Yep, it's time for you all to add some great links because I have nothing;-)

Thanks b

Posted by: jo6pac | Jun 9, 2019 12:12:04 PM | 1

The Guardian is still grinding along the bottom with an article on a new extradition abduction law for Hong Kong. Perhaps the Guardian should spend time pressing for changes in British, Swedish and American abduction laws.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Jun 9, 2019 12:37:03 PM | 2

Trump bypasses Congress to make emergency arms deal between Saudi Arabia and US bomb company

Subtitle: Emergency authorisation permits assembly of technology formerly kept secret for national security

I believe there is a saying about "Giving Away The Store". The Trumpies have done many stupid things, but this surely ranks way up there on plain imbecility.

There are some obvious RNC trolls here, and I'll be curious to see if they try to defend this.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 9, 2019 1:01:09 PM | 3

MEP elections in France. The MSM are blaring that Macron “won” and are making a big hoopla out of a ‘contest’ between Le Pen and Macron (as in the 2nd round of elections), thereby rendering political discourse completely empty. Ex:

http://www.slate.fr/story/177891/elections-europeennes-2019-vainqueurs-macron-europe

Macron did not ‘win.’ The (slim) majority of votes went to RN (ex National Front, Le Pen), in second place to an alliance of MoDem (a centrist party run by Bayrou) and EM (En Marche, Macron.)

votes by age group preffered choice with % of vote

18-24 Green (also an alliance) 25
25-34 Green 28
35-49 RN 26
50-59 RN 30
60-69 EM+ 24 RN 23
70- + EM+ 33

Total votes / all eligible voters (incl. those not inscribed, 12%):

RN 10%, EM+ 9%, Green 6%. Seats in the EP: 23 each for RN and EM.

The young abstained: % of abstention (as compared to registered voters) for the same age groups: 61, 60, 54, 49, 38, 35. Older right-wing voters, who voted Fillon originally, voted for Macron.

nos. from Berruyer who is v. careful.

https://www.les-crises.fr/resultats-des-europeennes-2019/

F ‘democracy’ (actually a Representative Republic) is but a pathetic facade, upheld by the PTB + MSM, as is in fact the EU Parliament, the question is, how do they collapse, disintegrate, who attacks when and how?

Posted by: Noirette | Jun 9, 2019 1:03:21 PM | 4

US ambassador: Israel has right to annex 'some' of West Bank

“Under certain circumstances,” Friedman told The New York Times in an interview published Saturday, “I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”

Change a couple of words, and you have "I think thieves have the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of what they steal".

Of course this formulation is specific to God's Favorite Thieves and Murderers.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 9, 2019 1:10:14 PM | 5

Went to see "The Secret Life of Pets 2". Skinny villain in charge of a circus speaks with a Russian accent, has russians for help, commands a pack of evil black wolves, and is abusing a white Siberian tiger whom the pets free.

Tombraider 2013 has Russian villians as henchmen while "Rise of the Tombraider" taking place in Syria and mainly Siberia, has a task involving burning banners celebrating Soviet cosmonauts.

Haven't seen the many other recent overtly anti Russian offerings from Hollywood but a list of them would be quite lengthy.

Posted by: the pessimist | Jun 9, 2019 1:18:05 PM | 6

In Lewis Carroll's book Through the Looking Glass was a memorable phrase:

"The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day."

I thought of that when reading this:

ThorCon Advanced Nuclear Reactor -- More Than Worth Its Weight In Sal

This thing is a miracle. It'll be inexpensive, perfectly safe, easy to maintain, and will produce hardly any waste. There is a slight problem though - it's what the computer software industry calls "vaporware". What you'll read at the link amounts to a pitch to buy some stock in the company so you can be an early investor of the next Microsoft or Facebook.

There is an infinitesimal chance something like this will happen. That would be wonderful, but the prospects are bad. We've got to swiftly move to tried and tested energy sources we can know how to make and can afford.

Going "cold turkey" on fossil fuels simply must be done. But it won't happen unless there are other energy supplies ready to hook up to. Most people will prefer to perish rather than regress to life style resembling the 1920s. So Step #1 is to begin a crash program to build huge wind and solar farms. Once they exist the nature of the conversation will change drastically, especially as people see more and more of the coming climate chaos with their own eyes.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 9, 2019 1:39:35 PM | 7

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!
June 7, 2019

I knew the man was an ignoramus, but hadn't quite appreciated the extent till now.

link

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 9, 2019 1:49:54 PM | 8

@ 4 zach

You are starting to sound like a DNC troll. Trump has made several deals with KSA before and will continue to do so. It's business, unfortunately. Very similar to plowing protected land in Ireland to make a golf course. We don't like it, but that doesn't change THE FACT. We wish he would stop killing Yemenis, but Trump could care less either way.

Your post is the eqivalent of saying: "See?! The prez is selling arms to belligerents in illegal wars!" Which prez in the past has not done this?

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 1:59:41 PM | 9

I remain impressed, if dismayed, that what Gareth Porter described as “one of the most spectacularly misleading uses of statistics of all time” is considered across the west as a flat certified fact, as true as that the earth revolves around the sun. Here is Symantec publishing numbers with zero context, turning what is actually and obviously statistically insignificant into something massive, enormous, and extraordinarily influential. At a certain level, people will believe what they want to believe, facts be damned.

https://www.symantec.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/twitterbots-propaganda-disinformation

Posted by: jayc | Jun 9, 2019 2:19:51 PM | 10

Well,while the MSM and the Soros´well payed sttoges cry the death of a member of ISIS, this event on the anti-war movement went totally unnoticed.

More than 600 participants from all over Italy and the EU attended this important venue. The Western media has not covered the Florence event. Disinformation through Omission.

Below is the English-Chinese Version.

Scroll down for links to the translations. Forward the Florence Declaration worldwide.

The Florence Declaration: An International Front Calling for NATO-Exit (14 Languages)

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 2:21:50 PM | 11

Also completely unnoticed even amongst the former USN "lefties" here this last by Abby Martin, on how to debunk the "alt-right" discourse on "Cultural Marxism"....

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 2:25:23 PM | 12

congress the president and Israel <=cpi.. Seems the governor of Florida and his entire group in Israel.. for//?http://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/DeSantis_in_Israel-380x419.png wonder who paid for that?

here is the story http://www.unz.com/tsaker/sovereignists-of-all-countries-unite/

Posted by: snake | Jun 9, 2019 3:02:16 PM | 13

@ NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 1:59:41 PM #10

Did you read the link? This isn't about peddling the actual weapons, but instead Trump is giving them the technology. Paveway bombs dropped from 8 miles high will land within a few feet of the target. Selling the bombs is one thing, but selling the "how-to" is quite another.

Do you still approve?

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 9, 2019 3:07:55 PM | 14

Chernobyl is cured in Havana CUBA: The episode HBO hid...

The beaches of Tarará are everything you can expect from the Cuban Caribbean. Warm turquoise blue sea, idyllic palms on fine sand and ocher, gentle breeze. A handful of low houses with gardens are arranged on a perfect grid just 30 kilometers east of Havana. In the center, a rude building with reddish paint worn by saltpeter hides one of the lesser-known episodes of the Chernobyl disaster.

Built in the 50's, the urbanization of Tarará served as a summer resort for the bourgeois and military elite of the country during the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and then became a gigantic children's sports camp of the José Martí Pioneers Organization. But, from March 29, 1990, this paradisiacal resort would host the largest health program for children affected by the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant four years earlier.

Between 1990 and 2011, the pediatric hospital of Tarará treated more than 25,000 infants victims of radiation in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, most affected by cancer, deformations, muscular atrophy, dermatological and stomach problems. And many with high levels of post-traumatic stress for having experienced the nuclear horror.

In addition to the clinical facilities for those affected -which came to concentrate two hospitals and a score of medical branches in the professional field-, the small city had a theater, several schools and recreational areas that extended for almost two kilometers of crystalline beaches .

"Fidel told me, "I do not want you going to the press, or that the press is going to the consulate. This is an elementary duty we are doing with the Soviet people, with a sister town. We are not doing it for publicity?""says Cuban ex-Consul Sergio López in the documentary "Chernobyl in us".

Almost 30 years after Fidel Castro himself received the first contingent of 139 children at the bottom of the airplane ladder, a recent agreement signed between the Ministry of Health of Cuba and the Ukrainian government opens the door to a possible reissue of the program coinciding with the attention raised by the HBO series about Chernobyl.

The Cuban News Agency announced that a new group of 50 Ukrainian children, many of them children of whom at the beginning of the 90 'lived the same experience in the Caribbean nation, will travel in 2019 to Havana to treat their ailments.(...)

Miracle in Special Period

Three months before the arrival of the first children, Fidel Castro warned from the Karl Marx Theater in Havana that bad times were coming. The fall of the Berlin Wall was the prelude to the imminent implosion of the Soviet bloc. The problems in Eastern Europe could be "so serious that our country had to face a very difficult supply situation," Castro said in January 1990.

It was the prologue of the Special Period in which the island was submerged for more than five years, marked by scarcity and blackouts. Despite the disappearance of the European socialist camp, Cuba wanted to keep the program of the children of Chernobyl going.

"Although Cuba went through difficult economic times, our State continued to offer specialized attention to minors, fulfilling a commitment of solidarity," Dr. Medina said in an interview with the multinational channel Telesur in 2017 about the remarkable challenge of continuing to accept patients in those years.

Although the program officially ended, medical flights were maintained for groups of Ukrainian and Russian patients on the island. Since 2016, most have been treated at the Siboney International Clinic, west of the Cuban capital. This will probably be the new home of the children of Chernobyl in Havana.

They will not be strange to the local population. Long before HBO rediscovered the history of Chernobyl for a global audience, any Cuban on foot already knew where to locate the nuclear power plant on the map and explain, in some cases at first hand, the consequences of what happened there. Legacies of proletarian internationalism.

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 3:12:04 PM | 15

The American Chernobyl on which series are not made: the nuclear accident of Three Mile Island

Cinema has always been used as a tool for propaganda. Hollywood knows it, and that's why it makes series about Chernobyl and not about Three Mile Island, the most serious nuclear accident in US history.

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 3:15:46 PM | 16

Key figure that Mueller report linked to Russia was a State Department intel source
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/447394-key-figure-that-mueller-report-linked-to-russia-was-a-state-department

Mueller’s ‘Russian agent’ worked for State Dept! – Stranahan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa3nPHkDlCk

Posted by: John Doe | Jun 9, 2019 3:18:56 PM | 17

Sovereignists of All Countries – Unite!
http://www.unz.com/tsaker/sovereignists-of-all-countries-unite/

Posted by: John Doe | Jun 9, 2019 3:20:39 PM | 18

U.S. Officials Meet in Secret Over Junk-Loan Frenzy as Recession Alarms Flash

The Financial Stability Oversight Council, a panel of top U.S. regulators charged with preventing future financial crises, met Thursday to discuss the past decade's surge in corporate borrowing, much of it by companies with junk-grade credit rating. An economic downturn likely would bring a wave of credit-rating downgrades and debt defaults that could ripple across markets.

https://www.thestreet.com/markets/as-recession-warnings-flash-top-officials-meet-in-secret-over-junk-loan-frenzy-14977371

Posted by: John Doe | Jun 9, 2019 3:21:52 PM | 19

The looming 100-year US-China conflict
https://www.ft.com/content/52b71928-85fd-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2
http://archive.is/yyuyA

US trade deficit smaller in April, but gap with China grew
https://apnews.com/b4a47c7dbf2b4572b22fb7ac46a06859

China pushes back accusations, releases report on trade benefits for US amid trade war
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1153339.shtml

Rise of the yuan: China-based payment settlements jump 80%
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Rise-of-the-yuan-China-based-payment-settlements-jump-80

Posted by: John Doe | Jun 9, 2019 3:28:13 PM | 20

Meanwhile in the US of MAGA....

Armed Neo-Nazis Crash Detroit Pride with Police Escort

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 3:32:33 PM | 21

@ 13 Sasha

A few weeks ago, the poster VK and I were discussing Marx's relationship to Hegel, and, by extension, Kierkegaard's relationship to Hegel and how they are both in their own way Hegelians. That is to say, they both subscribe to a telos of philosophy as spirit's advancement towards itself. The difference between Kierkegaard and Marx is that the former begans and ends with the individual as the ultimate means of spirit towards itself, and Marx of course believes in the individual subsumed by the collective in the work of spirit.

That is just really the tip of the iceberg and I would love to expand upon these philosophers and their thinking further. I will later.

But how this relates to ideas like cultural Marxism is important. Firstly, we should look at the term "cultural Marxism." To subscribers of Marx, you might think this was a dig conjured up by "Alt-Righters" (whatever the hell that means) as a rallying cry or dog whistle and that this denigrates Marxism as a whole. Think of brown-shirts not letting the other have a turn at speaking and you will understand how this term has been appropriated by neoliberal thinking who want to silence critique of this cultural sway. In a sense, the term "cultural Marxism" was repaid by those who took offense at it and brought forth the term "Alt-Right." And where this will take us?...who knows.

But the term "cultural Marxism" is not dangerous to Marxism as a whole, because it has not even to attack Marxism without first getting sidetracked with the subset and degenerate form of Marxism: the "cultural" part.

And this IS a phenomenon in the western world for all to see and grapple with. Do you deny that? Do you deny the cultural destruction of individuality and difference which is the result of an open-border world? Of a world that breeds resentment with its stupid trials of affirmative-action, it's "Me-too?" movement, it's incestuous relationship to Hollywood and media which seeks to scramble in our thinking any stabilizing forms of culture or national identity? I could go on, ad nauseum, but I think if you have a grasp on the perils facing "culture" today, you will first acknowledge that we seem to be careening off some kind of cliff. In America, especially, it seems impossible to even deny what "America" is other than a senseless display of military adventurism and also what many posters HATE here about us: our "exceptionalism."

"Cultural Marxism" is a phenomenon in which it's end goal isn't even a Marxist one. It has been forged as a tool of distraction, and that is why real leftists, if they really were one, would be attacking along with the so-called "alt-righters" and fighting to return the Hegelian dialectic (spirit) back to its appropriate path.

In the video you link, Abby Martin, decries the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson for his wide-reach on the interweb and his supposed "anti-Marxist" sentiment. She misses the boat and for the life of me I don't know why! She seems like a smart person. But why would a smart person be attacking another, who happens to be a Jungian psychologist with some very good ideas about responsibility and manliness and who, as stated above, wants to throttle this "facepalm" of a cultural moment in the 21st century west, "cultural Marxism?"

But this is only part and parcel of my critique for this attack.

As stated above, Hegelians have their limit in Kierkegaard and Marx. So what if a man like Peterson errs to one side with Kierkegaard and the "individual." I feel the same way. If you honestly wish to attack a man for taking the philosophical approach, perhaps you are part of the "cultural Marxism" scourge which is facing the west today.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 3:38:27 PM | 22

@15 zach

It doesn't say anything about giving KSA stuff for free. It does say that he is lending them technology know-how. That, of course, is bad, but I notice that the article you link makes clear that it is something that "Obama wouldn't do!" BS. As if Trump hasn't pulled back in areas where Obama had been routintely aggressive.

Trump has it in for Iran. Probably something to do with the Barracks bombing from his formative years in the 80's. Every prez has their Klingons!

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 3:47:33 PM | 23

Sudanese lives matter!

The MSM, except BBC (the old colonizer) have little to say on Sudan. Part of the big game. Oil prices at stake.
After a visit to KSA and Emirates, the criminals in power (leaders of Djandjawid militias in Darfur, really nice guys) were ordered to crush on the demonstrators. It was Eid anyway and not Ramadam anymore, so why hesitating? Massive killings, rapes reported. The next day, European journalists were shown the remains of the sit-in in triumph by the authorities.
Sudanese protesters have nothing more to lose. They are dying everyday and ready to continue pacifically. The normal civilians in Sudan have only contempt for the Gulfies, and they certainly do not want to participate in the genocide of Yemenis, after Yemen has given asylum to thousands of their brothers who left when the Muslim Brothers took power in 1989.
http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20190608-soudan-restes-sit-in-milices-fsr-armee-vendredi-priere-mosquee-omdurman
https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/les-enjeux-internationaux/soudan-une-repression-sous-influence

Posted by: Mina | Jun 9, 2019 3:53:01 PM | 24

@Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 3:38:27 PM | 23

Abby Martin is not attacking Peterson, she is simply interviewing Professor Wolff, which is not exactly the same.
Professor Wolff explains it in a very simple way, why do you lose yourself into that blubbering about Hegel and Kierkegaard, non of whom I have read, btw? OTOH, being a Jungist, or of nay other school, psychologist does not guarantee your words are like God´s word. I personally have known some psychologists who were, how to say, quite crazy themselves.

Man, keep it simple, if you can not do it, may be it´s that you, or the "alt-right" indeed, really do not understand Marxism...

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 3:53:04 PM | 25

Two important posts from Michael Roberts' Facebook.

About the USA:

The end of the American dream (if it ever existed)..

In America and also much of Europe, the current post-war baby boomer generation will be the first that cannot expect their children to get higher living standards than them. The percentage of 30-year olds earning more than their parents is at its lowest level ever recorded.

Inequality of income is at its highest in 100 years, when you compare the share of the top 1% to the bottom 90%.

The economic mobility rate in the US is now one of the worst in the developed world. In the US, people in the bottom income quartile have a 40% chance of having a father in the bottom quartile (in the father’s prime earning years) and people in the top quartile have only about an 8% chance of having a father in the bottom quartile, suggesting half of the average probability of moving up and one of the worst probabilities of all the countries analyzed.

About Japan and Germany:

Two key G7 economies continue to show a significant slowdown in economic growth.

German industrial production plunged 1.9 percent from a month earlier in April 2019, much worse than market expectations of a 0.4 percent fall and after a 0.5 percent gain in the previous month.

That was the biggest drop in output since August 2015, amid falls in the production of capital goods (-3.3 percent), intermediate goods (-2.1 percent), energy (-1.1 percent) and consumer goods (-0.8 percent). Year-on-year, industrial production dropped 1.8 percent in April, following a 0.9 percent fall in March. Manufacturing output dropped 3.4% over the year. Both exports and imports fell.

The German Bundesbank cut its GDP growth forecast for this year to just 0.6%, down from 1.6% at the beginning of 2019.

Japanese wages fell for the fourth consecutive month and overall household spending slowed sharply. Unemployment, currently at record lows, is set to rise.

Posted by: vk | Jun 9, 2019 4:04:26 PM | 26

@23 nemesis calling.. dissident voice had a 6 part review of jordan petersons book - 12 rules for life.. in the review, they take apart many of petersons pet peeves on communism.. you might find it interesting.. this is part 5 i have linked to...

i was trying to understand why i was seeing this book in the airports in europe and in my travels in italy, slovenia and croatia... i think it is more of a concerted effort to tar communism with a certain feature and petersons ignorance on the topic is the perfect recipe for it..

Posted by: james | Jun 9, 2019 4:08:44 PM | 27

@26 sasha

Yes she does attack Peterson. She lumps him into the right-wing category and then proceeds to not question her guest who draws comparisons to the Nazis.

I am sorry you find my post too heady. I tried to keep it simple, but Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Marx are not simple. I realize that. I thought there were enough bones in there to string an uninitiated along.

After all, if you don't know Marx, how he came to be, and how he is being used today, I feel that any contribution tying philosophy to culture will be severely lacking.

I have yet to read Aristotle or a lot of the Greeks and I have read very little Hegel. But what I said is important pertaining to your post referring to cultural Marxism.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 4:14:56 PM | 28

@ 28 james

I will check the link. Thanks.

Re: Jordan Peterson, I think he is a suave dude with some common-sense psychology that only seems crazy because we live in a deformed age.

It is amazing that he is a millionaire because he has read a little Jung and knows how to speak plainly and truthfully.

I don't doubt his aversion to Marxism. As stated in my post, you can either be a Kierkegaard-Hegelian or a Marxist-Hegelian. And they both would tear at each other's throats before sitting at the table and speak at each other.

The question is is whether or not an avowed Marxist can take Peterson's critiques to heart and work with them in their own understanding of Marx in the west. If you can do that, you will be a more full Marxist and will evangelize a hell of a lot better.

Eastern bloc countries no doubt have a huge distaste for the extreme limit of Marxism. No wonder he sells well in those countries.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 4:26:32 PM | 29

just fyi have noticed wsws has gradually increased moderation to the point of whitewash... and you should hear those guys rave about censorship

this site is one of the very very few actual discussion / argument commenting sections left on the internet, thanks b!

Posted by: matty | Jun 9, 2019 4:45:41 PM | 30

A fertilized human egg cell is a person when it suits the purpose of the fanatics and their wealthy backers. Naturally those wealthy backers carve out exemptions for themselves.

Life Begins At Conception Except When It Doesn’t

Freezing a human embryo is not an inexpensive process. Very few of the bottom 99% are going to be able to afford this. So what if it turns out Mr. and Mrs. Rich Bastard doesn't need the microscopic frozen person after all? (or they froze a few dozen and only need one) Just pour the contents of the beaker into the drain.

I'd expect the "pro-life" nutters will try to extend their little police state dominions. Say, make it a felony for a Citizen Of Alabama to travel to Nevada or Michigan to murder her baby. But what about Miss Rich Bastard of Alabama who has gotten herself pregnant? I'd expect the same kind of exemption to be carved out for her and her sisters. Flying out of the US would naturally exempt them from US laws. Just like flushing that tiny 'unborn' Alabama citizen is ok because it was always outside a female body.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 9, 2019 4:57:34 PM | 31

@Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 4:14:56 PM | 29

No ,she does not attack anybody, simply limits herself to confront the speech of one person, Peterson, to that of another, Wolff, with whom the first one refused to debate in an unversity forum...what speaks volumes about his intelectual honesty....

If it serves you of anything, i did not know neither Peterson nor Wolff until I saw this video, I only knew Slavoj Zizek, on whom I have mixed feelings...I am a working class person, philosophy is not my working field, nor I was taught well enough on that while at High School..My philosophy professors then were quite useless...and no not think I was a moron, I happened to end my secondary ( pre-university ) studies with honors, but, simply, they did not manage to get me either understanding or taking any interest at those times...then, I ended enrouting my path towards sciences...

The best is that the people here watch the video and judge by themselves....

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 5:01:57 PM | 32

Sasha@17

There is no comparison. TMI was a false flag to give the newly formed FEMA some practice and to discredit nuclear power in the US and abroad to increase demand for oil and gas which they controlled via OPEC (who was dependent on the seven sisters for getting oil from ground to market)) At the same time the US deposed the Shah in part for placing orders for over 20 nuclear reactors to become more energy dependent (they had plenty of oil but no refineries)

TMI unlike Chernobyl is still operating although its scheduled to be retired. Looking back, the risks were hardly severe. Actual radiation exposure for the 2 million people nearest to Three Mile Island totaled a dose of about 1 millirem above what Americans are exposed to naturally. For context, a single dental x-ray exposes a patient to 1.5 millirem

Posted by: Pft | Jun 9, 2019 5:06:08 PM | 33

@ Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 3:38:27 PM | 23

Marx never stated that the "individual is subsumed by the collective". He simply stated that the human being is a natural being, and, as a natural being, it is part of nature as any other species in the world. And, as a species the Homo Sapiens had the particularity of thinking before acting (read the famous quote comparing the bee with the architect) and, as such being individual who create social organizations according to their own necessities.

And archaeological evidence indicate Marx was right: there's absolutely no evidence that the Homo Sapiens ever was a pure solitary species (e.g. tiger, jaguar or the eagle) or a pure social species (eusocial species, e.g. bees, ants). Humans lived in groups as little as seven individuals, and in societies as large as billions (contemporary capitalism). The human being is neither purely collective nor purely solitary: it is just human. The only limit for the human being is that it is a natural being -- this alone puts Marx apart from both Hegel and Kierkegaard (who I've never seen him quoting, but I may be mistaken), as both put the Homo Sapiens as a non-natural being, i.e. a spiritual being (Hegel in the form of the "Spirit of the World"; Kierkegaard in the form of the individual, atomistic soul).

I have nothing against a random individual reading Hegel or Kierkegaard, or Kant, or Heidegger or whatever. What I simply don't accept is treating them as equals to Marx: all of them were, technically speaking, philosophers; but only Marx was a scientist. To dismiss Marx's labor theory of value and the tendency of the profit rate to fall when studying capitalism is akin to dismissing Darwin's evolution theory in biology. Sure you can do it -- but you would be scientifically wrong.

--//--

I don't understand the obsession with some people with "Cultural Marxism", for one simple reason: it is a fabrication of the post-1980s far-right. Here are the reasons why:

1) Those leftist postmodern groups that arose post-1968 never claimed to be the successors of Marx and never even used the term "Marxism" or even anything close to Marxist vocabulary; the Structuralist and Post-structuralist philosophical movements in France claimed to be so, but they were a late (1970s) and localized academic movement that quickly dissolved themselves and mutated to Postmodernism (also in France). Postmodernism proper was born at the middle 1980s, with the emblematic opus of Lyotard usually being used as the foundational stone;

2) In fact, if you study History of the 20th Century, you'll quickly realize the embryos of those groups were actually anti-socialist/communist, petit-bourgeois marginal groups that were created to drive a wedge in the workers' movement (e.g. Suffragettes). Sure, with the Cold War, socialism/communism was decimated in the West, so those movements occupied the political vacuum in the Left left by it;

3) It can be argued that even those identitary movements occupied the vacuum unwillingly: with the brutal crackdowns on the socialist left in the West came the brutal conservative offensive against identitarian movements from the right, which gradually expelled those movements to the left. Add to that that, in the USA, the process happened concomittantly with the Vietnam War and was married with the Black Civil Rights movement. Put it simply, it was a complex, uncommon alignment of historically specific factors which put those petit-bourgeois identitarian movements to the Left in the First World countries;

4) It is a myth that everything Left-wing is automatically Marxist in some way (even if somewhat unconsciously): the concept of Left and Right-wings came with the French Revolution of 1789, therefore long before Marx was even born. Even during Marx's lifetime, socialists/communist "parties" were forbidden to dispute elections legally -- so they were outside the Left-Right spectrum of bourgeois politics. The first relevant Socialist party to be legal was the SPD, with the foundation of Bismarckian Germany -- at the end-half of Marx's lifetime. Even in the 20th Century, many countries didn't hesitate to outlaw the communist and socialist parties when revolution was a risk -- that was specially true in Latin America during the Cold War;

5) Finally, the term "Cultural Marxism" saw its usage become widespread much later that even Postmodernism, in the 21st Century, specially after the 2008 meltdown in Wall Street. That was the moment the far-right saw the risk of a Marxist revival (because Marxism predicts crises in capitalism, being the only extant economic theory to do so) and, to kill two birds with one stone, fused together Postmodernism and Marxism in one term -- Cultural Marxism -- and created a (imaginary) chimera that we know today. But those are the same people who claim eveybody in California and some billionaries "communists", so I don't think they use the term scientifically.

Posted by: vk | Jun 9, 2019 5:10:16 PM | 34

@Posted by: vk | Jun 9, 2019 5:10:16 PM | 35

Crytal clear, thanks, you explain it like a good professor...

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 5:33:48 PM | 35

vk @35 sez: "But those are the same people who claim everybody in California and some billionaires "communists", so I don't think they use the term scientifically."

This, dear barflies, is the correct rhetorical use of humor of understatement.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 9, 2019 5:39:45 PM | 36

@Posted by: Pft | Jun 9, 2019 5:06:08 PM | 34

Well, when it comes to the US, everything is a false flag lest you are going to be caught in error or mismanagement, as everybody else....

For the same rule, could it not be the Chernobyl "acident" another false flag, a sabotage against the USSR when there was already a coordinated effrot to overthrown it, be it by foreign agents or by the Ukrainian 5th column infiltrated ( we know today what then we did notm that there had always been a Banderist stay-behind network....

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 5:50:37 PM | 37

@vk 35

Absolutely, Marx can be considered a scientist when studying the tenents of capitalism and its laws. But you lose me when you try to transmit this label onto Marx when he brings the human being into the interaction with capitalism. In fact, you doomed your whole argument.

You correctly assert that the human being is FREE. It is the launching pad of all consciousness in the universe. She can choose where she goes and there is no restriction. But there is in Marx, for what is the telos of Marxism when it comes to humanity? I believe you will agree that the end point is the eradication of capitalism, the arrival of the laborer as the master, and so forth. He places the human being along with other human beings into his system and ascribes for them the arrival date on their ticket. You see in his dialectic that the human being has no place as an individual.

For Kierkegaard, the crux of the issue is freedom and what it means to be a human being. In my view, Kierkegaard is more of a scientist than any scientist ever was, because he is describing the terms of the soul on its way through spirit. "Stages on Life's Way" as he wrote it. But what makes K the extreme form of Hegelianism as an individual is traced through his work, "Fear and Trembling," where he identifies Abraham's sacrafice of Isaac, as something that only the individual can understand and can never be shared with the other. What would the community think of Abraham's "delusion" that God told him to kill his only son? It is an absolute silence, bound in secrecy, that defines this absolute freedom and that which separates every individual from any other individual.

That is humanity at its core. A locked box.

Marx is limited in his system because, indeed, the individual is subsumed by the collective. "Massification" as it were. He never wrote this himself, but that is not to say that someone can't come along and parse through his work to arrive at that conclusion.

...

As for your thoughts on cultural Marxism, I can't relate to much of it. It doesn't mean that your thoughts don't have merit. But for me, it is plain to see what is happening in my country and how TPTB are using wedge issues to divide and conquer. I want to "go back" to better topics-at-hand, like the eradication of the globalist class and leaders that shall once again be beholden to their flock.

You only see the crypto-attack of the right on the left with the term "cultural Marxism" and not its real, tangible elements that is visible with the naked eye. See my comment above @ Sasha. In the video she linked, the man interviewed boiled the "cultural Marxism" critique down to crypto-anti-semitism that has its origin in Nazi-Germany. I don't know about you, but when I see the right correctly go after this faux-culture, there are Jews in tow, and they never mention "THE JEWS DID IT!" or anything like that. They correctly point out many things that are true and honest about the west's social degeneracy. AND I DON'T THINK THIS IS AN ARGUABLE POINT! Not unless you like the state of things.

Your #3 is a good point and sound. #4 is fine.

Again, with #5, this is short-sighted though there is an intriguing connection you make post-2008. It is true that the right does have its finger on the pulse with regards to social media and the age of the Interweb. They say it is what got DJT elected. But just like DJT and his slamming of globalism and the merits of nationalism, if these are terms that the right is playing for their own advantage, meanwhile, not actually caring about the little-guy, I still believe that they are throwing around a powder-keg and it's going to explode one of these days. Probably when our faux-economy is exposed in the next crash. Then we will see if the people can get their sh it together and throw the globalists into the sea.

And for the record, California is a SHITHOLE! and is the biggest example of neo-feudalism working its way into the US. I'm sorry. I say that with great fear because I know my states, Oregon and Washington, are next.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 5:55:47 PM | 38

@33 Sasha

I had a philosophy course in college where the instructor said that most of philosophy is easily understood but needlessly confounded by flowery language. I think if you can get to the big picture of what the greats are saying, that is better than nothing.

I have a two-year degree. That's it. But I always strive to get to the heart of what these writers are saying. It is worthwhile goal and my life has been enriched because of it.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 5:59:50 PM | 39

Escobar summarizes Xi-Putin relationship as the annual SCO Summit approaches. Lots of links to click to further explanatory articles!

All Important Chinese White Paper (in doc format) detailing why it won't negotiate with "Bad Faith" Outlaw US Empire in brief such that all ought to read its contents.

Putin's speech at SPIEF Plenary Session. Putin's topic: "[W]hat is the state of affairs today or at least how do we in Russia see it?" How Russia saw the 2007-08 crisis and what has transpired since are must reads. A tidbit:

"The previous patterns essentially put the Western countries into an exclusive position and we should be straight about this. These patterns gave them an advantage and an enormous rent, thereby predetermining their leadership. Other countries simply had to follow in their wake. Of course, much happened and is still happening to the accompaniment of talk about equality. I will speak about this as well. And when this comfortable, familiar system began to grow rickety and competition grew, ambitions and a striving to preserve one’s domination at all costs surged. Under the circumstances, the states that previously preached the principles of free trade and honest and open competition began to talk in terms of trade wars and sanctions, and resorted to undisguised economic raids with arms twisting, intimidation and the removal of rivals by so-called non-market methods."

Further on, Putin digs into the Zero-sum idiocy that's at the root of today's friction. He proposes a solution for this and its related problems that requires the participation of other like-minded nations. Also quite visible is the influence China's development strategy is having on Russia's. It's all rather exciting! By 2030-35, IMO, there will be little difference between the political-economy of Russia and China, with most of the remaining nations of Eurasia working to be on the same page. Easily as important as Putin's 2007 Munich Speech, to which he refers.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 9, 2019 6:04:54 PM | 40

@Posted by: Mina | Jun 9, 2019 3:53:01 PM | 25

Sudanese lives matter!

And not only, but also Honduran, Chilean, Haitian, and all of the people from where huge protests are taking place...But the MSM will silence all this coming from the supporters of the coup on Venezuela...

Dissinformation by Omission!

Thread on Haiti:

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1137799419032678400

Thread on Chile:

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1134827864745021441

Threads on Honduras:

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1135508097391308801

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1123966338958024707

Meanwhile ISIS has has estelar premiere in Tripoli and Mozambique:

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1135659113696976896

https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1136234482762166275

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 6:30:08 PM | 41

@ Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 5:55:47 PM | 39

We can go on about the debate between Kierkegaard and Hegel forever. The problem here is that you're teleporting a debate between two philosophers of the end of the 19th Century to a strict sociological phenomenon of the 21st Century. Nobody even knows who Kierkegaard and Hegel are anymore, let alone are continuing their debate.

I hear some random Kierkegaard quotes in evangelical churches here in Brazil. Yes, this is evidence of sophistication of argumentation within some evangelical churches in a random Third World country, but I would like to highlight here even those are very few.

Who's the most popular philosopher in post-war USA? Ayn Rand.

And I'm sure that you can make whatever you want of "Cultural Marxism": it is an object you invented yourself, therefore it can be whatever you want. I don't blame you for conjuring up all your inner demons in one imaginary object: Max Weber built his whole career on this same modus operandi.

--//--

I simply don't agree with your argument that the concept of soul is more scientific than the concept of species. Don't even know how to begin to argue. I'll put you this: if Kierkegaard had to resort to some random religious text to prove his point, it is because he was definitely not a scientist.

You can posit individual experience can never be fully replicated. But that's a tautology: to jump from this to the concept of soul is simply to do a quantum leap.

Here it is important I just want to make it clear that the very concept of "freedom" is pseudo-scientific, and ideologically so. According to the liberals, freedom is the capacity of the individual human being of enjoying his private property; that is, freedom only exists as the manifestation of private property. With that in mind, it is obvious anything anti-capitalist is anti-freedom by default, but that's an ideological position, not a scientific one.

And humans are limited: they exist in nature, concretely, not as the idealization of soul. And here lies the crux of the problem: it is when you know your own limitations that you're prepared to overcome them; you become stronger, not weaker, when you're fully aware of your limits: that's the moment you know what to do and what not to do. Therefore, it is only when the human being knows exactly who it is that it is in its most "free" state. But for that, you must recognize and aprehend reality around you, and for that, you need science.

Posted by: vk | Jun 9, 2019 6:39:12 PM | 42

@Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 5:55:47 PM | 39

if these are terms that the right is playing for their own advantage, meanwhile, not actually caring about the little-guy, I still believe that they are throwing around a powder-keg and it's going to explode one of these days.

It is exploding already, at least in Europe....look at this "agenda", not preciselly that of the German working class...

Probably when our faux-economy is exposed in the next crash. Then we will see if the people can get their sh it together and throw the globalists into the sea.

I have read some article this weekend on that the crash would not be so far indeed, but around the corner, June or July....

When it happens, you will probably regret, as Unamuno did in Spain, what you have helped to unleash over yourselves...Unless you yourself belong to the dirigent class, you will suffer the brown-shirts ( well, as the video linked above, this time it will be black-shirts...), no matter that you will be the second or third after the communists/socialists/...May be that way you will have time to flew, but may be you could find yourself stranded by the crash and without possibility to go...in that case I would not envy you, more time to wait for them, which will be terrifying...

Ukraine, I said it at the first moments the coup happened, seemed to me always a general rehearsal with everything for a time and events to come....

Posted by: Sasha | Jun 9, 2019 6:54:30 PM | 43

karlof1 @41

Good links. Thanks.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 9, 2019 7:26:01 PM | 44

@43 vk

We don't have to go on and on. I don't place limits on human experience. Others do. And rightfully so. We shouldn't applaud the killing of innocents by crazed fathers. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a secret that is locked up within man and that laughs in the face of the collective that Marx espouses. You can acknowledge an incongruity in your thinking, call me the victor and then we can be chummy. ;)

On the surface, you make salient points re: Kierkegaard. I have only begun in my stage of evangelization. But read Either/Or and tell me how you feel. His diagnosis of modern spirit is as wickedly cynical as well as sublimely uplifting as they come. More so than Nietzsche and so much more pertinent than Marx's railing against the bourgeois trappings of our age.

You said it yourself: our age is reading Ayn Rand. If that isn't an open and shut indictment, I don't know what is.

Kierkegaard's time will come but it will take a dark time. We are almost there.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 7:26:56 PM | 45

Like Japan and Germany, emergent Cold War era darling South Korea is also gettin on its knees:

Korean economy contracts 0.4% in Q1

It seems those extra smartphones the South Korean MSM were telling us Samsung would sell thanks to Huawei's ban in the USA will not save the Asian Paper Tiger.

Posted by: vk | Jun 9, 2019 7:28:15 PM | 46

In an article two weeks ago or so, Escobar noted that Xi was told that in the face of the Trade War, the timetables needed to be advanced and the overall pace of BRI needed to increase, to speed up. That was prior to the White Paper's publication. Naturally, since Russia and China are joined together in their development projects, it would be logical for Russia to signal an increase in its own pace of implementation. At his meeting with business executives at SPIEF, Putin indicated exactly that:

"However, we believe that there is every potential to make progress even faster, to qualitatively boost trade and investment interaction, production and research cooperation."

This message wasn't made during Putin's speech at the Plenary Session.

Also just announced is the annual Direct Line with Vladimir Putin to be held on June 20, with additional information here, which will be a week after the annual SCO Summit being held 13-14 June in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 9, 2019 7:48:53 PM | 47

@44 sasha

My wife and daughter and I live a very frugal life. Intensely Spartan compared to my neighbors. It will get tougher but IMO it is far more soul-crushing to live rudderless in a time of great oppression, as we do now, as opposed to a great depression. Although there is the danger of tyrants, I welcome that spark to get the fire started again.

Bela Tarr has a great film called Werckmeister Harmonies that foretells a great trouble that arrives in town as a circus show with a Prince and a Whale. Our discussion reminds me of that movie.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 8:04:09 PM | 48

Glenn Greenwald announces:

"EXCLUSIVE: We obtained one of the largest & most important archives of leaked material in years: containing the secret chats, audios, videos & documents of the prosecutors & Judge - now Bolsonaro's Justice Minister, Sergio Moro - who imprisoned Lula. It shows vast wrongdoing."

Only one mention in the thread about the Snowden trove, most of which is unreleased. At The Intercept, three relevant articles now grace the main page. We'll see how this unfolds.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 9, 2019 8:09:05 PM | 49

The problem with your critique NC, if I may say so, is Marx doesn't fit with Hegel or Kierkegaard. He borrowed Hegel's car once as a kid then subsequently drove much farther down a vastly different road in comparison to either.

Driving a materialist make and model.

Agree with VK here too that Marx as a philosopher or economist ever extolled the "collective". Flat out incorrect. I do think I understand the point you are making and your eloquence is appreciated but you are somehow aiming vaguely at the wrong target.

Your approving nod to the "cultural marxist" slur gives you away.

Posted by: donkeytale | Jun 9, 2019 8:30:50 PM | 50

Has anyone else had trouble with the link to the June 4th MOA piece on Tiananmen Square. I clicked on it to get the update and am getting a 404 error that states the piece cannot be found. b-have you deleted it? Is it being blocked? or is my browser just screwy. All other links work.

Posted by: loneplateau | Jun 9, 2019 8:33:48 PM | 51

@ 51 donkey

Glad you can engage in the discussion.

Keep in mind that I believe the phenenomenon of cultural Marxism is a detriment to both the right and left, has been the subject on constant cultural programming since at least NAFTA, and is being pushed by the globalist class ("anationals"). It is nothing more than the attempt to detour people from the subject at hand: how to make America better for Americans.

When we realized that allowing illegals to flood the border, take our jobs, and lower our wages was bad for our workers, we were deemed racists and so racism becamet0 a subject to address on a national level. Except there was no racism and there never was.

When the subject of sexual harrasment was brought to the fore in the workplace in the early 90s, consequently dealt with by having firm laws in place and enforced, it took women two decades later to raise a stink over non-existent "cultures of rape" or decrying of Hollywood producers for their wonton exploitation, even though they happily prostituted themselves at the time. Now men walk the world as pigs for being men and not knowing why the world finds them suspicious.

When the subject of police violence became a racial question and was subsequently supported by globalists like Soros to raise the question, even though statistics prove whites are killed too, and blacks kill more blacks, and are statistically more likely to engage in violent crime than whites. Now my black coworkers are far more hesitant around me than they used to be...but let's talk about race instead of our warmongering, taxed-crazed MIC than runs the west.

Transgenderism in your face!
America bad...in your face!
Religion evil...in your face!

I suppose I am just crazy and you should tell me that pop music is good and stimulating these days!

That all Hollywood has left in the tank is rehashing comic book films and throwing Best Picture awards at a movie about a woman having sex with a man-fish.

Anything goes, my man.

Besides cultural-Marxism, what would you call that decay?

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 9:07:01 PM | 52

@ loneplateau | Jun 9, 2019 8:33:48 PM #52

All the links in that one work for me - and in both browsers. Have you tried a second browser?

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 9, 2019 9:25:57 PM | 53

@ Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 9:07:01 PM | 53

What I disagree with is the term: Marxism has nothing to do with all of those identitarian, minority-based political movements. Philosophically, because they have nothing to do with Marxism; historically, because none of these groups have ever even evoked Marx's name -- let alone his philosophy. None of them claim the legacy of the extinct Marxist parties or political movements, so you can't even call them a metamorphosis of Marxism in the political arena.

What happened was simple: the Marxist Left was literally exterminated during the post-war period in the West; those postmodern groups filled the vacuum. But this vacuum comes from the bourgeois political structure, not some kind of Marxist cative chair in some kind of cosmical political agora.

Posted by: vk | Jun 9, 2019 9:26:29 PM | 54

Good piece on the BBC as a propaganda mouthpiece

https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/universal-credit-the-state-and-the-bbc-secretly-collude-in-propaganda-campaign/

Posted by: ninel | Jun 9, 2019 9:31:01 PM | 55

@55 vk

I completely agree! I mention that in my original posts, too. Cultural-Marxism has nothing to do with Marxism other than the idea that we are going to level the playing field for all these dejected, victim-classes and so I think the term is apt and even humorous.

I don't think it's a big deal and don't associate it with Marxism at all. It is an export of the global-financial class turning levers and gears on their island castle.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 9, 2019 9:38:53 PM | 56

Regarding the Intercept 'scoop' - it's a little late now to reveal the conspiracy againt Lula. The damage is done...

Posted by: the pessimist | Jun 9, 2019 10:42:34 PM | 57

Wonderful, more BS terminology (cultural marxism) to confuse real issues, and spark nothing debates.

Posted by: ben | Jun 9, 2019 11:18:37 PM | 58

From TRNN, on D-Day;

https://therealnews.com/stories/d-day-how-the-us-supported-hitlers-rise-to-power

Posted by: ben | Jun 9, 2019 11:49:22 PM | 59

pessimist @58--

I had a similar reaction, but related to the overall relationship between information disclosed, the burning of sources and lack of total release of the Snowden Papers. Escobar's reports on the Brazilian corruption and events leading to the impeachment and jailing informed me that a large segment of Brazilian society is just as corrupt as those they supported to do the deeds. Although it's clear Brazil benefits being relatively economically independent, it's clearly under the influence of the Current Oligarchy and its Neocon hitmen to a certain degree.

The revelations need to be powerful enough to swing a very significant mass of Brazilians to confront those corrupt. But for that to happen, Brazilians need to be informed so they can learn.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 9, 2019 11:49:45 PM | 60

This Outlaw Power by Christopher Black opens with the following quotation from The Global Times:

"The Chinese people find it difficult to accept the fact that they are being taken as thieves. The US boasts too much superiority and has been indulged by the world. Due to its short history, it lacks understanding of and respect for the rules of countries and laws of the market. The Americans of the early generations accumulated prosperity and prestige for the US, while the current US administration behaves like a wastrel generation by ruining the world’s respect for the US."

A concise, truthful, indictment. It's a Big Picture type of essay. But it won't be entertaining.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 10, 2019 12:17:44 AM | 61

Tiananmen Square Massacre — Facts, Fiction and Propaganda
https://medium.com/@gmochannel/tiananmen-square-massacre-facts-fiction-and-propaganda-32fdf68ce72c

Posted by: John Doe | Jun 10, 2019 12:40:59 AM | 62

The world's no 1 rogue state.....

https://off-guardian.org/2019/06/08/this-outlaw-power/

'They also reflect the Americans’ preoccupation with themselves as “exceptional” people, as the “exceptional” nation, above all others, answerable to none, which has been a characteristic of their culture since its foundation.'

Certified genocidists demand China to 'account for' the fake 'TAM massacre'

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Pompeo-blasts-China-over-human-rights-on-Tiananmen-anniversary

Posted by: denk | Jun 10, 2019 12:42:42 AM | 63

Just when you think the Western MSM (and the UK tabloid press in particular) couldn't go any lower with its fantasies about Kim Jong-un's executions of various NK officials using methods and mayhem straight out of its own Freudian couch-potato subconsciousness, it digs something straight out of a James Bond movie - and then has the idiocy to claim that the North Korean leader was inspired by the same film!

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un 'executes a general accused of plotting a coup by throwing him into a piranha-filled fish tank'

Of course the general who met his fate by a million tiny cuts 'n' bites remains unidentified so there'll be no way of knowing when he is resurrected, scars and all.

"... The Daily Star claimed the North Korean leader may have been inspired by the 1965 James Bond movie 'You Only Live Twice' to pursue the gruesome execution method.

'He has executed members of his own family and killed senior government officials for not clapping loudly enough during one of his speeches.'..."

To that UK intelligence spook: get your head out of that dark dank place behind and between your legs and stop watching James Bond flicks yourself.

Posted by: Jen | Jun 10, 2019 1:30:05 AM | 64

@ karlof1 | Jun 10, 2019 12:17:44 AM #62

The looming ban on Chinese students is going to be painful. Not necessarily to the US as a whole, but colleges and universities are going to suffer. Foreign students are their most profitable ones, and losing "more than 360,000 Chinese students" will hit their bottom line. Here in Indiana Purdue charges $31,000, and IU $35,000 for international students. In each case more than triple the resident rate.

I'll say it again - there is no way under heaven Trump is going to be allowed to continue to run amok. So if there is an actual election in 2020, somebody else is going to emerge as POTUS.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 10, 2019 1:34:38 AM | 65

@karlof1 62

A very nice interview with Christopher Black. Covers the fundamentals of ongoing propaganda (R2P's justificatory propaganda versus facts).

Posted by: Johan Meyer | Jun 10, 2019 1:40:52 AM | 66

jayc @11, Symantec did originally publish something very interesting in that report - they unwittingly confirmed that the 2016 Twitter campaign was commercial clickbait (and not propaganda) - but they then deleted that section soon afterwards. See my two posts about it from a couple of days ago:
link

Posted by: Brendan | Jun 10, 2019 2:33:46 AM | 67

U S Citizen Intelligence Releases the Treason Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4zJhatRPwU

Posted by: John Doe | Jun 10, 2019 2:57:18 AM | 68

@ Brendan with the example of Winston Smith's at work

This is a growing section of the labor market that is probably getting not much exposure.....grin

Will they ever unionize?....grin

Where are we on the slippery slope? WiIl some Winston's leak and will China/Russia break empire hold on finance?

I am encouraged that those questions might get answered in what in left of my life......our soap opera continues apace......

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 10, 2019 3:00:07 AM | 69

Europe Has no Freedom But to Choose “Freedom Gas”
https://journal-neo.org/2019/06/06/europe-has-no-freedom-but-to-choose-freedom-gas/

Posted by: John Doe | Jun 10, 2019 3:00:25 AM | 70

I think S-400 for Turkey comes with Idlib bundled. But Idlib will not be handed over until the deal is finalized and Turkey is fully removed from NATO. What we see at this moment is pulling the rope and showing Turkey that if they cancel S-400 deal they will also lose their Syrian prize.

Posted by: pppp | Jun 10, 2019 4:43:14 AM | 71

> Step #1 is to begin a crash program to build huge wind and solar farms. Once they exist the nature of the conversation will change drastically

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 9, 2019 1:39:35 PM | 8

So, we should destroy power grid for the sake of changing conversation nature?

> Most people will prefer to perish rather than regress to life style resembling the 1920s.

So, perhaps we can figure out how to have electricity in future too, rather than re-entering age of windmills and water rams?

Posted by: Arioch | Jun 10, 2019 5:00:18 AM | 72

@loneplateau @52

Has anyone else had trouble with the link to the June 4th MOA piece on Tiananmen Square. I clicked on it to get the update and am getting a 404 error that states the piece cannot be found. b-have you deleted it? Is it being blocked? or is my browser just screwy. All other links work.

The link was missing an 'l' at its end. It has now been corrected.

Posted by: b | Jun 10, 2019 5:48:50 AM | 73

Arioch @73 sez: "So, perhaps we can figure out how to have electricity in future too, rather than re-entering age of windmills and water rams?"

Yes, we can. Orbital solar power. The initial investment in infrastructure to enable that technology will cost as much as one of America's wars for oil, and it cannot be bootstrapped. It requires long term investment with no near-term profits, kinda like building whole cities that will not be fully populated for many years to come. Once the manufacturing infrastructure is in place the marginal unit production costs for orbital solar power plants will be less than terrestrial coal plants, though. Whoever pulls this off will be the next OPEC. They will also reap currently unimaginable benefits that come from a significant industrial base in orbit.

Now if only there were some country on Earth that makes such long-term investments predicated upon needs of the population rather than profits...

Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 10, 2019 6:41:11 AM | 74

Zachary Smith @66 sez: "The looming ban on Chinese students is going to be painful. Not necessarily to the US as a whole, but colleges and universities are going to suffer. Foreign students are their most profitable ones, and losing "more than 360,000 Chinese students" will hit their bottom line."

It is worse than that. At many universities enrollment of international students is the only thing keeping their science and engineering schools open. There are plenty of domestic students to keep the business schools open (university equivalent of special education) and [insert socially constructed identity group label here] studies programs going, but graduates of those programs are useless to society and its economy except as burger flippers, door greeters, and astroturfers... oops, I mean "social media marketing professionals".

At the school where I teach there may be five or six domestic students out of a class of forty taking engineering track calculus. If we consolidated the domestic students from all of the classes each term there might be enough for one class. That's not enough to keep the engineering school alive.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 10, 2019 7:04:20 AM | 75

About Brazil:

1) The Intercept is a somewhat decent news source in Brazil, for a very simple reason: Glenn Greenwald's boyfriend is Brazilian, so he is very sensitive to Brazilian affairs and makes sure to oversee Intercept Brazil's operations personally. Even being greedy, he's still a much better journalist than 99.9% of those source burning amateurs of Intercept USA.

2)Those leaks only confirm what any person with at least two neurons in Brazil already knew: there was a major coup d'État in the country to stop PT winning elections federally, and implement the old neoliberal policies of the 1990s ("unfinished business").

3)Brazil is a banana republic, so the process you observe in the First World nowadays happens in a much more grotesque, "in your face", way: the judge (Sergio Moro) who condemned Lula literally did so because of "indetermined events". He basically used newspapers articles to base these "events" -- articles which he himself was the source! In Brazil, the MSM is so corrupt and partisan that even Fox looks like the Morning Star in comparison. Like I said: Third World (periphery) distortions of the system makes things much more grotesque than in the center of the system (First World).

4) The "anti-corruption" argument is pure political rhetoric by the petit-bourgeoisie, the bourgeiosie and the "middle class" in Brazil: they are the corrupt ones, and, when they say they want to "end corruption", they are saying that they want to stop who's stopping their corruption.

In the Third World, class relations function diferently than in the First World: the middle class is very reduced and extremely reactionary. That's because of their socioeconomic origin: contrary to the USA, where it was born from the blue collar class which ascended to the white collar class, in the Third World it was born from the post-colonial oligarchic State, that is, they begun essentially as State bureaucrats and the military (public employees in the bureaucracy). Almost all of the Brazilian middle class is somewhat directly linked to the State: that's also true to the "lower middle class" (teachers, other productive functions directly linked to serving the public), which is much more left-wing and is unionized.

The same is true for both the petit and grande bourgeoisies, which directly depend on milking the State to survive. Another rule of the thumb from the Third World capitalism: there, the private sector is also "inneficient"; in the First World, you could argue you have big corporations which bring beneficia to your countries and provide you with high-paying jobs and state-of-the-art products: that's not true for the Third World, where, contrary to the logic, has the few "islands of excellence" (when they exist) in the public, not the private, sector.

5) The USA is behind all of what is happening in Brazil since 2013. If you want to study a very successful case of hybrid warfare, study Brazil 2013-nowadays. Sergio Moro only got what he got because he's a puppet of the NSA. All the formulas of right-wing activism and reform of the State they are importing ready from the USA. The shadow of the Empire is vast.

Posted by: vk | Jun 10, 2019 7:49:48 AM | 76

It seems from the comments that some kind of common understanding is coming together..
with that in mind i post the following..

Trump bypasses Congress to make emergency arms deal between Saudi Arabia and US bomb company
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/09/vast-protest-in-hong-kong-against-extradition-law-china
https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/447572-us-ambassador-israel-has-right-to-annex-some-of
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/07/trump-moon-is-part-of-mars-tweet-nasa
Trump is giving the Saudis the technology. except for nemesisCalling @ 24d,<= where I observe Any Article II person could be part of the take America from the Christain Americans, just as they took Russia from the Christain Russians in 1919. Congress(Art 1, 550 in number), President(Art. II, 2 in number) Israel (with unknown numbers?) and the central and nodal control centers in Swizterland and London and Paris.

Posted by: snake | Jun 10, 2019 8:16:00 AM | 77

Nemesis Calling @ 53

Well, first things first...the critique of the "culture industry" by Adorno and Hockheimer back in the day is falsely misappropriated ("Fake News") by the alt right. In fact, the Frankfurt School were calling out Hollywood and popular music as perversions of art for the sake of private sector profiteering. So, can we please quickly put that cliche about pop music to bed before we go on to examine the several other ideas you mentioned?

When we realized that allowing illegals to flood the border, take our jobs, and lower our wages was bad for our workers, we were deemed racists and so racism becamet0 a subject to address on a national level. Except there was no racism and there never was.

Those jobs the illegals "take" from us which we would even remotely desire to fill today (and this is a very huge stretch given the age and decadence of white Amerikkka) are jobs our fathers ("Greatest Generation") performed while well-organised inside trade and mechanical unions. Those jobs paid relatively well in the 1950-60s when income equality was at its historical peak in the US. Those unions weren't bequethed by the globalists of the day. They were fought for and defended for generations by the workers themselves. Yes, the unions were also corrupt and racially exclusionary to a large degree. But let's always let the perfect dream ruin the good reality shall we? The globalist enemy wants it that way. Divide and conquer.

Let's also ignore the fact that the sons and grandsons of the unionised postwar generation for the most part subsequently rejected blue collar work no matter what the pay. This is a sign of decadence I will grant you, and I am guilty as charged. They just couldn't keep me down on the farm after I saw "Pareee".

In fact, illegal immigration has been with us in large measures since the 1970s along the Southern Border and has ebbed and flowed ever since for a variety of socioeconomic factors. So why is it such a problem now? I submit because we are scapegoating immigrants for our own defeat at the hands of globalism in the form of income inequaity.

You may or not be racist. I don't believe that you are. However, the propagandists playing Trumpist right are using racism to their advantage, such as they have since the beginning of the US. Besides, what I also don't understand is why the net effect of your beliefs (Christian through Kierkegaard I assume?) serves to deny and turn away the least fortunate among us, meaning practicing the opposite of Mythological Jesus's lessons?

Rather than falsely blame the left for coddling illegal immigrants you could perhaps more accurately blame the left for abandoning the labour movement. This is the true source of the rejection of the left by the white working class...in a gathering downfall that began with "the Silent Majority", followed by "Reagan Democrats" and now bottoming out into fascistic "Deplorables." Yes, the Globalists have turned our heads around using racism again and again and again. How do we ever square this trend with a hopeful "throwing the globalists into the sea"?

When the subject of sexual harrasment was brought to the fore in the workplace in the early 90s, consequently dealt with by having firm laws in place and enforced, it took women two decades later to raise a stink over non-existent "cultures of rape" or decrying of Hollywood producers for their wonton exploitation, even though they happily prostituted themselves at the time. Now men walk the world as pigs for being men and not knowing why the world finds them suspicious.

Do you deny that women are constantly subjected to sexual harrasment? My wife and daughter have been subjected to virtually every form of sexual harrasment up to and including rape (my wife as a teen) and stopping just short (my daughter as a young woman). Here's hoping your wife and daughter have managed to escape this sort of treatment themselves.

When the subject of police violence became a racial question and was subsequently supported by globalists like Soros to raise the question, even though statistics prove whites are killed too, and blacks kill more blacks, and are statistically more likely to engage in violent crime than whites. Now my black coworkers are far more hesitant around me than they used to be...but let's talk about race instead of our warmongering, taxed-crazed MIC than runs the west.

You deny that blacks in the US are treated far...far...worse than whites within the criminal justice system? Statistics don't bear this out even remotely. The fact that whites are killed and blacks kill other blacks is simpy rationalising/racialising what is so clearly a systemic racist system of abuse that it pains me to read this comment from someone whose knowledge and opinion I respect so muc.

As for the "Soros" angle of globalism....this is straight out of today's news:

A real estate company part-owned by Jared Kushner has received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since he entered the White House as a senior adviser to his father-in-law Donald Trump.

Investment has flowed from overseas to the company, Cadre, while Kushner works as an international envoy for the US, according to corporate filings and interviews. The money came through a vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven that guarantees corporate secrecy...This funding is separate from ownership stakes in Cadre itself bought by venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and foreign billionaires, including the Chinese technology tycoon Jack Ma and the Russian investor Yuri Milner. Cadre last year held talks with a fund backed by money from the Saudi Arabian government, but no deal was done.

This is real globalism in action, NC. If you have a problem with open borders these are the open borders we should confront. The open border through which tax fee wealth inequality flows and grows ever more greatly.

Is Trump a populist/nationalist saving the working/middle class? No way in Hell. His wealth is and was gained same as his son-in-law....

Posted by: donkeytale | Jun 10, 2019 8:40:05 AM | 78

Well said @79

Posted by: bevin | Jun 10, 2019 9:55:04 AM | 79

Thanks @ 79

Often I come here and decide to formulate a response to some posts, only to discover that "my response" has already been posted in a far more studied and literate manner than I could have managed.

Posted by: sleepy | Jun 10, 2019 10:43:52 AM | 80

The word is tenet. Not tenent. Nor tenant.

Tenet - a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true; especially : one held in common by members of an organization, movement, or profession.

The dumbest guy I know throws the term "Cultural Marxism" around every day. He's a Zionist evangelical Christian who attends church regularly. Endeavors to bring on Armageddon so he can be lifted away.

Very politically in tune from watching Fox News, CBS Sunday Morning, always MSM.

He evidently learned about Cultural Marxism from watching tv (Bill O'Reilly, maybe?). Its a trendy catchphrase we are bound to hear and see more and more.

He's so dumb, he thinks Obama was a Marxist.

The sad thing is that there are many millions like him. Big Trump fan, too.

Posted by: Kristan hinton | Jun 10, 2019 10:49:27 AM | 81

Prison Labor will be filling the gap for Big Ag. Cheaper than migrant workers.

https://www.dariennewsonline.com/

news/article/Convicts-are-returning-to-farming-13956830.php

Posted by: Kristan hinton | Jun 10, 2019 10:58:54 AM | 82

@79 donkey

Thank you kindly for the lengthy response. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and willingness to engage in this kind of debate. I can see already briefly that I need to reply to some of your points later this evening.

Posted by: Nemesiscalling | Jun 10, 2019 11:00:51 AM | 83

The logic of US Foreign Policy in a simple flow chart, hmm.

https://swprs.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/us-foreign-policy-hd.png

The US-UK Science Denier Network mapped (conerns Brexit as well)

https://www.desmog.co.uk/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/images/special%20relationship%20large.jpg

more details:

https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/06/07/brexit-climate-denier-map

Posted by: Noirette | Jun 10, 2019 11:42:02 AM | 84

@ Arioch | Jun 10, 2019 5:00:18 AM #73

So, we should destroy power grid for the sake of changing conversation nature?

I neither said nor implied that. The reverse is true - we must vastly expand and modernize that power grid. The idea is that brisk winds in North Dakota and Texas and sunny Nebraska will provide power to Kentucky and Florida - areas which might be becalmed and covered with heavy clouds. Energy storage must also be expanded. Normal battery banks, "flow" batteries, and ultracapacitors are one approach. Manufacturing synthetic fuel from CO2 pulled out of the atmosphere is another. Some of the more dishonest Deniers are waving around the notion that Air Travel must be halted. That's total BS of course. I'd expect flights over land will become much more uncommon because of the vast new rail networks we'll be building, but that will depend on the price of that synfuel.

So, perhaps we can figure out how to have electricity in future too, rather than re-entering age of windmills and water rams?

This makes no sense to me. If we're to survive, IMO we must generate more electricity than we are now.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Jun 10, 2019 11:42:57 AM | 85

donkeytale @79:

... scapegoating immigrants for our own defeat at the hands of globalism in the form of income inequaity.

Income inequality and globalism are separate issues.

Rather than falsely blame the left for coddling illegal immigrants you could perhaps more accurately blame the left for abandoning the labour movement.

You are missing the other half of this equation. Support for labor was replaced by divisive identity politics. Of which, immigration is a part.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <>

It's almost as though the bi-partisan asshat establishment sought to eliminate class-based politics just as they began a class war (in the years leading up to the end of Cold War I).

Anyone that speaks openly of such a phenomena is labeled as: a conspiracy theorist nutcase / anti-American socialist / discontented loser that envies the hard work and success of others.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 10, 2019 11:51:55 AM | 86

This week Crooke writes "Trump Is Not Extricating Himself on Iran. He Is Being ‘Dug in.’" I would say that epitomizes TrumpCo's policy "results" most everywhere once spin's reduced to reality. He's getting nowhere on Iran. He just threatened to hit the Outlaw US Empire with $300 Billion in more tariff destruction if Xi doesn't talk with him on the G-20 sidelines. (Yes, the tariffs are placed on Chinese goods but the costs are paid by businesses and consumers in USA.) The just concluded SPIEF was the most successful yet. And at Xi's visit to Moscow just prior, we saw Russia and China increase the scope and depth of their Strategic Relationship--a symbiotic bonding that could outlast any of China's previous Dynasties and become an entity more encompassing than anything in previous human history.

In the game of baseball, the hitter must swing at pitches crossing the strike zone or be called out after 3. IMO, TrumpCo's bat is welded to its shoulder and has already let two strikes go by. Maybe he can't even see the pitch as he's too busy trying to figure out what his coaches are signaling. Or perhaps he'll say the box score that shows he struck out is just another fake news incident--that he really hit a grand slam instead.

IMO, TrumpCo's totally overmatched. His chosen adversaries are all steadfast in their resistance and moving ahead with plans agreed to prior to his becoming POTUS. And the nation currently under the most pressure is Turkey--Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and the Syrian Reality are heating the kettle Erdogan placed himself into; he'll do something before he gets cooked. What that something becomes doesn't look good for NATO and the West.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 10, 2019 11:58:25 AM | 87

Brendan #68

thanks for that information. I did notice the line regarding "rogue operators" and thought it strange - makes sense now. it is all part of a wilful misunderstanding. when identifying the clickbait scheme to otherwise intelligent skeptical people, I have been greeted with sarcasm, scorn, and anger. they want to believe the "sowing chaos and discord" story, no matter how absurd.

Posted by: jayc | Jun 10, 2019 12:40:47 PM | 88

@79 donkey.. good post... thanks.. i especially agree with your example of open borders as it pertains to money... funny how psychohistorian is on about finances 24/7.. your post strengthens his concern over private finance and how it is really central to the messed up world we live in today..

Posted by: james | Jun 10, 2019 1:05:57 PM | 89

Most here probably have already heard this news, although this question/observation needs amplification:

"Oh my days. Why isn’t this all over the news? This should be huge:

"Mike Pompeo Threatens To Intervene In British Democracy To Stop Corbyn Becoming Prime Minister."

Makes the investigation into Outlaw US Empire election meddling simple. Wonder what the UK penalty is for such a transgression? Surely a declaration of Persona non grata at minimum.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 10, 2019 2:37:44 PM | 90

The worm turns ever deeper. "Qatar snubs Saudi Arabia & UAE. FM listed Oman & Iraq as like-minded in promoting US-Iran talks. Just 10 days after Mecca Conference which King Salman convened to rally Arab states against Iran. Turkey-Qatar-Iran axis strengthening. GCC dying slow death."

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 10, 2019 2:59:07 PM | 91

@92 karlof1.... we'll see if the msm wants to acknowledge the 1000 lb elephant in the room.. i highly doubt it.. it isn't in their best interests...

Posted by: james | Jun 10, 2019 3:10:57 PM | 92

@jackrabbit, who I generally respect at least in terms of ability to use logic in making points, falters here in his zeal to enter into contentious conversations with donkey tale:

You are missing the other half of this equation. Support for labor was replaced by divisive identity politics. Of which, immigration is a part.

Sorry, but the simple act of asserting opinion as fact is not sufficient to prove such facts. This is the typical refrain from the American political right (and alt-right). Support for labor has been systematically destroyed by the crony capitalist right (and this includes the Reagan Democrats donkey tale mentioned) all the way back to the early 70s. Donkey Tale is right - the "left" (quotes because it's really a sloppy conflation of centrist/corporate Democrats with the actual left, which Donkey Tale and others correctly point out have been stomped out of existence in the West) abandoned labor in favor of corporatism way before identity politics was a thing. And besides - you couldn't name a single instance or piece of news that supports this theory of yours. Tell me - what's one example of "support for labor being replaced by identity politics." Seriously.

There is simply too little contemporaneous overlap to remotely support your assertion. Additionally, do some reading on the history of the Chamber of Commerce and the Powell memo. Corporations successfully captured every possible aspect and level of government in the United States. Corporations and their psychopathic boards and shareholders don't like collective bargaining much, do they? And who holds sway over the government? That's right - corporations.

Furthermore, it has always been immigrants - Polish, German, Irish, Slavic, Asian (and of course blacks who were forced to immigrate here) - that have done the manual labor and then unionized in hard and bloody battles - in order to assure a living wage and reasonable working hours. The same aforementioned corporations PREFER to have a marginalized, maligned group like brown undocumented immigrants doing as much work as possible! That's what prevents them from collectively demanding better treatment, and puts them in a situation where they are unlikely to turn to a government that calls them "illegal" for help. That's exactly what the boards and shareholders want, dude.

And wanna know what else? Look at the way they outsource/offshore the technology equivalent of blue collar workers. Decades of programming about the corruption of unions and "right to work" states have paralyzed the average American tech workers and phone support personnel into accepting whatever it is their benevolent corporate masters give them, haven't they? Not only do they not dare try to unionize, but too many of them actually believe that unions are bad! We're all told that we can work our way up the ladder; just be diligent, put in those extra hours, survive on sh*t pay, don't expect health insurance, learn to budget, and eventually you'll find yourself in charge! Yeah, right.

Meh...carry on. Not intended to you necessarily, but in general those who piss and moan about illegal workers are generally the same types who say "All Lives Matter" and generally carry their fragile egos around with them everywhere they go, and most of these people are on the right.

Posted by: KC | Jun 10, 2019 3:35:23 PM | 93

Den Haag @ 89 says:

You like Greta and AOC?

hey, i liked AOC the other day...she was showing a hint of progressive moxie.

Posted by: john | Jun 10, 2019 4:26:38 PM | 94

Thanks to Sasha and Nemesis Calling for a discussion which intrigued me enough to take me
to the interview with Richard Wolffe. I hadn't listened to him since back in Occupy days,
so that was an interesting discussion. I have to say I didn't find anything relating to
Jewishness in what he said, and really not a lot about Peterson who I don't know at all.
(Maybe that's a good thing.)

Accidentally the link moved me on to a further discussion of Wolffe's about Marx, in which
he stated that Marx was deeply affected by the French Revolution, seeing that as the rise
of Capitalism after Feudalism. That interested me since we have had several "Les Miserables"
productions on PBS, and I just finished reading the novel. So when Nemesis talks about the
individual in Kierkegaard I can see, yes, there is that in "Les Miserables" so while the
novel is certainly Dickensian in scope there is a side theme of his main character's
wealth and patrimony that does express capitalism in its early throes.

One caveat I have about Prof. Wolffe though, is how he slides past Keynsian attributes
that did keep capitalism (small c) in check through governmental regulation for most of
my lifetime. I might have missed it, but I don't feel he has made his case against it.

Thanks also to Sasha for the piece on Chernobyl's children.

Posted by: juliania | Jun 10, 2019 4:35:13 PM | 95

I wanted to say also that I don't think Kierkegaard is Hegelian as far as progression of spirit.
I had to do a paper on "Philosophical Fragments" once, and all I remember about that is that
Kierkegaard had a lovely section posing the birth of Christ as a pivotal point around which all
of history centers. That's very much in tune with my own Orthodox perspective, though I know he has
quite a different understanding of other Christian matters that may indeed be more Hegelian.

It is interesting for me that this coming week leads up to Pentecost, when the Spirit descends
in culmination of the Easter season. I appreciated that mention, though indeed - also definitely
not Hegelian!

Many more interesting links here on this thread. Thanks very much, all!

Posted by: juliania | Jun 10, 2019 4:51:22 PM | 96

KC

Thanks for the comment. I think this is an important conversation.

... zeal to enter into contentious conversations with donkey tale

I have no such "zeal". donkeytale is a very smart and articulate person. IMO our disagreement is mostly a matter of emphasis: donkeytale believes that a unilateral world is already a fact (as neoliberal ruling elites of major countries conspire against the working class), while I (and most others, I think) believe that Russia-China are actually trying to create a multi-lateral world. When my interaction with donkeytale gets heated, it's often because I'm complaining about his use of devices like false equivalence. In any case, I have no crazy urge to rebuke anything he writes, just to provide clarity.

donkeytale made a few good points @79 and I feel a bit remiss in not mentioning them, but that's mostly because I have limited time, not because I don't see it.

... what's one example of "support for labor being replaced by identity politics."

Well, I don't think it really works like that. If it were that simple, everyone would catch on, wouldn't they? With that said, I think welfare reform might be a good example. Workers were being asked to make 'sacrifices' due to globalism so welfare was 'reformed' because a too-generous welfare system was a sore point to to the workers who were losing their jobs and pensions. In this way the Democrats became the arbiter of how to distribute the crumbs of rapacious capitalists.

By the mid-eighties, most of the Democrats bowed to the capitalist gods and were clearing the way for the rich to profit from the wage differential that 'globalism' (mostly China) offered. Complaints from progressives and conservatives (nationalists) about living standards and de-industrialization were ignored or sneered at.

... it has always been immigrants - Polish, German, Irish, Slavic, Asian (and of course blacks who were forced to immigrate here) - that have done the manual labor and then unionized in hard and bloody battles

But those who unionize were white. I don't think immigrants today are unionizing like in the past. Corporations like them because they are made to feel marginalized and so there is fewer complaints and unionization.

... outsource/offshore the technology equivalent of blue collar workers

Yeah, I've previously complained about this at MoA. The visa program is just a way of driving down tech wages.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

IMO 'Open Borders' is not a fix for the failures of the Democrats/Left.

What will fix the problem is only a "jolt" that wakes up the people from their slumber and submissiveness. That will happen from economic disaster or war (or both). It's rather sad that it's that way, but it's they things are going.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 10, 2019 4:55:17 PM | 97

Cultural Marxism

“Cultural marxism” is a ludicrous, empty and meaningless term. It has nothing whatever to do with Marx or Marxism, and if Marx were to see how it is being used he would first laugh, then get very angry. Based on the belief that the easiest way to denigrate some individual person in the minds of the uninformed public is to associate them with the word “Marx” or “marxism, “cultural marxism” is a generalized, all-purpose euphemism to be applied to specific out-groups, as well as to the people who accept and get along with those groups.

In its most recent form, the term is actually much more simple than it's being made out to be by commenters here. It was cooked up by racists who had come to realize that rabid, full-on hate speech is not selling among the general public nearly as well as it used to. Scurrying wildly about yelling “I hate niggers” or “I hate kikes” or “I hate faggots” is no longer drawing enough converts to the cause.

So not only are blacks, Jews and gays cultural marxists, all non-blacks, non-Jews and non-gays who happily associate with blacks, Jews and gays are also all cultural marxists.

The collective of persons who refuse to accept and practice neo-Nazi ideas are also marked down as “cultural marxists.”

And so forth.

If you were to go to a web site today and post a comment saying “I hate niggers,” or “I hate fags,” or something similar, your comment would be deleted and you might very well be blocked from further comment at that site, even if the site is a racist site.

But, if you were to go to that same site and post a comment referring to “cultural marxists,” all racists, along with all bigots of whatever other stripes, would instantly recognize and accept you as one of them.

It's a form of camouflage, allowing all sorts of hate-filled bigots to recognize and to communicate with each other in public fora without showing their true natures to the wider, general public.

There are other uses as well. Persons who prefer peace to war between nations, persons who prefer cooperation to conflict among individuals, persons who believe that the environment is something to be treasured and protected – all such persons are “cultural marxists.”

The term is most commonly employed by individuals or groups who exercise a hyper-prudery with regard to sexual and / or gender matters. (see the Saker site for examples)

After reading the above, you should now be able to make up your own lists of persons or groups who would be thought of by bigots as having been afflicted with “cultural marxism.”

Posted by: AntiSpin | Jun 10, 2019 6:43:14 PM | 98

You knew it would happen eventually and within which nation: "Facial Recognition Data Collected by US Customs Agency Hacked":

"One of the key fears that critics of mass surveillance and the proliferation of facial recognition technology have warned about has been realized with new reporting Monday that a 'malicious cyber attack' has resulted in photos of airport passengers and other personal data harvested by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol have been stolen by unknown actors."

I hope whoever did the deed scrambled the database real good so that none of it remains useable.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 10, 2019 7:22:47 PM | 99

@101. Here is the team at Perceptics. Lovely people who just want to keep us all safe.

https://www.perceptics.com/about/history-team/

Posted by: dh | Jun 10, 2019 7:50:24 PM | 100