Trump freezes all National Endowment for Democracy funding – media

www.rt.com

The coup-plotters over at the "NED" just got putsch'd. ;-)

Snip:

US President Donald Trump’s administration has frozen all funding to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), several media outlets reported on Wednesday. The move is said to have caused a “bloodbath” within the organization, leaving it unable to pay staff or fulfill financial commitments.

The NED, established in 1983, is officially a nonprofit organization that provides grants to support democratic initiatives worldwide. However, over the years, it has faced allegations of covertly influencing political outcomes, with critics arguing that it has taken over covert functions previously handled by the CIA, particularly those aimed at overthrowing foreign governments.

27 comments

The liberal blob tears on this are, like USAID, very funny, but let's not make the mistake of thinking that these regime change programs will be shut down. They will be consolidated under closer and more direct executive power and made even more opaque. USAID and NED were the replacement programs for CIA activities, and whatever comes after trump and musk are done shuffling USAID/NED funding will be the successor to the same imperial instincts.
- And let's not forget that Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State, has been appointed as acting administrator for USAID. He's one of the biggest neocon ghouls in Washington.
- Yep, I am sure that we will soon see some kind of "corporate rebranding" scheme in the US coup-plotting industry. I suspect that the "liberal" faces of these fake "NGOs" will be replaced with newer "conservative" ones. Beyond that, it will be business as usual.
  
  Hopefully there are some groups out there who can make good use of the disruption. We'll inevitably see these organizations come back in some form, but this is still an entirely unforced own-goal that will harm US imperialism, possibly for some time. Standing up these organizations and legitimizing them is real work, it takes time, and the replacements aren't likely to be any more effective than the originals. Given that the Trump administration will be creating them, it's entirely plausible that they'll be less effective. Imagine every color revolution attempt being another Juan Guaido situation. Dare to dream.
  
  this is the one silver lining to this huge, black trump cloud; especially with the cia.
  
  Yes, hopefully this will mess some things up for some of US imperialism's proxies. A lot will depend on whether there are actually permanent budget cuts to "NED" and whether the funding just gets provided from somewhere else (i.e. directly from Western intelligence agencies or UK/EU entities similar to "NED").
  
  I do think the liberal face was part of what made these schemes effective. It is easier to tell yourself that you're not a Quisling piece of shit when you're getting money from the freedom and democracy institution than when you get it from a CIA goon in a trenchcoat.
  
  Agreed. Pink imperialism was very effective and more aggressive conservative approach to the same thing won’t have as much of an effect.
- I am willing to bet the successor will be so enshitified and filled with nepo hires that they fail their stated goal of doing regime change harder than the current lot. Ofc the imperial demand for colour revolutions will continue in some way, but since when has the US reliably churned out good remakes/reboots under late capitalism?
- Still, for a time being it is a wrench thrown in the imperial machine.
  
  Agreed, the liberal tears are indeed funny, I just think it's wrong to treat this as some kind of anti imperialist victory

27 comments