Interview with The Hegemon

transcribed by Jeff Rudisill

(click underlined text for sources)

Interviewer: Would you introduce yourself for the listeners and readers and say a bit about what you do?

Hegemon: Sure. I’m the Hegemon. You probably don’t know me, but I’ve been around a long, long time. I was with the Caesars in Rome; I was in Persia, the Han dynasty, the Mongols, the Ottomans, Russia, Britain, and now I’m here, in the US. By the way, Hegemon is my title, not my name.

What do I do? Well, let’s just say that I protect the interests of those who have; those who have the most money and power. In my position, money is the priority because money means control. So, before you ask, the value of life is incidental; it’s never considered. Life is an externality with no measurable financial value.

I: So money Is more important than life?

H: That’s what I just said.

Ya’ know, people will do almost anything for money, primarily to survive, but then folks get greedy. I gotta’ thank the long-departed Thomas Robert Malthus for selling us that crap that there’s not enough to go around. Malthus, more than anyone, created the idea that we live with scarcity. That’s why people want more! They think, “There’s never enough, so I gotta’ get as much as I can!”

Have you ever met anyone who would refuse a pay raise because he already has ‘enough’? Hell no! Well, maybe a few fools. Malthus, that Promethean, was probably right in his day, but not today. Today we have abundance, which I control for my own ends. But let the plebeians think they always need more; keep ’em hungry; motivates ’em.

I: What’s your most outstanding achievement?

H: My greatest achievement? Besides hiding in the shadows? Well… I convinced Americans that they live in a democracy! (laughs) What Rubes! This load of moo-poopie is easy to sell. Just play the Star-Spangled Banner, wave a few US flags, and convince them they have the Freedom to buy anything they want, even if they go into debt. Especially if they go into debt. After all, the American consumer makes my gig worthwhile. That’s where most of my money comes from; their desire to want more.

Look-ie here. No Hegemon would tolerate a democracy.

But I’ve been able to plant this ‘beautiful’ illusion in the hearts and minds of my white Americans, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that the US never was and doesn’t now have a democracy. The wealthy and powerful…that’s me…have always been in charge. I keep up the pretense by giving the common herd a chance to pick from ‘candidates’ I select, but those candidates are merely tweedle-dums and tweedle-dumbers. Sure, there’re always a few breakthroughs, but I can control that. But hey, don’t bother telling ’em ’cause they won’t believe you. They love the illusion that they’re living in a democracy.

I: OK, so…tell us a bit about your background here in the US.

H: When I started here in the US, my current gig was in Britain. Back then, there were other colonial powers: Spain, France…the Netherlands. They brawled for control. No matter. So after I kicked-out the Brits and opened the franchise here in the US, I first had to get rid of those pesky native savages. They refused to become my slaves, so I had to kill ’em; 56 million by 1600, but who’s counting. The ‘red’ bastards I didn’t kill, I corralled on reservations: made sure they had plenty of fire-water, but no fire-arms.

Then way-down-south in Dixie, the Ol’ Boys decided to start their own gang, so I had to create a lot of mayhem and murder between the Blue and the Grey. Long-tall Abe put an end to that business. But when Abe tried to borrow money from my banks to fund the war at interest rates of up to 36%, he told the banks to take a long walk off a short pier, turned around and created US money, the Greenback. That was a big no-no. But then that picklehead went and freed my slaves! Well, he had to go. So I changed his address from 1600 PA Ave to… no, not to Gettysburg… but to a 6′ hole in the ground. I had to get rid of that John Wilkes Booth fella’, ya’ know, ta’ cover my tracks, so’s I could get on with my main mission – making money to control power. I sure made a bundle on that “war between the states.”

With that little dust-up behind me I was off! Westward Ho! and Manifest Destiny! – I was “destined by God to expand my dominion and spread “democracy” and capitalism across the entire North American continent. I had to steal Texas from the Mexicans, but then, when I tried to buy more land from Mexico, they said, “no way, Jose’”. So I sent my US Marines – scrappy little bunch they were – to trick the Mexicans into starting the Mexican-American War. Result? I wound up owning what’s now Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. WHAT A HAUL! Man, this really worked! Tease and poke the other guy into taking a swing at you, so you have “just cause” to smack ’em a good one! That’s me. I am The Hegemon.

I: So, then didn’t you run out of continent to conquer?

H: Well yeah. But now that I controlled “sea-to-shining-sea”, I could look beyond: I could become the WORLD’S Hegemon. In case you didn’t know, a Hegemon must continually grow; kinda’ like a shark that always has to swim. So, in 1898 my sycophant, T. Roosevelt, picked a war with Spain by supporting Cuba’s revolt from Spain. Bottom line?…I now owned Guantanamo Bay and could dominate the Caribbean.

Both Maceo and Martí and their rag-tag bunch…their lives were no further concern to me. Life seldom matters to me. It’s money and the control that money provides that matters.

I: You seem to make that clear.

H: Stop interrupting.

I: Sorry.

H: Well, there went the Spanish Empire. They never recovered, which meant the Philippine Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico, came under my raptor’s wing. I had to dust off some troublesome Filipino Revolutionaries like Rizal and Aguinaldo. So I double-crossed those little bastards and brought in my ever-willing Marines. These guys went anywhere and everywhere I needed brute force: Northern China, Samar, Panama Canal Zone, Subic Bay, Nicaragua, Veracruz, Dominican Republic, Haiti. Let’s be clear about it: my mission as The Hegemon is control! domination! To make every country safe for US business and banking; that’s where the money is. Did I say that lives don’t matter? It’s the money that matters.

I: Uh…yea, you said that.

H: Oh, while I was in the neighborhood, I decided to annex Hawaii because I am The Hegemon.

I: Let’s move along. So when, and how, did you become… THE Hegemon?

H: When the British Empire finally collapsed after WWII, I moved my operation entirely to the US. There weren’t any parades, no celebrations, no announcements, no press coverage. You see, I’m not a public figure at all. I don’t like the light; I work best in the shadows.

So, right after WWII…Wow! What a time that was. Since I was the last man standing, first, I set up a new world order. I created the UN, where I had veto power. Then I started the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – the IMF – both under my control.

I: Tell me more about the World Bank and the IMF.

H: The World Bank will only make loans to countries that agree not to grow their own food and not undertake Land Reform or small family-based farming, which allows me to keep the food “locked up.” That’s its prime directive.

As for the IMF, I basically made it a financial arm of the Defense Department, bailing out dictatorships and lending money to countries’ oligarchs America wants to support. And, of course, not lending money to countries America doesn’t want to help, like Venezuela. So, the IMF’s job is to promote neoliberal policies and insist that other countries balance their payments by undergoing a class war against labor.

Ya’ know, I’m surprised you didn’t ask about SWIFT, my most excellent tool for controlling money throughout the world.

I: Ok. Tell us a bit about SWIFT.

H: Well, SWIFT… it’s a Belgian operation that does international money transactions. But my CIA and Treasury Dept, gained access to the SWIFT database. Now, my NSA can monitor banking transactions through SWIFT and I can use that info to impose sanctions on countries and their leaders who don’t see things my way, like Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and now Russia. I can also use that power to steal other countries’ wealth whenever I want, like Venezuela and Afghanistan; oh…and Russia.

I: You mentioned neoliberal policies. What are they?

H: Neoliberalism is my brand of capitalism; the best way to control. Neoliberalism privatizes everything public, deregulates the corporate sector, and cuts public spending to pay for corporate tax cuts. More on that later.

Anyway, back to my history. In 1945 I convinced that bumkin, Truman, to scare the shit out of the Russians by nuking a half-million Jap civilians.

I: I thought we dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese to end the war sooner and prevent US soldier deaths by not having to invade their mainland?

H: Sure. That was the public excuse. But Russia was about to invade Japan, and I didn’t want those bastards anywhere near my domain.

Anyway, two years later, Truman transformed the WWII OSS into my CIA, and then I got to work. I soon used my new CIA as the corporate muscle to turn the world into my oyster; got rid of Arbenz in Guatemala, Mosaddegh in Iran, Sukarno in Indonesia, Allende in Chile, Lumumba in the DRC, and so many others. All were, shall we say, “replaced” by leaders I liked… folk I could work with, expanding my reach. Becoming The Hegemon. Oh. I almost forgot. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

I: But Nasser died of a heart attack, didn’t he?

H: Of course he did.

Here in the US, I controlled most US Presidents. Until John F-ing Kennedy beat my guy, Nixon (teaching me the power of television, btw.) Kennedy, that traitorous son-of-a-bitch! Traitor to his class! First, he fucks up my Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba, then he canned the heads of my CIA and plotted with Niki the K. in Russia, to create peace, for gods’ sake! Horrors! Peace is my kryptonite, man! Kennedy dared to roll back the nuclear threat and make peace overtures with that USSR Premier, Ukrainian bastard.

But when Kennedy threatened to mess up my Vietnam operation, that was the last straw. He had to go, and it had to be before he was reelected. I almost got ‘im in Chicago, but a couple of dufuses messed that up. But in Dallas I finally got ‘im! Of course, I had to kill Oswald, the fall-guy… again to cover my tracks. Then I had to ensure the investigation was well controlled, so I made sure Alan Dulles was in charge. Alan was the top CIA dudes canned by JFK after the Bay of Pigs. He could guarantee any investigation would rule it a lone killer; blame it on some crazy ‘ex’-Marine who defected to Russia, then decided to come home again. HA! Actually, Lee Harvey Oswald worked for me, but he never guessed his real role until he was in handcuffs.

I: Interesting. So what other tools or devices does a Hegemon use in his work? I use “his”, as I assume there are no female hegemons?

H: Female Hegemons? HA! In your BDSM fantasies, Dude! Seriously, I’m a great magician. I got a bag full of tricks. I’ll let you in on a few, since you’re such a nice guy. (laughs uncontrollably).

Ahhh…Domestically, one of the main ones is apathy. Keep the great unwashed busy with their individual troubles and pleasures so they don’t have enough time or energy to think about who’s pulling the strings in their miserable little lives.

Distraction is another good one. I can divert the attention of the commoners while I conduct business they need to ignore. When I was the Hegemon in the Roman Empire, I called it Bread and Circuses. Now that I control the media, it’s easy to provide distractions anytime and anywhere I choose. Just call it ‘Breaking News’, or feature reruns of Leave It to Beaver.

I: Leave it to Beaver??

H: Whatever.

Another of my tactics is creating problems AND the ‘solutions’; solutions that I want implemented. This works well with financial crashes and even natural disasters, where I can come in and privatize the commons. Akin’ to the ‘Shock Doctrine‘.

Of course big changes have to happen gradually. That’s how I brought neoliberal economics to the US; my version of Capitalism. My kinda’ game! Milt Friedman helped bring that about. He and those Chicago Boys spread it everywhere; a bit here, a bit there; not all at once, ya’ see. Sneak it in gradually.

With this power, in addition to health care, education, communications, land, student debt and so on, I’ll be able to own everything! Oh…by the way, gotta’ make sure education is focused on supplying cogs for my Great Machine. This is where privatizing education can ensure the cor-rect results.

Of course, my wealth is a lever. It’s surprising how far a US dollar – or many, many of them – can go in convincing leaders to do things my way, both here and abroad.

Internationally, sometimes armed violence is the only way – its my ‘go to game’ if other tricks don’t work. Get rid of the guy running the show, and replace him with my ‘son-of-a-bitch’. The examples I already mentioned show how well this works. The size and breadth of my military alone is enough to intimidate others. Did you know I have over 800 military bases surrounding my enemies? And my US Congress blesses me with a blank check to buy as much firepower as I want.

I: Some would say that the money spent on ‘defense’ could better be used to meet needs here in the US. What’s your response to that?

H: Are you listening to what I’m telling you? Are you f-ing crazy? There’s no money in giving bottom feeders a free ride! Hell, that’s a cost center! The real money is in war and preparations for war!

Look …the crises throughout the world are a bonanza for my Wall Street. My oil company stocks are going waaay up, the military, industrial stocks, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon… waaay up. Also the bank stocks. This is my great power grab. This is how I’ve made most of my great property grabs and conquests throughout history. I’m saying to the rest of the world, “You know I’ve got you by the short hairs. I don’t know how to put it, Dude, but you don’t have any choice; your money or your life!“

I: The “money vs life” thing again.

H: Absolutely. Which brings me to my latest and greatest “trick” – SANCTIONS. Since my US dollars are the worlds reserve currency, I can control the flow of capital. I can create suffering and foment dissent against governments wherever I want regime change. I can cause immeasurable damage where leaders need to be replaced; then I can establish my form of capitalism. Think recently Pakistan, and now Sri Lanka.

I: There’s a ‘rumor’ that other nations are organizing to replace the US dollar as the world reserve currency; that a new multipolar world order is emerging. Could this be the beginning of the end for you?

H: Bullshit! Pure, unadulterated bullshit. I’m waa-aa-ay too strong. Waa-aa-y too powerful. My military, my economic system, my, my…pure bullshit.

I: So what do you believe is your best ‘trick’, as you say?

H: I can’t over state how important it is to control the narrative. For example, I can use atrocity propaganda; show the horrors of war to stir up the public and capture eyes and ears of the commoners. It was the free press that forced me out of Vietnam; showing body bags, US atrocities and such. No more of that shit.

Now that I control corporate media, it’s become much easier. I can ban videos I don’t like, and promote videos that show the other guy as a “heartless, reckless war criminal.” No irksome reporters crowding my space. As far as independent journalists? Well, think about Julain Assange for a moment. Does that convince you? And Snowden’s freezing his ass off in Russia.

Of course to control the narrative, I must have censorship. Gotta’ protect the “bewilded herd” from the “wrong ideas”, doncha’ know. That’s easier now that I control the Silicon Valley giants; Google, Facebook, Apple, X (née Twitter), Paypal etc., etc. They can turn off any undesirable narrative by banning anyone trying to say anything different from the “party line.” That would be my line.

I: So, have you achieved all your goals? I noticed you haven’t said anything about Africa nor East Asia…China, India, etc.

H: Yea, for the most part. In a nutshell, this is the story of my success ; at least to date, and as much as I can share publicly. Now I have full spectrum dominance. I can wholly constrain my enemy’s battlespace on air, land, sea, space, psychological war, bio and cyberwar, and most recently and importantly, the battle for peoples’ minds!

This, along with the 1974 deal my todies Nixon and Kissinger made through Saudi Arabia to create petrodollars. That deal? OPEC would only sell oil in US dollars and those dollars would be deposited in US and City of London Banks, and in return, my military would defend the OPEC countries. My guys also promised the price of oil would be quadrupled, and, to Jimmy Carter’s misery, it was. Then those renegades, Sadam and Qadhafi, started selling oil denominated in euros, for god’s sake! So I ‘terminated them with prejudice’. That bastarrd, Qadhafi, was also ganging up with Mubarak and Bashir, to side-step my IMF/World Bank money control system by creating a their own gold-backed financial system and fund large scale development throughout Africa. Time for regime change for that gang. Don’t fuck with my US dollar, baby! That’s how I control power.

As for Africa, I’m still working on that one. In 2006, when the Chinese started meddling in Africa with their Belt and Road initiative; trying to gain control over new oil and gas discoveries, I immediately created AFRICOM, my autonomous military command with headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany…

I (interrupts): Why Germany? Why not in Africa?

H: Well, to be honest, those 54 countries in Africa were still a bit nervous about prior European colonialism, and none of ’em wanted to give it a home. Anyway, this was also my connection to NATO, which started operations through AFRICOM; you know, part of their “out of area” operations and creation of a “Global NATO”.

As for China, I was able come up with ways to create coups in countries where the leadership was not friendly. Instead of using my CIA to disrupt things; not at all practical in the case of Russia and China – too big; too powerful – I resorted to color revolutions… and weaponizing human rights claims… and pushing for “democracy”. For example, I created the Orange revolution in the Ukraine, the Rose revolution in Georgia – both designed to replace the Russia-friendly leadership with my people. And in Myanmar, the Saffron revolution; in Tibet, the Crimson revolution…

I: (interrupts again): Explain what you mean by a “color” revolution?

H: A color revolution? Hell, by agitating the population, especially young students, to come out in “swarms” to protest the current government, I can disguise my intent for regime change by claiming support for the demonstrators for “true democracy”. No need to send in troups etc. The term “color”, probably created by news media as a convenient symbol for these disruptive movements.

I: So how do you create these disruptive “color” revolutions?

H: Mostly through my man, NED.

I: NED?

H: Yeah. The National Endowment for Democracy. They do openly what my CIA used to do in the shadows. Of course there’s a lot of other players on my team, all NGO’s – you know, non-governmental organizations (chuckle). The Albert Einstein Institution, the Open Society Foundation, Freedom House, the National Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute, just to name a few. Oh…and of course, USAID.

I: So, Hegemon…

H: Hey – hey- hey…THE HEGEMON!

I: OK… What’s your true mission? What’s the nature of your game?

H: My mission? Advance the interests of those who control me. Who controls me? HA! HA! HA! No one controls me because you see, I AM those who “control me,” including:

• the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee members. The crem de la crem of money interests.
• The Council on Foreign Relations the premiere controller of US Foreign Policy since 1921
• The World Economic Forum (WEF) the premiere controller of influence in world governance
• WEF’s Young Leaders Forum whose alumni I’ve had positioned across western governments and powerful private institutions for the past three decades.
• National Endowment for Democracy, money launderers for my CIA.
• The National Security Administration who monitors all citizen’s communications for me
• Dark money interests; can’t tell you who these guys are
• a whole bunch of think tanks and NGOs‘;
• Most of the fools in the US Congress who pretend they represent their constituency, but are only concerned about re-election, and, in reality, bought and paid for by me;
• academia, which I control through monetary grants;
• Corporate media, where I control the narrative; what Americans hear and see;
• most of the big social media companies, where I can dictate what’s allowable content;
• ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, one of my domestic parts; very effective at creating US state laws that benefit me;
• the WTO, World Trade Organization, where I’m able to put my priorities above any governmental authorities;
• And many others who must remain invisible, lest you learn the true depths of my being.

Soon, very soon, I WILL GOVERN THE WORLD! I grow without limit; I feed on my citizen hosts’ blood and money; I AM THE HEDGEMON.

I: Aren’t there any who can resist your power, (sarcastically) oh Great Hegemon?

H: THE HEGEMON, PLEASE! Or THE GREATEST HEGEMON! Hey,…I like that! Thanks for the idea.

Resist my power? Hell no! Certainly not domestically. Those f-ing redskin savages are back and they’re a burr under my saddle. Should’ve wiped them all out when I could. Ya’ see, they don’t get the message, man. They seem to think their land, their lives and their traditions are more important than my right to make as much money as I can. THAT’S WHAT FREEDOM IS, DUDE! IT’S IN THE US CONSTITUTION! I HAVE PROPERTY RIGHTS THAT CAN’T BE ABRIDGED! READ THE F-ING CONSTITUTION, MAN! Excuse me. I get carried away sometimes.

I: Yes, you do.

H: Also on that short list are those damned ‘activists’. They’re like gnats! Always in my face over some anti-this or anti-that shit. But now that I have control over corporate media, they’ve become much more docile.

And then there’s all these different organizations, begging for attention and money for some ‘social change’. Hey! That’s good news for me! It means they ‘re fragmented… scattered. They waste their energy playing “Whack-A- Mole.” Today it’s ‘climate change’… ‘Black Lives Matter’…’save the owl’… Hell, there’s so many distracting ‘social causes’ that sop up the energy of these, “do gooders” they’ll never be a problem.

Martin Luther King came closest. He finally realized that trying to solve the ‘poverty problem’, instead of attacking it piecemeal, should be dealt with directly. Poverty? – lack of money. Solution? give people money, fer Christ’s sake! And then, April 4, 1967, he publicly condemned me as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world!” Once he spoke the money solution and called me by my…well, close to my name… I had to get rid of him. Can’t have people believing that lives are more important than money, now, can I?

I: Ooo-kay! How about internationally?

H: There’s still a couple renegades out there, standing in line to bump me off. Like Russia and China. Russia has been a thorn in my side forever. I brought the Bear to its knees when Zbignew Brezinski and I lured Russia into Afghanistan while my CIA supplied weapons and money to Russia’s enemies, the Mujahadeen. The Soviet Union lost a lot of treasure and lives in that shit-storm, which finally brought the USSR down. Shortly after it collapsed, I nearly gained control of Russia, working with that drunken sot, Yeltsin. But when he appointed Vlad Putin as his successor, the jig was up. The Russian oligarchs had played my game nicely, cheating the Russian people out of their communal wealth for the benefit of their oligarchs before I could grab it. But I’ll get it. I’ll get it all.

I: So, how will you… “get it all” ?

H: To declaw the Russian Bear, I must gain control of the Eurasian Heartland, essentially Ukraine. There are vast resources there and throughout Eurasia that can provide high value collateral for my economic expansion. Halford Mackinder describe the importance of the Heartland. In ‘1904 he wrote:

“Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-island; who rules the World-island controls the world.”

By World-island, Mackinder meant Eurasia; the pivot which controls the world, which I prioritized in my National Security Strategy documents. I must, and will control Eastern Europe. And no threat of nuclear weapons will deter me. Let Russia try it.

I: So how will you gain control of Ukraine?

H: I’m well on my way. After the stalemated ‘Orange Revolution’, which I triggered in 2004, I wooed fascist ground forces as a ‘popular uprising to launch the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev. We got rid of the Russian puppet, Yanukovych, replacing him with “our man”, Yatsenyuk. True, my handmaiden, Victoria Newland-Kagan, Assistant Sec of State for Eurasia, was caught on tape plotting with the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffery Pyatt, to pick Yanukovych’s successor. Unfortunately, in that conversation when Pyatt suggested the EU may not agree with the US’s choice, she said, “Fuck the EU”! Yeah! Caught on tape! Fortunately nobody paid attention to that little faux pas, thanks to my control of information.

So after the 2014 coup, I immediately got to work, pushing the new Ukrainian regime – by then under Porochenko – to attack the Russian-speaking people in the Donbas region. This didn’t take much of a push with the neo-Nazi’s political influence and military forces chomping at the bit to finish what they started in 1941. You may not remember, but over 100,000 Ukrainians were Nazi collaborators in the Schutzmannschaften. The Azov Battalion (now a regiment, or what’s left of it), were stationed in the city of Mariopul, and even used to wear the patches of 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division .

I: I understand they just recently changed those patches from the Wolfsangle to a golden trident.

H: Yea, I told ’em to get rid of that Nazi shit. Distracts from the success of the mission.

But If there’s anything that tweaks a Russian speaking Ukrainian, it’s Nazis. I knew Putin would eventually move to protect ’em. It took eight years, during which I killed 14,000 Russian speaking Slavs, but I finally lured Putin into attacking Ukraine.

While all this was going on over there, in my US media I started what some called Russiagate. Using Trump’s envy of Putin as a stalking horse, I began a long and sustained psy-ops attack on Russia and Putin. For weeks on end, you could watch me demonize Putin and Russa on corporate media, especially MSNBC. This primed my sheeple for what was to follow.

I: But a lot of Ukrainians are being killed, right? Is that your strategy?

H: Of course a lot of Ukrainians are being killed and more will be killed! But life has never been my concern. Control through money and violence is my raison d’etre, if you’ll pardon my French. My strategy? Bog the Bear down into the quicksand of a long, protracted war with the Ukrainians. A war of attrition. Don’t bother asking me to negotiate. I don’t want to end the war. I want it to drag out to the “last Ukrainian standing”; until Russia is broken, and Putin is gone. I have unlimited wealth to extend this war forever, if necessary, from my “loyal” taxpayers through their “representatives.” They have always voted to increase spending on ways to kill people, and it’s always bipartisan. And the huddled masses, frankly don’t give a fat-rats patootie. Since our “boys” won’t be bleeding in Ukraine, we can hold out until Russia collapses, and then I can move in. And while I’m bringing my brand of neoliberal economics to the Russian people, I can pivot to China. The Chinese Dragon is the most significant challenge I face. But without the support of Russia, the Dragon can be slain.

I: Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if you stopped all this war making and focused on bringing peace to the entire planet?

H: (Long pause) Man….You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said! Money cannot be made and therefore power cannot be exerted if everyone see’s the other guy as human! There’s gotta’ be anger, conflict, war, famine, pestilence and death; lot’s of death. As long as I’m in control, the more death the better. The only good plebe is a dead plebe. I don’t need them anymore, with AI about to really take off.

I: AI?

H: Artificial Intelligence

I: Oh…On another note, there have been some rumors that you’re loosing your cred with others in the world.

H: Malarkey. So a few countries…like China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, South Africa, and Mexico… have remained neutral on Ukraine, ok? And 17 African states, yes, including South Africa, have abstained from resolutions ostracizing Putin. SO WHAT! I’m still able to control most of the European powers, though that shit Scholz has to give up on Russian oil and gas so I can sell Europe my LNG at inflated prices. And that Macron…well, you can never trust the French. For everyone else, I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.

{reflective pause}

But actually, you know, the US and my NATO killing machine/lapdog, are getting a bit weak-in-the-knees. So I’ve been thinking of canceling my contract with the US and NATO and to seek opportunities elsewhere. A Hegemon of my experience and talent could probably do better on his own, dontcha’ think? Not that it hasn’t been a whirl, understand Eusa? It’s just that…you’re getting old and feeble, and I have to think of my future. Besides, the entire concept of nation-states bogs me down. One world government under my control is the future. It’ll also make things easier to get rid of all those worthless, hungry mouths that have no money to contribute to my collection plate. It’ll be the Great Reset.

I: WOW! With that, I see we’re out of time. Thank you, Hegemon…uhh… THE GREATEST HEGEMON… for speaking with us.

H: Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name.

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