teri 36
I believe the US is moving from dollar hegemony to energy dominance. Energy dominance is the physical control of a large portion of the worlds oil. This will then give the US control over Asia, China specifically, and Europe.
If this is the plan, which I think it is, then the US and Russia would control a very large portion of the worlds oil.
I believe Trum,p’s overtures to Russia is in relation to this rather than good intentions for a fair world. Under what I think is Trump ands Kissinger’s plan, is that Russia and the US become allies, form a cartel. For the US, oil production that they cannot take control of as in revenues going directly to the US, would be destroyed. Russia is the only major oil producing nation where the US cannot militarily destroy or halt oil production.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 9 2019 4:03 utc | 104

The US became the dollar hegemon immediately following WWII. I have read US came out of WWII with 75% of the worlds wealth. This was coming to an end in the late sixties and early seventies.
Kissinger kicked off the strategy for the petro dollar, which would extend the life of US dollar hegemony, when oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay.
It took around ten years to complete the strategy, the deal with the Saudi’s was the first part, a price spie was required to force legislation through so the trans-Alaska pipeline could be constructed, The Iranian revolution was kicked of only a couple of weeks after the first barrel of oil came through the pipeline causing oil prices to skyrocket and all countries then requiring lots of US dollar to pay high prices for oil.
The trans-alaska pipeline was running at full capacity by 1980-81 when the last of the pumps were installed.
The petro-dollar was essentially a limitless credit card which the US have used to extend the period of dollar hegemony.
A chart of US debt. There are many charts like this. All show US debt skyrocketing at this point. Note the 1982 point on the chart. This skyrocketing debt has all been on the petrodollar credit card.
https://www.darrinqualman.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/US-national-debt-graph-historic.png
Trump and whatever faction of the US elite backing him see that dollar hegemony has run its course, the debt needs to be offloaded, and the US needs a new game to maintain its domination of the world. Energy dominance will be an in your face mafia style extortion racket.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 9 2019 4:28 utc | 106

Pft @ 72:
“… Third, [Christianity] gave us institutions like hospitals, universities, chartered corporations and promoted science contrary to the popular history that is biased by anti-catholicism in US/UK …”
Sorry to disturb your reverie but the modern institution of the hospital is based on models developed in the Islamic world from the early ninth century onwards. Hospitals in cities as far apart as Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba (during Muslim rule) and in-between were subdivided into departments according to the types of diseases and health conditions treated, and employed administrative staff to ensure medical treatment and hygienic standards were adhered to. Hospitals were funded by endowments from the state (caliph, sultan; in Ottoman times, they were often funded by the mothers and wives of the sultan) or wealthy individuals. Women patients could be treated by women physicians and hospitals employed male nurses to care for male patients and female nurses to look after female patients. Hospitals also had medical schools and medical libraries attached to them, and provided lectures and hands-on training to students wishing to become physicians.
David W Tschanz, “The Islamic Roots of the Modern Hospital” (March / April 2017)
https://www.aramcoworld.com/en-US/Articles/March-2017/The-Islamic-Roots-of-the-Modern-Hospital
“Islamic Culture and the Medical Arts: Hospitals”
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/islamic_medical/islamic_12.html
There are some who assert that the model of the scientific method is based in part on the practice of verifying sayings (hadith) of the Prophet Mohammed, the practice involving verifying where a known hadith first appeared, the bona fides of who said or quoted that hadith, then tracing where that person heard or found about that hadith, and whether the chain of sources going back to the Prophet himself can be further substantiated with other, independent sources; but the history of the development of the scientific method has many roots going back to Aristotle, not just to Islamic scientific inquiry during the the mediaeval age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method

Posted by: Jen | Feb 9 2019 4:37 utc | 108

the poster KC on a previous venezuala thread, left a great article on the topic of food and venezuala that is well worth reading.. here’s the link..
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/06/01/the-politics-of-food-in-venezuela/

Posted by: james | Feb 9 2019 4:48 utc | 110

Jen @ 107; Nice and very informative links. Thanks!!

Posted by: ben | Feb 9 2019 5:35 utc | 112

@ Jen 27
Going by the logic of your argument, if you were living in Britain and were a Labour Party supporter, you sound very much as if you don’t care much for Jeremy Corbyn and his platform for improving the lives of the British people at all; and instead you support the Blairite faction in that party that opposes him and supports current British foreign policy as pursued by Theresa May’s government, and also supports the neoliberal austerity programs driving British people into poverty.
Equally if you were living in Venezuela, you would not have been too impressed with previous President Hugo Chavez’s policies to uplift the living standards and education of the bulk of Venezuelans and to diversify the Venezuelan economy away from over-dependence on extracting oil and exporting it in its raw state.
“… Humans evolved to be tight-knit social primates acting automatically as a group, and automatically enmeshed within the ecological web …”
Sounds like a perfect description of the groupthink and behaviour of the primates in Washington DC and those surrounding the Chief Orangutan in particular.
If you find anything about any aspect of the US government (or any government) to be ecologically healthy (as your reply indicates you do), you’re hallucinating. The same with your ridiculous crack about the Blair/May destroyers of the Earth.
But to speak seriously, as I’ve already said here several times I don’t see much to choose between e.g. Bolivarians destroying the Amazon to extract the heavy oil and any US-friendly regime doing so. The same goes for any other version of “do you want destruction or destruction?”. The productionist extreme energy civilization itself, the religious insanity of “growth” aka cancer itself, is inherently all-destructive, including of humanity. The historical record is crystal clear on that.

Posted by: Russ | Feb 9 2019 6:12 utc | 114

Jen@107
Thanks for the links. Point of fact is that no civilian hospitals existed in the Roman empire until the Christian period. These were established and run by the church/monasteries. Western Europe was far behind the East in many things, the church played a big role in them catching up.

Posted by: Pft | Feb 9 2019 6:34 utc | 116

@ mourning dove #93
A People’s History Of The United States
This book is like “wiki”, a good place to start for beginners. I discarded my copy several years ago because I found it to be a strange combination of hysterical and shallow. Zinn’s coverage of WW2 demonstrated to me he was much better at moralizing than writing useful history.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Feb 9 2019 7:14 utc | 118

For those who found interesting the 2018 Monthly Review piece on Venezuela’s food predicament, here’s their 2009 issue devoted to imperialism and the global food crisis.
https://monthlyreview.org/archives/2009/volume-61-issue-03-july-august-2009/
It includes a piece on Venezuela co-written by one of the same authors as the 2018 piece.
https://monthlyreview.org/2009/07/01/the-venezuelan-effort-to-build-a-new-food-and-agriculture-system/
So you can compare the outlook in 2009 with that in 2018.

Posted by: Russ | Feb 9 2019 7:45 utc | 120

>>>: crowleigh | Feb 8, 2019 5:47:04 PM | 40

low yield nukes have been use (sic) in syria iraq and yemen dialed way down

Rubbish. By their very nature low-yield nuclear weapons rely on the fission reaction and that produces plentiful indicators of various elements that one has occurred. If one had been used it would have been detected by now. The same would apply to a pure fusion device if they even exist.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Feb 9 2019 10:47 utc | 122

@43 English Outsider
That was a good summary. To which I would like to add my tuppence worth. I voted Leave, as many I know did due to the fundamental incompatibility between our Constitution and the various Treaties, those Treaties were and still are unlawful. A Leave vote was not a choice but a duty.

Posted by: TJ | Feb 9 2019 11:07 utc | 124

Meanwhile, the global community, whatever that is, is prepared to accept the results of a an obviously corrupt election in the DRC.

the Congolese people may turn to other methods to overturn the unbearable status quo, in which the vast majority of the population wallows in poverty while those at the summit of the state amass fortunes.
……
The international community has invested many billions of dollars in DRC over the past two decades to try to stabilise the country and the region, and to steer the republic towards a democratic, just and prosperous future.

Which translate as we’ve invested billions so we can rip off the country but are quite happy for the elite to do so as well. A suitably neo-liberal approach.
No accusations of Russian or Chinese involvement but they will come when the lower orders turn to “other methods”.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Feb 9 2019 11:38 utc | 126

Jen @ 120
“Thanks a lot for sullying my comments @ 15 and 27 with your crackpot hysterical assumptions that I was advocating the Ayn-Randian concept of the “individual” and “individualism””
Then thanks in return for ignoring everything I said in my (brief) comment about tight-knit traditional and ecological holism, instead smearing me by hysterically claiming that what I said had even the slightest thing in common with the eco-destructive mass society I explicitly denounced.
As for individualism, I say again Randroidism is inherent in the original liberal so-called “enlightenment” notion. As of course it has to be, since liberal individualism was part and parcel with the rest of the bourgeois capitalist, private-individual ideology. Randroidism is just taking the logic to its logical end, once one disposes of utopian notions about capitalism and government policing themselves, or the people remaining eternally vigilant.
“Do you realise what these agricultural collectives would be doing, in an ideal socialist economy and society?”
As one who’s been active in the community food movement for ten years now including as an agroecological farmer, and who has written scores of pieces on the need for humanity to abolish industrial agriculture and transform globally to agroecology and food sovereignty, I think I realize it pretty well.
“This assumes a view of humans as having the capacity to change themselves and aspects of their nature, if not their nature entirely, and to improve their lives and the lives of others.”
I agree with that and pretty much everything you said (except the implication that mass societies and governments ever can be anything but destructive). But it’s clear that modern individualism was a wrong turn and that the kind of movements we need must get past it. I reject monotheism as well, especially organized monotheism, on many grounds, but its alleged hostility to the modern individual isn’t one of them. On the contrary, and like I said @114 above, organized religion is merely one of the many things which has become the playground of individualist decadence, therefore aiding the elites who work to control it against the people, as groups and as biological individuals.

Posted by: Russ | Feb 9 2019 11:47 utc | 128

Ghost Ship 124
It will be good if your comment turns out to be correct.
My opinion on Trump’s attitude to NATO, NK ect. These are cold war relics serving no useful purpose, a drain on US finance. He is pragmatic enough to know the US cannot launch a military attack on Russia or China and survive. An attack on NK is an attack on China, and rather than peasants with rifle that drove the US back last time, China is now a high tech military. NK does have rare earth minerals which the US needs, but that is out of reach.
Russia is no threat financially or militarily to the US other than its vision for the world.
China’s economy is the number one threat the US faces. China’s achilles heel is oil – energy. I think this is why there is a difference in Trump’s attitude to the likes of NATO and NK as compared to Iran and Venezuela.
Earlier Trump appeared to be simply scrapping everything put in place by Obama, but I have started noticing a few things that Obama had started or put in place in regards foreign policy that Trump is using or expanding on.
What I think we are seeing is anything not useful for the new direction Trump or the people behind intend to America being discarded.
Any of the WWII and cold war relics that serve no purpose in the new strategy will go, similarly, systems to enforce dollar hegemony and the petro dollar that extended the life of it, will also go, if they are not useful for the new strategy.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 9 2019 12:04 utc | 130

John 128
“well, if you were a poor Venezuelan you might, though sure, ultimately, ecocide is ecocide.”
The rural poor always suffer the worst in the extraction zone. Usually the urban poor of the extractivist state suffer directly as well. The political class, of whatever persuasion whether de jure capitalist or nominally socialist or what have you, those who actually benefit from the extraction, always suffer last, and so far really haven’t suffered at all though in the long run there’s nowhere to hide.
Globally, the effects of deforestation and climate change, in this case the global effects of the destruction of the Amazon in Venezuela and Brazil and elsewhere, will be felt most immediately and short-run severely by the poor everywhere.
This globalized production-consumption system has us all trapped good and hard, and there’s no “good” position which can be objectively good for the poor. There’s only better or worse. But I think my position is at least the least bad, since every other position wants to continue the death march.

Posted by: Russ | Feb 9 2019 12:25 utc | 132

I just checked the location of the belt in relation to forest at the eastern end and the heavy oil belt does not reach forested country. The western end is on country in which the only vegetation is in water courses and appears to be either infertile or too rocky for vegetation, natural or farmed.
b conveniently has a map of Venezuela’s oilfield at the to of the previous thread.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 9 2019 12:47 utc | 134

Zachary Smith@117
You aren’t someone that I would consider to have any moral credibility. You demonstrated your warped and racist worldview in a previous thread when you made a comment about the “towelheads” in Iran and what happens when religious nuts run a country. Well, religious nuts are running the US and Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran, unlike the others isn’t invading or occupying or bombing or starving or threatening any other nation or peoples. But I guess I’m just moralizing, right?
This is just a gut feeling but I don’t believe that you’ve actually read the book, despite your vapid and dismissive “critique”. If you had read it you’d know that it is very thoroughly researched and documented. I kinda doubt if you even owned it, but who knows? Maybe it was a gift, I still don’t believe you read it.
As to your claim that Howard Zinn was moralizing, morality absolutely has a place in an honest accounting of history. Removing it is the first step to sanitizing, whitewashing, and idealizing history to create a false paradigm. In the context of US history, that false paradigm states that the framers of the constitution were high minded individuals who had noble aims and intentions. It also states that the constitution itself is a sacred document because those lofty ideals were enshrined in it making the US a force for good in the world. The false paradigm of US history also states that dropping nuclear bombs on civilian targets in Japan “saved” rather than destroyed millions of lives. “War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Slavery is Freedom.”

Posted by: mourning dove | Feb 9 2019 13:34 utc | 136

Peter 130
I knew Venezuela has one of the worst deforestation rates on earth and I knew they have an oil sands extraction zone like that ravaging the forests of Canada. So I assumed the oil zone was part of the deforestation zone. If I was mistaken about the location of the heavy oil destruction zone, I wasn’t about Venezuela’s deforestation for the sake of high-impact commodity extraction, nor about the country’s dependency on globalized commodity markets controlled by hostile powers.
“Cattle ranching is the biggest driver of deforestation in Venezuela. In the 1980s and 1990s, gold mining and logging were important causes of deforestation and forest degradation, but logging has dwindled in recent years. Gold mining still causes intense damage where it occurs, but limited to southern reaches of the country. There is potential to expand coal and bauxite mining in the country, potentially putting forests at risk.”
https://rainforests.mongabay.com/20venezuela.htm
These plus oil extraction all are modes of self-destructive dependency, and the forest is being destroyed, and the oil will be refined and burned. So if I made one technical error, that doesn’t affect any of my points. But thanks for correction on the error.

Posted by: Russ | Feb 9 2019 13:57 utc | 138

“Cattle ranching is the biggest driver of deforestation in Venezuela.”
Imagine eliminating the ranching, thus reducing the deforestation rate, while putting any ecologically appropriate ranchland into food production (not export commodities, but food for people). That’s sane, and prevented by nothing but violent insanity.

Posted by: Russ | Feb 9 2019 14:12 utc | 140

That should have read ‘remunerated by’ in the second last sentence @140

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 9 2019 14:35 utc | 142

>>>> Peter AU 1 | Feb 9, 2019 8:09:03 AM | 134
I doubt that there are just two foreign policy factions in the United States and what the American people think is even harder to fathom, particularly when the consequences aren’t spelled out to them. That it’s more than two centuries since any external war the United States was involved in impacted on the contiguous United States except in the most trivial way probably explains a lot as does the exceptionalist narrative presented by the MSM.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Feb 9 2019 14:58 utc | 144

psychohistorian at 2, interesting.
Michael Snyder is a sorta USA Christian survivalist.. I d k exactly, see his popular blog, his advertised books, e.g. the Rapture Verdict (book) He was a Repub. candidate in Idaho, 2018. Some good articles were pub. on that blog.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
Zero Hedge quotes another blog of his, the End of the American dream
http://endoftheamericandream.com
(top post is about mystery booms and mysterious flashes of light)
Such interfaith moves reflect a need to shore up the bastions and get together to keep some of the ‘faithful’ on board, under the same umbrella, prompted by waning influence. The message is togetherness, cohesion, brother-sister-hood, anti-war, love for the poor. (Ok, yes, ..)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/04/pope-and-grand-imam-sign-historic-pledge-of-fraternity-in-uae
The Orthodox church has split, the Ukrainian Church is now independent of the Moscow Patriarchy. Clearly, a Poroshenko symbolic move against Russia (hating and opposing Russia keeps the IMF and others shelling out, this religious thing cost nothing), no adherents were consulted, afaik.
In short, religious leaders are entirely dependent on world geo-politics and can’t pretend otherwise any longer. (Exceptions: KSA for ex.)
The one-world religion thing goes in the direction of the Kalergi plan (as it is called today.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Coudenhove-Kalergi
I’m an atheist and know little about religious matters so am happy to be corrected to become better informed.

Posted by: Noirette | Feb 9 2019 15:22 utc | 146

@110 psychohistorian… how to we get from private to public finance? i am glad you enjoyed that article.. i thought it was quite informative..

Posted by: james | Feb 9 2019 15:50 utc | 148

@ snake | Feb 9, 2019 6:43:41 AM | 126
Re the US Constitution as a set of basic rules: Note first that I am not saying that the laws – rules – of the US Constitution are sufficient, well stated, or reflect what I would consider to be a sensible and well crafted Constitution. But it does lay out the rule of law foundation – the laws given primary status – for the people of the United States.
For example, the US Constitution’s Article XVI gives all Americans a right to vote that “shall not be denied … on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Well, that is not as robust a rule protecting the right to vote as I would prefer, even when it had added to it by Article XIX “shall not be denied … on account of sex.” And there are other Constitutional rules pertaining to the right to vote.
I would prefer something more direct, conclusive and inclusive like “All citizens [of a certain age] have the right to vote. Or, the right to vote shall not be denied to citizens.” I would also prefer a Constitutional inclusion of a very strong protection of voting procedure, and a strong guard against voting fraud.
So again, from my perspective, the rules in place in regards to the right to vote in the US are far from what I would prefer but:
Those are the rules, the law, in place for Americans in regards to voting rights.
In practice, many people in the United States have been denied the right to vote.
Now similarly, “the right to bear arms” is a Constitutionally guaranteed right. Note I am not denigrating or advocating that right. But that ‘rule’ is given robust basic status by the US Constitution.
Article I declares a very robust legal right to freedom of speech. It essentially says: the law cannot be used to restrict your freedom of speech. This is actually quite unusual; many societies have tended through legal language to restrict the right to freedom of speech.
But in practice again freedom of speech in the United States has been severely restricted, undermined, attacked, etc.
Constitutions will potentially protect implicit rights or allow implicit infringements of rights far beyond the particular language used.
If a Constitution declares say that there shall be no torture, implied is that a very wide range of behavior has been made illegal. So for example, implied is the right to not be questioned by police in a brutal manner, with sleep deprivation etc. So Constitutions typically don’t micromanage details, but they are in effect included. And the realm of implications enters into the realm of human discretion, debate, reflection etc.

Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Feb 9 2019 15:58 utc | 150

London Review of Books has taken down the paywall – for today at least – for what looks like an interesting article on Brazil: Bolsonaro’s Brazil by Perry Anderson,Vol. 41 No. 3 • 7 February 2019. Normally, I read the whole article before posting about it but with the paywall down (for now) and with the article being 17270 words in length, I thought I’d post now.

Posted by: spudski | Feb 9 2019 16:13 utc | 152

The Mexican Constitution has indeed been most welcome in the South since it invited
the diverse communities to develop in accordance with their own respectable traditions.
The idea of having a right by law is generally pleasing to the common citizen,
and it is conditioning the population to become constructive and cooperative.
Article 2 states that Mexico is pluricultural, and that indigenous peoples own their own cultural identity and that it is protected by law. Article 3 of the Constitution states that every Mexican has the right to education and that which the State imparts must tend to develop all the faculties of the human being, including love for the country and respect for the rights of other citizens.
Additionally, a Labor Law was established governing employer employee relations and
guaranteeing the rights and benefits of the workers and the obligations of employers.
Article 1 states: “Slavery is prohibited in the United Mexican States.
Foreign slaves who enter the national territory will, by that fact alone,
attain their freedom and the protection of the laws.”
Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution begins thus:
“The ownership of lands and waters included within the limits
of the national territory, correspond originally to the Nation.”
So, apparently, Mexico has the resources to do what it wants and the people have already paid their share of blood in the Revolution; it was supposed that, on account of the sacrifices of her patriots, Mexican rights were universally regarded as well-earned.

Posted by: Guerrero | Feb 9 2019 16:51 utc | 154

Peter 140
I sure don’t expect undeveloped places to forego whatever development they’re able to carry out, at least not on account of any exhortations from the hypocrite and predatory West. Though it would be best if they listened to their own native voices urging them to avoid the trap, such as Latin America’s Via Campesina or Africa’s homegrown food sovereignty movement which warns against Western-dominated agricultural colonization. Of course all participation in the global commodity system will always be on the terms of a handful of Western banks, governments, and globalization cadres like the World Bank. Under no circumstance will any lesser power have any agency within that system.
However, when I speak of colonized places, I mean America, its places and regular people, every bit as much as a place like Venezuela. America’s fracking zones, coal mining zones, pipeline zones, CAFO zones, logging zones, and so on all are colonized as surely as the global South (though most Americans remain oblivious to it, the way southern peoples aren’t).
So my target is the monolithic globalization system and all its lackey organizations – governments, etc. – and the colonized peoples are everyone else, everywhere.

Posted by: Russ | Feb 9 2019 17:27 utc | 156

@150 virgile – i am not sure how confident b is either at this point…
@153 noirette.. when will it ever end?

Posted by: james | Feb 9 2019 17:56 utc | 158

To mourning dove @ 62 who writes:
“…that blood drenched document. I can’t separate my feelings about the constitution and it’s framers from the genocides of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans. How many millions were killed to establish this republic?…”
It is an historical fact, researched and revealed more and more in later times up to the present that the sufferings of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans did indeed take place when this country was colonized. And indeed there needs to be an awareness of this consequence of the European settlements and the tragedies which ensued. However, you cannot blame the Constitution and its framers for this happening. Indeed, mankind itself is at fault for not caring for its fellow creatures in better ways – there are plenty of examples of man’s inhumanity to man. We, all of us, are charged to rise above such examples.
The Constitution does follow the Declaration of Independence and it does incorporate the Bill of Rights – but it is not bloodsoaked. It is an attempt to create a government that is fair, and no, we don’t enshrine it because it is based on practical necessity and full of compromises. It is, as is evident, an imperfect document. We are human beings full of human frailties but also capable of rising above our imperfections and trying for better government. It won’t ever be perfect. But it can be better. The Constitution is a wise foundation on which to build; it is far better than having none at all, believe me it is.

Posted by: juliania | Feb 9 2019 18:23 utc | 160

Thank you Peter AU 1 @ 97.
I was also thinking of an opinion piece written by Putin in the New York Times, September 12, 2013, “A Plea for Caution from Russia on Syria” which is still available online. Here are the final sentences:
“…There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

Posted by: juliania | Feb 9 2019 18:57 utc | 162

@ dahoit | Feb 9, 2019 1:43:22 PM | 160
“nyt;Germany built biggest spy complex in the world.merkle will have to face the German wrath.”
Could you be so nice to explain what you mean?

Posted by: Hausmeister | Feb 9 2019 19:27 utc | 164

Saw an article at yahoo news about the coming showdown between Israel’s air force
and the S-300s. The article mentions that the pantsirs and buks underperformed.
This is not a problem, since the Syrians can use the buks and pantsirs to exhaust
the Israeli ecm and then the S-300s can deliver the fatal blow.

Posted by: evilempire | Feb 9 2019 19:41 utc | 166

and…. a link to it – https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n03/perry-anderson/bolsonaros-brazil

Posted by: james | Feb 9 2019 19:48 utc | 168

Peter AU 1 @ 140 Indeed, the US ought to have a program similar to the one it had during the New Deal era, creating jobs all over the country to plant trees. Especially there should be such now not just for national parks but for every agricultural area. Not only wetlands and native grass habitats but forestry, as native to the different areas as are climatically possible. In my native land, NZ, such are called ‘reserves’ and we have always had them there, even in the case of almost wiping out the ecosystem in favor of farms or cities in some places. When King George the father of the current Queen of England died, my classmates and I planted kauri trees at the head of our local reserve – a memory from my childhood.
Too many states have lost their native forests to the claims of big agro. There should be an amendment to the Bill of Rights reversing that practice. There ought to be an eco-right established within the Constitution, and that immediately.

Posted by: juliania | Feb 9 2019 19:59 utc | 170

Let us have a look at cargo container missile systems:
US/Israel
LORA: Ballistic, tacticall use, small size/signature, fast deployment, smaller warhead kinetick/explosive, shorter range, versatille: sea to ground, ground to sea, sea to sea, ground to ground.
Manufacturer: IAI
Video: https://youtu.be/8NN2yI5bGYE
Russia
Club-K: Ballistic, cruise, strategic/tactical use, high value targets, all ranges, all types of warheads, all terrain to and from.
Video: https://youtu.be/f_c_PeIIeMw
Other platforms relevant to the battlespace:
Packets of upgraded B-52’s / X-47B (carrier launched) ucav drones – stealthy High-Altitude Long-Endurance unmanned aircraft.

Posted by: OSINT-suggests | Feb 9 2019 20:13 utc | 172

The Constitution
The US establishment doesn’t really like the US Constitution.
Constitutional rights are problematic to them. Freedom of speech, Freedom of the press, and right to bear arms are anachronisms of a time when the people were sovereign. Such rights are not aligned with our current Inverted Totalitarian, Empire First government (don’t be fooled, exceptionalism = ‘Empire First’).
Even Obama, a Constitutional lawyer and “populist” acted against the Constitution in a multitude of ways: from allowing NSA to invade people’s privacy (and allowing Clapper to lie about it to Congress) to bombing Libya without Congressional authorization to his support for the TPP trade deal and more.
Furthermore, I sense that many in the establishment would prefer a Saudi or Israeli-like governing compact that allows for residents that have limited rights/protections. A large population of economic migrants that are ‘Guest workers’ or ‘second-class’ citizens helps to insulate the ruling establishment by forcing a bond with “citizens” that benefit from the exploitation of economic migrants.
Also note: there has been steady progress toward a new Constitutional convention.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Feb 9 2019 20:37 utc | 174

Posted by: John Anthony La Pietra | Feb 9, 2019 2:03:50 PM | 163
Do you mean this?
“Nuclear bunker buster:
A nuclear bunker buster,[1] also known as an earth-penetrating weapon (EPW), is the nuclear equivalent of the conventional bunker buster. The non-nuclear component of the weapon is designed to penetrate soil, rock, or concrete to deliver a nuclear warhead to an underground target. These weapons would be used to destroy hardened, underground military bunkers or other below-ground facilities. An underground explosion releases a larger fraction of its energy into the ground, compared to a surface burst or air burst explosion at or above the surface, and so can destroy an underground target using a lower explosive yield. This in turn could lead to a reduced amount of radioactive fallout. However, it is unlikely that the explosion would be completely contained underground. As a result, significant amounts of rock and soil would be rendered radioactive and lofted as dust or vapor into the atmosphere, generating significant fallout.”
In a hypothetical US/Israel attack against for instance Iran some CNN could very well spin it like detected radiation in the environment was from depleted uranium etc. while most radioactive elements above ground would be blowing off to a narrow path across Yemen or Qatar borders weather permitting for instance.

Posted by: OSINT-suggests | Feb 9 2019 20:40 utc | 176

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Feb 9, 2019 10:36:34 AM | 147
What? Like floods out of nowhere? Days after days of unexpected torrential rain, hail in the summer, ‘extreme weather’etc.?
Just an arms length from USA downwind towards Cuba/Venezuela.
It doesn’t sound like a cook theory anymore does it?

Posted by: OSINT-suggests | Feb 9 2019 21:03 utc | 178

@170 juliania – “There ought to be an eco-right established within the Constitution”
Good call, but how will this come about? I’m seeing that one doesn’t simply make these demands except after a successful revolution. In this thread I’ve called the Bill of Rights a set of revolutionary demands, and in truth I didn’t fully realize this until this discussion. But it’s true. These are not rights that a king would grant his subjects, or that any elite would allow its subdued population to enjoy. The fact that they exist is a kind of miracle, and it only makes sense as coming from the victors of a revolution.
So what will be the next revolution? I suppose it could be against those who steal all the natural wealth of the world, although the impulse will come from the simple needs of the dispossessed rather than for the Earth itself. But the two causes are the same, because after all, what rights would the Earth have or need to its natural resources other than property rights?
The goal of saving the planet and its life forms may seem a little like chasing unicorns and hugging trees, but I think it’s much more bloody than it may appear. It is nothing other than the fight against the plunder of capitalism, with the goal of living within the carrying capacity of the planet and sharing its bounty sustainably, as stewards.
So I suspect that the eco-right you call for resides on the other side of the total demise of the plundering elite. Wittingly or unwittingly, all the next revolutions may well be fought for that right.

Posted by: Grieved | Feb 9 2019 21:26 utc | 180

Jen 174
I much appreciate your comments here for both factual information and opinion. Your 174 post… you have the ability to climb outside the box of human nature and history then study it from a good vantage point. That post put into words that which I had been looking at but could not adequately describe.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 9 2019 22:08 utc | 182

Some Random Passer By @ 157.
I’d say our policies there have been on the wrong track for a very long time. Compare with the German system – there’s no doubt that one of the reasons for their superior industrial performance has been the access to long term financing afforded to SMEs and larger there.
But as indicated, there’s really no such entity as “The City”. There are too many components to lump them all in together. A lot of what goes on there and elsewhere in the UK is bread and butter services and we’re very good at that. I’ve had German businessmen say to me that in freight forwarding, for instance, we’re simply the best. We do need services – in the most ideal of business environments you still can’t send stuff anywhere unless it’s reliably insured, for instance.
But I take your point. The provision of needed facilities and of finance does shade off into dodgy stuff – we ought to know who funded our businessmen who were involved in the selling on of ISIS oil and we don’t. Similarly with the well-connected chancers who dabbled in Ukrainian assets after the coup. But all that is a failure of supervision, or sometimes of government policy, not a failure inherent in the system itself.
Nor is it a particularly English phenomenon. The EU, you’ll understand, is a neo-liberal construct designed to provide a market and a source of cheap labour for the richer EU countries and some of the deals done over there would make even some of our crooks stare.
Don’t forget, too, that half the time people talk of “the City” when they really mean the corporations. And from there one takes off into a consideration of the cronyism and legalised corruption that both we and the Americans, and the Continentals, are past masters of.
We’ll not clean that up by pinning it all on the Square Mile, though I expect we both agree that that Square Mile would function more efficiently (and equitably) if it got a good clean up itself.
Brussels, by the way, according to a trade paper I happened to see, is using the Brexit commotion to sneak some of our City business away by underhand means. So wicked. We, of course, would never dream of doing anything like that.
TJ, @ 43.
Same for me. 100%. I wonder what we’ll make of our democracy when we get one again. Hope we still know how to use it. We’ve been so long without.
Well, almost 100%. I also think we’d be better outside than in when the EU collapses.

Posted by: English Outsider | Feb 9 2019 22:36 utc | 184

Thanks Grieved @ 179 for addressing my suggestion. I took a look at wikipedia and found the following Constitutional processes:
“To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must be ratified by either (as determined by Congress):
The legislatures of three-fourths (currently 38) of the states, within the stipulated time period—if any;
OR
State ratifying conventions in three-fourths (currently 38) of the states, within the stipulated time period—if any.
Various amendments have been attempted after original ten of the Bill of Rights, and there are some still in limbo having not yet concluded the time period allowed, while others failed. So there is a process, Constitutionally speaking, that could be followed. I don’t know if any of the proposed amendments support eco-friendly positions – that would take some research. And since in any case it is a time-consuming process, perhaps individual states could simply begin the process of planting more trees in the meantime. It wouldn’t hurt!
Upon being properly ratified, an amendment becomes an operative addition to the Constitution.”

Posted by: juliania | Feb 9 2019 23:45 utc | 186

Jen@174
The enlightenment was a movement of the elites to free themselves from the moral laws of Christianity and the power of monarchy. The individualism, freedom and liberty they preached was meant for them. The non -elites were meant to be enslaved by capitalism (wage slavery) and debt and enforced by “mans “ laws and a legal system they would create and control.
America was looked upon as the New Atlantis or New Israel. An opportunity to create a utopia for the illuminated elite. Sometimes called the illuminati they organized themselves through a number of secret societies and operated through the more open Free Mason lodges that were centuries old , although only the highest levels were privy to their work
The principal of duality and good and evil are central to their philosophy which is more of a religion. This is a gnostic or occult religion which expresses Orwellian thoughts, where evil done to others is good for them, slavery of others is their freedom. This gnostic religion holds that some people (elites) may become gods. Knowledge is the light and reserved only for the elite, the rest are fed lies that they refer to as Noble Lies
This occult religion of the elite, some call it Luciferianism, is not new and has been evolving for around 2600 years at least. Christianity and Islam and Torah following Jews kept it in check until all were corrupted from within by their agents and weakened until they could now operate freely without constraint. Now many of these religious organizations are simply agents of the elite and will play a role in unifying all religions into some kind of
Green One World Religion subservient to the elites secret occult religion.
Put simply in the battle of Good and Evil the outcome has been long decided. Evil rules the day. We live in a Technocratic Pathocracy , although still allowed the illusion of a Democracy that pretends to be Good, although not very convincingly in recent years.

Posted by: Pft | Feb 10 2019 0:09 utc | 188

juliania, there’s also an issue about rights that are bestowed upon us by a government can also be stripped away from us by that same government. Governments don’t own our rights, we do.

Posted by: mourning dove | Feb 10 2019 0:35 utc | 190

karlof1
If I may ask, why do you define 1945 as a turning point?

Posted by: mourning dove | Feb 10 2019 1:09 utc | 192

To people considering reading Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the US, I would like to suggest also the following: Open Veins of Latin America, by Eduardo Galeano; An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: and the absolutely charming writings of Alexander von Humboldt. To say that Humboldt was prolific is the understatement of the century. A good starting point is Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent. He makes some interesting comments on the various indigenous peoples he met, how their lives were molded by their environment, and from time to time, how their lives were affected by europeans – ok spanish. Well worth the time.

Posted by: Miss Lacy | Feb 10 2019 1:56 utc | 194

Grieved @ 41 and karlof1 @ 49
You both may find of interest the arguments of the anti-federalists back in the day. They seem to me to hold up very well 200+ years later.
See: The Antifederalists by Cecelia M. Kenyon (1966)
includes 1.) The Context of the Debate of Ratification — 2.) The Impossibility of a National Republican Government over a Large Area and a Heterogeneous Population — 3.) The Inadequacy of Representation and the probably Aristocratic Effect Thereof — 4.) Abuses of Power Predicted under Various Clauses in the Constitution — 5.) Proposed Changes — 6.) Concluding Observations — * BIBLIOGRAPHY — * Anthology of primary source articles.
The Antifederalists: 1781-1788. Critics of the Constitution by Jackson Turner Main

Posted by: pogohere | Feb 10 2019 2:39 utc | 196

@ Guerrero | Feb 9, 2019 9:05:57 PM | 194 Thank you. I’ve appreciated your eloquent Mexican offerings.
In Canada’s formation there was this Native/English/French mix-up that didn’t treat the original members of the land with respect, by and large, but as something to ‘assimilate’. However lots of the land mass of Canada remains in a kind of actual or potential limbo in terms of actual ‘ownership’. There are those many treaties, and broken promises, and unresolved disputes….
One oddity about Canada: we as far as I know retain the quaint custom of requiring new citizens and people working for the governments to swear allegiance to the head of the dysfunctional British Royal Family.
You haven’t dwelt on the Mexican view of the gringo; in Canada since its formal birthday, 1867, until the 1980s one important motivation, that really drove the Canadian project, was the desire to keep the Americans at bay. When a railroad in the 19th century across Canada was proposed it was dismissed by many as ludicrous, can’t be afforded. But without a trans-continental railroad the Americans would likely have moved into what became Western Canada. So it was done.
The pattern became a perennial political tussle between those who were enchanted by visions of dollar signs from the American side of the border, and those who believed that that kind of pursuit of prosperity would inevitably involve the reduction and then eventual end of Canadian independence. Which is where we are pretty close to today.
Prior to sinking deep into our current role as US Imperial madness sidekick/terrier, Canada implemented nearly half a century ago universal health care. And as a kind of crazy amazing moment in Canadian history, in the 1950s Canadians began a project that culminated in the creation of what some still maintain was a military jet (the AVRO Arrow) that was a generation ahead of its time in capabilities. That ended in a pile of rubble, rumor has it due to American objections. From my perspective Canada’s tussles with Trump of late give Canada a chance. potential motivation, to back away from the US embrace, but love is blind…

Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Feb 10 2019 3:20 utc | 198

jen – as others here have said – i would like to also say it – thanks for your ongoing posts and commentary!

Posted by: james | Feb 10 2019 3:32 utc | 200