donkeytail @ 89
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?
Nobody should have any illusion about where China is headed. IN 2050 when their military is built out they may act worse than the Anglo American European’s historically. The Silk and Road Initiative appears to me to be a a soft power grab. The roads are leading back to China for resources and trade. They are using the same tactics the West used with the IMF, the World Bank, and similar institutions.
They are creating a technocratic dictatorship that is a model for other nations (Guess who is helping them build that model. It is Israel), there is no tolerance for deviation from the party, their is no religious freedom.
Russia is quite a different situation. They are also recovering from Marxism but not looking to project their power globally other than to have a nuclear arm. They do not have the manpower nor the US dollars to accomplish that anyway. They are heavily threatened by the West when the West should be accepting their role in the world at least to some extent and they should be a welcome European partner while being allowed to keep their independence economically. The Euro trash western elites wants to control Russia economically and they cannot at this time. They will never give up until they have full access to Russian companies and resources.
I personally just hate US foreign policy and the people that drive the system. If we really believed Marxism was a failure we should have stood aside and watched it fail. The West has been the dominate driver of a great deal of destruction outside their borders when they could have really been an egalitarian driver of liberty amongst the nations. They push tolerance and acceptance within their borders but any nation that wants to take some control over their resources or political situation gets crushed.
The financial complex in the West created this state apparatus and uses it to remain wealthy. WWI and WWII were seminal events to create these organizations but dollar diplomacy was around long before WWII. Colonization was a reality.
So we sit here and watch the West in its death throws and bitch about it while we watch China rise up using its extremely talented pool of people that can be socially evolved into a beehive thru technology and social control. I expect the same Western style system from China controlled by an even smaller set of elites but by that time my spirit will have long passed from this world and I do look forward NOT to being here when that happens.

Posted by: dltravers | May 19 2019 15:11 utc | 104

Thanks to James for the link @ 1 to the Craig Murray piece. The pace on this thread is a speeding train, and I am standing at a country station, but also thanks to b for letting the train through without stopping. At this point things seem to be all coming to a head as far as the arguments go.
I’ll just take up the suggestion by PeterAU1 back quite a way that instead of Prosperity equalling Wealth (money) it might better be forumulated as Prosperity=Merit. The thought there was that such an equation better represents what the Chinese and Russians are doing successfully at this point, but I would disagree with that being the best option. I can see it as a truth as far as leadership goes, but for an entire country I would still go with the US Constitution, notwithstanding that comment about ‘rich white guys’ having formulated it. And I think both Russia and China are undertaking that inclusiveness in their policies. Prosperity and wealth extend to all the people, even those who don’t ‘deserve’ it. Even to the ‘deplorables’ among us. Provided they are peaceful and supportive, if dumb. It’s the only way to go.
I say this as one of the dumbest.

Posted by: juliania | May 19 2019 15:17 utc | 106

China’s new ‘social credit system’ is an dystopian nightmare
China’s new recognition tech can ID people by how they walk
Long-Form: China’s Global Surveillance-Industrial Complex
There is no stopping this trend.

Posted by: dltravers | May 19 2019 15:58 utc | 108

NC 55
Do you know whats the ultimate in western ‘liberty’ ?
The power to take liberty with people’s life.
The license to kill
At least 30 millions civilians all over the world have been liberated from their lives by the western ‘democracies’.
no mean feat that.

Posted by: denk | May 19 2019 16:05 utc | 110

@109 william gruff
Don’t make me laugh with your senseless drivel. I suppose anyone is suspect then who demands fair pay for fair work and not having their intellectual property ripped off by bootleggers. You are an enigma wrapped in a turd my friend.
@denk 110
Then leave or just give up if you are going to throw that typical self-hating claptrap my way. Please don’t conflate and muddle the question by always blaming “Americans.” I am trying to win it back, man. Spell out another way to raise the issue of globalism!

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 19 2019 16:11 utc | 112

There was once a compilation online of all the impeachable offences of Bush Two.
There were hundreds of them.
Was he impeached? No.
Should he have been? Yes.
As ought every President since him, and a few before him as well.
As karlof1 has pointed out, every president of the US swears to uphold the Constitution, which is held to be the Good of government. Many have failed to even come close, and not just presidents, but Congress itself, the Supreme Court itself.
And they have not been called to account. The people are faced with Constitutional issues that are no longer papered over. What should they, what can they do?
There are no new winds blowing. Just the old ones with new faces. There always will be.
Blessings on the wind which is spirit, the breath of the planet. Blessings on all this Sunday. May the wind which is true prosperity bring peace to us all, and friendship here at the bar. Out there, the wind takes on a fearsome aspect. It is beginning to rage. Yet even that wind drives the speeding trains of our lives, and sometimes we take for enemies those that are really our friends. So, thanks to all contributing here. And thanks to b again for providing this sanctuary.

Posted by: juliania | May 19 2019 16:36 utc | 114

They drive on their left,we drive on the right. So it goes,:)

Posted by: dahoit | May 19 2019 16:49 utc | 116

Thanks to Peter AU 1 for responding to my expansion of your idea. I will however claim that “Prosperity equals merit” would apply to the Constitutional Congress, because in that time issues of equality were being openly discussed with respect to all citizens, not just the ones of property who were debating the matters of good governance. ‘The People Shall Judge’ was being enshrined into law, and that didn’t just mean persons of property, though indeed slavery was endemic at the time. It applied to all citizens by birth or naturalization, and expended to current times to give all human beings such respect with the institution of the United Nations. The Constitution I am upholding isn’t that original one, which was just a first step founded on enlightenment principles; it is the ongoing refabricated one that conforms more to the ideals of the founders than their practical necessities at the time. You could say it is in men’s hearts that it resides currently, in the hearts of those around the world who have taken and remolded it to their needs.
They have done this meritoriously, indeed. But they don’t say in doing so, “we the meritorious” or “we the property holders” or “we the white men” or even “we the majority”. They say “we the people”.
But I won’t quibble, Peter. I like your idea of shifting to merit, because what the current US leadership is about is power, and that’s a far, far different kettle of very putrid fish, which I know we agree upon.

Posted by: juliania | May 19 2019 16:53 utc | 118

dltravers 108
Notice something, all the resident ‘China experts’
swear by the oh so reliable MSM !
[PFT, NC, dtraver, donkey, dpeb…]
‘

Posted by: denk | May 19 2019 17:06 utc | 120

Nonstop news about the psychological warmongering policy that will only increase the surmountable hatred for the US Murder Inc.
A War with Iran is an impossibility. The desperate and frustrated B-Team, War-Dog-Bolton and the Fat-Bouncer-Pompeo need to find a new job.
Comparing Iran to Iraq for war loving dummies:
1)Iraq is 168,754 mi² and Iran is 636,400 mi²; that is, Iran is geographically almost 4 times bigger then Iraq.
2)Iraq’s population when invaded was 26 million. Iran’s population today is 84 million.
3)Base on the population of Iran, the US would need 2.4 million troops to occupy Iran.
4)The US total military personnel count is about 2,141,900, of whom 1, 281,900 are active duty and the rest reservists.
5)Iran can already mobilize at least 1.5 million paramilitary “Basij” forces for guerrilla warfare. This is in addition to over 500,000 active duty military personnel.
6)Bush found international allies for his illegal invasion of Iraq, including Britain and Spain. No one in Western Europe would join Trump in his illegal invasion of Iran, making the US isolated and causing it to look like a unilateralist bully.
7) Russian, China, Turkey, Iraqis, Syrians, the Hazaras of Afghanistan, Hezbollah, other resistance groups, and some 40 million Shiites of Pakistan will support Iran.
8) Hezbollah and Hamas would be more then happy to teach the apartheid, occupying entity a lesson it will never forget. Israel cannot sustain a conflict for more than 6 days (General Golan’s estimate), particularly if it involves multiple fronts.
If President Bolton and Pompeo want a war with Iran, they should join the military and be the first on the frontline. A draft of all heavily medicated, grotesquely over-weight and low IQ yanks should also start, because a war with Iran, is the mother of all wars.

Posted by: blue | May 19 2019 17:08 utc | 122

james 121
Not surprising, I speak the truth,
the oppositions are all scraping the
barrel bottom,

Posted by: denk | May 19 2019 17:11 utc | 124

@ Lochearn | May 18, 2019 5:03:44 PM | 21
Surely you can find a more respectable source than Mullins, a virulent anti-Semite, hate-mongering racist, supporter of Nazi causes and organizations, etc ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustace_Mullins#Political_activities )
For those who do in fact prefer an analysis of the Fed from a conservative viewpoint, I wholeheartedly recommend G. Edward Griffin’s substantial tome “The Creature From Jekyll Island” and from the left, Ellen Brown’s “Web of Debt.”

Posted by: AntiSpin | May 19 2019 17:15 utc | 126

juliania
And I think both Russia and China are undertaking that inclusiveness in their policies. Prosperity and wealth extend to all the people, even those who don’t ‘deserve’ it.
IMHO, what many see as a built-in cultural superiority inherent in China and Russia is in reality more a reflection of the different stages of capitalist development at this particular historical epoch as opposed to say the 19th to mid 20th century Europe and US. The development stages in my mind are roughly aligned but the surrounding historical circumstances are vastly different.
The world as a whole is more enlightened today. Technology is hugely advanced worldwide, education, medicine, you name it, are sreading globally (yes, through BRI). In fact, a counter argument is made to the investment class by economic historians that far from being in steep decline, capitalism is still in the midst of its golden age and surging anew post the great recession, with one of the more telling phenomena the capitalist financial seeding of China’s miraculous economic growth resounding through the global markets and in turn seeding demand and growth in developing countries.

History doesn’t exactly repeat itself, but it does run in cycles. One of the most robust theories of such cycles was articulated by economic historian Carlota Perez, in her influential book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (Edward Elgar, 2002). It suggests that humanity can get through the current period of upheaval and economic malaise and enter a new “golden age” of broad economic growth, if the world’s key decision makers act in concert to help foster one.
This may seem far-fetched, but it’s happened four times before. We are in the midst of the fifth great surge (as Perez calls them) of technological and economic change since the Industrial Revolution. The last one, the age of oil, automobiles, and mass production, lasted most of the 20th century and still shapes many people’s attitudes. Our current surge started around 1970 and has rolled out information and communications technology around the world: It is the age of the computer and the Internet…

Funding provided not out of the goodness of wealthy caucasian hearts most certainly but for the usual reasons: exploitation of resources to maximise profits and wealth of the global elite class.
There is nothing of which I’m aware points to this same cycle not repeating as China fully attains the age of imperialism and advances its footprint, again not out of the inherent goodness of Asian hearts but also for the usual reasons: exploitation of resources to maximise the profits and wealth of the global elite class.

Posted by: donkeytale | May 19 2019 17:21 utc | 128

DontBelieveEitherPropaganda @98
I encourage readers to view the full discussion that has/is taking place on the previous Open Threat/Week in Review:
My initial comment (#141)
Start of the Assange discussion (#200), dozen or more comments follow

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 19 2019 17:26 utc | 130

Eric Zuesse:
“Why Only Fools Trust America’s Mainstream ‘News’ Media After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq”
https://southfront.org/eric-zuesse-why-only-fools-trust-americas-mainstream-news-media-after-the-2003-invasion-of-iraq/
[pft, NC, donkey, dtravers, dbep…and counting]

Posted by: denk | May 19 2019 17:34 utc | 132

Yes, james, I agree with you – we probably won’t see it, all we have are the earliest hints as things have gone terribly wrong so quickly. And indeed the problems can trace back, all the way back to the founders of the US. We can pick up on their frailties and on their insularities and imperfections. Certainly what they made wasn’t the be all and end all; it was only the beginning. We don’t really have progress as such because all the way through history precious things are being lost, brave men slaughtered needlessly, women and children also – it’s a sorry tale if you only look at all the destruction, overwhelming. America never was great; it was always trying to be great. It was, at moments, aspiring to be Camelot. No longer.
Maybe just the inclusive nature of the two world movements that seem to have traction at the moment, Russia’s and China’s is what we have to be hopeful about, and I myself hope there are undercurrents of that inclusivity at work in below the surface relationships of the US with those countries. I’ve indirectly got a soft spot for them because their national blood has infused my own family. I know that counts for little in the great scheme of things; but on a personal level, I love my children and grandchildren for that intermingling. That’s a globalism I can support.

Posted by: juliania | May 19 2019 17:42 utc | 134

Is there a D-notice on ‘temporary surrender’?
IMO, the answer is likely to be YES.
The UK should reject extradition of Assange to Sweden as the charges are politically motivated and are likely a ruse for getting Assange to USA with few conditions on his prosecution.
The UK should also reject extradition of Assange to USA because the US computer crime charges are also politically motivated and there are human rights issues that take precedence including: his confinement is likely to be torturous, press freedom must be upheld.
The establishment does not want the above to happen. It seems clear that there is a determined push to extradite Assange to Sweden. And squashing discussion of the ‘temporary surrender’ mechanism which drove Assange to seek Asylum seven years ago is the primary way that they are clearing the way for Assange’s extradition to Sweden. Because only public protest will stop a miscarriage of justice.
Alt-media should not be silent about how public opinion is being manipulated – especially if they are not themselves subject to a D-notice.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Cross-posted from the previous Open Thread/Week-in-Review
If you wish to comment, consider doing so there as part of the ongoing discussion.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 19 2019 18:14 utc | 136

Why have lawns in the first place? Their original purpose was for grazing by animals like horses and cattle. But now they’re useless. Why not use the space and soil for something useful, like vegetable gardens?

Posted by: lysias | May 19 2019 18:32 utc | 138

denk @120 sez: “…all the resident ‘China experts’ swear by the oh so reliable MSM…”
What is the worth of anyone’s opinion if you can get it by simply turning on the TV?
This is always a strong clue for me where people are coming from. Why would any sincere and intelligent person ever go to online fora simply to regurgitate corporate media narratives? More importantly, why would any intelligent person take regurgitated corporate mass media narratives seriously?
Aside: I find it amazing the amount of expertise people can develop about the world when they have never left their mom and dad’s basement or the trailer park the moved into after leaving their mom and dad’s basement.

Posted by: William Gruff | May 19 2019 19:20 utc | 140

NemesisCalling @112 sez: “…fair pay for fair work and not having their intellectual property ripped off…”
Are you so simple as to believe that the workers who manufacture intellectual property are the ones who get a cut of the sales? I am guessing then that you have never produced any intellectual property yourself otherwise you might understand how that works. Of course, judging by the quality of your posts you may not be qualified to produce any intellectual property that a capitalist would care to sell.

Posted by: William Gruff | May 19 2019 19:34 utc | 142

It’s unfortunate that the thread has been, I assume,
deliberately wrecked by the previous poster, since no
apology has been forthcoming.
In answer to Peter at 135, I would agree with you
as far as saying that out of the American
revolution, unlike the Russian or even the French
sprang a dialogue wherein a conscious effort was
made to create a government that would take the
ideals of the enlightenment period and place them
in the hands of an admittedly limited democratic
society. They took what was in their eyes a flexible
working model, while abolishing what was not. It
is only very recently that the ideals have been
trampled upon – this was not founded as a Christian
nation. It is in the Constitution specifically
stated that it is not a religious document. I say
as a Christian, I am very glad of that. To caesar
what is caesar’s; to God what is God’s.
I really don’t know what is meant by culture
in the current context. I do know we are now once
again, we the people, subjects whose will can be
ignored. Our universal will as a people casting
votes in 2000 was subverted by the Supreme Court
itself in that year, and Bush was declared
president. From then on elections have been
in the hands of the elite. Is that now our
culture?
We willed for Obama to do what he said
he would do, and we voted for him in huge
numbers. Young people again, black and
white. We expected him to do what he said
he would do, restore democracy, end the
wars. He did not. He doubled down on
the executive powers Bush and Cheney
made institutional. Culture?
Huge crimes have been committed by the
US in a distortion of its founding
principles. I say it is a distortion
and the public who vote or occupy or
protest making the peaceful attempt
to express their will have said it also.
Those in power know this.
Perhaps we again are Greeks – not the
main characters in the tragedies, but
the chorus. Telling our tale of woe
to any that come after:-
“Sing sorrow, sorrow; but good win out in the end.”

Posted by: juliania | May 19 2019 23:40 utc | 144

@ Schmoe who asked about their breaking the formatting
of the thread by their improperly formatted link
The proprietor of this bar provides guidelines for properly
formatted HTML links and you have now offended your fellow
MoA barflies by your show of “can’t be bothered”
I have offended MoA barflies and now take the effort to respect
the bar HTML “culture” and encourage you to do the same

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 20 2019 0:43 utc | 146

denk @120 sez: “…all the resident ‘China experts’ swear by the oh so reliable MSM…”
The dystopian Chinese technological dictatorship system is either happening or not happening. It is being built or not being built. MSM be dammed. Is it true? Yes or No? If true they are either marketing it to other countries or they are not marketing it to other countries. It is true or false? Real or fake? Somewhere in the middle between true or false? Show me something that I can hang my hat on.
Ah, let me turn the lights on so I can see what I am doing in this dark dank basement. That might help, the glow of this screen is killing me softly.

Posted by: dltravers | May 20 2019 1:40 utc | 148

@148 dltravers – “something that I can hang my hat on”
Try this by a real expert on China, Jeff Brown at the Greanville Post: “China’s public Social Credit System versus the West’s secret Panopticon”. (I’ll drop the link in a following post – I think Greanville triggers moderation.)
Be warned however that to stipulate that any particular thing in China is “either happening or is not happening” is really not a good way to approach China. There is much depth in that society, and in my own experience of learning more about it, I find that the mores of another society are not helpful to understanding the whole of China.
One must understand what the Chinese themselves think about how a good society should operate, and evaluate current developments against that benchmark.
Jeff Brown’s single article may not give enough understanding. But browsing through Greanville’s archives of Brown, and Unz’s archives of Godfree Roberts, as well as Ramin Mazaheri’s superb work on China at the Saker, would begin to show the real China. Brown’s book, “China is Communist, Dammit!” is also a good primer on that nation
One thing is abundantly clear – nothing written in the west is in any way close to a true understanding of China.

Posted by: Grieved | May 20 2019 2:10 utc | 150

William Gruff 140
Its bad moon rising,
All the werewolves are out howling.
hehehhe

Posted by: denk | May 20 2019 2:13 utc | 152

William Gruff 141
‘Or “…penis in hand…”?
I think that is called “masturbation”.’
LOL, !
PFT has NM,
donkey has that dped,
dtravers hasnt found his mate yet.
hehehe

Posted by: denk | May 20 2019 2:52 utc | 154