Open Thread 2019-27
News & views ...
Posted by b on May 18, 2019 at 17:03 UTC | Permalink
next page »The scumbag thugs plumb new lows
When I read this, I was reminded of a barfly's (I think) citing of Cicero's quote following Hannibal's defeat at Zama; "Methinks Carthage, too, ought be destroyed."
If these monsters are going to make those sort of threats, then maybe that carrier battle group should be sent to the bottom of the Persian Gulf.
Posted by: robjira | May 18 2019 18:18 utc | 2
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
Perhaps the USA should consider "regime change" in Colombia?
Three high-ranking US senators sent a letter to Colombia’s President Ivan Duque expressing their concern over the promotion of alleged war criminals in the military. The letter echoes concerns raised by a report released in February by Human Rights Watch, which said that Duque promoted nine army officials linked to war crimes to top positions.
Posted by: Maracatu | May 18 2019 18:23 utc | 4
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
I think wrt 1,2, and 3 <= the issue for civilization centers around the distribution of monopoly powers (private property ownership, patents and copyrights and government franchises and contracts) and the private possession by the few of what should be public goods and services.
I think we would all be surprised just how broad the common, but private ownership of those things are, and just how few are its owners.. The crisis the humanity in our civilization faces is "how to remove from power those who have used our governments, our institutions, their laws and rules and the forces of government itself, to achieve the unequal, tightly squeezed private ownership of over 90% of the wealth and power.
Its time to get the facts on the table..
Posted by: snake | May 18 2019 18:41 utc | 6
@2 Restricting that threat to the Persian Gulf seems a little narrow. Given the number of US warships sailing around surely any aircraft anywhere now stand the chance of being 'misidentified'.
Posted by: dh | May 18 2019 18:49 utc | 8
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
@ snake who wrote
"
The crisis the humanity in our civilization faces is "how to remove from power those who have used our governments, our institutions, their laws and rules and the forces of government itself, to achieve the unequal, tightly squeezed private ownership of over 90% of the wealth and power.
"
The answer is to take away the elite control over global finance and make it all a public utility.
That is the existential question that China is pushing for humanity with Russia backing and others cheering along
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 18 2019 19:05 utc | 10
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
I have been concerned for some time now (since Bush the Lesser went full-tilt barbarian on Iraq) that at some point the rest of the planet will decide that we need to be "dealt with". I think we are getting pretty close now.
Posted by: Bemildred | May 18 2019 19:19 utc | 12
@ 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
FYI
An important discussion occurred at the end of the last open thread relating to Assange being 'railroaded' to Sweden where is likely to face 'temporary surrender' to USA.
Anyone interested in Assange should have a look.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 18 2019 19:48 utc | 14
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
For your convenience:
Start of the Assange discussion (#200), a dozen or more comments follow
Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 18 2019 20:02 utc | 16
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
Another HQ (in all senses) video from ANNA NEWS news agency - "North Hama: al-Nusra loses Al Gab Valley". English subtitles available. Must see.
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
@ karlof1 5
. . .while also considering whether the legislation's Constitutional.
You triggered a pet peeve.
The Constitution was written to constitute the government. Incidentally for political reasons there are some human rights which the government should observe, but "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.". . .Amendment 9.
IOW the Constitution, written by some rich white guys hundreds of years ago to constitute the government, is no way a total repositary of all of our rights. The DOI mentioned rights: ". . .certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Protesting, as the Irish prime minister recently noted, is such a basic human right. Any legislation which capriciously and wantonly removes any of those few rights specially protected in the Constitution, but they are still wrong. The Supreme Court chief justice once said that there is nothing in the Constitution that protects abortion, and he's correct but that doesn't mean it's okay to openly condone misogyny. And how about living with anyone whom one wants to live with, etc.
So I bristle at the term "Constitutional rights" and at anything that suggests it in the greater sense.
Posted by: Don Bacon | May 18 2019 21:01 utc | 20
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
@18 alaff.. too bad everyone runs everything thru youtube which is in turn owned by google.. find alternatives..
Sign in to confirm your age
This video may be inappropriate for some users.
screw them..
Posted by: james | May 18 2019 21:04 utc | 22
@ 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
@21 lochearn.. creature from jekyll island is also a good book that covers it..
Posted by: james | May 18 2019 21:05 utc | 24
@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
@22 james - "Sign in to confirm your age"
Or just go around the gatekeeper:
https://nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=H3C_2Fb9SXc
Posted by: Grieved | May 18 2019 21:10 utc | 26
@ 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
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.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 18 2019 21:21 utc | 28
@ 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
On Assage, and why Sweden is his best bet see John Helmers previous post (with actual legal background from london based lawyers and historic predecents):
http://johnhelmer.net/british-government-passes-the-buck-to-sweden-where-the-military-offence-exclusion-protects-julian-assange-from-extradition-to-the-us/
But we will see..
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPropaganda | May 18 2019 21:29 utc | 30
@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
@ 31 james
I got all carried away with my script on Jekyll Island.
Regarding bailout there is the big question of quadrillions of derivatives which only me and Pepe Escobar seem to talk about (I am in no sense comparing myself to Pepe and at one point I gave up talking about it and he didn't.)
Posted by: Lochearn | May 18 2019 21:50 utc | 32
@ 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
Meanwhile, as the Eurovision finals are being held in the zionist entity...jp This is the linked Reuters article from ZH.
Posted by: roza shanina | May 18 2019 22:08 utc | 34
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
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda @30
I debunked Helmer's analysis in the previous Open Thread/Week in Review.
Helmer acknowledged that is not fully acquainted with the facts and the law.
See links in my comment @16.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 18 2019 22:14 utc | 36
Correction: Helmer acknowledged that he is not fully acquainted ...
Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 18 2019 22:16 utc | 37
O próximo ataque,se houver, noite sem Lua, 4 a 6 de Junho, Irã.
:-/
Posted by: Proftel | May 18 2019 22:38 utc | 38
@ 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
Speaking of Eurovision, why is Israel a participant in the "Eurovision" spectacle in the first place?
I know that at its inception, boosters indeed lauded Israel as a sort of brave new outpost of modern, democratic European Civilization in a region of backwards savages, but I thought that conceit had died of acute truthlessness some time ago.
OTOH, it'd be the premier contender in a "Mordorvision" extravaganza. Or perhaps, strictly speaking, a "Nazgûlvision" extravaganza, since arguably Israel is merely a Minas Morgul to the United States of America Mordor.
Posted by: Ort | May 18 2019 23:32 utc | 40
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
@38 Proftel
"4 a 6 de Junho"
Where?
Ramadan ends June 4.
That is when the fun starts.
b4real
Posted by: b4real | May 18 2019 23:49 utc | 42
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:
Posted by: somebody | May 18 2019 23:57 utc | 43
ben @41: sadly, no remedies.
The remedy is outrage, organizing, protests, general strikes.
Gillets Jeune is on the right track. And they are supportive of Assange (not surprisingly).
The reason they employ propaganda and memory-hole things like why Assange wanted to avoid extradition to Sweden (the likelihood of 'temporary surrender' to USA) is that they fear the point when people say "ENOUGH!"
Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 19 2019 0:08 utc | 44
@ 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
Nice tactic.
"Israel Attacks Syria Two Consecutive Nights While Hosting Eurovision Finals"
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-18/syria-attacked-israeli-jets-two-consecutive-nights
Posted by: daffyDuct | May 19 2019 0:34 utc | 46
@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
somebody | May 18, 2019 7:57:31 PM | 43
Strache said that the meeting was staged by intelligence services with the purpose to bring down the Austrian government.
This is being done by western intelligence agency. The austrian government is too close to Russia. The Brits, Germans and the Dutch suspended some intelligence cooperation with Austria due to that.
FPÖ is too close to Russia, not to mention too far to the right for Europe's taste.
This is how "democracy" works in the West. Look and learn.
And if the Dems win in 2020, there will be massive crackdown on right wing forces in Europe. Farage, Le Pen, Salvini, AfD, Orban, etc..all kinds of hybrid war pressure will be used to destroy them. A combined pressure by the White House and liberal forces in Europe. If Brexit is not finished by that point, you can forget about it as well.
The good thing about Trump is that he is not cracking down on right wing forces in Europe, and for good or for bad, many of them are also relatively pro-russian. Still, the Deep state, which is angry at Trump (and this, by the way, is one of the reasons why it is angry), still manages to get some scalps, in this case the scalp of the FPÖ.
But if the Dems win, it will be definitely unleashed on right wing forces in Europe.
Posted by: Passer by | May 19 2019 0:38 utc | 48
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
Australia: luck running out?
Posted by: vk | May 18, 2019 2:47:09 PM | 7
Yep. It ran out yesterday when Scum Mo (worshiper of "Israel", unbridled Neoliberalism and the Disgustingly Rich bribers/owners of the Liberal Party) won the Federal Election.
He's going to 'save' $1.5 Billion by reducing the number of govt employees ("Small Govt" remember that one?). This means that Scum Mo already knows which of the Friends of the Liberal Party will pick up the slack via a Privately owned Corporation. The Corporation will pay the ex-govt employees LESS than they were paid as govt employees, and charge the govt MORE than it cost to employ them directly.
A majority in the Oz Parliament is 76 seats and Scum Mo's Libs have 74 with 5 seats still undecided. ALL of the polls, predictions and surveys were WRONG by 3% to 5%.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 19 2019 1:09 utc | 50
@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
@ grieved who wrote in response
"
Does go to show how many creeps hide in the shadows as the thread transpires though.
"
Thanks for the perspective on real/fake commenters. I don't have Lochearn perspective in my memory but did think that the comment from "ben" was not reflective of the regular "ben"
I understand from personal friendships that the reality facing many Americans is scary because they had bought the American Way BS hook, line and sinker....and now feel raging emotions about the lies they have lived. As I have written before, my moniker projects my mission of shortening the time humanity spends under the jackboot of global private finance by some unmeasurable, but real to me, amount.
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 19 2019 1:45 utc | 52
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
add to 53
RT here gets the mood from Germany probably right.
As Austria is reeling from a scandal involving Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, which put the Alpine nation on a brink of snap elections, in Germany, politicians and officials of almost all political backgrounds snatched at an opportunity to demonize the ‘right-wing populists’ … and teach their neighbors how they should do politics.“Europe is a union of countries that have decided to cooperate on a basis of common values,” Merkel told journalists in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, answering a question about the situation in Austria. “We are dealing with movements, populist movements that despise those values in many aspects and seek to destroy the Europe of our values, so we have to oppose them.”
Posted by: somebody | May 19 2019 2:01 utc | 54
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
somebody | May 18, 2019 9:52:16 PM | 53
The head of the German domestic security agency, the BfV, has told the parliament he sees “considerable risks” in intelligence cooperation with neighboring Austria, according to Die Welt.
I doubt that they would lie so openly, many in Germany could counter that if this is not true. After all, they pretend to say what the head of the German domestic security agency, the BfV, has told the parliament this. There will be MPs who will counter that if not true. Or leaks.
The FPÖ signed a cooperation agreement with Putin's party. I'm not aware of other austrian parties doing so. So they must be quite close. Then there is the FM who was nominated by FPÖ and danced with Putin. Then there is the western media chatter, and that chatter is specifically singling out the FPÖ as the most problem party.
"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."
I agree with that, i know that far right parties are causing lots of triggering in pro-EU circles. But i also see the usual suspects, of the type of Anne Applebaum rejoicing. I also see atlantist media been happy with that. The current austrian government has been responsible for attempts to shift the mood in western european countries towards pro-russian direction. Including by normalisation of very close public contacts (dancing, wedding) with Putin. These things serve the purpose to normalise russian influence in Western Europe. So this does not smell to me like something that is only EU integration related.
Posted by: Passer by | May 19 2019 2:27 utc | 56
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
somebody | May 18, 2019 10:01:58 PM | 54
That looks good as far as Germany is concerned. But i have also seen anglo media and they specifically single out FPÖ as being too pro-russian. EU integration concerns about this party take second place in Anglosphere media.
So on the one hand you have the mood in Germany, and on the other hand you have the mood in atlanticst/neocon circles. They are both important, i would say.
Posted by: Passer by | May 19 2019 2:34 utc | 58
@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
add to 58
Btw UK and Dutch spooks restricted intel coopreation with Austria specifically due to the FPÖ.
So i'm pretty sure that this party is a target.
Posted by: Passer by | May 19 2019 2:43 utc | 60
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
Posted by: Passer by | May 18, 2019 10:34:42 PM | 58
It is a Rorschach test. Haaretz sees Netanyahu, Germany sees Europe, Britain/US see Russia.
It might be much closer to home. FPÖ does have Russia connections, the woman who trapped Strache claimed to be the niece of Igor Makarow, a billionaire who deals in gas and oil. Dimitri Firtash lives in Vienna safe from extradition to the US and is represented by an ex-FPÖ justice minister. He almost certainly knows Makarow, it would have been easy for Strache to have him vouch for the niece.
Kurz had forced his coalition partner Strache into renouncing the right wing "identitäre" FPÖ fringe who had become toxic as the New Zealand mosque bomber had connections to them. ÖVP justice and FPÖ interior minister shared a media conference on a razzia on right wing groups. The right wing fringe was furious.
The second guy in the video, who speaks Russian and translates Strache, Gudenus is part of the "identitäre" right wing movement. He was Strache's right wing hand and Strache trusted him. He vouched for the "Latvian niece" who he says had offered to buy overprized land from his estate. You can Strache hear in the video saying "it is a trap, a trap" and Gudenus assuring him "it is the real thing".
Posted by: somebody | May 19 2019 3:17 utc | 62
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
@63 Peter Au
Again, there is indeed a collective western psychosis. This is the product of anational elites. The Roman empire was more oriental than western in its makeup but Italy today is a product of the west and Praise Be to God was allowed liberation from the Romans.
Cops don't carry guns in China because there is no gun ownership. Not much to worry about.
India has a caste of untouchables and an acceptance of a class of people who are charlatans and scammers. Again...it is something beyond your typical westerner's understanding.
In the days of Herodotus, the Greeks shuddered in horror that some easterners ate their dead in ceremony and likewise easterners were appalled at the Greeks immolating their dead.
Do we want difference anymore? Do I care about German GDP or women's rights in Malaysia? FUCK NO! and you shouldn't care either. Unless you are from Malaysia. We have to put a stop towards rampant internationalism. For Americans, this means looking deeply into our situation and reaffirming what it is that makes America America. Corny? Only if you have been put to sleep by the nihilism of modern globalism.
People are stuffed in sardine cans in highrises in China because they have no concept of fighting for what you can win back from the elites. This is not a dig at them! They simply prefer to endure it, probably for their family sake or a future career or what have you, and these parameters of rigid behavior are only being further reinforced by their social score system which is being rolled out thanks to technology utterly untethered from spirit.
Dude. I will not sit here and tell you which culture is best. I will tell you that I know who I am and where I belong and I'm team liberty all the way.
As for us attacking China and Russia. This is a game of elites. Nothing to do with the common spirit of us lowlifes. But I will say that westerners are far more likely to regain supremecy over their anational elites...indeed it is only a matter of time. The sound of the rats leaving the ship.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 3:59 utc | 64
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
NemesisCalling
Just a thought on the concept of owning land or the liberty of. A lot of migrants went to the US and Australia, and I would guess Canada and NZ because they could own a bit of land and a home.
Land either cheap or free for the taking and plenty of it. I am not sure about the US but around the time of first settlement, Australia was considered uninhabited. Plenty of room for the lush suburban lawn.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 4:41 utc | 66
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
Come to think of it - the blackfella;'s that that used to live here mightn't feel so liberated by all the lush suburban lawns.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 4:46 utc | 68
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
Peter, I haven't even been to 40/50 states. I am a laborer, man, who fancies himself a poor man's thinker.
Business travelers in China I am sure get the red carpet. Have you lived as a laborer in China?
Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 4:59 utc | 72
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
@ 44 Jrabbit said;"The remedy is outrage, organizing, protests, general strikes."
Tis' a no brainer rabbit, but, don't hold yer' breath til it happens. Hedonistic U$A just
doesn't have it in them any more.
Posted by: ben | May 19 2019 5:17 utc | 74
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
President of México Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has famously declared that Mexico intends to nationalize the Internet. But what would a state-owned Internet look like?
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
@ Peter AU 1 who wrote in response to NemesisCalling
"
Jeez, am I sick of the Exceptionalism shit.
"
It has been my experience with NemesisCalling that their monotheistic faith defines their exceptionalism and BS word jingoism like liberty.
Thanks for sharing your China experience....real people instead of the exceptional ones all around me in America....sigh
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 19 2019 5:39 utc | 78
@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
Notice the dismissal of the term "liberty."
Is this what we want as westerners? It is an honest question.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 5:49 utc | 80
@ 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
psychohistorian
Nemesis sure showed his her colors there. Something I wasn't expecting.
Worth going there if you ever can psychohistorian. Even if just to understand the pros and cons of China and dispel any faint odours of propaganda than may have crept in.
I know when I went, Although I disregarded most of the crap we are feed, I did expect to see some sort of secretive communist police state. It was the opposite, I came away realising I live in a police state.
Most people eat out on work days in China. We got a hotel well away from the international scene though there were a lot of asian travelers and the odd european, none of whom spoke english. One women working at the hotel spoke a little english.
The area was a mix of factories and apartment buildings. Opposite the hotel was some shops and a lot of restaurants. In the evenings the workers from the factories would all head to the restaurants. We went to a different restaurant each evening, or sometimes get something from the street vendors that started up when the factories closed. The atmosphere was always relaxed and a lot of laughter and noise. My daughter was embarrassed because the locals were always looking at the foreigners trying to work out what crockery should be used for what food.
Counterfeit money is a problem in China. I got caught with some. Many of the small shops
have machines to run notes though that beep if they are counterfeit. I went to one of these and ran all the notes through to see what was counterfeit and what was genuine.
A group of men were there, they had been talking to the bloke behind the counter. They stepped forward to point out how to tell if notes were genuine or not but they all looked the same to me. Nothing arrogant, just genuine helpful people.
I made a day trip down to Shenzhen which is where I met the contact I mentioned in the earlier comment. afterwards, we had about and hour to fill in before the car returned to pick us up. We walked around the area filling in time. This was very much an industrial area, but very much a boom town. There were large factories but also many many small mum and dad workshops. Literally. After school, the kids would be sitting on the front step or giving a bit of a hand and mum would be there too.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 6:20 utc | 82
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
re: Cops don't carry guns in China because..."
Some weeks before the 1969 Woodstock festival, by chance I met Peter Monk in front of Filmore East in NY. I asked how they planned to handle security for so large a spontaneous gathering.
[To paraphrase]"We are hiring off-duty police volunteers who will be told not to carry a gun; that way any volunteers will most likely feel confident and comfortable handling matters using just communication."
I instantly saw that viewpoint as genius!
Well, the crowds exceeded all expectations, there was much improvising to cope and the results were completely civil.
A toast to the best there is in Man!
Posted by: chu teh | May 19 2019 7:01 utc | 84
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
@87 dlltravers
As usual, an enjoyable and thoughtful comment from you.
I do agree that comparing cultures is apples and oranges. Indeed, this was really my thesis here. I am not passing judgement on easterners, but rather talking plainly about difference and how this is something that we must fight for as westerners, because I truly believe that the duty of the west is to affirm these differences.
I don't hold it against the Chinese that they toil as human capital senselessly and without selfishness. They do what they must and have adapted to this whilst maintaing cultural and family tradition. It is really beautiful, but it is not for me and not for the west. Jackie Chan drew flack when asked about China being more liberal and democratic: "Maybe it is not for the Chinese to have self-rule." Believe me, even the Toiling Chinaman isn't as dumb as some around here who themselves are westerners but cheer on the homogenizing of the globe as if they really knew what being eastern is all about.
Here is a great passage re: Heidegger and the question of globalism:
But it was probably the German philosopher Martin Heidegger who most clearly anticipated contemporary debates about globalization. Heidegger not only described the “abolition of distance” as a constitutive feature of our contemporary condition, but he linked recent shifts in spatial experience to no less fundamental alterations in the temporality of human activity: “All distances in time and space are shrinking. Man now reaches overnight, by places, places which formerly took weeks and months of travel” (Heidegger 1950, 165). Heidegger also accurately prophesied that new communication and information technologies would soon spawn novel possibilities for dramatically extending the scope of virtual reality: “Distant sites of the most ancient cultures are shown on film as if they stood this very moment amidst today’s street traffic…The peak of this abolition of every possibility of remoteness is reached by television, which will soon pervade and dominate the whole machinery of communication” (Heidegger 1950, 165). Heidegger’s description of growing possibilities for simultaneity and instantaneousness in human experience ultimately proved no less apprehensive than the views of many of his predecessors. In his analysis, the compression of space increasingly meant that from the perspective of human experience “everything is equally far and equally near.” Instead of opening up new possibilities for rich and multi-faceted interaction with events once distant from the purview of most individuals, the abolition of distance tended to generate a “uniform distanceless” in which fundamentally distinct objects became part of a bland homogeneous experiential mass (Heidegger 1950, 166). The loss of any meaningful distinction between “nearness” and “distance” contributed to a leveling down of human experience, which in turn spawned an indifference that rendered human experience monotonous and one-dimensional.
Trump and the neocon experiment will fade away in due time. But the perils of globalism remain as a question that people shy away from the same way that guilt-ridden Germans wince at the notion of nationalism.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 8:30 utc | 88
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
I second that emotion for the excellent Dltravers comment @ 87!
Posted by: donkeytale | May 19 2019 9:01 utc | 90
"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
Peter apologies for misattributing the source of your wisdom. And also regret assuming that you were inurred to the harsh circumstances of a working class life by your eloquence. I treated you as a persona for my own purposes instead of a person and for that I am truly sorry.
Posted by: donkeytale | May 19 2019 9:58 utc | 92
92
No harm done. The bit that I have learned in life has been while attending the school of hard knocks.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 19 2019 12:43 utc | 94
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
@ james, #22
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This video may be inappropriate for some users.screw them..
Well, one can always use websites to download videos from youtube. Cheers)
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
Well, thanks for pointing me to Helmers response.
First of, for JR to claim that Helmer and Craig Murray would knowingly mislead on this topic, is not only a grave accusation, but IMO a personal insult to people, that have done more for alternative media than JR or anyone commenting here will ever be able to achieve.
Plus, it is truly tinfoil hat worthy, and does not reflect well on his arguments, often enrichted with ad hominem attacks and other baseless accusations.
That out of the way, as Helmer himself said, even though the charge was changed to a military offence, still at least parts of the 1963 treatys apply. But it is the law. It can be bend into the shape that lawyers and state attoernys want it to be.
So there is no safe bet, only possible options with varying degrees of danger and chances.
Additionally, the main points of Helmers article still apply: The UK will not offer the same popular resistance as Sweden has done. Sweden still has a strong democratic polpular identity, that would for the huge majority infuritate the people so much in case of extradition, that any political enity daring to do this would be swept away in a political storm. Yes, parts of the Swedish insitutions are influenced by NATO and have vassal charakter, but much much lesser than the UK, and even lower in the polulation.
Plus, opposed to in the UK, the will of the people still matters more (even though less than some time ago) to politicians than in the UK, whichs so called democracy if of pretty different nature.
This political nature in Sweden compared to the UK may not be to easy understand for someone who has no personal connections to Sweden, let alone to continental Europe.
So, there are no garantuees of magical ways out. But in Sweden he will have a more democratic system, where the people truely believe in the so often hailed "western values"(TM) and will go to much greater lengths to fight for them than in the poodle that is the UK (Any one REALLY trusts the Labor party to actually hold a promise AFTER the next vote???? And that here says a social democrat..).
Make out of that what you will, but claiming Helmer (who in his search for truth was nearly murderd) and Craig Murray (Who is belling cats number one target it seems) are shills is just shameless.
IMHO
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPropaganda | May 19 2019 13:31 utc | 98
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
@95 william
Your post was annoying and couldn't finish it.
The suburban lawn bit was tongue-in-cheek.
The fact that you refuse to even try to win back our terminology that has been stolen from us clearly puts you in the useful dolt campaign that the rest of us who want our country back and to celebrate difference again can look to as to what to not emulate.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 14:48 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
criag murray from today.. feeds into the ideological questions of what direction the usa is taking..
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/05/the-struggle-is-the-meaning/
Posted by: james | May 18 2019 17:41 utc | 1