Elangovan: And, and, some of it, you know, it's good to really step back and look at. Just question every part of it, right? Like right now you're getting chat GPT and, Gemini competing for like, math, olympiads and, and, uh, college, uh, reasoning, uh, tests. Right? And, and those are like that, that is amazing and increasingly like complex tasks that they're trying to do. [00:05:58] Anush Elangovan: But there may also be like. [00:06:00] More mundane things that AI could, could get applied to. Right? And, and so when we think about shedding old ways, you wanna shed it not just in like the tip of the spear. It's like, you know, I'm gonna see what's the frontier model. It's also, it could be something as simple as. [00:06:18] Anush Elangovan: How do you choose a, a movie, uh, you know, like a recommendation system, right? Or, or, uh, an automated, uh, flight, uh, rebooking system. So the moment, you know, your flight is late, uh, right now it's a notification, right? It's like, oh, you got a text message saying your flight's late. And I got that like three times this week. [00:06:38] Anush Elangovan: But anyway, uh, and, and, and, and, I was just like, okay, so if I were to rethink this. All this MCPs that we have that should be hooked up into an MCP that says, your flight's delayed. Here are your options. If you want, you know, these are the paid options. Yeah. Here are the free options. This will get you back into your you know, Toronto airport [00:07:00] tonight. [00:07:00] Anush Elangovan: Or if you stay, here's a hotel plus this, plus this, plus. It's just like, go ahead is all I should say. Versus now I'm like, okay, can someone, you know, can I call a travel agent? Can I do this? Can I go online and log into And you know, so we gotta fundamentally rethink even those like small, nuances of, things that we do that can be automated out and AI is really, really good at doing something like this, right? Maybe I just explained an AI startup idea right now. Somebody should just start that. [00:07:29] Andrew Zigler: I think you did. Yeah, you definitely did. Someone, one of our listeners is definitely going to lift that off of you. I, I, I, you know, I hate being on the receiving end of those. You feel a little helpless and then you have to like, follow the whole flow. So I know what you mean. Like I, I like how you called out that the build and this like. [00:07:45] Andrew Zigler: Where speed is your moat and the innovation layer is protecting you, is what makes you better than your competitors. How you scale that and you bring that to market. So by understanding the problems that you're solving, uh, throwing away those older assumptions, but also [00:08:00] recognizing that like. We're building every single day, new things and new ways of using stuff that we're still figuring out the implications of. [00:08:08] Andrew Zigler: And so when you have a lot of velocity and you're introducing a lot of new ideas, and maybe you have that workflow now that automatically rebook your flight off of your late flight text message, and uh, I know I would certainly use it, but you know, what kind of philosophies guide the way that y'all think about building this ecosystem to manage that stability while letting folks. [00:08:29] Andrew Zigler: Play with the speed and the assumptions and the airplane re bookings. [00:08:34] Anush Elangovan: so, so I think, you know, we need to peel one layer down, right? and the philosophy is, Hey, we, we just discovered electricity, right? And you know what we're gonna do? We are gonna make motors, uh, or dynamos, right? Like engines. Uh, sure. We don't know if it's gonna be a Ferrari that you're gonna make, or it's a a a a dump truck. [00:08:57] Anush Elangovan: That's good for doing this. But let's [00:09:00] let, which is also required, right? You need a dump truck. You need a garbage truck. And, [00:09:04] Andrew Zigler: Yeah. You need the [00:09:04] Anush Elangovan: course you need, uh, a Ferrari for a midlife crisis, right? So, [00:09:09] Andrew Zigler: precisely. [00:09:10] Anush Elangovan: But, but my, uh, point is what do we build next? And, uh, and this is what I meant by like, okay, let's, let's take those baby steps to build the. [00:09:20] Anush Elangovan: Infrastructure that's required that we know we'll have to use, right? So, so if I just discovered electricity, okay, great. Now one, how do I save this electricity and how do I use it? So there's battery technology, so you need to do something like that, right? Like so. But then you also want to make it into an actionable thing. [00:09:37] Anush Elangovan: You want to make it for like automobiles, or you wanna use it for, you know, powering, uh, entire cities. So it is that transformational. So, uh, AI is that transformational. So, if you distill down, it'll, it'll come down to how do we think about, what we can do with this this fundamental technology that, We may not be aware of what it [00:10:00] is gonna unlock next, but at least you know the next step is clear, right? It's like a dense fog, you know, it's gonna be like, it, it's the right path. You see the light, but it's kind of like out there and, and the steps you're taking are concrete and you're like, okay, this is good. [00:10:16] Anush Elangovan: I, this is better than where I was or where we were. So we are moving forward. So you can build with the. Intuition from what you see in the short term and a tactical view, but towards what you think the future is gonna be. [00:10:28] Andrew Zigler: Right. You almost like we're all in this like fog of war, right? And like you said, you're reaching out and you're trying to step through it. You could think of it too, as like you're in the dark and your hands are up in front of you and you know that. You're, you're not gonna run your face into a wall because your hands are out in front of you, but you're not gonna maybe do much better than that. [00:10:45] Andrew Zigler: So that's kind of like, I think the eco, the, the industry, the world that we find ourselves in, uh, and we all have to, then this becomes the power of an ecosystem, of a group of people working together to create that layer of, [00:11:00] uh, of establishing the [00:11:01] Anush Elangovan: exactly. And I, I, I just, instead of, you know, saying fog of war I describe it as like, you're in this. Beautiful valley with like a morning, uh, fog that's in. You can smell the flowers. You, you hear the birds. You are like, okay, it's, we are in like, uh, utopian paradise and yes, I just need to like, continue the walk, right? [00:11:24] Anush Elangovan: and then move forward with that, conviction that you're in the right spot. [00:11:27] Andrew Zigler: Yeah. So let's talk about that ecosystem world. This nice, I love how you describe it, this grassy side of a hill in the morning that's covered in some mist and maybe we can't see 30 feet in one direction, but it sure is a beautiful hill and it smells nice. And so we're all here. And why is, in that world, why is. [00:11:44] Andrew Zigler: You know, open source, their strategic advantage that y'all are going for in the AI hardware market. And, and then how does like ROCm turn that into wins for people within that ecosystem? [00:11:56] Anush Elangovan: you know, the, the way we look at it is this, is kind of like how I view [00:12:00] AI and the ecosystem, right? But, but it is for everyone to enjoy. Uh, and so we do want to make sure that. You know, it is, uh, beneficial for everyone. [00:12:09] Anush Elangovan: The ecosystem can come in and, and innovate. It's an open innovation engine. and uh, it is very different from, you know, having a walled garden with, Hey, only I know how to do this and I'm gonna do it and throw it over the fence and you can use it or keep walking, right? So we'd like to be good citizens that way, but also. [00:12:30] Anush Elangovan: Uh, it is self-fulfilling in a way, right? Like it, the, the pace at which we innovate with open source is unmatched. Like, you know, our serving engines are like VLLM and, and sg l. Those things, uh, those frameworks are like super, super aggressive in terms of how fast they come out with features and how fast they can you know, get performant models out. [00:12:52] Anush Elangovan: And that compared with what, uh, you'd get from, you know, the likes of like T-R-T-L-L-M or something is always lagging, right? Because you [00:13:00] just can't keep up with you know, 200 commits a week just on one particular model to get that model really performant [00:13:06] Andrew Zigler: And, and, and in that world where, you know, everyone can enjoy the winds of this, what kind of customer stories or innovation stories have really stood out to you and excite you about building and creating this place for developers? [00:13:19] Anush Elangovan: Yeah. So I think the parts that are super exciting for me are when when we get to see a customer that is first skeptical. Then they start a little like, okay, fine, we'll give you a chance. Uh, we do a simple, uh, POC and then they're like, huh, this seems to work. Yeah, we told you it works. [00:13:42] Anush Elangovan: You don't have to change one line of code. Really? Yes, no need to change one line of code. Okay, let's try a production workload. So then they try it. Oh, you're more performant than the competition. Yes. We're more performant than, than the competition. So how much does it cost? And we're like, oh, it's your TCO is better with, uh, [00:14:00] AMD. [00:14:00] Anush Elangovan: So again, they're like, wow, okay, good. So now how do we deploy at scale? And then we go deploy it at scale. And when they give a thumbs up on that and they say, this is good, right? That's when you know, you, you see it go full circle from like, oh, we, we've never heard about AMD to like actually deploy to tens of thousands of GPUs In the order of a few months, right? It, it, it really is fascinating to see and very exciting and invigorating to [00:14:28] Andrew Zigler: Yeah. At like a great exposure to a lot of interesting problems. And, and then people using the infrastructure, the, the technology available to solve those problems. Really specific problems by the way, that's often why they're bringing their data and AI to it, uh, is because it is really specific and important for them. [00:14:45] Andrew Zigler: And there's a, a lot I think that other engineering orgs can learn and even emulate from AMD's success and, and having this open source ecosystem and it causing this acceleration within. You [00:15:00] know, uh, customers and enterprises that use and adopt the tools and, and, and that creates an advantage. And that goes back to why we're talking and like the real thesis of our conversation today. [00:15:10] Andrew Zigler: So how do you think engineering leaders that are listening to this and obviously tapping into this great success AMD has from an open source flywheel, how do you think other, other folks building in the same space can foster that open, first, that open source oriented culture in order to, you know, accelerate their innovation goals? [00:15:29] Anush Elangovan: Yeah, that's a very good question. So the startup that um, was acquired by AMD we, we built, I mean, we started off doing iot stuff and you know, smart ring and all that, right? But in the, the end of like, uh, and not the end, the last six years of the company was building ML compilers. [00:15:47] Anush Elangovan: And ml, ML compilers are like super, uh, complicated, sophisticated, advanced algorithms, dah, dah, dah. but it was all open source, right? So our VCs were like, wait, what do you mean your core [00:16:00] IP is open source? And um, the speed is the moat applied even then, right? It was just like, yes, if you have an idea that. [00:16:08] Anush Elangovan: Because someone saw this idea that you are, they're gonna be able to catch up, then you probably have the wrong idea anyway. But if they are, you know, you execute and they're gonna catch up, that you should assume they're gonna catch up. Right? So you gotta move forward. So keeping it open source is super important. [00:16:25] Anush Elangovan: But also to your question on like, you know, the learnings from an AMD standpoint, right? If there are, hard problems, I'd say dig in and work through it, right? Like there's no way but through it, right? That should be the simple mentality. And more, uh, frequently than not. you'll see that you'll just make it through in a, in, in good form. [00:16:52] Anush Elangovan: But if you doubt it and you're like, oh, I don't know if I should commit, if I'm, I, you know, what should just commit to do the right thing [00:17:00] every step, right? Every step, and just keep taking one step in front of the other. And in no time you'll see that you'll be running. Right. And, and yes, the first few steps will be like, yeah, everyone's complaining about your software quality. [00:17:15] Anush Elangovan: Everyone's complaining about this and that, and it doesn't work. And, and a few steps in, you know, you get, you get the hang of all the complaints that are coming in. You get the feedback loop. You're like, okay, what, what are you prioritizing again? One step in front of the other, right? You just keep knocking that out and then you get to a point where you're, it just becomes second nature, right? To do the, to do the right thing. And, and then yes, if someone gives you two options, you'll be like, fine. This is, uh, you know, there's always the resource trade off. There's always a human capital trade off, but what's the right thing to do? of course, I, I'm pragmatic about what we choose, but, but if the right thing for your long-term success is dig in, go first, principles, make it [00:18:00] happen. [00:18:00] Anush Elangovan: Well. Then just go for that. There's, there is no shortcut to [00:18:04] Andrew Zigler: acknowledging, you know, how it aligns with your mission, your core company goals, and what you're looking to achieve. And, and I, I love how you rightfully called out that in the open source world and you know, you have your technology that you've built, what you think is your moat upon, right? [00:18:22] Andrew Zigler: It's your code and, and to open source that, or to just make it where anyone could peer in is, you know. Scary in one regard, but two, it just kind of feels like you're handing away your throne room in some kind of sense, a very direct feeling sense. But the ultimately, you were really right to call out, and this is something I think about all the time, that the real power there is still the speed This the speed. [00:18:42] Andrew Zigler: That was the moat at the beginning of our conversation. It's the speed in combination with your. Very specific domain understanding of what you're building and what you're creating, and your new role as the steward of that world and how people plug into it, which [00:19:00] has frankly, a lot more influence and power than lording over a closed. [00:19:04] Andrew Zigler: You know, repository or an ecosystem, and like you said, like throwing things over the wall. Sure. There, there might be people always on the other side of that wall, but you're not gonna have a great connection with them. You're not gonna be able to really clearly understand them. I, I like your metaphor of the side of the field of the mountain a lot more. [00:19:23] Andrew Zigler: But, but in the, in this world, you know, where. That speed is, is the power and, and open source is just one way that you can harness that speed to get really far ahead and to innovate. , There's other parts of this equation that you can be experimenting with too, and I'd love to pick your brain about them as a software leader and, and, and one of them is about looking forward and kind of understanding that future that we're all building towards and beyond today's models and hardware. [00:19:48] Andrew Zigler: You know, what do you see as the next major bottleneck or opportunity in the AI compute space? As, as you know, enterprises and folks start to get a little more mature about what's available to [00:20:00] them. [00:20:00] Anush Elangovan: Yeah, I think, the bottleneck and opportunity is, uh, what I'd call, call walking the last mile of ai. Right. Uh, and like I I, I gave you an example, uh, previously, but, but it's similar to that. It's like there are cases where Humans have so many, uh, things to do in your day. You know, like the, if we sit down and actually had a customer focus like, okay, these customers lives, I'm gonna save four hours of this customer's life. And if you actually sit down and look at all of that, it'll be. Easily automatable, easily you know, uh, applicable, uh, for ai, right? [00:20:39] Anush Elangovan: Like, but then making it happen is gonna take a little bit, right? It's like maybe it's, uh, paying your utility bill, right? Or something like that, right? Or, or, your healthcare explanation of benefits. Uh, like, I'm sure you get an explanation of benefits, and I'm like, I, I don't even know what that thing is. [00:20:55] Anush Elangovan: It's just like EOB and like. [00:20:57] Andrew Zigler: it's a big, a big old PDF. Yeah, [00:21:00] exactly. [00:21:01] Anush Elangovan: Like, like, I'm like great straight to the, uh, shredder, right? And but that could be, you know, automated with the ai, right? It, it, it'd be like, Hey, the summary of this thing is you went and visited this day. Everything is okay. Everything is paid for, so don't worry, it's not a bill. [00:21:17] Anush Elangovan: That again, the same, uh, thing, but the sense of what that information overload is could be. Digested by ai, uh, accumulated over time and retrieved when you need it. Like, I don't, I actually don't even need to know this EOB right now, unless of course, whenever I need to know it, that maybe, you know, like for some benefits I need to figure out what do, what did I do over the past year and how do I apply it? Source:](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1994972575768727743/amplify_video_thumb/1994972220930621440/img/_5CCZJyz89oDfqQJ.jpg)
!["If the truth were to come out...it would pull the rug out from under everything, the whole fabric of society would come unraveled." ~Herrington (allegedly) 🛸 Lying to Protect the UFO Cover-Up? 🛸 (I wanted to get this RLAP (REALLY Long-Ass Post, which is in two parts) out before Jesse Michels (AA) puts out his interview with Herrington. Watch the video I clipped from AA, read the transcript from a few other podcasts, and tell me if you think Friedman is lying. I just don't see it. Herrington denies any of this happened, so somebody IS lying, misremembering, or Herrington was pulling Friedman's leg about underground briefings, crying himself to sleep, and aliens. Using my judgment, and in my opinion: I believe Friedman.) "Aliens are real, they're here, and I've seen them." ~John Herrington, Former Secretary of Energy (allegedly) "My emotional take on this is that there is a darkness to this, and it's dangerous." ~Friedman If Disclosure happens... ⬇️ "We are in a God-fearing country. If you take that away, if you pull that out from underneath everyone, you're gonna lose a huge portion of the population." ~Herrington (allegedly) ~ (Just know that Herrington has denied (to Ben Schreckinger) that any of what Friedman claims, actually happened. And that includes having Friedman drive his car across the country. I'll include that in Part 2. And again, Jesse Michels recorded an interview with Herrington and that's about to be uploaded, so we'll see what he says there.) ~The Man Who Cried Himself to Sleep~ (I stole that from the Sound, Light & Frequency podcast) It’s the summer of 1981, and Brent Friedman (Brent Friedman) is eighteen and preparing to leave for college at UCLA in the fall. Before heading out, he takes on a cross-country drive - from the San Francisco area to Virginia, near Washington, D.C. - as a favor and a way to earn some extra money. The trip is for his former neighbor, John Herrington, who had lived next door to him during his childhood, from ages six to twelve. During those years, Herrington became more than just a neighbor - he was a father figure. (These quotes are from the Sound, Light and Frequency podcast: The Man Who Cried Himself to Sleep ⬇️) Friedman makes the drive and arrives in Virginia and meets up with Herrington, who says he's, "working at a very high-level in the Reagan administration" Friedman: "[Herrington] and Reagan were quite close." Bryce Zabel: "Am I correct in saying, though, that his actual job description at that time was the Assistant to the Undersecretary of the Navy?" Friedman: "I believe so, yes." (That does not appear to be accurate.) Friedman: "He did have an official title. I know that, at the time, he was working on something behind the scenes with the ABSCAM situation. But, what he ends up telling me is that he has a very high-level position and, in fact, his clearance is higher than the president's." (Herrington wasn't sworn in to Assistant Secretary of the Navy until October of 1981 and wasn't sworn in to Secretary of Energy until February of 1985. So what position allowed Herrington to have a high clearance and access to so much information, before the summer of 1981? In 1980, Herrington was the advance man for Reagan and his presidential campaign. What does an advance man do?) From Political Dictionary dot com... "The 'Advance man' is someone who makes arrangements and handles publicity for the candidate during a campaign. "The advance man travels to a location ahead of the candidate’s arrival and sets everything up so that things run smoothly for the candidate’s media appearance, or for whatever event the candidate is participating in." (Would an advance man be briefed about our country's biggest secrets? I don't think so. Is there a detail of this story that's missing? Maybe Herrington had some other job that required him to have access to all this information? I found this excerpt from The American Presidency Project website, which includes some further background info. on Herrington.) "In 1967 [Herrington] opened his own law office in Walnut Creek, Calif., specializing in real estate, corporate law, taxation, and contracts. He was recently involved in property management. "During the 1980 Presidential campaign, Mr. Herrington was a full-time volunteer advance man with the Reagan for President committee. Following the Republican National Convention he was named western regional director for advance. ⬇️⬇️⬇️ "[On May 6th, 1981] - The President...announced the appointment of John S. Herrington to be Deputy Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel." According to AI (which pulled three sources), that position, "manages the selection, vetting, and recommendation process for political appointees across federal agencies. They oversee talent recruitment, security clearance coordination, and strategic staffing to fill executive branch positions with qualified individuals aligned with the administration's goals." (So, perhaps it was in that ⬆️⬆️⬆️ position where Herrington was thoroughly briefed, leading up to his conversation with Friedman?) ~~~ In the interview with Ross Coulthart (and in other interviews), Friedman said that when he went to Herrington's house that night... Friedman: "I saw him come home from work in a black Lincoln Town Car, with two Secret Service guys attending to him, a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist [which] was brought into the house, taken right into his office where the briefcase goes into a wall safe. He was a real estate lawyer when I grew up with him. "[Herrington] says, 'Let's you and I go out onto the veranda and catch up.' Now, when I was growing up, he was a strict Calvinist. He didn't drink, he didn't swear, and really fit. A man's man. Well, when I saw him that night, he looked haggard, he looked like he had the weight of the world on him. He also brought a bottle of Jim Beam out to the backyard and he was pouring himself what I later learned were two fingers, two little glasses, you know? "After we caught up on my life, I said, 'What is your job? What was the whole thing with the black Town Car and the briefcase?' He said, 'Oh, I can't talk about it. I'm working for the President in a special capacity and it's all highly classified.' "A couple of years earlier, our family had been contacted by, I believe it was either the CIA or the NSA, or something, and asked a bunch of questions about him, I guess as he was being vetted for this job. But we didn't know what the job was, we just knew that it was some government position and they wanted to know things about him. "Again, he was not forthcoming with what the job was, but the more I pushed him and the more he had to drink, he eventually said to me, 'Well, look, the fact of the matter is, you know, to get this job, I had to be briefed for a number of months in an underground facility in West Virginia.' And I was like, 'Wow, that sounds intense!' And he goes, 'Yeah, I used to cry myself to sleep every night.'" (I've been tweeting about this story for 4+ years, and anybody who hears that part can't help but wonder: What the hell did they (allegedly) tell him?!) Friedman: "Now, again, a man's man. When I was growing up, the thought of him crying once in his life was unthinkable to me. The idea of him crying every night, I was shocked. And I said, 'Well, what would cause you to do that?' And he said, 'Brent, this is not the world I thought I was bringing my daughters into.' "Now, think about that. You're 18 years old, and this man who you look up to, that you revere, is telling you this. All I could say was, 'Well, what about me? I'm in this world, too! I need to know something.' And he said, 'Well, I can't really go into that. This is like, highly-classified material.' And I said, 'John, I'm sitting here. Like, you've just put me...puts the edge. I need to know something.' "And he said, 'Well, okay, I'll tell you what. I know, when you were growing up, you were into science fiction and comic books and all that stuff. Well, aliens are real, they're here, and I've seen them.' And he said it with just the most casualness, like just throwing me a bone. Like, okay, can we stop talking now?" ~~~ (Was Herrington just pulling Friedman's leg since he knew of Friedman's interest in Sci Fi? Back in 2018, Zabel gave a lecture at the International UFO Congress, and he talked about this story.) Zabel: "This the quote that Brent gave me. Herrington said, 'There is alien life on Earth, I've seen it.' And Brent said, "Is it alive?" And Herrington said, "That depends." (Regarding the question of whether the alien life Herrington allegedly saw was alive or not, none of the current interviews with Friedman contain the Herrington answer, "It depends." Is that an accurate quote from Friedman or did Zabel get it wrong? If he really said, "It depends," that has the potential to make things even more interesting. ⬇️) ~Back to the Coulthart Interview~ Friedman: "And I kind of was taken aback, and I said, 'What do you mean? Are they alive?' And he said, 'Um, I can't say.' I said, 'You can't say, or you won't say?' And he said, 'I can't say.' (He couldn't say because he wasn't allowed, or he couldn't say because "it depends" on what one means by "alive"? I may be making this too complicated, and I hope Brent chimes in with some comments in the replies. Okay, he DID chime in and address it during the "Sound, Light & Frequency" followup podcast on March 22 entitled, "More on the Story — J.C. and Herrington.") Friedman: "Did he say he can't say because he didn't know, or...this is not a life-form as we know it? There's a lot of ways to interpret this." ~Back to the Coulthart Interview~ Friedman: "And I said, 'Well, okay, hold on a second. How is it that everyone doesn't know the truth?' And he said, 'Oh, lots of people know the truth. You can walk into any bookstore and you're gonna find all sorts of books that contain all sorts of truth. And right next to them, you'll find books that we published, that are full of lies and disinformation. And he said, 'There's a multi-billion dollar campaign to keep this covered up.'" (If that's true, what I wouldn't give to know which UFO books were put out by the government (or whomever is doing it) as disinformation and to lead us astray. Any channeled books?) Friedman: "And I remember in 1981, I was not a great student so I don't know that I ever heard this in high school. I don't think I'd heard the word billion before. I knew it sounded big, but I didn't even know what that meant." ~ From Coulthart's interview of David Grusch in June of 2023 Grusch: "There's a sophisticated disinformation campaign targeting the U.S. populace, which is extremely unethical and immoral. This has leaked like a sieve for decades, but it was a very sophisticated, disinformation campaign where, you know, they have allowed some of the truth to come out through some of their trade crafts. But they've disenfranchised people, they've stigmatized it, they made it like a, this total like wacky thing to talk about. So anybody who may come forward with that kind of information is looked like a, you know, total tinfoil hat guy, because it's a perfect amalgamation of disinformation to just make it look crazy." ~ (From the Sound, Light & Frequency podcast...) Friedman: [Herrington told me], "if the truth were to come out - and by the way, we don't know the full truth, but if what we knew were to come out - it would pull the rug out from under everything, the whole fabric of society would come unraveled." (Back to the "Reality Check" interview.) Friedman: "And I said, 'Well, you know, hold on a second. So you're telling me that there's aliens, there's a big cover-up. Is this never gonna come out?' And he said, 'Well, you know, maybe in our lifetime. Only if it has to, though.' "And I said, 'Well, I don't understand why.' And he said, 'We are in a God-fearing country. If you take that away, if you pull that out from underneath everyone, you're gonna lose a huge portion of the population. And if you do that on a global level, and you take away what people believe in, you are going to disrupt the one thing that holds the whole world together, which is the global economy.'" ~~~ In "The Age of Disclosure," we were told this: "One very distinctive moment for me was briefing then Secretary of Treasury, Steve Mnuchin. I got through my briefing, and at the end of the brief, he sat back in his chair and he said, 'You know, Jay, you may wonder why I asked for this briefing.' And he said, 'What are the economic impacts of the President going to the microphone and telling the world we’re not alone? I have to think about those kinds of impacts in order to prepare, if the President were to make that move.'" ~Jay Stratton ~ Friedman: "There's a key detail here that I think adds to this conversation. One of the things that did happen is, towards the end of the conversation, after I was processing all of this, I said, 'Well, I guess now I understand why you cried yourself to sleep every night.' And he goes, 'No, Brent, you don't understand. This stuff we're talking about here, this was day three. So, he was putting into perspective this alien thing, that we're trying to get to the bottom of, was this one small, little area that he had been disclosed about." (This is a new and important detail that I didn't have when I first started posting about the Herrington story in 2022. Back then, I thought Herrington cried himself to sleep every night, for weeks and weeks, due to information he was briefed on about aliens. But with these new details added, that doesn't seem to be the case.) Friedman: "And so, I think that's really the only way to make sense of his statement for me. Is that, the truth has to be about something much bigger than just non-human intelligence. I think it probably goes to the nature of reality itself." (I love the nature of reality discussion but there's really no way to know what made Herrington cry himself to sleep every night for two months unless he decides to surface and share that information with us. In the meantime, our minds will come up with all types of possibilities and scenarios... We live in a simulation, and there's no afterlife. Nazis still exist, rule the world with high-tech, and we have to do what they tell us or they'll wipe us out. We're going to get hit with a comet or asteroid in the near future and life will reset on this planet like it has in the past. Artificial Intelligence will rule the world in the near future and humanity will slowly die off. Feel free to add to this small list... ~~~ Coulthart: "Brent, have you gone back to John Herrington in the interceding years and tried to extract more from him? Because, I mean, what I can tell our audience is, I do know that a formal approach has been made to John Herrington by people from the Congress who are investigating this matter. And they've been unsuccessful in getting John to speak further on it. Have you had any further conversations with him since? I appreciate he's still alive, he's a very elderly man now. I can imagine, if he did sign some kind of secrecy oath, he's probably trying to protect you by not talking about it any further." Friedman: "Yeah, this is a sensitive area in that, you know, when Bryce and I talked about doing this podcast, or even before I talked to you, I really had to make a decision about, did I want to drag him out of the shadows, essentially? He was a family friend. Granted, you know, over the years, we kind of drifted apart, our families, but my mom still stayed in touch with them. And when I said that I was gonna do this, and I asked her at the time, you know, 'Can you put me in touch with John?' And she was adamant about, 'Leave the man alone. If he wanted to talk about this, he already would have talked about it.' And so, I really had to, then, at that point, make a decision: Do I wanna go forth and talk about this thing that happened? Or not?" (He already spoke about it, publicly, back to 2018, but not to this extent and not to such a large audience.) Friedman: "And I made the choice that I felt my story was important enough to put out there. And because it was also formative to how 'Dark Skies' came about, which led to the guy making us a deal proposal, I just felt like I'm gonna have to put all of this out in the open and take the consequences as they come. "So I have not spoken with John since then. I would have to then have a break in my relationship with my mom, she's really drawn a line in the sand. But, you know, honestly, I'm living in this world right now where, at any time, I would expect, possibly, him calling me and saying, 'What the hell are you doing?'" (There's an important detail of this story that Friedman did not share in the Coulthart interview and I will get to it in a second.) Coulthart: "You say it was day three, and he got told about aliens, but he was there for a hell of a lot longer than three days. What do you think it might be that he was told that is so confronting that the poor gentleman was crying himself to sleep at night?" Friedman: "Well, I'm gonna say this through the filter of what I knew about John Herrington. And he was an amazing father. And so, in my mind, anything where he felt that his daughters would not be safe would be something that would probably cause him to cry himself to sleep at night, right? The inability to protect your child would be haunting, would be devastating." (Speculate away.) Friedman: "And so, I think if you look at it through that lens, you have to think, okay, then this is...we live in a very tenuous situation where, seemingly, at any time, higher forces may be able to do things to our loved ones, right? And there's nothing we could do about it. That's what I take away from this. Now, how all of that happens, who these predatory forces are? I don't have the answer to that. But my emotional take on this is that there is a darkness to this, and it's dangerous." (I really have no idea what that could mean. What kind of higher forces? Human, bad actors? The intelligence behind the phenomenon, which is NOT about ET but more about non-physical beings John Keel labeled Ultraterrestrials?) ~This is from the Lehto Files podcast~ Friedman: "As he was being disclosed to, he used to cry himself to sleep every night. And if you think about it, I don't think any one of us, or anyone in your audience, if someone said, 'You know what? Aliens are real. They're here, we're not alone.' Would you cry? I don't think so. I think you'd be like, 'Okay, I know that. Like, now I feel vindicated.' Would you cry if somebody said, 'Oh, the aliens, they're hostile, and they could come and get us at any time'? No, you'd be like, vigilant. You'd be like, 'Okay, well, I gotta prepare for this.' What would make a man of such character cry every night? I think it has to be something bigger than aliens, and that we're not alone. I think it has to go to the nature of reality and that that we live in a very tenuous existence that is much more complicated than any of us can really comprehend. And when you are given that truth or when you're exposed to as much of it as possible to convey in words, it must be shattering. It must be shattering." (This is the part that I wish Friedman would have talked about in the Coulthart interview because I feel it's important. ⬇️ A reminder for readers: In the Coulthart interview, Friedman said, "I have not spoken with [Herrington] since [1981]. I'm living in this world right now where, at any time, I would expect, possibly, [Herrington] calling me and saying, 'What the hell are you doing?'" But, from the Sound, Light and Frequency podcast... Zabel: "Did you have any contact with John Herrington after this event in 1981?" Friedman: "Oh, that's a good question. No, not...in person. But, while we were in production on 'Dark Skies (which aired from 1996-1997),' I remember one day my assistant came in and said, 'Oh, you got something in the mail.' Which was weird because who would send mail to the production office for me? But I opened it up and it was one of those buck slips. Remember those kind of like, long vertical things? It said, 'From the desk of John Herrington.' "And he wrote out, in longhand: 'Congratulations on finally getting your story out there.' "And I thought, wow, I had never considered it because he said, 'Go ahead and tell your story, no one's gonna believe you.' But clearly he wasn't upset that I was, you know, had 'Dark Skies' on the air and it was inspired by our conversation." (If he clearly wasn't upset about Friedman getting his story out there, via "Dark Skies," which was inspired by their 1981 conversation, why is Friedman worried that he's gonna hear from Herrington any day, where he'll ask, "What the hell are you doing?" That question might be answered as we keep going.) Friedman: "But, it also made me realize, at that time, is it possible that he told me this story as part of the disinformation program? And, as hard as it is for me to admit that... Because this was a man that I trusted and I respected, I idolized to a certain degree. To think that he would, potentially, be using me - me, an 18-year-old kid who's, I'm nobody - as part of the disinformation campaign? It hurts to even think of that, and I don't believe it. But I have to acknowledge that that is one possible explanation." ~~~ I want to add one final thing from the SL&F podcast... Zabel: "I asked Grusch if he had ever heard of the name John Herrington. And Dave Grusch...looks at me and goes, 'Yeah, I've heard of Herrington." And I said, 'Well, what what do you know about him?' And I think he said something like, 'I really can't talk about that.' "This year, it's 2025, I get, first a message, and then a call from Ross Coulthart. And I believe I can say this because, you know, he didn't swear me to secrecy. It was a public...I mean, he was calling me to ask me something. He said that Grusch, who was now working for [Rep. Eric Burlison]" wanted Ross to ask me [Zabel] something. "And what Ross asked me was, 'Do you think your friend Brent would get in a car and drive John Herrington to Washington DC to testify?' "I almost fell off my chair when I heard that. And I also found the irony, which I'm sure you can find, which as an 18-year-old, you drove a car across America to DC, right? To get your briefing. And now, all these years later, they want you to drive the man who gave you the briefing to Washington, DC so he can give another briefing to Congress. Okay, that's interesting enough. "I said, 'I don't think Brent's probably going to go along with that, but I'll ask him. You know, I mean, it wasn't untoward for Ross to ask for that. I mean, of course, that's reasonable. But then he said, 'Well, what do you think his reaction would be if he was subpoenaed?' And I don't think he was talking about [Herrington], I think he was talking about you at that moment." (Why subpoena a second hand witness (Friedman) when you can get the real thing in Herrington? And why not fly an elderly Herrington across the country instead of having Friedman drive him on a several-day road trip? Were they afraid something might happen to him?) Friedman: "Well, I have to tell you, when you called me about that Ross conversation and the word subpoena was tossed out, I started to feel queasy at the thought of it. The thing is, I have no problem going under oath, right? But at that point, we had already decided we were going to do this podcast. And I thought, you know, if I'm gonna tell my story, my stories, honestly, I want them to be under my terms, right? For us, right? Not with congressional investigators. peppering me with things and making me look like an idiot, right? Which I can pretty much guarantee would happen." (I can pretty much guarantee that that would NOT happen. None of the hearings have been adversarial or made the witnesses look bad. The hardest question they could ask is: "Is it possible Herrington was making up a story to entertain you or feeding you disinformation?" And Friedman could say, "I don't think so, but I certainly can't rule it out.") Friedman: "And I thought, I wanna tell this story, I wanna tell a bunch of stories because, at the end of the day, this Herrington story is, effectively, the backstory of Sound, Light and Frequency. But there's much more to Sound, Light and Frequency than even just this story." Continued in Part 2](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2107369637843435897/amplify_video_thumb/2107369370691510272/img/FlE97xjCTqhdHGtM.jpg)
![🎥 #Trumps_Art_of_the_Deal: #Swallowing_Venezuela, #Greenland and #Iran by #America; #Swallowing_the_Middle_East by #Israel👇👇 👈 #Akbar_Ganji, 22 September 2026 ✅ Iranians should keep a very close eye on Trump—the oil thief and land thief—so that he does not, with the bribe of power and wealth, buy the sellouts who are Iranian in name only and take Iran’s oil, or part of Iran’s territory (as with Venezuela and Greenland), for himself. ✅ He gave an $800,000 house to the husband of Greenland’s foreign minister and seized the place. ✅ Trump has said, again and again and in so many words, that he has taken Venezuela’s oil for America and that he wants to do the same to Iran. On 16 December 2025 he wrote on Truth Social that the pressure would continue “Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” On 17 December 2025 he told reporters they had taken America’s energy rights and oil “not so long ago,” that Washington wanted it back, and that it had been taken illegally. On 3 January 2026, after the military operation and the arrest of Maduro, he said the United States would “run” Venezuela and “we’re going to be taking out a lot of wealth out of the ground.” On 24 January 2026 he told the New York Post: “Let me put it this way, they don’t have any oil. We’re taking the oil.” The oil was being sent to Houston refineries. In June 2026 he wrote on Truth Social that he would soon take Kharg Island and other Iranian oil sites and take complete control of their oil and gas market “just like Venezuela.” On 13 September 2026 in Ireland he said America would eventually get out of Iran, “unless we decide to stay and keep the oil, like Venezuela.” On 9 January 2026, on Greenland, he said: “I’m going to do something in Greenland, whether they like it or not… I’d like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.” ✅ In Iran, Trump is after a repeat of the Iraq and Venezuela model: control of foreign-exchange revenues and a client state. He has said repeatedly that he wants to apply the Venezuela model to Iran. Since 2003, Iraq’s oil revenues have sat in an account of the Central Bank of Iraq at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and every U.S. president has renewed Executive Order 13303; Trump renewed it on 4 May 2026. Reuters reported on 23 January 2026 that Washington threatened even to target Iraq’s oil income if forces close to Iran entered the new government. The New York Times wrote that the Trump administration temporarily blocked the transfer of Iraq’s own dollars from U.S. banks to Baghdad. After Iraq’s November 2025 election, the Shiite majority nominated Nouri al-Maliki for prime minister. On 27 January 2026 Trump wrote on Truth Social that if Maliki were chosen, “the United States of America will no longer help Iraq,” and that without U.S. help Iraq would have “ZERO chance.” Maliki rejected the interference, but his candidacy was withdrawn and, under Washington’s pressure, Ali al-Zaidi became prime minister. In May 2026 Trump said “we support [him] very strongly” and received him at the White House in July. In Venezuela, oil income is likewise under American arrangements. On 18 September 2026 Reuters and the Financial Times reported that the interim government and a faction of the opposition were close to moving some 31 tons of Venezuelan gold—nearly $4 billion—from the Bank of England to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with the United States controlling access. The twin earthquakes of 24 June 2026 left more than 1,700 officially dead; some reports put the toll higher. They want the gold released in the name of post-earthquake reconstruction, but spending it is subject to U.S. oversight and a Treasury account. Without Washington’s permission—and in practice without Marco Rubio—Caracas cannot touch its own reserves. ✅ Many Republican leaders have repeated Trump’s words on Venezuela, Greenland, and Iran almost verbatim. ✅ Most recently, Carla Sands, former U.S. ambassador to Denmark, told Fox News: “We have Venezuela, we’ll have Iran, and now if we have Greenland, we can supply the world with energy for hundreds of years to come—and I mean hundreds of years—with the energy that’s been discovered.” ✅ Watch Rachel Maddow’s (Rachel Maddow) five-minute exposé. She is a leading American liberal political analyst. It calls to mind the worst age of colonialism and imperialism—with this difference: this naked imperialism can no longer be dismissed as “conspiracy theory.” Many American politicians have said the same, among them Michael McFaul (Michael McFaul), U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama. On 29 August 2026 he wrote that Trump had taken America back to the nineteenth century and was behaving like a typical imperial empire of that century, and that the Venezuela oil deal was naked imperialism: taking another country’s assets in the south by military force. On 3 September 2026, answering the White House, he wrote: “That’s called imperialism. We are profiting from the use of force in another country.” (McFaul has also written, of the same policy: “Straight up colonialism. We invaded not to restore democracy, but to take their oil.” And: “That this outrageous statement celebrating imperialism was not page one news today underscores how numb we have become to Trump.”) ✅ Most important is Bill Kristol’s (Bill Kristol) conversation three days ago with Robert Kagan. Kagan is a leading neoconservative theorist of the Middle East wars, a co-author of the Project for the New American Century statements, and an advocate of military intervention after the Cold War. His wife, Victoria Jane Nuland, is among the “Israel-first” Zionists and is fiercely hawkish. The four-person debate of 20 May 2026 (30 Ordibehesht 1405) at Meridian Hall in Toronto—John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt versus Victoria Jane Nuland and Mike Pompeo, the Munk Debate titled “Be it resolved, don’t go hunting monsters”—is historic and unforgettable: In his interview with Bill Kristol, Kagan treats the Trump administration as predatory and imperialist, having taken Venezuela’s oil and Greenland for America by open, naked force. He says this colonial appetite is insatiable: whatever it takes, it is never full, and it has an extraordinary hunger for other people’s property. (I have posted the Kagan–Kristol interview separately.) Kristol himself is a neoconservative and a serious opponent of Trump. He has not become an anti-interventionist, but he treats Trump’s intervention as the seizure of oil and land, not as leadership of a world order, and he calls the Greenland threat and the Venezuela oil deal imperial bullying. ✅ I could go on, with film, tweets, and debates, to show that what has happened—and is happening—to Iran follows the same imperial program. 🔺 Mike Pompeo (Mike Pompeo), an “Israel-first” neocon, wrote on X on 2 January 2026: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.” The Jerusalem Post and The Times of Israel carried it the same day. A few days earlier, a Persian-language channel attributed to Mossad had written: “Let us go out into the streets together… not only from afar; we are with you in the field as well.” 🔺 John Bolton and Mike Pence have held the same line. All three have sat with the Mujahedin-e Khalq. In July 2018, at an MEK rally in Paris, Bolton said they would celebrate in Tehran before 2019. 🔺 Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have said repeatedly that without regime change in Iran their work is incomplete. In Israeli elections there is no real contest among rivals over “regime change in Iran.” Israel has also had a close relationship with the MEK, but publicly it defends Reza Pahlavi and the restoration of the Pahlavi monarchy. Shahriar Ahy—then Reza Pahlavi’s most serious adviser—said in New York in 2006 that Israel first offered the leak of Iran’s secret nuclear documents to them; when they refused, Israel gave the documents to the MEK to publish. 🔺 On 5 April 2026 Trump told Fox News that America had sent “guns, a lot of guns” for Iranian protesters, through the Kurds, and that he thought the Kurds had kept the weapons. On 4 March the New York Times wrote that the CIA had given light arms to Iranian Kurdish forces before the war. Iranian Kurdish parties denied receiving the weapons. 🔺 On 12 February 2026 the Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials, wrote that after the January crackdown the Trump administration had smuggled some 6,000 Starlink terminals into Iran; the State Department had bought nearly 7,000, and Trump knew of the deliveries. 🔺 On 24–25 February 2026 the CIA posted in Persian on X, Instagram, and YouTube: “The Central Intelligence Agency hears you and wants to help,” and gave instructions for a secure call by informants. AP and Reuters reported it the same day. Yasmine, Noor, and Iman Pahlavi—according to their Instagram records—storyed the CIA notice at the same time. ✅ The defining fact of this moment is that the governments of the United States and Israel no longer hide their aims; they state them in public every day, so that no one can be silenced with the label “conspiracy theory.” The imperial neoliberal government of Trump and Netanyahu has forced even leading neoconservative theorists to distance themselves. Democratic leaders—Obama, Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Biden’s secretary of state, the national-security advisers of Obama and Biden, and Democratic candidates in the 3 November midterms—mainly say the JCPOA worked and that under it Iran would never have obtained a nuclear weapon (and on that claim they are entirely right), and that the causeless, illegal, economically costly, and failed military attack on Iran at Netanyahu’s request was unnecessary. But if Trump also swallows Iran as he has Venezuela and Greenland, and if the next president is a Democrat, they will welcome it—just as the Obama and Biden administrations never restored Iraq’s economic independence. The executive order keeping Iraq’s oil account at the New York Fed was renewed under both. ✅ In Part I of The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx offered a brilliant, deep analysis of modernity’s victories in the modern age. But Marx saw that age as the age of revolution against capitalism and of human emancipation, to which both the inner contradictions of capitalism would lead of necessity and which the working class would will into being. That did not happen. Even serious defenders of liberal democracy—including John Rawls, the most important political philosopher of the theory of justice, and Paul Starr in Freedom’s Power: The True Force of Liberalism—were compelled to criticize, in earnest, the coups and foreign aggressions of “liberal imperialism.” Rawls, who in The Law of Peoples was a theorist of humanitarian intervention and just war, criticized and rejected CIA coups in other countries in that same book, including the CIA coup against Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. In §5.4 Rawls wrote that the United States overthrew the democracies of Allende in Chile, Árbenz in Guatemala, Mossadegh in Iran, and, on some accounts, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Whatever the merits of those regimes, the covert operations against them were carried out by a government motivated by monopolistic and oligarchic interests without the knowledge or criticism of the public. This was made easier by a skillful appeal to national security in the context of superpower rivalry, which allowed such weak democracies to be seen, however implausibly, as a threat. Although democratic peoples are not expansionist, they do defend their security interest, and a democratic government can easily appeal to that interest to support covert interventions even when the actual motive is hidden economic interests. Rawls also wrote, in §14.1, that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, aimed primarily at civilian populations, were very great wrongs. He went on (§4.4 and the footnotes to that section) to say that Japan was already close to surrender and that there was no need for the atomic bombings. But Truman was a racist and called the Japanese savages and barbarians and said they should be treated as such; yet how foolish it now seems to regard the Germans and the Japanese as wholly barbarian and savage. Look at the names Donald Trump has given Iranians in his second term. On 1 April 2026, in a televised address, he said: “We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong.” That same night: “If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that’s the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding.” In early April: “No bridges, no power plants… Stone Ages.” April reports of Trump on Iranians: “animals,” and once “horrible genes, not like our own.” In July 2026 he called Iran’s leaders “scum” and “sick people.” In September 2026 he told Axios: “Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? It’s a big decision.” In another interview he set out the options as obliterating Iran, letting it rot economically, or making a deal. You see exactly the racist gaze that Edward Said mapped so well in Orientalism. (One of the charges Republicans leveled at Barack Obama was that he had met Edward Said.) That racist attitude cannot and must not be ignored in the bombing of Iran’s infrastructure—including the 28 February 2026 attack on Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, which the UN fact-finding mission on 17 September 2026 found, on “reasonable grounds,” to have been the work of the United States and a war crime: about 157 dead, including more than 120 children. Major American media carried the same report. Trump said it was a wartime mistake. The military attack on Iran had, and has, nothing to do with freedom, human rights, or democracy (whenever Trump feels Iran’s leaders are coming around to him, he lavishes astonishing praise on them). This attack is for oil, domination, colonialism, imperialism, racism, and the interests of Israel, and nothing else. Only that.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2102403679840084316/amplify_video_thumb/2102401955947544576/img/PXrApHdtZ2iZqhoU.jpg)
