 Biden's new press secretary almost calls Saudis a regime. White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre came very close to committing the cardinal sin of referring to a US-aligned nation as a regime on Monday. In the official White House transcript of Jean-Pierre's interaction with a reporter inquiring about Biden's upcoming meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the press secretary's comment reads as follows. Of course he will be, they will discuss energy with the Saudi government. However, if you watch a video clip highlighted on Twitter by Kausachan News' Camila Escalante, you'll notice Jean-Pierre gets tripped up before the word government. With a more accurate transcribing reading something like, of course he will be, they will discuss energy with the Saudi government. Which is hilarious. Because for imperial spin-meisters, the word regime is traditionally reserved for governments which are not aligned with the US Empire, because it suggests that they are undemocratic and authoritarian. The theocratic monarchy of Saudi Arabia is most certainly authoritarian and is the exact opposite of democratic. But because it is aligned with the interests of Washington, that pejorative label is typically avoided at the upper echelons of imperial narrative management. Whether or not a government will be affixed with this label has far less to do with its level of oppressiveness than with whether or not it cooperates with imperial agendas. In a 2018 article titled, A Regime is a Government at Odds with the US Empire, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Gregory Shupak explained, quote, The function of regime is to construct the ideological scaffolding for the United States and its partners to attack whatever country has a government described in this manner. According to the mainstream press, the democratically elected government of Nicaragua is a regime. Cuba also has a regime. Iraq and Libya used to have regimes before the United States implemented regime change. North Korea most definitely has one, as do China and Russia. When, for the media, does a government become a regime? The answer, broadly speaking, a country's political leaders are likely to be called a regime when they do not follow US dictates and are less likely to be categorized as such if they cooperate with the empire. Washington's economic and military partner Saudi Arabia is described as having a regime far less often than is Syria, despite its rather regime-like qualities. Its unelected government represses dissidents, including advocates for women and its Shia minority, carries out executions at an extraordinary clip, including of people accused of adultery, apostasy and witchcraft. Saudi Arabia crushed an uprising in neighboring Bahrain in 2011 and, with its US and UK partners, is carrying out an almost apocalyptic war in Yemen. When the imperial spin machine wants to legitimize a government, it calls it a government. When it wants to delegitimize a government, it calls it a regime. It's an effective propaganda technique because in school Americans are not taught about the US regime, they are taught about their government. British school children aren't taught about the UK regime, they are taught about their government. You never hear about the Canadian regime or the Australian regime. When you use a completely different word for the governing body of a nation, it sets it apart from the concept of government you are familiar with in your mind. It makes the government sound alien, like something that doesn't belong. Maybe something that needs to be removed. When the empire wants to topple a government, their first step is to psychologically uncouple it from the nation and its people in the eyes of the western world by consistently using labels that make it look like an alien occupying force. It's not Venezuela's government, it's the Maduro regime. Oh no, a regime? How did that regime get in where Venezuela's government taught to be? Watch out Venezuelans, you've got a regime on your back. Don't worry, we'll come and rescue you from it. Do you see how it works? If you can make a nation's government look like an illegitimate invading force instead of the governing body which arose from that nation's internal dynamics, you legitimize any attempt to defend that nation from that force, up to and including staging coups, arming oppositional militias, airstrikes, sanctions, or full-scale ground invasions. Which, because it generally cooperates with the US empire, the Biden administration has no interest in doing to Saudi Arabia. Whenever you see a mass media spin piece conducting apologia for the US government's coziness with Gulf state tyrants, like the recent article in The Atlantic titled Biden is right about Saudi Arabia, you will see the word regime appear exactly zero times. We saw this ridiculous mental contortion illustrated in a particularly hilarious faction in 2017 when Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones was asked at a press conference to square the Trump administration's hand ringing about the quality of Iranian democracy with its friendliness toward Saudi Arabia. Jones famously paused for a full 20 seconds before he could even answer. You can understand how all this bullshit would be difficult for a rookie press secretary to keep track of. You can be sure that the previous press secretary, Jen Psaki, would have sailed smoothly from the word Saudi to the word government without the faintest flicker of conscience, like the cold-blooded reptile she is. And while we're on the subject, how gross is it that presidential administrations all have their own PR spin-meisters? That's all a White House press secretary is, you know, someone who works for the White House, whose actual job is to manipulate and deceive the public about all the depraved actions of the president. It is necessary for them to do this because all U.S. presidents must necessarily engage in nefarious behavior as managers of a tyrannical, globe-spanning empire, and it is necessary to continuously manipulate and deceive the public about these actions because otherwise they would put a stop to them. The U.S. government must continuously subvert the will of the people in this way in order to successfully inflict the necessary violence and oppression for maintaining a global empire. One might even go so far as calling it a regime.