He’s at it again! Pepe Escobar seems to increase his writing output in relation to the rise/fall in systemic crises. And this is #4 for this week: “‘Clash of civilizations’ or crisis of civilization?”
At its top, Pepe links to a very important event that most never knew about: Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations where Xi made this remark amongst many others:
“It is foolish to believe that one’s race and civilization are superior to others, and it is disastrous to willfully reshape or even replace other civilizations.”
Pepe also links to yet another important essay by Alastair Crooke I linked to last Monday that was barely noted or discussed. Pepe seems to becoming more cynical and less optimistic as many of us are, so I’m sure many will agree with most of his conclusion:
“What we’re living now is not a clash of civilizations; it’s a crisis of civilization.
“If the paradigm under which most of humanity barely survives is not changed – and there’s precious little evidence it will – there won’t be any civilizations left to clash.”

Posted by: karlof1 | May 18 2019 18:18 utc | 3

Regarding the USA’s culture, read this and reflect on what it reveals about the people who thought such action–on either side of the issue in question–was warranted. Such mindsets reveal much of the moral and ethical nature of the people involved. Take note of property owner Trump’s likely action in such a situation given that he wants to redefine what constitutes poverty.
Here’s yet another example of the moral/ethical mindset of certain people with power. And I could probably go on all day providing further examples of these sorts while not being able to balance them with examples showing an improvement in morality or ethics. In the above example, note the voting margin by which it was passed the lower house, while also considering whether the legislation’s Constitutional.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 18 2019 18:39 utc | 5

Australia: luck running out?

Posted by: vk | May 18 2019 18:47 utc | 7

This event shows america has crossed an important line (yet again) descending into pure lawless fascism! This for me is ‘thee subject’ we should be focusing on ! On an open thread. Nothing said on msm
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/05/venezuela-denounces-us-seizure-of-embassy-as-violation-of-vienna-convention.html
Thank you in advance.

Posted by: Mark2 | May 18 2019 18:51 utc | 9

Here is something that has the potential to go from interesting to important.
https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/can-german-courts-stop-hellfire-from-ramstein/
Pepe is right. But if Man is going to destroy the human race, via “democratically elected leaders’ and capitalism as the final form of human organisation (‘end of history’), why is Man dragging with him all forms of life on Earth – the trees, the plants, the animal kingdom and all life systems, extinguishing the harmony, the beauty, the magic and the mystery of our planet.Maybe it’s time for Man to disappear so that the planet and all other life can continue.

Posted by: JB | May 18 2019 19:15 utc | 11

@ Bemildred with the reference to Iraq
I just read a story (no link) that said Iraq legislative body today is voting on telling all foreign military to leave.
Unfortunately, in America and all of the West, there are lots of folks that are not going to take easily to living in a world of merit over inheritance…..but that is where we are headed and I look forward to living in a world of merit instead of entitled greed and exceptionalism.

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 18 2019 19:41 utc | 13

psychohistorian @12:
PressTV has it: PressTV(Iran)
I don’t know what we will do, Pompeous seemed to be pretty freaked out about Haash’d al Shaabi, the “Iranian controlled Iraqi imilitias”, and I’d say such perceptiveness in Pompeous is a good sign. I’ve read he and Dolton are not getting along and Pompeous thinks he is too aggressive. Putin looked like he would bite Pompeous head off in that meeting pic. Putin likes asymmetric/oblique attacks, and siccing the militias on our various forward positions seems like just the thing to distract us from attacking Iran for a while.
I’d rather we got our shit together here in the USA, but having watched these assholes fuck up this country and a bunch of others these last 70 years I’m willing to take my chances.

Posted by: Bemildred | May 18 2019 19:56 utc | 15

thanks jackrabbit.. perhaps some legal experts visiting moa could chime in.. i think that is what is needed..

Posted by: james | May 18 2019 20:16 utc | 17

Maybe Pompeo and Bolton are not referring to the 19th century Monroe doctrine by James Monroe, but the 20th century Monroe doctrine by Marilyn Monroe, how they are fucking the US president.

Posted by: Symen Danziger | May 18 2019 20:59 utc | 19

Further to psychohistorain @ 10
More and more people are learning about the massive con that is the Federal Reserve. If you haven’t read up about it then you will struggle to find a better book than Eustace Mullin’s “The Secrets of the Federal Reserve”, which can be downloaded for free at archive.org (it will come up in Google with title and author).
Pay particular attention to Paul Warburg and Colonel House. I have the feeling both were key pieces in a brilliant operation that was decades in the making. My feeling is that the genius behind it was Nathaniel (Natty) Rothschild of London.

Posted by: Lochearn | May 18 2019 21:03 utc | 21

@ 20 ..sorry, bad construction
Make that “Any legislation which capriciously and wantonly removes any of those few rights specially MAY NOT BE protected in the Constitution, but they are still wrong TO DO IT.

Posted by: Don Bacon | May 18 2019 21:04 utc | 23

@3 karlof1… key quote from the a crooke article..
“The only answer must be that Pompeo and Bolton are trying to corner Iran into a breach of the JCPOA: They are deliberately trying to provoke non-compliance by Iran, and are effectively forcing Iran to proliferate. For, if these substances cannot be exported, Iran will be obliged to accumulate them, in breach of the JCPOA (unless the UNSC dispute procedure embedded in the JCPOA, rules otherwise).
bingo… but again, the msm will not talk about this.. they will just talk of how iran is not in compliance of the terms…

Posted by: james | May 18 2019 21:07 utc | 25

@ 24 james
Yes, but while not a great writer in any sense Mullins just gets to the essence of it.
If we were running Hollywood a dark masterpiece awaits – the secret train departs, all shadow and stealth, shotguns in dark waters as the boats near Jekyll island, surely shot in black & white. The servants have been dismissed to be replaced by rookies. And the world’s greatest conspiracy is about to take place…

Posted by: Lochearn | May 18 2019 21:20 utc | 27

@ james | May 18, 2019 4:16:08 PM | 17
I have some trepidation about adding a facetious remark to a serious discussion, but I’m not sure that more contributions from “legal experts” will settle, or even clarify, these questions.
Since legal experts, by definition, are occupationally obsessed with argument– and moreover, winning arguments– the more experts involved, the more likely that the search for clarification will simply degenerate into endless debate.
Further, I fear that lawyers and career government employees, e.g. diplomats, are trained and conditioned to limit their perception and analysis to the “letter of the law”, despite disclaimers to the effect that they are aware that extra-legal factors affect a given situation.
To cite an example this mindset, a correct-but-absurd legalistic opinion comes to mind: After Obama was elected in 2008, lawyer and pundit Glenn Greenwald seriously argued that despite Obama’s stated refusal to authorize investigations into the Bush regime’s high crimes, then-Attorney General Eric Holder had the right and duty to independently pursue such investigations regardless of the administration’s position.
Greenwald’s analysis was based on an incredibly idealistic set of assumptions straight out of civics class or “good-government” think tanks: Holder, as AG, is “the Chief Law-Enforcement Officer of the land”; the President is not the AG’s “boss” in the sense of having direct personal supervisory authority over the AG’s official conduct; unlike the President, the office of AG is “apolitical”, so Holder could vigorously pursue the shady Bush Gang without fear or favor, and without political repercussions.
This ludicrous fantasy also suffered from the meta-fallacy of refusing to see the forest for the trees. BTW, the “Chief Law Enforcement Officer, etc.” not only didn’t display the integrity GG hoped for– he infamously argued that the DOJ couldn’t effectively prosecute financial and corporate “white-collar” crime, and that in any case attempting to do so risked killing the goose (the bankster community) that laid the golden eggs.
Finally, here’s most of a comment I posted to a WSWS article about the US authorities atrocious attack on the Venezuelan Embassy:
________________________________________
The US-led Western Hegemony’s perpetual flouting of international law, despite paying ostentatious lip service to it when it serves its nefarious purposes, proceeds apace.
US security-state operatives, and both military and civilian “law-enforcement” agencies, display the same ruthless disregard for law and international public opinion on both microcosmic and macrocosmic scales: conducting heinous wars of aggression, targeting small groups that resist criminal and imperialistic state policies and actions, and persecuting and scapegoating individuals like Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Maria Butina.
It’s worth noting that during this century, Western governments have enthusiastically implemented harsh “security” methods and techniques practiced and tested by the rogue Israeli government– the Israeli’s pathological obsession with security has turned into an international industry, with Gaza and the Palestinians serving as a permanent laboratory and testing ground for research and development of such ultra-repressive procedures.
To continue to grind an axe over a recent development: some Assange supporters have “welcomed” the Swedish government’s ominous announcement that the “case” against Assange is being (pretextually) re-opened in light of the “changed circumstances” of Assange’s status since the vile Lenin Moreno illicitly unilaterally revoked Assange’s lawful asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship.
These supporters, e.g. Craig Murray and pundit Alexander Mercouris (a lawyer). optimistically view this decision as a way for Assange to finally “clear his name” and dispel the cloud of accusations that he is a criminal sexual predator that’s been hanging over his head. They seem to naïvely or idealistically believe that the Swedish authorities administering “due process” to Assange will act without fear or favor, and will ultimately decline to charge Assange based on the utter flimsiness of the allegations.
Put another way, they insist on focusing on the trees instead of the haunted forest: a consideration of the totality of the circumstances yields the inevitable conclusion– or “conviction”, to employ double-entendre– that the US-dominated Swedish authorities would never have contrived to re-open the vitiated and defunct “case” if it would give Assange a potential benefit or advantage.
One need only observe the vicious overreach exercised in the lawless storming of the Venezuelan Embassy to understand that legal “due process” has long been manipulated and compromised by authorities acting in bad faith.

Posted by: Ort | May 18 2019 21:25 utc | 29

@26 grieved… thanks..
@27 lochearn.. maybe that book reco you mention is a more solid take on it.. i enjoyed creature from jekyll island.. bail out is the name of the game, and we can just accept the next one will be much bigger.. all to keep the ponzi scheme going…
@ 29 ort.. thanks.. i pretty much agree with you on all of it.. your last sentence sums up what everyone now associates with the usa – lawless, and a counrty above international law… well, not everyone – but a good few of us.. the example of greenwald – a lawyer – is also a good one.. these folks love playing word games which is what a lot of legalize boils down to for me…
@30 dbtp… check the thread jackrabbit cites @16 – last open moa thread.. you can read additional comments from helmer..

Posted by: james | May 18 2019 21:38 utc | 31

@ Peter AU 1 who wrote
”
karlof1
In the China thread, I had the thought that exceptionalism stemmed from the colonial separatists being successful in throwing out the British and beginning a new nation in which there were no hereditary titles or rulers (Jen fleshed this out with a lot of detail). This was exceptional for its times.
A merit based society. How is a mans merit judged. Hard work and diligence equals prosperity.
Prosperity = merit.
”
YES!!!! and thanks
Humanity in the West has tried to throw off the shackles of private finance based society before as Jen laid out. I agree that at its core that is a merit based society which I see is what China is evolving around. The core hypocrisy of the centuries old Western way is being held up to the light brought by the feted clarity about lack of morals of the leadership.
The interesting story to come is the internal Western response to being stymied in continuation of empire……internal combustion comes to mind as descriptors. Hopefully, evolved adult thinking will come forward and a global restructuring of the social contract will begin.

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 18 2019 22:07 utc | 33

Ort
Excellent comment!
The Empire does make some attempt to color within the legal lines. But they will bend (preferable) or break the rules as needed. No one went to jail for lies that led to the Iraq War or the human rights abuses of ‘rendition and torture’. Venezuela is another perfect example.
Also the issues that I’ve raised includes the media’s silence on WHY ASSANGE SOUGHT TO AVOID SWEDEN: the likelihood of Sweden’s ‘temporary surrender’ of Assange to USA. This silence underpins the pretense of officials and others that Swedish extradition is the best course.
In the discussion I referenced on the previous Open Thread/Week in Review, I quoted Assange’s renown Human Rights attorney who is fully aware of all the legal issues. Here is is once again:

The very real danger that faces Mr. Assange is that should the extradition request by Sweden be agreed by the courts here [in UK], once Mr Assange is in Sweden (and, we are informed inevitably held in custody even if not charged) an application for his ‘temporary surrender’ by the USA will most likely materialize. This may happen and even before any decision is made to bring criminal proceedings in Sweden. What it means is that Mr. Assange could be, without further ado, on his way to the United States and to a situation of considerable judicial uncertainty, not to say peril.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 18 2019 22:11 utc | 35

Correction: Helmer acknowledged that he is not fully acquainted …

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 18 2019 22:16 utc | 37

@ 33
No wonder you always repeat the same mantras, psycho, because your writing is shite

Posted by: Lochearn | May 18 2019 22:58 utc | 39

As usual, many cogent comments on the shortcomings and criminal transgressions of our latest empire, but, sadly, no remedies.
Since our latest bands of thieves and grifters have captured the entire U$ government and 99% of our conduits of information, please enjoy the therapy acquired here at MOA, because the downhill slide is about to get even better.
Enjoy the new age of Mammon..

Posted by: ben | May 18 2019 23:43 utc | 41

Austrian FPÖ scandal video blowing up in all kind of directions.
This here is the NYT explanation wrongly weaseling Russia connections into it
Two far right leading FPÖ politicians were filmed in Ibiza during several hours in 2017 trying to convince a woman who pretended to be the Latvian niece of a Russian oligarch in search for money laundering opportunity she should buy Kronen Zeitung – the Austrian print equivalent of Fox News. She should then get them elected so they could direct state projects to companies owned by her. They also suggested an illegal scheme they could receive money from her via an ngo. The video published by German papers brought the Austrian government down (one of the filmed politicians was vice chancellor) and presumably rightfully finished FPÖ to be politically viable for some time.
The video was heavily cut presumably because the two suggested to know all kinds of sexual perversion by Austrian politicians, things illegal to publish as they infringe on personal rights.
Now part two – who produced the video and why. My impression was it is mainly about a fight between billionaires to acquire Kronenzeitung because of its huge political influence in Austria.
Now there is this:
Haaretz: Leaked video purportedly shows Heinz-Christian Strache …. bragging of ‘Israeli friends’ with close ties to Netanyahu

Posted by: somebody | May 18 2019 23:57 utc | 43

@ ben with the negative ending to his comment
”
Enjoy the new age of Mammon..
”
I posit that we are exiting the old age of Mammon and entering the new age of mixed economies with MMT as the practice rather than the theory (MMT is Modern Monetary Theory and basic premise is that finance control is totally sovereign rather than “partially pregnant” mostly private)
China is executing the MMT model and showing handily how much better for the many rather than the few their model provides.
And China recently reported that 80% of their economy is private which shows the twisted logic of profit being value adding to organizations….which is meaningless when finance is private and all are slaves to that narrative. The China model should eliminate the top and bottom 5% of the West economic “culture” which will flatten the social structure and make it less aggressive/unequal.
I wonder who might be so frightened by my shite assertions they attack my character instead of my view of our evolving world

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 19 2019 0:09 utc | 45

@45 psychohistorian
Funny thing, it was Lochearn a few months ago who was spoofed by some provocateur posing as him to make a similar one-line insult against someone. Not Lochearn’s style at all. Can’t believe it was him.
Admirable restraint on your part.
Does go to show how many creeps hide in the shadows as the thread transpires though.

Posted by: Grieved | May 19 2019 0:35 utc | 47

Re: Assange.
During the 2016 campaign Trump said “I love WikiLeaks.”
The Swamp hates Wikileaks. Trump hates The Swamp.
Trump will let The Swamp drag Assange back to the US, conduct a Kangaroo Kourt and convict him of imaginary crimes, thus encouraging The Swamp and its minions to expose its power and dishonesty.
IF Assange is convicted (his legal team is pretty savvy) then Trump will pardon Assange.
I don’t know what Assange is thinking about the situation he’s in right now, but I’m 100% certain that he’s neither shocked nor surprised. He didn’t get into whistle-blowing accidentally and certainly knew the risks as well as, if not better than anyone else on the planet.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 19 2019 0:47 utc | 49

@46 dd – seems like a great time to provoke a response. lots of international press. those were my thoughts.

Posted by: roza shanina | May 19 2019 1:32 utc | 51

Posted by: Passer by | May 18, 2019 8:38:10 PM | 48
I doubt that is the reason. Problem is FPÖ owns/owned the Austrian interior ministry and raided its own intelligence service for information on – presumably right wing – extremism.
That Germany no longer trusts Austrian intelligence services because of FPÖ and Russia has been claimed by one German paper – die Welt – and there was no confirmation by German authorities. The claim has been made at the same time the video came out – it is driven by an agenda.
All Austrian parties are close to Russia, getting rid of FPÖ would not solve any of that. It is obvious that FPÖ has no special connection to Russia at all or they would not have fallen for a supposed money laundering scheme that was a trap. Or do you suggest the trap was planned by Russia?
That video has been framed to show only the Austrian politicians – not the other side. The trust the FPÖ politicians have to “tell everything” is not explained but Strache and Gudenus will certainly know how they were tricked into talking about taking over Kronenzeitung and planning further cooperation. This scandal will continue for a while and the two FPÖ politicians will possibly take others with them.
If the trap was laid by a secret service as Strache claims it was German secret service. And the reason would not be Russia but the right wing threat to European integration.

Posted by: somebody | May 19 2019 1:52 utc | 53

So much of MoA has devolved into the moral degeneracy of the west and the emerging east with its supposed ethical economy of sustainability and merit.
There is indeed a collective psychosis facing the commons in the west, I will admit, but it is a spell that has its roots in internationalism, globalism, and from time immemorial, orientalism.
I will never forget reading Persian Fire by Tom Holland and the story of Pausanias, the Spartan General, who after the Battle of Platea was investigating the Persian command tents during the looting and wondered why the Persians would invade the Greeks when their food was already far superior. His commanders surrounding him knew what it was what granted them supreme victory over the numerically superior Persians and their hubris and they murmured the name aloud: Nemesis.
Shortly after, Pausanias was suspected of conspiring with Xerxes and indeed had been seduced by the great and wondrous aspects of the Persians, the Orient, internationalism, and empire.
I wonder to myself often while perusing the comments here why the term “liberty” is so oft never mentioned. And yet China is lauded to the skies. With its problem of overproduction, incredible disparity of wealth, consolidated rule by an inner circle of elites which is irredeemingly totalitarian.
But did you see what I just did there? These facets I listed above are hallmarks of the east and have always been and will always be. I am not passing judgement so much as delineating truth from fiction. The east is the east and the west is the west. And it won’t be long now till we are able to see clearly which side we are on: Pausanias and the Persians or the Greeks and the cradle of liberty.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 2:20 utc | 55

NemesisCalling 55
What do your mean by liberty. The liberty to do what exactly.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 2:34 utc | 57

@57 peter au
I know you are an intelligent guy there so I won’t expound upon the concept, especially as I am sure there are some diciples of Derrida which are chomping at the bit to eviscerate any concrete semblance of terminology and meaning.
But, in my view, to understand liberty, you have to a) read the Greeks and 2) grasp the primordial joy of maintaining your own lush, suburban lawn.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 2:41 utc | 59

All very interesting. And all of it totally irrelevant. Time to do something else. Obviously.

Posted by: JR | May 19 2019 2:53 utc | 61

NemesisCalling
Ok. What I am getting at is what do you believe are the differences in liberty between the US and Russia and China. I state these three because it is the US that is attacking these two countries.
For myself, a couple of differences that I noticed between Australia and China – Chinese have far less rules and regulations governing their daily lives. Chinese police did not carry guns. There appeared to be a far higher percentage of small mum and dad businesses in China than in Australia.
Two downsides that I noticed. Very few Chinese have a house with a lawn so to speak. Many or most live in high rise apartments. That is to do with population density rather than liberty. Similar was the one child policy which I believed only applied to the largest ethnic. one of my contacts that I wished to meet was a young woman only a few years older than my youngest daughter. I went to the factory for the day to look at the products. At midday it was mandatory lunch break. I wanted to keep looking at products but no. Lunch break overrides that.
She took us to a macca’s thinking us being westerners we would prefer that to Chinese. I friggin hate the mac crap but they had some chilli chicken that was a bit more asian.
She had studied engineering and my daughter was in the middle of an engineering course so they had much to talk about and compare. She asked how many children I had and I said three. that was her only point of sadness. Her and her husband wanted to start a family, but at that time they could only have one child. On everything else she was happy, and very bright and optimistic about the future.
I believe the one child law has now been lifted. Again a problem of population density.
I guess I noticed some of these things because I went to China half expecting some sort of police state, yet in many was that I could see, the Chinese had more liberties than us and if anything, Australia was the police state.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 3:19 utc | 63

NemesisCalling
To gain supremacy over our elites, us westerners will have to change our culture. It is our culture that raises these sociopaths to the top.
On liberty, before personal liberty can happen, a nation, a people need the liberty to develop in their own way.
The Chinese did it their way around seventy years ago. They got off to a false start as they were bogged down by ideology. This was discarded around 1980 and since then the chinese people have seen rapidly increasing prosperity. The Russians or Soviets also did this but were unable to break out of their ideology. US culture was founded on a revolution – British colonials kicking out British authority and a culture was born rather than an ideology. But that culture seems to have gradually transformed into an ever narrowing ideology that the US cannot break out out of.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 4:22 utc | 65

I disagree. We have fallen away from originary understandings of western terms and have scattered them careless so noone knows what family means, or liberty, or responsibility.
Our ceaseless desire to consume is nothing more than shirking of duties. Our culture doesn’t have to change, but it will need to throw off the shackles.
China might have a conception of liberty. But it is an eastern, “collective” one. The individual plays a much larger part in the west. If an odd duck goes against the grain in China, I can only imagine the length of tormenting gestation offenders have to endure for being a peacock.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 4:45 utc | 67

NemesisCalling @64: Nothing to do with the common spirit of us lowlifes.
Really? So its the elites that will do the fighting then? Somehow I doubt it.
Have Western elites proven themselves worthy of winning control of the world? What can we expect their rule will be like for us lowlifes once they do so?
A multi-polar world seems to offer a better chance for lowlife quality of life. Let the elites compete for our affection. LOL.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 19 2019 4:48 utc | 69

@32 lochearn.. warren buffett referred to the derivatives as ‘weapons of mass delusion’ a number of years ago.. i am sure he still views it this way… in a world of make believe, everything is as it is, until it isn’t anymore…
@47 grieved.. i think you are correct on this… it happened to me a year or 2 back, and it is a more sophisticated play on undermining moa to be aware of..

Posted by: james | May 19 2019 4:53 utc | 71

Jackrabbit. I am in absolute agreement. A multi-polar world involves a resugent nationalism. That is in its defintion. You can bet the elites will be back begging for our allegiance.
As of now, they are the anational variety that use international trade as leverege against nations and their nationals.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 5:02 utc | 73

Nemesis
Have you associated with the laborers in China.
I am not a word nazi. Words are simply a means of communicating, and now I understand what you wished to communicate with the word liberty. You are a great example of why US culture must change before the so called elites can be done away with.
Jeez, am I sick of the Exceptionalism shit.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 5:20 utc | 75

Peter, enjoy China’s sweaty balls there dude. Cause you guys gonna be underneath them for a long time.
I am a grammar nazi and I say use the “?”.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 5:38 utc | 77

@78 psycho
You are one petty dude masquerading as enlightened. I thought you and i were done, man?
Peter can defend himself, you know. Or do we have to rush to defend narratives of evil westerners?
Carry on with the circle jerk.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 5:45 utc | 79

@ Guerrero who asked
”
But what would a state-owned Internet look like?
”
Like any other public operated utility. I grew up with an uncle working at what is now called Tacoma Public Utilities. It is a collection of public utilities (that socialism thing) operating since 1893.
One is just taking any organization and taking profit out of the purpose and replacing it with public benefit

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 19 2019 5:49 utc | 81

Google Sister Company Using SPLC Data To Develop Comment Moderation Engine
“Jigsaw, the Alphabet subsidiary that began as the Google Ideas think tank, has been utilizing (((Southern Poverty Law Center))) datasets in the development of their Perspective API, a comment moderation engine, documents shared with The Daily Caller indicate.
These datasets were provided in raw form to Jigsaw, meaning that the embattled Montgomery nonprofit is assisting the development of a Google comment moderation product intended to be applied across a wide swath of the media. It also represents confirmation that the (((SPLC))) has been scraping wholesale the content of “far-right” websites.
The Perspective API is “part of the Conversation AI research effort that aims to help increase empathy, participation and quality in online conversation at scale,” according to its Github description, and was originally known as the Respect Engine within the company.
This new moderation product scores comments based on “toxicity,” meaning a comment containing expressive language or ad-hominem attacks would get a higher score than reasonable disagreement. That score can then be used to either approve, block, or otherwise rank a comment.
Among the partners working to apply the Perspective API are the New York Times, Wikimedia Foundation, The Economist, and The Guardian.
“By making its archive of moderated comments available to Jigsaw, The Times hopes to provide a unique foundation for the creation of machine learning modules that can assess fresh comments in real time,” reads a 2016 statement from the New York Times in which they announced the collaboration.
But for companies not directly working with Jigsaw, they have to get their data elsewhere. For far-right websites, it appears that they obtain some of that data from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The CEO of Jigsaw is Jared Cohen, an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who worked in the State Department during the Bush and Obama administrations, for Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.
Cohen, who claims to speak Swahili, was implicated in fomenting regime change across the Arab world in the Stratfor leaks released by Wikileaks.
In Cohen’s CFR bio he boasts that his book co-authored with Eric Schmidt, The Digital Disruption: Connectivity and the Diffusion of Power “appeared in Foreign Affairs just a few months before the Arab Spring.”
tl;dr ? enjoy your last moments of “free speech”, goyim
https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/09/google-jigsaw-using-splc-data-comment-moderation/

Posted by: geoffrey | May 19 2019 6:53 utc | 83

https://russia-insider.com/en/us-heading-toward-looming-maritime-showdown-not-iran/ri27068
“Will you give authority to the US military in the South China Sea to go to war with
China without any form of democratic oversight?” Did Trump answer yes to this question?
very interesting article to explain why no Iran..

Posted by: snake | May 19 2019 7:14 utc | 85

nemesis calling
Comparing cultures globally is like eating an apple and expecting it to taste like an orange. We all have our hang ups, expectations, religions, social orders, and elites to deal with on our own level. I much prefer having some land around me than living in a cramped high rise and having to take a number to go to the bathroom like in China. That is my expectation and desire form this semi cultural wasteland I live in this very expensive state. The lawn I can do without.
We worry about our homelessness issue which is growing even faster over the last two years but we sort of ignore them like the untouchable lower castes in India. In Russia the communist party never exceeded 5 million people; not so popular or very exclusive. In the US, the parties are huge and limited in number. One one hand controlling the herd; on the other making the herd think they can make a difference.
I do love my perception of unalienable rights that are being aliened by the USG more heavily every week. I would hate the idea of living in Sweden where I would have to sign into the local police station if I move. The Swedes love that stuff.
I am forced to socially adapt to my changing conditions, trade between the elites toes in hopes of not getting stomped, and plan for retirement in a bogus monetary system knowing they can pull the rug out from under us at any moment. Even the Chinese are becoming more like me!
China, with its social media scores that keeps you off the trains and planes and its voice scanners at the Beijing airport that can listen to your voice and compare it to its database of troublemakers are just examples of a global technocratic dictatorship that is coming upon all of us, even those of us with those precious unalienable rights. We will all be stewing under the same dictatorship system with our precious cultural norms at some point in the future.
Soon Alexa will be telling us what to do in our own homes globally.

Posted by: dltravers | May 19 2019 7:43 utc | 87

Warning: Meta comment.
Interesting discussion between NemesisCalling and Peter Au. One of the best I recall ever reading here especially because it went on usefully for much longer than most MoA thread dialogues where some wanking troll always feels compelled to step in and shut it down out of some fear of “the other.”
Peter with his suburban lawn and bourgeois business relationships in China is illuminating while Nemesis is enlightened working class. My guess is most of us here shade more to the Peter AU perspective/experience, educated, middle class, professional (also old). Maybe our greatest generation parents were working class but we are not, imho, because we live in this higher stage of capitalism we helped to create through our choices.
Is this the underlying reason there’s so much chatter reflecting love and admiration for totalitarian and corporate fascist belief systems so long as they are not western? Is this not simply transference of our own desire to somewhere else where we will never experience…thus is pure neurotic fantasy?
While most everyone demonstrates hate for the US/Euro elites as a passport to acceptance into the clique, the elites of China (and to a lesser extent even Russia) are routinely extolled for their supposed virtues.
And why is the only solution for so many American and European commenters the extinction of the US/western political system and replacement by a fascist system? Because fascism is more decisive and less complicated, offering an easier to comprehend reality that is more uniform and conformist, also more efficient?
Nemesis makes a valid point: how does some Aussie bourgie elite believe he will be better off under a Chinese-style political and economic system? if he thinks this so strongly has he considered uprooting and moving to China?
Would the Chinese allow MoA to even exist in the way it does in the west? That is, as Chinese citizens criticising their own political and economic system? I think we know the answer to that one….dissidence is met with state brutality in China just as it is in Russia, the US and Europe…but the internet is more heavily censored and thought criminals are routinely kidnapped, jailed and “re-educated.”
The point is Peter, or any of us for that matter…not picking on him at all, just riffing on his excellent dialogue with NC, don’t have to face the real consequences of our own online belief systems or rhetoric. We will live and die in relative comfort next to our suburban lawns in the faltering, decadent bourgeois West. We will never face the much harsher downtrending reality of the working class….as it devolves before our eyes in all nations inextricably tied to globalisation.
Anyway my compliments to both of you for an actual real exhange of views with masks off, especially NemesisCalling, who is unafraid to speak his mind without worrying whether it’s acceptable to the always hovering and ready to pounce thread police.
More, please. And less of the posters here who obviously pull punches in fear of the dominant blog zeitgeist. These regulars do neither themselves nor anyone one else, including b, any favours by self-censoring and policing alternative viewpoints.
Why are you so afraid?

Posted by: donkeytale | May 19 2019 8:56 utc | 89

“Peter AU perspective/experience, educated, middle class, professional”
did not complete year eight at school although I was sent until year ten. Physical work most of my life until the last few when I took up flying. Ill heath finished that. Tried a few other things when I could no longer fly. Bit of gold prospecting but could not put in the hours to make it pay. In the end took up selling some tooling on ebay.
Is been a fucking hard life. You have an apt name donk.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 9:27 utc | 91

Russian anti-air once again revealed to be a joke.

Posted by: paul | May 19 2019 11:28 utc | 93

NemesisCalling @55 references “liberty”.
“Liberty©” and “Freedom™” are empty marketing buzzwords used by CIA-captive mass media to sell fascism to moonbeam dreamers whose idea of Utopia is derived from American sitcoms and daytime TV dramas. Just look at NC’s definition: “…primordial joy of maintaining your own lush, suburban lawn.”
This definition is moronic and easily dismissed, as anyone who has “owned”, or rather been owned by a suburban lawn and not wanted to maintain it can attest. Try letting that grass grow knee-high to discover the limits of your retarded “liberty”, or better yet try erecting a decorative fence that doesn’t meet the local zoning ordinances. “Liberty?” Yeah, right! That’s why I often include a restrictive symbol like copyright or trademark on the terms when I use them like “Liberty©” to illustrate just how bogus the concepts are.
“Liberty™” can be a pickup truck if you are an American redneck, or literally an SUV! Or if you are an Afghan redneck being recruited by the CIA to fight the Soviets then “Liberty©” is the right to “marry” and rape your nine year old niece. For a petrochemical business “Liberty©” is the right to pollute the public commons however you wish. “Liberty©” has no independent meaning of its own and instead means different things to different people depending upon their interests and concerns. These differing meanings can and often do come into conflict. For instance a nine year old Afghan girl might view the freedom from being raped by her uncle and the opportunity to go to school so she can become a physicist as “Liberty©”… in other words, what the Soviets were offering was liberty to her and what America delivered was the precise opposite of it.
How do morons reconcile this contradiction? They don’t. They can’t because they are morons. They just cling to their own divergent personal definitions of “Liberty©” and further immerse themselves in the western capitalist mass media delusion that assures them they can have that “Liberty©” if only they first just deliver it to business elites.
Clue: CIA front organizations very often include references to the terms “Liberty©” or “Freedom™” in their names. For example, the neo-Nazis in Ukraine were renamed “Svoboda”, which is Ukropian for “Freedom™”, at the insistence of the CIA/US State Department. Of course we all know that “Radio Free This-or-that” and “Radio Liberty” are CIA disinformation and propaganda orifices. If you see any organization with the terms “Liberty©” or “Freedom™” in their names then you can be confident that they are fascists front organizations organized and financed by the CIA and US State Department (no difference between the CIA and State Department anymore).

Posted by: William Gruff | May 19 2019 12:46 utc | 95

Just to illustrate that the Chinese have “Liberty©” that Americans lack, they can go down to the local night market after work and pick up the latest entertainment “intellectual property” for little more than the cost of the media that the video pirate burned it onto. They are “Free™” from any worry of being tackled by cops on the way out of the shop or of state goons serving Music And Film Industry Association of America™ (MAFIAA™) kicking in their door at 4:00AM.

Posted by: William Gruff | May 19 2019 13:11 utc | 97

Media control:
“Either Chelsea provides damning testimony against Julian, or Chelsea gets tortured. That the world stands by and watches – and that the cowards of the mainstream media line up to applaud…”
Craig Murray.
People being segregated:
“more than 12,000 migrant children are being held in “federally contracted shelters,” and in some of these facilities, there are no adults present who speak a child’s language.” Valerie Stauss, WaPo
People stood by during the lead up to WWII, whereupon millions of people ended up dying in horrible ways because the world stood by and waited.
Folks from that era are still alive, but here we are again, waiting, as a blatant reenactment is taking place, taking no action…while the tally of casualties and horror swiftly grows once more.
Someone, please tell me what everyone is waiting for?

Posted by: Summer Diaz | May 19 2019 13:45 utc | 99