Open Thread 2014-10
News & views ...
(other then about Ukraine)
Posted by b on April 17, 2014 at 11:01 UTC | Permalink
next page »Syria: As the bombs fall, the people of Damascus rally round Bashar al-Assadby By Peter Oborne
...
Over the past few days, I have talked to shopkeepers, students, soldiers, doctors, a dentist, MPs and government ministers (including the minister for tourism, who must have the most thankless job in the world). On the basis of these conversations, I would judge not just that support for the regime is holding up, but that President Assad could very well win a popular election, even if carried out on a free and fair basis.
...
There are no “good guys” in Syria’s civil war. But we should not be blind to the fact that there is a project out there to destroy its rich, pluralist and unbelievably intricate culture and replace it with a monochrome version of Wahhabi Islam, of the kind favoured by Saudi mullahs. And for reasons that history may come to judge very severely, Britain, the United States, and the West have been aiding and abetting this project.
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Posted by: virgile | Apr 17 2014 12:23 utc | 2
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 17, 2014 7:52:07 AM | 1
Rowan you seemingly do not understand anything. According to Marx the future will be the end of all labels like "proletariat"
In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.
Sounds to me more like English gentlemen will win.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 17 2014 13:09 utc | 3
There is a superb piece by Robert Parry on Consortiumnews today about the US media and the Ukraine. It's hung on yesterday's egregious NY Times article Russia Is Quick to Bend Truth About Ukraine, but its scope is broader.
Excerpts from the conclusion:
there is something utterly Orwellian in the current coverage of the Ukraine crisis, including accusing others of “propaganda” when their accounts – though surely not perfect – are much more honest and more accurate than what the U.S. press corps has been producing. . .There’s also the added risk that this latest failure by the U.S. press corps is occurring on the border of Russia, a nuclear-armed state that – along with the United States – could exterminate all life on the planet. The biased U.S. news coverage is now feeding into political demands to send U.S. military aid to Ukraine’s coup regime.
The casualness of this propaganda – as it spreads across the U.S. media spectrum from Fox News to MSNBC, from the Washington Post to the New York Times – is not just wretched journalism but it is reckless malfeasance jeopardizing the lives of many Ukrainians and the future of the planet.
Posted by: RBD | Apr 17 2014 13:27 utc | 4
For one of the best things on the (appalling) state of organized labor in the United States check out Gregg Shotwell's excellently written and on the mark "A Practical Solution to an Urgent Need" in the latest Monthly Review.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | Apr 17 2014 13:41 utc | 5
From RT:
http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/russophobia-origin-stereotypes-danger-812/
Posted by: ben | Apr 17 2014 13:57 utc | 6
Scientists Support Seymour Hersh
Don’t underestimate Syrian rebel know-how: they may have made the rockets used to launch chemical weapons at Ghouta.
Posted by: Virgile | Apr 17 2014 14:03 utc | 7
virgile: Obourne seems to be one of the few journalists in the West who challenges the mainstream media's deceptions and blatant lies. Not so long ago, he managed to get a documentary on to national TV (a magnificent achievement considering the obstacles he must have encountered) here in the UK that exposed the Israel lobby and it's intertwined relationship with all the main British political parties. I don't know if you will be able to watch it because of TV rights restrictions but here is the YouTube url:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfw5aLYiq5k
His Telegraph comment typifies his honest assessment of everything he writes and although I don't agree with all his conclusions we can see by the readers responses that his view is popular with the majority of replies.
RBD @4
I agree with you. I posted the link and overlapping excerpts on an earlier thread. He writes of his "forty years" in journalism and it never having been as bad in his experience.
Do you not think, however, that more and more people are 'tuning out' this propaganda, and that, leaving the malicious intent aside, its ability actually to drum up lynch mobs is almost pathetically small?
What I have noticed, in Canada, is that previously, mildly sceptical msm outlets, such as the Toronto Star, are back in lockstep with the message issuers.
This has something to do with the complete collapse of social democracy, which leaves all three major parties favouring Tar Sands development, "standing by" Israel and lamenting "Russian aggression."
All of which is related, in some part, to fund raising campaigns. As to the media, so precarious are the finances of newspapers that they too rely on capital infusions from political businessmen, simply to finance desperate attempts to bridge the gap and come up with a business model for the internet age. This makes them very conservative journalistically which, in my view, adds to their problems by undermining the little credibility they have left.
Of course the underlying logic of what the media is doing-a logic particularly evident in TV where all the stations depend upon government goodwill to renew licenses, expand and merge and report to state commissions increasingly stacked with political operatives- is to become semi-official, subsidised organs of the state, part of the publicly funded propaganda apparatus. That is the role that the NY Times, The Post, and all the rest of the press seems to be auditioning for. The media has lost confidence in its audience's ability or desire to keep it in the style to which it had grown accustomed when its opinions mattered.
Posted by: bevin | Apr 17 2014 14:21 utc | 9
Cuban authorities claim that the economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion, and President Raúl knows he needs erode the foundations of the embargo before significant economic growth can take place. Havana believes that getting the European Union into its corner is the best way to move forward, and negotiations with representatives from Brussels are set to begin in late April.
Posted by: ruralito | Apr 17 2014 14:24 utc | 10
From Truthdig on Palestine:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/pictures_dont_lie_refuting_there_was_no_palestine_20140417
Posted by: ben | Apr 17 2014 14:33 utc | 11
Mike Maloney @5
Thanks for that link, an excellent article and beautifully written.
At risk of sounding pretentious, it reminded me of one of the great books, The Wheelwright's Shop by George Sturt.
Posted by: bevin | Apr 17 2014 14:51 utc | 12
USE THE HEAD, FORGET THE HEART
OK, any issue at all! What about, how to determine what is and is not news worthy? Do I have to turn on the TV or troll the Intranet to find out? Am I that inept? Or is it possible to find my own answers? Yes, the survival of the human race is important. But, what gets me out of bed in the morning, what gets me hard as a rock is art, which to me is the same thing. Being creative is what sets us apart form the animals from Kiev!
Watching the news over the last few weeks has sapped all of my creative "precious bodily fluids"(Ripper, 1963). Maybe that is what they want all along! An uncreative mind is a malleable mind!
However, if one steps back and finds one footing, a new world opens up. For me, what is absolutely amazing is how the first language, the language of our dreaming mind, the language that the ancients used to record history on the cave walls during the Chatelperronien period, is as formidable and alive today as it was then.
If you want to know what is truly news worthy to you, on a personal level, interpret your dreams! Caveat, do not listen to academia or experts on the subject. Make up your own mind! They do not want you to know how powerful and creative you mind truly is. After almost a century, they still haven't figured out the "meaning of animals in cave paintings"!
Permit me to "settle the issue:
In the parlance of metaphor, if I wish to express the notion of the earth generally, I would draw a long horizontal line. However, if I wish to express that I hold an idea about the earth, I would use an image of a pig, which is exactly what the pigs means in the prehistoric painting from the Cave of Altamira, in Spain. SEE ALTAMIRA's THREE PIGS
Beings do not have knowledge, they are knowledge, (Epp, 2001) and to the natural mind each being holds a unique knowledge. The hawk's ability to navigate the sky affords it the capacity to see what is over the horizon. Thus, its metaphorical meaning is visionary knowledge. As the pig has evolved its evolutionary trajectory, in such a way as to know what is beneath the earth (truffles), it is the pig, not the hawk, that metaphorically expresses knowledge of the earth. Yes, the pig holds an array of other meanings. Today it could conjure up the Kiev junta. However, if we sort the array of meanings according to the frequency of their usage in social applications during the time when the image was painted, knowledge of the earth would be the first scalar.
The language that the ancients used to express their ideas on the cave walls is the exact language of our subconscious mind. It is immune to Ripper's attack plan R sent to the wing. Yes, they can kill me. News flash, we are all going to die. However, I plan to go out with a paint brush in my hand, not a pistol!
The creative mind has not, and never will be infected with the symbolic language we all use to think in the exact same manner and the exact way on every subject. It speaks to us about our genuine concerns and resolve those concerns in terms of the metaphorical language of the subconscious mind on an individual level!
Can you imagine the Ukrainians in the east painting a huge mural in every city square about their heritage and history as the Fascist Freaks surround grandma, grandpa and their children with tanks and gun ships? I do not think the world will tolerate another moment of US/NATO's shit when this goes viral! I can see the headlines now, "Children and grandparents while painting a mural in their city square are brutally attacked by the junta from Kiev!" That will be the end of WWW III in a New York Minute!
Rowan you seemingly do not understand anything. According to Marx the future will be the end of all labels like "proletariat". Posted by: somebody | Apr 17, 2014 9:09:18 AM | 3well, if you take that crypto-religious attitude to it (which unfortunately most people do and did), then yeah, it's "inevitable", it's "destined, " history has spoken" and so forth. But personally I do not see it as a matter of faith like that: that the prophet Marx said it will come so it will, like the second coming of jesus, or the return of the mahdi or the predicted messianic times in judaism. On the contrary, because I do not believe in total mechanical determinism when it comes to human decisions and actions, I would never make the (rather preposterous) claim that the clockwork of history must eventually strike the hour of liberation. So excuse me if I sound a little sarcastic with those comparisons.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 17 2014 17:13 utc | 14
There was nothing of this in the mainstream. God save the children and all suffering innocents of Syria.
In case you missed it:
"According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine say they didn’t have anything to do with it, despite the official-looking notice having what appears to be the signature of Denis Pushilin, the the leader of the pro-Russian separatists."
http://fox2now.com/2014/04/17/jews-in-east-ukraine-ordered-to-register/
Thoughts? Seems like propaganda to make the pro-Russian side look bad. Kerry was quick to assume it is real and is using it.
Context: Kerry can't be trusted, he has been caught before:
Obama & Kerry Caught Misleading on Syria & Weapons Inspectors and Kerry has no respect for the U.S. Constitution if it gets in the way of his warmongering, see this video too for context: Kerry's Bizarre Excuse for Obama Violating War Powers
Posted by: Tom Murphy | Apr 17 2014 17:27 utc | 16
Sorry, I didn't see the "other then about Ukraine" notice, I thought I read Open Thread same as was for the 9th.
Posted by: Tom Murphy | Apr 17 2014 17:45 utc | 17
it is impossible to believe that any more-or-less uniformed and disciplined force would launch such a ridiculous exercise as that so-called "Proclamation to the Jews of Donetsk." And the original report admitted that the CO, whose name I think is Pushilin, said that the letterhead etc looked genuine but the message was most certainly unauthorised and his organisation, the so-called "People's Republic of Donetsk", had no knowledge of it. BUT the disinfo merchants are out and running with this one, and they have now mangled that into this:
In a response to a request by a Ukrainian Jewish website, Pushilin, the interim government’s regional chairman, confirmed that the flyers were distributed by his organization, but denied any connection to the leaflet’s content.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 17 2014 17:47 utc | 18
@ 15
Exactly, agenda setting by MSM. It is not just what and how they report that is important, it is what they do not say that is more important.
"A child was killed and more than 36 others wounded Tuesday when a mortar shell slammed into a schoolyard..."
@ ANDY
Thanks for the link to the Israel Lobby in the UK: very revealing.
Posted by: virgile | Apr 17 2014 19:03 utc | 20
La Presse in Montreal is still doing an excellent job as a traditional newspaper. Their web paper is classt and their print version actually gained subscribers ladt year. Paul Desmarais let them be journalists. He died last fall, and we can't know how his successors will manage the paper, but so far so good. On the Ukraine, not so good, ad their reporter Agnes Gruda seems to swallow the swill she gets from the government. She was just as bad in and on Syria. I don't know if it's congenital with her. I used to think she was pretty decent, but then I wasn't paying attention. With tnat name she's East European.
Posted by: Knut | Apr 17 2014 19:31 utc | 21
Knut, it is funny that you should mention La Presse. For some extraordinary reason my English cousin reads it daily and says that it is a very good newspaper.
One of the problems with Quebec intellectuals is that they seem particularly affected by French ideas and France, like Britain, seems very weird on subjects like Syria, Libya and Ukraine. I blame the Pabloites, though I am no longer sure who they are.
Posted by: bevin | Apr 17 2014 21:50 utc | 22
Mike Maloney @ 5
Agree. Great story.
According to Howard Zinn the labor movement never had a chance in the U.S.
As early as the 1890's the top leadership had sold out, bought and paid for by the robber barons.
The people in the ranks fought hard and well, but if you believe Zinn, the fight was rigged from the start.
In the U.S. all the forces of the state, the legal system, the financial system, the propaganda empire, as well as popular fun-culture are against unions. Most church goers too, for some reason, seem to believe unions are an abomination in the eyes of God.
Plato's Parable of the Cave seems to be the best explanation as to why as things get worse, instead of banding together, Americans are ever more inclined to keep their eyes down and their mouths shut.
Posted by: Ken Nari | Apr 17 2014 21:52 utc | 23
The US is expanding its "footprint" in Africa under the umbrella of AFRICOM.
Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 17 2014 22:00 utc | 24
Very good point US caught in own web of lies:
The US position is clearly unsound and if violence unfolds as Kiev intends despite stories of its forces switching sides, the Obama administration will be severely weakened.With that weakening, the settlements with Syria and Iran may well fail.
The situation in Ukraine may well have been orchestrated, not to weaken Russia but to enfeeble the United States. With the empty talk about sanctions and moves against Russia, something else is going on...
Posted by: ProPeace | Apr 17 2014 22:01 utc | 25
#25 I too worry that the Ukrainian crisis is going to undo progress in both Syria and Iran. I really think that Obama and Kerry were really ignorant about the possible repercussions of our meddling in Ukrainian politics. They probably thought that the US got away with it with Orange revolution and could do so again. I suspect that the neocons that advises Nuland had an idea how things might work out or at least they hoped that this crisis would happen.
In any case, it is major distraction for getting the US to act sensibly with Syria and Iran.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 17 2014 23:18 utc | 26
THE ROVING EYE
Ukraine and the grand chessboard
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-170414.html
Posted by: Santos | Apr 17 2014 23:42 utc | 27
@23 Everyone knows Jesus hates people who work together!
Go, be socially atomized and alone for the rest of your miserable working lives, saith thy lord thy god!
What, Jesus never said that? Could have fooled me, because thats basically what churches say about Unions.
Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 17 2014 23:54 utc | 28
Santos #27 That Pepe Escobar writes "Psaki, said that reports of CIA Director John Brennan telling regime changers in Kiev to "conduct tactical operations" - or an "anti-terrorist" offensive - in eastern Ukraine are "completely false".
This brings to mind the often quoted saying by Claude Cockburn "to never believe a story until it is officially denied". (this was often quoted by his equally famous son Alexander Cockburn).
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 17 2014 23:59 utc | 29
Strangely balanced report on Venezuelan Collectivos
Strange, because via Drudgereport! The comments are disturbing but a good indication of what Venezuela and the rest of us are up against.
Posted by: ruralito | Apr 18 2014 2:19 utc | 30
Look like ISIS ( or Da'esh ) is about to below up Iraq and unfortunately , unlike Syria , Iraq hasn't any army to stand against them .
Posted by: Tanha | Apr 18 2014 6:39 utc | 31
She Tweets Serious Allegation, THEN She Claims RT "faked the translation"!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWSDbu0qoWg&list=PLfrlsC1yJ2dQfgAC5oaG6bv_GUcneCMz1
(State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki tweeted a serious allegation against Russia but when questioned she can't back it up.)
Posted by: Tom Murphy | Apr 18 2014 7:00 utc | 32
Posted by: Tom Murphy | Apr 18, 2014 3:00:01 AM | 32
"but when questioned she can't back it up"
Has that oily faced creature ever backed up any of her lies?
Posted by: scalawag | Apr 18 2014 8:03 utc | 33
your site was down for a while last night, you might want to mirror it somewhere else
Posted by: yoursite | Apr 18 2014 11:00 utc | 34
Three Easy Pieces
--
People I know are still challenged by 'conspiracy theories', asking, since it's so easy to loot and steal, just look at Wall Street and the Clinton Foundation, why would there need to be a 'Deep Government'? It's too much work, too many secrets to keep, too hard to plan.
That misses the whole point. There is no conspiracy after the 2000 Coup. The conspiracy is in plain view now. Open for business! Mil.Gov.Sci.Edu needs clients. Military needs clients in Syria, Ukraine, we're back in Philippines again, 800 foreign bases, and they're already deploying US troop boots on the ground into AfriCom! Government has ObamaCare now. Potentially 100,000,000 privately employed Americans will have to go through Government to get their health insurance, their senior care, and fend off medical bankruptcy. Science has Climate Chains, potentially 365,000,000 Americans who used to get all the Science they ever needed from Wunderground and Hubble, will now be paying a Carbon Tithe raising their utilities costs by ~18%. And Education, on the breakout cusp of Free Internet Education for All Khans, has recaptured that trillion dollar market with Race to the Top mandatory national testing, and student loans bicycling $100Bs of Fed funds into private coffers.
It's all being sold to US as 'cost savings' and 'new renewable initiatives' and 'the sound of freedom' and '97% say you must pay' and 'Johnny can't STEM'. That's not a Conspiracy, that's a Corporate Socialist Coup. All opposition is stifled. Deniers will be assimilated.
We are all Prawns now.
--
The allegory to this are the TeaParty and Sovereigntists. They're really going whole-hog into tax dodging, PAC founding, poaching, trespassing, illegal logging, you name it, the Commons is being ravaged, while they shriek Communism! and States Rights! and pass the costs of their rogue thefts to the rest of US. Together with Corporate, these Right Sector Revivalists are going to overturn US society with their now in-your-face-all-out-looting, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the aftermath of the Fall of the Iron Curtain, except that Soviet citizens had public housing, while Americans will die in the woods.
--
And last, repeating the news, the US is now deploying boots on the ground in AfriCom. One of our distributed family in the States got their deployment orders. Few realize that the first week of Obama's 2008 term, he created AfriCom, and in that same week, the Nigerian tin-pot dictators nationalized all their natural resources out from under their citizens, rendering an entire nation into outdoor prison camps full of zeks, relocatable at will. The direct outcome of O'Biden's Climate Chains Biofuels Initiative Mandate is the wholesale slash-and-burning of 880,000 net square miles of pristine tropical rain forest and savannah last year alone, with millions of campesanos and aboriginals and artisanals pushed off their free-land holdings into jobless urban gulags to starve, and 10,000,000 3W children now at risk of Famine, according to World Bank. Whole African nations have been nationalized and their resource lands leased away to Western corporations, while the Greens Hysteria-Mongering omni-communications with End Days rabbinical whip lashing.
"In Detroit's Fall, We Sinned All!!". Then they fly back to the Left Coast, and gnosh.
AfriCom = ObamaCare = Climate Chains = RTTT, it's all Unconnect the Dots!
--
The solution? More American last life savings looting for 'foreign aid'. More American last life savings looting for 'AfriCom' and 'Pivot to Asia'. More American last life savings looting for 'Climate Chains'. More American last life savings looting for 'RTTT'. You know America's last life savings will be looted for the Kiev Ave Monopoly card.
There's no conspiracy here. We have reached critical mass. We passed the tipping point. The Four Horsemen of our Slow Motion American Apocalypse ride freely across the land.
--
Anyway, they're deploying US troops to 54 US bases in AfriCom.
Where is Saint Snowden? Light the signal fires! Whoo-woo-woo.
Posted by: Chip Nikh | Apr 18 2014 11:47 utc | 35
major air defence exercise on day of 911,
anti *terrarists* exercise on 7/7 bombing in london, in the same undergdound station that alleged terrarists planted the bombs ,
by sheer coincidence, mh370 *disappeared* in the midst of a major muricun military exercise !
http://mariamuir.com/cope-tiger-military-war-game-exercise-and-missing-flight-mh370/
Posted by: denk | Apr 18 2014 17:01 utc | 36
I want to confirm as well that your site and Pat Lang's have been inaccessible for varying spells of time over the last few days.
Posted by: Maracatu | Apr 18 2014 17:02 utc | 37
@ 37 Maracatu
This is not the first time. Happened a month ago also: both sites are down.
I have sent an email to the Colonel
Posted by: Yul | Apr 18 2014 17:31 utc | 38
It may be getting monotonous, but I just want to counteract that little plug for "Colonel Lang". I decided some time ago, I think it was after looking at a Jones interview with Col Donn de Grand Pre, who "knows personally the pilot who shot down Flight 93 on 9/11," and I said to myself, I've had enough of these goddam colonels. I cherish the most obvious and yet most intriguing of these, though, someone with whom I was in email correspondence for years, on and off. When I started making little jokes about al-CiA-duh he put me down, but he was fun. He was a retired Lt-Col from a specialist psyops unit, in fact he was the Lt-Col who created it (for the real in-crowd: I'm talking about Lt-Col Mike Aquino). The trick is to somehow manage to present oneself as a great "rebel against the establishment." Obviously this is easier to do from the Right than from the Left. So communicating with someone like that is already an exercise in mutual psychological warfare from the word go. But it can be fun, and you can open up unexpected compartments in your own mind, that you didn't know were there.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 18 2014 18:20 utc | 39
I just found this fun fact on wikipedia: "Slang terms for Lt-Col historically used by the US military include "light colonel," "short colonel," "light bird," "half-colonel", "bottlecap colonel" (referring to the silver oak leaf insignia), and "telephone colonel" (from self-reference as "colonel" when using a telephone). By contrast, full colonels are sometimes referred to (but not addressed) as "full-bird colonels" because of their silver eagle insignia, which are worn facing forward with head and beak pointing towards the wearer's front. Of all US military commissioned officer ranks, only the colonel's eagle has a distinct right and left insignia. All other commissioned officer rank insignia can be worn on either the right or left side."
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 18 2014 18:42 utc | 40
Thanks for the links Virgile
God's wrath on Easter!
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/99359/World/Region/Foreigner-dies-of-MERS-in-Saudi.aspx
Posted by: Mina | Apr 18 2014 19:12 utc | 41
Speaking of Pat Lang's blog there is a good one just up by Ali? titled where is Putin coming from. They have attracted some commentators at that site.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 18 2014 19:26 utc | 42
Rebels funded by Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are doing a useful job at decimating each other
Islamist rebel head killed in Syria, watchdog says
Nusra Front chief Abu Mohammed al-Ansari and his family slaughtered by al-Qaeda breakaway factionRead more: Islamist rebel head killed in Syria, watchdog says | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/islamist-rebel-head-killed-in-syria-watchdog-says/#ixzz2zGoAdPa7
Posted by: Virgile | Apr 18 2014 20:06 utc | 43
Ken [email protected],
Fascism seeks to atomize the working class through the destruction of organized labor during times of capitalist profitability crisis. So those who seek to destroy the Union are Fascists plain and simple. General Strike and an overhaul of the social order is the solution to Fascism.
As Richard Wolf pointed out in his book and in the interview with Bill Moyers, Unions are just part of the pecking order structure of the corporations. The big boss who gets the big bonuses (taken from the workers) makes all the decisions. It is time for work place democracy where everybody has a say and the enterprise is owned by the workers.
A famous person once said, "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." That famous person was Abraham Lincoln, possibly the last decent Republican president.
Posted by: Cynthia | Apr 18 2014 21:17 utc | 45
@44
The Four Horsemen employment does not include Federal and State Contractors, of which there are legions, nor does The Four Horsemen spending include Federal and State deficit debt, nor does it include present value of future obligations or interest-only debt service on those impending debts, nor does it include the The Four Horsemen QEn looting of the Public Treasury and SSTF at $85B a month.
The Four Horsemen are larger than the largest of large 'private' corporations. The Four Horsemen's looting is larger than all the Pharaohs and Pharisees looting, since the beginning of Human Civilization. Put another way, 96 million private-worker Americans are held in thrall to 23 million servants of The Four Horsemen, servants whom a longitudinal study released by Stanford shows only serve the top 1% economic elites, yet who rely on their own salaries and pensions for life on bleeding the last of Americans' life savings.
So yeah, Socialism of The Four Horsemen. Socialism through enforced Client States, and Socialism through locked-down and tax-tithed Client Citizens, all held in thrall to Corporate Elites and Dark Ages Despots, with nary a sigh heard in the media, and never an audit when Mil.Gov.Sci.Edu reports another 'missing' trillion of ours.
E pluribus, what difference does it make?
Now they're boots on the ground in Africa, looting entire nations of their lands and natural resources, burning 100 billion bushels of human food grains, and slash-and-burning 880,000 square miles of the Commons every year, for biofuels billionaires tax credits extorted from Americans. What nation in history burned their own food grains? This is stealth ethnic-cleansing genocide of 100,000,000s of 3W children at risk of Famine.
And that's still not enough looting for them!
Posted by: Chip Nikh | Apr 18 2014 21:49 utc | 46
@46
Chip, at Rowan’s risk of becoming a bore—we deserve rule by the satanic societies because we turned away from God, and there are no churches to flee to even if one does wake in fright.
For the sake for merciful brevity:- about five minutes after Waterloo, our one true Creator and just Judge silently unlatched the shtetls and ghettos of the Pale of Settlement. Over the following fifty years there crept forth, bug-eyed with fear and loathing, the criminally insane victims of Judaism, liberated (“emancipated”) to punish apostate humanity as the hammer of God’s perfectly just revenge. The London cops always knew Jack the Ripper was Aaron Kosminski, died 1919 but hidden by Jews to this day. Beginning the “Jewish century” with the first concentration camps and genocide upon the Boers, it was God who empowered the Talmud crazed Goy haters. Only humanity’s general return to the routine practice of TRUE religion can possibly curb and displace the anti-human power of the very first victims of Judaic deception. Assuredly there is justice in the world.
So bitch, curse and squeal or else admit, weep and kneel—or else.
#47 b calling on b , there is a lunatic lose in the house. What are we supposed to do?
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 19 2014 0:06 utc | 48
the Natasha Poklonskaya machine just keeps rolling on! sex symbol of the Russian Spring?
Crimean prosecutor music clip hits 3.7 mn views in three days http://t.co/QVvlZc583H http://t.co/Oy0HVww7LX
Posted by: brian | Apr 19 2014 1:15 utc | 49
Tove,
Almost everyone shredding the holocaust narrative has been a Jew motivated by fury at having been lied to. Bottom line lie—Jewish blood is not divinely cursed by descent from the God haters who howled, “His blood be upon us…etc.,” because the fictional tribe descends from converted south Russians. This necessitated the maddening/confusing invention, “only if your mother’s a Jew” are you in the separate, superior tribe (thus pre-destined to hell). Garbage.
Nevertheless, “If He turns up again we’ll nail Him up again and send him a bill for the last supper,” id est, Judaism is dynamic anti-religion, the mirror opposite of true religion, so the overwhelming majority have always assimilated.
Vis-a-vis the Empire, what are we supposed to do? Pray the Rosary every day and have a happy Holy Saturday. And remember, only the Micks and Yids can possibly get those 9/11 bastards because no other poor bastard even knows he’s even awake.
Natalya, by the bye is just like Vladimir Vladimiyovich, an offering to frantic humanity from the just good God. Aren't they beautiful.
video.yandex.ru/users/gdl77/view/446/ Линда — Беги
Works every time. right girls?
Posted by: scalawag | Apr 19 2014 3:22 utc | 54
Posted by: Michaël | Apr 18, 2014 9:38:44 PM | 51
"Natalya, by the bye is just like Vladimir Vladimiyovich, an offering to frantic humanity from the just good God. Aren't they beautiful."
I wondered why the "anti-semitism" expressed in this writer's post was tolerated here, while valid anti-zionism of others resulted in the person being banned. Now I know. Having the proper political views with regard to "empire" works wonders on these western propaganda sites.
Posted by: scalawag | Apr 19 2014 3:32 utc | 55
Be fair, scalawag, bernhard is travelling. He said he won't be spending a lot of time looking at this thing for a day or two. So the mice come out to play. Mice with horns. One has to observe a certain farcical quality in all this, some of us butting at the hedge with our horns, and some of trying to butt out but finding our horns have become entangled in the hedge. My whole life has been like that, in one way or another. PS: note to kind & solicitous gentlemen & ladies of the NSA: The reference to butting at hedges is not intended as crypto-bin-ladenism. I don't accept that the tape where UBL supposedly joked about the supposed 9/11 suicide pilots as butting at the twin towers, is even genuine. That's the 'banana nose' video. Come to that, I don't even accept UBL was genuine, or that Zawahiri is genuine. As far as I'm concerned, they're all just false flag artists working for Bandar. Talking of which, your Col Lang's article about Bandar's resignation does not to me suggest a great counter-intelligence wizard at work. To me, the self-evident reading of it is that Bandar has gone off the official radar, the better to pursue his job, which is running AQ right across MENA.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 19 2014 3:51 utc | 56
Is it possible to refer to all these creatively-writing Lt-Cols as "half-bird colonels"? Or is that going too far? Cos they don't have any birds on their shoulders or on their lapels or wherever, not even half ones, they just have bottlecaps.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 19 2014 3:55 utc | 57
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 18, 2014 11:51:30 PM | 56
"Be fair, scalawag"
I'd rather have at least an olive complexion. That yearly initial sunburn sucks ass. ;)
Posted by: scalawag | Apr 19 2014 4:03 utc | 58
"sucks ass. ;)"
Oops. That looks bad. Sorry about that. I don't mean to disrespect the western ruling class and the "how to get ahead in western society" culture that facilitates their rule. Please, NSA, Mossad, Brit public school administrators, etc. pay no attention.
Posted by: scalawag | Apr 19 2014 4:11 utc | 59
@35 chip - enough w/ the 'obama created africom in 2008' nonsense - you were here posting your creative writings when we published the series on its standup linked in the left column on the home page - what's the purpose of your revisionism?
Posted by: b real | Apr 19 2014 4:20 utc | 60
ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said in a statement posted on Jihadi forums:
Al-Qaeda today is no longer a base of Jihad. Its leadership has become a hammer to break the project of the Islamic State. The leaders of al-Qaeda have deviated from the correct path. They have divided the ranks of the Mujahidin in every place.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 19 2014 4:26 utc | 61
It looks like Slavophilia is back, now with Russian government support:
Russia's new culture policy a weapon against West
Tapping into perceived "traditional cultural values" of Russian civilisation, the culture ministry is drawing up a government strategy that observers say has all the trappings of a new state ideology, echoing Soviet legacy.The authors preparing the document, who are kept secret, believe that such a policy must be based on the thesis that "Russia is not Europe" and generously quote from Putin's speeches.
The policy states Russia is at a historical crossroads and must make a choice between cultural extinction or the preservation of its unique "moral and spiritual foundations," which can only be done with a "state culture policy."
An early version of the document has been leaked to the press and is currently being examined by a Kremlin working group chaired by one of President Vladimir Putin's closest allies, chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, a former KGB agent recently blacklisted by the United States.
"Russia is an ancient, independent, distinctive civilisation," culture minister Vladimir Medinsky said at a press conference Wednesday.
In an interview with the Kommersant daily, Medinsky further added that Russia "is forced to culturally protect itself" from the what he sees as the depravities of Europe's contemporary culture.
"Perhaps Russia will be the last keeper of European culture, Christian values and truly European civilisation," said Medinsky.
"The main idea is that we have to defend ourselves from the West, that the West is evil," said political analyst Alexei Makarkin.
- 'Russia is not Europe'
To quote the Wikipedia article on the Slavophiles:
Slavophilia was an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to the influences of Western Europe in Russia.
Typical of the Western press not to give any historical context, and to act as if this is something new.
This move was kind of inevitable, given that with its acquiescence to NATO's destruction of Yugoslavia and now the fanatical support of a fascist coup in the European heartland, Western Europe has shown itself to abandon the rule of law, and hence to no longer stand for European civilization.
If B bans for antisemitism, why has Michael not been blocked?
I mean, Michael is denying the goddamn holocaust. Pragma never did anything approaching that.
Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 19 2014 4:51 utc | 63
@Massinissa #63:
The main reason against the banning of Pragma is that he offered a valuable, unique perspective. But he did basically dare b to ban him, because he continued to make posts in a thread in which b told him to stop going on about Zionism.
I don't think any sensible person thinks that Pragma is antisemitic. But going on constantly about Zionism in a blog that is supposed to be, as far as I can tell, about geopolitics does get tiresome after a while.
There have been very productive discussions here about whether concepts such as "AngloZionism" are useful and productive, but it is not helpful to make the same points over and over.
#64 the juvenile references to ZUS, etc got very tiresome but the other problem with p was his utter lack of sophistication -- many grandiose statements, with much factual (some of it accurate) in these interminably long posts that when distilled down to content were quite empty.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 19 2014 5:28 utc | 65
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 19, 2014 1:28:33 AM | 65
"but the other problem with p was his utter lack of sophistication"
They have so little understanding of how their words and actions reflect upon themselves in the view of the untermenschen.
Posted by: scalawag | Apr 19 2014 5:37 utc | 66
I love this bloody array of actually respectable intellects. But we have been lied to from our cradles.
Right up front I blab the dynamic, one, hated, true religion and dynamic anti-religion—and I don't get banned! That is rare, so I love b. That boy has balls and charity, both virtues from Latin vir:- that man is an actually virile intellect. Viva MoonRise over Alabama! Just don't feed the trolls.
Next venue, the big next crime scene, will be Africa because Ukraina is imminently freed from the satanic Empire, whose principal executives are the schmuks of history, permitted to think it is all a vast ingenious Jewish conspiracy. It's not.
Anti-bullshit-semitism? Gawd. Israel Shahak said that anti-semitism is useful only in the hands of [us] Jews. In other words it is a false flag; only cunning little Goy-haters deface graves etc. with swastikas. Haven’t MofA's read and loved judicial-inc.biz? What dedicated scholarship, what bravery that patriotic American Jewish lawyer persisted and persisted in! He got closed down from way, way upstairs. It was Sauron who needed to shut him up.
The World Hate Establishment’s penultimate deception is that globalist anti-humanity is all a vast evil Jewish conspiracy. Its ultimate deception is that Satan does not exist. So there.
#64 OK I can accept that from you -- you think I am an inferior man, if I translated that correctly.
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 19 2014 6:56 utc | 69
Retweeted Nina Byzantina (@NinaByzantina):
Leader of Donbass resistance: #Slavyansk bans Svoboda, Udar, Batkivshchyna parties & insignia. http://t.co/FIqQvUvLZT
=============
a step also taken by Krimea before its referendum
Posted by: brian | Apr 19 2014 7:11 utc | 70
Nina Byzantina @NinaByzantina 10h
Publicly available map of protests in east #Ukraine (original - ridus.ru) | Военная география Юго-востока. #Украина pic.twitter.com/eS7KE0o0V4
Posted by: brian | Apr 19 2014 7:22 utc | 71
Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 19, 2014 2:56:56 AM | 69
Actually, "Under men" was originally an American concept, the Nazis borrowed it
The revolt against civilization; the menace of the under man (1922)"
He somehow considered Germans racist though
Like Madison Grant (see The Passing of the Great Race), Stoddard divided the white race into three main divisions: Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean. He considered all three to be of good stock and far above the quality of the colored races but argued that the Nordic was the greatest of the three and needed to be preserved by way of eugenics.In The Rising Tide of Color Stoddard blasted the ethnic supremacism of the Germans, blaming the "Teutonic imperialists" for the outbreak of the First World War.[3] He opposed what he saw as the disuniting of White/European peoples through intense nationalism and infighting.
Shows you the weakness of the analysis.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 19 2014 7:29 utc | 72
russkies corrupting locals against the pure ukrainian fatherland?
Nina Byzantina @NinaByzantina · 14h
#Seversk local w/ member of #Donbass people's militia | #Северск - под контролем #ДНР.
https://twitter.com/NinaByzantina/status/457208195543343105/photo/1
#Северск #Донецк #Ukraine
Posted by: brian | Apr 19 2014 8:24 utc | 73
http://rt.com/op-edge/sipri-report-us-defense-costs-392/ Report indicates that US aligned regimes are preparing for war
"Every year the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) releases a study on military spending around the world. This year's report contains many interesting details."
Posted by: scalawag | Apr 19 2014 11:25 utc | 74
a trojan horse? whatever is Snowden up to? lets call out Edward Snowden
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38270.htm
what the hell? another and odd attempt to demonise President Putin from a guy who sought asylum in russia...Snowden is not russian, nor does he work for russia intelligence
id ike to know why he felt the need to ask the question at all? for he can also ask it of france UK germany italy spain canada australia etc etc
Snowden is not russian...nor is he french german austraian italian or lithuanian...
Thos who see Snowden as a deepstate plant in russia now have a bit more evidence
Posted by: brian | Apr 19 2014 11:42 utc | 75
no Mr Edward Snowden President Putin doesnt have to be called to account...certainly not by a person who sought asylum.The Q he asks , the only answer he will accept is: yes russia engages in mass surveillance....any thing else he can claim is a lie.
Posted by: brian | Apr 19 2014 11:56 utc | 76
first south koreas Victor Ahn, then americas Victor Wild now a ukrainian athlete chooses to represent Russia #goodsign...note how they are all fleeing the US and its allies for the land of the really free!
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_19/Ukrainian-pentathlete-Buryak-decides-to-represent-Russian-national-team-9141/
Posted by: brian | Apr 19 2014 12:02 utc | 77
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d08_1397763033 # UI0qMRDGqf8cLftq.99
Ukranian fascist rebels from Right Sector movement killing ex-head of Donetsk police in front of his wife
Posted by: brian | Apr 19 2014 12:08 utc | 78
b did specify up top that this thread shouldn't focus on ukraine news
Posted by: b real | Apr 19 2014 12:30 utc | 80
Why Israel Is Staying On The Sidelines In Ukraine Crisis
Israel has been largely silent about Russia's muscling in on Ukraine. The tiny country — with a Russian Jewish foreign minister — seems to want to preserve its good relations with Moscow.
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/17/304186891/why-israel-is-staying-on-the-sidelines-in-ukraine-crisis
Posted by: Virgile | Apr 19 2014 12:44 utc | 81
brian in prev. thread wrote something about BRICS and finance, wanted to add but it was OT so >
The BRICS + Iran, along with Russia, China, KSA are striving to wrest control of the internet from the US. If one googles news articles, these are all about “an independent internet” and that sounds sorta isolationist and nationalistic, which is the impression one is supposed to get. >> Dilma getting mustard up her nose, :)
But their aim is rather to change the global governance of internet, as it has to be global. China is holding back on the issue - it pretty much controls it’s own internet, not in the sense of the tubes, but the products, as it censors content and bars US products such as Facebouk. India has an ambiguous position (it has been infiltrated by GAFA -1) and the EU is kind of on the fence. It first supported the US, then changed to proffer some complicated scheme all of its own.
Net Mundial will take place in Sao Paolo on 25 April. 46 countries will participate.
The Five Eyes (as they are called: US, GB, Canada, NZ, Aus, they automatically share all their surveillance data) will have to cede in part.
ICCAN (which regulates domain names and the like) is run de facto by the US Sec. of Commerce, so it is a primary target. They heavily favor GAFA. ICCAN will be internationalized. (While its director has stated that Washington will never give up control of the internet.)
> from MSM press. (I have no specialist in or knowledge.)
1. GAFA. Google, Apple, Facebouk, Amazon - a kind of shorthand for large US corps that use, shape or exploit the internets.
Posted by: Noirette | Apr 19 2014 14:22 utc | 82
One in Five American Children Don't Have Enough to Eat.
Hmmm, I wonder if sparking another Cold War would give all of those hungry useless brats a means to getting some rations. Gee, if we just could get another "Pearl Harbor" type event to really kick the whole thing off. What to do, what to do?
Paging central casting...central casting...Oleg Bogdan Ladenov report to HQ.
In other news: Former Yahoo executive to collect nearly $110 million for 15 months of work
Now, an outsider might think that the simultaneity of these two disparate situations would be the catalyst for great social change and upheaval, that long abandoned ideas of class consciousness etc would be be once again at the forefront of the minds of the common peon and that change was right around the corner.
Not in Daydream Nation America, sucka!! The fucking NBA and NHL playoffs are on!!!!
Posted by: JSorrentine | Apr 19 2014 14:26 utc | 83
Ever wonder where all those "information jobs" - hold your laughter - are that were promised you during the lead up to NAFTA and other assorted neoliberal abominations in 90s? Why, here's your answer, pissants!!!
The willing - yet like totally hep and kewel - handmaidens of the neoliberal takeover the planet - that's right, the TECH SECTOR - is thinking of ways to employ you worthless pieces of shit by turning you into walking Wifi hotspots or sweat-shop coders!!!
You can't eat, don't have a place to live and your entire society is crumbling into shit but thank fucking god you know the rudiments of C++, motherfuckers!!! Marx? Try some JQuery UI or Ruby on Rails, worthless bitches!!!
Posted by: JSorrentine | Apr 19 2014 14:41 utc | 84
More news on how pathetic Poland is and how embarrassingly obsequious their leadership is to The Pimpagon.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Apr 19 2014 14:52 utc | 85
Marx, Engels, the proletariat, and so on.
- I am willing to debate opposing or different political doctrines of the mega-arching types, maybe thru e mail?
Charles Hugh Smith, April 2014:
What is the difference between Fascism, Communism, and Crony Capitalism? Nothing.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr14/crony-tax4-14.html
(not that I agree with all he writes, or disagree strongly with this or that, many sentences could lead to 3 pages of discussion.)
Posted by: Noirette | Apr 19 2014 14:58 utc | 86
The proper slang for Lt.Colonel is Chicken Col.I believe.
Oh,God,or Bernhard,don't listen to the Zionists hating comments which expose their total virulent racism and lack of concern for others.There's enough controlled sites for the Zionists to feel secure about.(The whole MSM.)
Over at the Graun,they have a bunch of alleged liberals groaning about Stormfront(never went there in my life),and that possible link to the idiot Miller,who shot Christians instead of his alleged targets Jews,with support of that SPLC,run by Zionist racist Jews.My God,the disconnect from reality of these liberals who support the govts total overreach in the rancher Bundys case,they can't see the out of control connection between the govts actions there and internationally.I mean,total hypocrisy writ large.And that clown Miller?,was a FBI informant at one time,in an unsuccessful attempt at putting other alleged troublemakers in jail.Red Herring?Nothing would surprise me today,and these Zionists here,protesting about words spoken which belittle and accuse Jews of whatever,if these accusations are unconnected from reality,they would crash under the weight of that unreality,and be laughable.But of course,even in the most virulent statements there are many instances of truth,which of course is the rub they don't like.
The Holocaust;I have never met anyone who claimed that Hitler didn't put his political enemies in jail while fighting the world.And that many,many innocents died.It's the method of their deaths that raises questions,as gassing victims in closed camps would make a lot of stink(sic)to their fellow inmates(how do you remove a 100?stiffs from a shower WO anyone catching on?),which in turn would create absolute resistance and mayhem in such a camp,but I've never ever heard of a CC breakout.Why is that?Sounds like a one sided tale to me,as usual here in America(and Western world).Makes a good excuse for creating a nation(Israel)from another eh.
Posted by: dahoit | Apr 19 2014 15:18 utc | 87
81;They are letting their American brethren fellow neolibcon Zionists do the heavy anti Russian lifting.This way,though I'm sure Russia is aware of it,they can play both sides of the street.But to think the Israelis don't have a dog in this fight is laughable.And that dog is international capitalism,along with their historical enmity,which of course include Ukrainians also.
Posted by: dahoit | Apr 19 2014 15:28 utc | 88
#5;Organized labor in this ongoing recession(that our poohbahs keep saying we have turned the corner on?)is on the outside looking in,and has become silent.And the employers are creating worse working conditions,taking away rights and benefits and screwing the American worker.Work retail today?Sales goals,# hours to claim health benefits,blocked out days you can't take off WO penalty,points systems for sick time,and cutthroat fellow workers stealing sales while being exploited also.All this in a time of job shortage.And who are the CEOs of most of these chains?And all the other wealth stealing corporate criminals?Slavers all.
Posted by: dahoit | Apr 19 2014 15:39 utc | 89
75:My take on Snowdens talk about Putin is he is trying to regain his corrupt accusers trust in his evenhandedness.Impossible task,as most of his critics have a neolibcon(and shh...Zionists-wait,I bet you haven't noticed the Zionists have supported every terrible decision,of which it would take an hour to list, made by US in the last 13 years,and before,)bias against exposing their sh*tstained panties.
Posted by: dahoit | Apr 19 2014 16:04 utc | 90
20,23;Jesus, and churches,and church members,are not the same.If the modern church had any real belief in JC,they would follow His teachings.The NY Cardinal just reenacted the Procession,but his silence on everything about our war of terror belies his actions.And almost nationwide,its the same.I think it's just cowardice on these churches,as with falling attendance,they are afraid of losing more congregants,when I believe its the opposite, church hypocrisy,that drives the people away.I wish Pope Francis could influence his members more,we will see.
Posted by: dahoit | Apr 19 2014 16:33 utc | 91
Obama signs ‘terrorist activity’ law aimed at barring Iranian U.N. envoy | The Raw Story
President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a bill barring U.S. visas for U.N. envoys seen as a threat to American security or having engaged in “terrorist activity” — a measure aimed at Iran’s ambassador.
Obama however said in a statement that the measure should be taken as an “advisory,” because it could potentially interfere with his “constitutional discretion” to receive or reject ambassadors.
The United States said earlier this week that it would not issue a visa to Iran’s chosen U.N. envoy Hamid Aboutalebi because he was involved in the 1979 hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Posted by: Fran | Apr 19 2014 17:16 utc | 92
@86
I read that piece the other day and the author is usually featured on the libertarian financial site ZeroHedge. While saying crony capitalism and fascism are one and the same is not very enlightening as it's basically a tautological statement, I believe that the author shows his true propagandist colors when he weekly tries to shoehorn China into the discussion as an example of Communism as by doing so it reinforces the ignorant - but prevalent - propagandistic meme that has been circulating ever since the financial crisis - which btw was when ZeroHedge first appeared - namely that there is NO NIL ZIP NADA difference between fascism and communism.
Living in the US, a person is confronted with complete rewrites of reality on a constant basis and that extends obviously to every sphere of human thought - e.g., science, history, political philosophy, etc. - so when I first heard the "fascism = communism" meme I simply wrote it off as ignorant American fuckheads displaying their true colors. "Hey, it was National SOCIALISM!11!!", screamed the retards. However, over the last 5 years, nominally "libertarian" sites like ZH and others have consistently and continuously pushed this meme so as to muddy the waters and waylay any true honest investigation/discussion of the differences between opposing political systems of thought especially ones that might make the life of the peon a bit less harsh/exploited. Gee, I wonder why TPTB would want that?
By holding up modern China as an example of Communism, Smith expressly shows us that he is fucking propagandist scum inhabiting the more clever of propagandist echelons as the peon is then seemingly left with NO OPTIONS as to how they could potentially reorder or rethink their society.
Fascism? No, that's the Nazis and the US isn't like the Nazis! We're just spreading democracy, bitches!
Communism (and this in Americanese means the exact same thing as all forms of socialism, natch)? Well, Stalin killed 34 trillion people and look at the Chinese! Boo hiss.
Thus, Hughes, like a good bootlicker, cleverly leaves his readers to ponder "crony" capitalism - as if it's not capitalism itself that's the fucking inherent problem just the "crony" part.
Whew, thank baby Jesus, Smith is around to help pick up my spirits or as a peon I would have started to think that there might have been something wrong with capitalism as a whole. Shudder.
Yup, if we just reformed the fucking tax code why THEN THEN there would be peace on Earth, people could finally stop whoring out their daughters to eat and we could have good-natured pickup basketball games in the park between bankers and food stamp recipients. Suits versus skins?
What a fucking maroon Marx was wasting his entire life talking about the inherent inhuman ends of capitalism when the answer was there for all to see plain as day in the...TAX CODE!
Obviously, on another level of thinking than Marx entirely (so deep you'd never find him), Smith NAILED IT and I always look forward to him pithily solving more of the world's problems with tactics that somehow - gee willikers - leave the overall capitalistic superstructure in place. Praise the BABY JEZUS!!1!
It's just "crony" wage-slavery that's the problem, folks! See what I did there?
Posted by: JSorrentine | Apr 19 2014 17:26 utc | 93
Ukraine’s security services claim to have arrested more than a dozen Russian operatives and intercepted phone calls that reveal the unrest is co-ordinated by Russian intelligence agents
-- http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/donetsk-s-pro-russians-defending-our-people-from-fascists-and-the-west-1.1763095
Anyone who can definitively nail the above allegations? I have seen zero proof of what Obama and Kerry are saying about Russian "subversion", and this unsourced allegation is the closest I have seen.
Snowden got too pussy it seems. He didnt dare standing up to the neocons and critics in the west for staying in Russia.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/18/vladimir-putin-surveillance-us-leaders-snowden
Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 19 2014 19:18 utc | 95
@93
Sometimes I think your posts are obnoxious, but I love this one, its great.
Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 19 2014 19:49 utc | 96
@Anonymous #95:
Well, writing that piece for the Guardian didn't do Snowden much good. The Atlantic still hates him:
The very idea that there's a comparison to be made between electronic surveillance carried out by Russia and the unconstitutional activities of the NSA is preposterous: Russia simply doesn't have anything near the same amount of money to spend on spying on everyone the way the NSA has. The USG's defense budget is eight times Russia's, and it's reasonable to suppose that the same holds for their respective electronic surveillance budgets.
Also, what that hack writing for the Atlantic overlooks is because the Russian system of government is not nearly as corrupt and lawless as the USG, there will never be a Russian Snowden, who reveals how the RF engages in spying because he is so disgusted by it.
@97 Well there might be someone similar for, I dont know, domestic corruption or something, but certainly not surveillance, because Russia isnt a goddamn Panopticon like the USA is.
Well, not yet. Maybe theyre working on it and it will be a goddamn competing panopticon state like the USA in 10 years time. But not yet.
Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 19 2014 20:06 utc | 98
@Massinissa #98:
As I'm sure you know, the idea of a panopticon was an invention of the English utilitarian Jeremy Bentham. No country has as much closed circuit TV cameras deployed across it (by the government) as Britain. So this obsession with univeral surveillance appears to be specifically anglophone.
Second, Russia does not have the kind of military industrial complex that the US does. Besides an obsession with universal surveillance, what drives the NSA is the greed of private contractors.
So I don't think that Russia is ever going to become a panopticon state like the US or UK.
To get back to Snowden, Jessica Radick has a piece on how he is being smeared again.
97
Exactly, he is forever doomed by the western warmongers, now he showed weakness too, he need to be more strategic.
Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 19 2014 20:24 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Someone on the last thread cited Marx as having said that the victory of the (global) proletariat was "inevitable". I'm not content with this, and I shall explain briefly why. It's very easy to reconstruct Marx's train of thought on this, because he expands on it repeatedly. So it is equally easy to show that it rests on assumptions which are far from secure. A much better formula is Rosa Luxemburg's "socialism or barbarism," because barbarism is a permanent possibility. The contradiction which afflicts the proletariat may indeed be predicted to grow more and more pregnant with revolution, as long as any particular cycle of capitalist accumulation continues. But it is always possible for the capitalist class, the ruling class that is, to escape the contradiction and its consequences by starting major wars. These destroy the industrial capital base of entire countries, pushing them back up to 50 years in their levels of development. Thus, the global capitalist class gets a breather while it rebuilds the shattered industries of the devastated countries, which will be more labour-intensive than otherwise they would have been, and thus will yield higher profits. An excellent example is the so-called "German post-WW2 economic miracle." But after 10 or 20 years of boom, the shattered country will have been brought back up to the equivalent level of industrial development, labour productivity, and capital-intensiveness, so its profit rates will fall back to the norm. At this point, another war is indicated. At the limit, a complete devastation of the entire habitable globe would produce (assuming the species survived at all) hundreds of years of industrial development with all the joys associated therewith, first and foremost labour-intensivity, because the species would be starting again almost from sticks and stones, but under global capitalist controls. Thus, "socialism or barbarism".
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Apr 17 2014 11:52 utc | 1