@87 vk
No, the real ill befalling America is our do-gooderism.
That’s how they got us into Vietnam.
That’s how they got us into Iraq.
Libya.
Almost Syria.
Always protecting Israel.
Every singular ill facing America, whether that be the neocons, the neolibs, Wal-Mart, or even Nike, all had their propaganda arms that manufactured the best way to sell their clandestine and nefarious aims to the public.
And surprise, surprise, that message was usually festooned with the American flag, being one, and the message, “We can help!” Because none of these ills faced significant push back from those in the know, our politicians, their message reached the masses with no argument or asterisk.
All other western countries in the EU mostly fell for the same thing but have spent far far less in treasure. The funny thing is is that the shitheads torpedoing Europe use the line, “It’s all the fucking Americans!” This is how they distract their own from the same neoliberal/globalist plundering and subversion befalling them. But this do-gooderism with its marketting as Anti-American sentiment will end up costing them far more down the line if they can not find the courage to maintain their cultural homogeneity.
…
IMO, the anti-American propaganda goes on unabated and most of it with the sole intention of turning Europe away from the the U.S.
Frankly, I don’t care about chilled relations with the EU and the U.S. so much as I do about waking Europeans up to their wonderful culture that is falling away.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 3 2019 2:54 utc | 104

@ 104 nemesis calling.. your quote “..the real ill befalling America is our do-gooderism.” no.. it is the ignorance of the ordinary american in not knowing just how fucked up the agenda is in the usa with regard to foreign intervention… i encourage you to read the article b linked to in his most recent post on NED here.. more americans need to familiarize themselves with this institution and the type of work it does.. it is a complete con and front for the cia.. it is not an NGO.. it is a GO… cheers james
https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy

Posted by: james | Dec 3 2019 3:29 utc | 106

I have reminded people that at the heart of Russiagate/Ukrainegate
is the fact that
the Deep State decides foreign policy
and the President can go along or
the President can get along.
Here is another reminder.
Welcome To The Potemkin Village Of Washington Power
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/welcome-potemkin-village-washington-power
“What American constitutional government most urgently needs at present is for our Madisonian institutions – the presidency, the Congress, and the courts – to wrest back control of national security policy from an unelected and increasingly rogue national security establishment. ”
“That ominous challenge to constitutionalism was on full display with the recent op-ed piece in the New York Times by retired Admiral William McRaven, in which he brashly warned that unless Trump jumped aboard the Forever War bandwagon, he must be removed, and “the sooner the better.” The U.S. must have a policy, McRaven said, that protects “the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny.
How did we get to the point where a former senior military officer calls for the removal of a duly elected president because he doesn’t stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Rohingyas? McRaven’s op-ed represents something new in American politics: the assertion that an elected president is illegitimate unless he works to spread our “ideals of universal freedom and equality” through military action and alliances.
McRaven also argued that it is “the American military…the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press,” all unelected institutions, that now embody the true American civic religion and protect its “ideals.”

Posted by: librul | Dec 3 2019 5:47 utc | 108

Thousands may already be dead in Iran.

Posted by: Charles Peterson | Dec 3 2019 6:10 utc | 110

@ NemesisCalling | Dec 3 2019 2:54 utc | 104 (do good er ism)
The emotional propaganda would seem to support the thesis as to motivation, but the reality was a Sudden Change in Policy associated with the particular matters of Bobby Baker and Lyndon (et al) and little ol’ Dallas, the oil depletion allowance, and the heroin trade, etc. Read Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, fer starters.
“do guderizm” is the cloak, lining the pockets and staying out of rifle sights was the motivation. So “do-guderizm fe mahself” would be the operative principle.
It’s all about the money, the power, the blackmail, and murder. And they were/are serious, ask the kids at Kent State about gooderizm.
Hard to find any gooderizm in such a mechanism.

Posted by: Walter | Dec 3 2019 11:45 utc | 112

Multilateralism or International Law?
by Thierry Meyssan (in French) @ voltaire
He argues persuasively that (inter alia) “…multilateralism that Europeans promote is not opposed to the bilateralism practiced today by the United States, but to international law. The “Paris Forum on Peace”, organized by President Emmanuel Macron [is congruent with Imperial Policy in an effort to preserve the Imperium of Anglosaxon thalassocratic control].
Ali Khan @ Washburn Law wrote to this effort so far as it was a departure from International Law and an effort to make Austinian Law (essentially ukase, rule by decree)
see> Above and Beyond International Law: George W. Bush as the Austinian Sovereign
JURIST, January 24, 2003

Posted by: Walter | Dec 3 2019 12:18 utc | 114

On the subject of vaccination one of the more solid sources I have encountered is Dr. Suzanne Humphries.
The part of her website with the Vacc subject heading:
http://drsuzanne.net/dr-suzanne-humphries-vaccines-vaccination/
Her YT Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqmzJIoo52a7bqxCuuZSIw/featured

Posted by: Mishko | Dec 3 2019 12:37 utc | 116

@ NemesisCalling #102
By and large what was european culture was and is being destroyed
through Hollywood and US media and music.
Add to that the many layered effects of immigration and you have this planned
breaking up of european societies.
To destabilise the Middle East/North Africa and deny these nations
and its peoples the development that is their right.
To destabilise europe, and justify its spying networks and the whole godforsaken
NATO narratives among which Gladio.
OMG the terrorists, oh noes an ISIS crisis!
Threats, security! Security, threats! Strong and resilient! Rules based!
To illustrate:
Merkel and Dronebama G7 June 2015
Merkel: “Wir schaffen das.” Aug 2015
BND opens big new HQ in Berlin Feb 2019

Posted by: Mishko | Dec 3 2019 13:06 utc | 118

I live in the Netherlands, and I can honestly say that the NL do not really have such a thing as a government.
There are lackeys of Bilderberg and minions of NATO and some followers
of the anti-humanistic trends like climate.
We would be right in assuming the pedopower networks did / do play their part
(UK- Savile, Belgium – Dutroux, Belgium is the location of NATO HQ)
Oh, and Gladio. Not to forget Gladio, that is a given in these parts.
The obvious reason why is that europe is US occupied territory, with lots of US army bases and installations.
Dutch AF base Volkel is host to US atomic weapons, hence the need for US manufactured jet fighters
to carry and deliver these same systems to their targets. Wonderful how that works.
In the north of the NL there are allegedly some satellite dishes belonging to the Echelon network.
De-industrialisation. Austerity. Privatisation. Immigration.
Those points form the main body of dutch politics and policy.
Sorry for crying you all a river, love the high quality and density of your comments.

Posted by: Mishko | Dec 3 2019 13:34 utc | 120

@ Mishko (and all)
From what I saw circa 1970 when I was visiting at Leiden, that the Empire occupied the Netherlands in ways that seemed similar to what would have been a mature nazi occupation, you’re probably right about the signal intel project ECHELON having intercept antenna in Holland.
ECHELON network. see wiki…and then read through the text, and think about what they did not say.
Here’s a fragment> “In 1999, Enercon, a German company and leading manufacturer of wind energy equipment, developed a breakthrough generator for wind turbines. After applying for a US patent, it had learned that Kenetech, an American rival, had submitted an almost identical patent application shortly before. By the statement of a former NSA employee, it was later discovered that the NSA had secretly intercepted and monitored Enercon’s data communications and conference calls and passed information regarding the new generator to Kenetech.”
And That Was Then…

Posted by: Walter | Dec 3 2019 14:00 utc | 122

@ vk 123 > European (welfare state, higher life quality, higher culture, peace etc.) only exist because the USA gave them and allowed them to keep.
Does anybody believe the US gives away anything of value?
Yes, that which you say may be true. But since the dissolution of USSR the need for these things went away…
They were as you say. But only to stop the Reds. Let not forget Gehlen’s networks and NATO and GLADI-oh! – these came with all the pretty stuff, and served a purpose. Occupation, domination, control…
As we see.

Posted by: Walter | Dec 3 2019 14:33 utc | 124

Speaking of European degeneration since the USSR and DDR, Comrade Brother Grossman writes >
BIG RALLIES AND BIG DIFFERENCES
Berlin Bulletin No. 170 December 2 2019
“…One other question is heating tempers. Many organizations survive only thanks to tax-free contributions by their supporters, like a group I am in, “Fighters and Friends of the Spanish Republic 1936-1939” and a wide range of solidarity groups, but also many right-wing groups. Suddenly, out of the blue, the German finance authorities have denied the “non-profit character” of the VVN- BdA, the organization of survivors of Nazi political and racist oppression and those (like me) who oppose modern fascists. The move was based on a decision by the Bavarian “constitution protectors” (like the FBI) that it is against “our democratic rule of law”. A few people recalled an attempt to outlaw the organization in 1962 which was dropped when the defense proved that all three trial judges had been active Nazis, stormtroopers or SS judges. Now the fight is on again…”
I do not see things quite as he does, and that’s why I read his bulletins. Right, wrong, in-between, his views are genuine, sincere, and probably representative of many.
Does the fascist vise-like grip on the heart design drang nach osten, or is the motivation an artifact of 75 years of foreign occupation?

Posted by: Walter | Dec 3 2019 15:22 utc | 126

@ Posted by: Walter | Dec 3 2019 15:22 utc | 126 who writes about fascism
To me, fascism exists because of global private finance and its rules based order.
China/Russia and others are challenging that meme and it is causing “circling of the wagons” in the West, IMO
None get to discuss the social contract with private finance at the core explicitly.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 3 2019 16:45 utc | 128

vk wrote: In sum: even the ancients knew that, for more complex tasks, free people were a must. Slavery was only economically viable for very simple and denigrating tasks (specially, agriculture and mining). at 3.
Yes, all that is so, and interesting. The picture changed however with the increasing use of fossil fuels; most evident in the USA, or is best understood via it. First of all, the tractor replaced part of human labor in the fields (slowly of course.) Plus, e.g. cotton plantations run with slaves did not ‘perform’ well, in the sense that the slave may do a good uncomplicated job but at the same time he – she has to be housed, fed, clothed, tooled, maintained alive in a sense, even if that outlay was kept to a basic minimum. When factories got going, and the economy started to ‘boom’ because of the powerful boost (machines run with non-human power), it was more convenient to ‘pay’ better, that is pay for ‘labor’ per hour and not ‘life’ – and to be able to ‘fire’ workers whenever convenient, in function of ‘dowturns’, closures, or ‘change in process’, etc.
The domestic slave, tied to a master / plantation, a specific place, in my ex., became a wage-slave while nominally ‘free.’ This system was built on, first of all the possibility of good to fantastic profits (as compared to the older cotton and other agri, plus other brute labor, which were more steady state closed systems) and the mobility of the new workers, who could now travel by train and FF transport, be housed in tenements, buy basic foods, etc. and sell themselves to varied ‘employers’ or masters.
Specialisation played a role, but imho not as much as vk makes out. All the tasks, from the primitive hauling stone/wood/other, picking fruit, digging ditches, to doing routine actions on a Taylorist assembly line, or even say building a brick wall (yes, great walls require knowledge and expertise, ask Trump, ha ha) are no-brainers for any human. All this lead to ‘black liberation’ – bowlderizing of course. The enslavement aspect just changes face, and in the US it has endured with Prison Labor which is not subject to laws re. non-prisoners, which explains the high incarceration rate in the US.

Posted by: Noirette | Dec 3 2019 18:12 utc | 130

Hong Kong.
It seems fairly obvious to me that the PRC has already given the world a sneak preview of what will happen if the CIA/MI6’s goons try to restart the violent riots in Hong Kong. About 10 days ago, before the recent local elections, the PRC sent hundreds of UNARMED Chinese soldiers into Hong Kong as laborers to clear the streets of obstacles & barriers erected by the ‘protesters’. As far as I’m aware, that operation was successfully completed without inflicting, or attracting, any violence.
That tactic set an ‘interesting’ precedent and can be repeated if necessary. Having established a reputation for peacefully performing their assigned (humanitarian) task non-violently, the PRC can have a second contingent of armed and armoured soldiers waiting in the wings to protect their UNARMED comrades from violent CIA/MI6 goons masquerading as protesters.
What could go wrong?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Dec 3 2019 18:41 utc | 132

karlof1 @ 107:
That was an easy one, k! I DDG’d this,(didn’t have to go into the site; it was on the front page:
9 Ways to Make More Topsoil Organically
Joybilee® Farm.com …
“…The scraps still need to go out to the compost bin in order to decompose and make finished compost and top soil. Animal Manures. Livestock manures need to be composted before they are used as topsoil. However, once they are fully decomposed they can be used in place of top soil, or as a top dressing to increase the nutrients in garden soil….”
It is true that China has been gardening organically for centuries and has therefore immensely rich and deep topsoil, but I do remember a talk on radio years back concerning the southwest’s poor soil. A chap put down a layer of straw/hay on a poor patch of land, then a layer of manure. Came back a year later to find…topsoil!
You need worms, but it is my experience having a similar challenge in my backyard when I arrived here, that if you mulch it they will come.
My favorite critter on earth (with the exception of Lavrov of course) is the lowly earthworm.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 3 2019 21:46 utc | 134

walter @117
Webster Tarpley on WWI; a sample
King Edward VII of Great Britain: Evil Demiurge of the Triple Entente and World War I

“For long years, King Edward wove, with masterly skill, the Nessus robe that was to destroy the German Hercules.”
—Leipziger Neuste Nachrichten, after the death of Edward VII, May 1910
“What neither Azincourt nor Poitiers could do, the genius of Edward VII realized.” – Emile Flourens, La France Conquise, 1906
“There are no frictions between us, there is only rivalry.” – Edward VII to State Secretary von Tschirschky of the German Foreign Ministry, at the Cronberg Anglo-German summit, 1906
The Triple Entente is the name given to the alliance among Great Britain, France, and Russia which was formed during the first decade of this century, and which led to the outbreak of the First World War. This Triple Entente was the personal creation of King Edward VII of Britain. The Triple Entente was King Edward’s own idea.
It was King Edward who set up the British alliance with Japan, the Russo-Japanese War, and the 1905 Russian Revolution. It was King Edward VII, acting as the autocrat of British foreign policy, who engineered the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France in 1903-04, and who then went on to seal the fateful British-Russian Entente of 1907. It was King Edward who massaged Theodore Roosevelt and other American leaders to help bring about the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship,” which dates from the time of his reign. This diplomatic work was masterminded and carried out by King Edward VII personally, with the various British ministers, cabinets, round tables, and other apparatus merely following in his wake. Edward had a geopolitical vision in the Venetian tradition, and it was one of brutal simplicity: the encirclement of Germany with a hostile coalition, followed by a war of annihilation in which many of Britain’s erstwhile “allies” – notably France and Russia – would also be decimated and crippled.

Posted by: pogohere | Dec 4 2019 3:06 utc | 136

Below is a quote from a ZH article about Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and China…China indexes are up and all the rest are down
But Hong Kong
”
The average PMI reading (38.9) for October and November combined indicates the economy is on course for its weakest quarter since the survey’s inception over 21 years ago.
”
Think about that and cui bono? Certainly not the residents of Hong Kong, nor those of empire that are reportedly behind the trashing of the region…..stupid is as stupid does. I have written before that this will just hurry the integration into mainland China.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 4 2019 5:32 utc | 138

psychohistorian @137–
Thanks for that! Ever since I began reading Margulis and Lovelock on the Microcosmos and Gaia Theory beginning in the mid 1980s, I’ve known that humans are merely bit players in the saga of Life on Earth. It’s too bad that Carl Sagan didn’t live long enough to enjoy his first wife’s most major accomplishments, particularly bacterial symbiosis, but he was wise enough to say we’re all Star Stuff. I find it very educational that the “ancients” had their Gods smack down the mere humans for their verbose hubris, as Gilgamesh and Noah’s Flood aren’t the only tales with that theme. Eden in the East is a great cultural equalizer. You’ll recall in 1968 Zager & Evans added a modern twist to those stories with their tune In the Year 2525, but few kids today have ever heard of it and even fewer people understand its importance. I’ve always said planet Earth will outlast its human transients, and I see no compelling reason to change my tune now.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 4 2019 5:56 utc | 140

@ topsoil conversation… big agriculture is killing the top soil in the usa and canada.. don’t read any wendell berry books or you will be very disheartened… and, no one is looking closely at this either..

Posted by: james | Dec 4 2019 6:06 utc | 142

Slow consumption pushes Indian carmakers to raise prices

The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India Limited on Tuesday said it would increase the prices of its vehicles from January to offset rising input costs. The Suzuki Motor Corporation unit sells one out of every two cars in the Indian market.
[…]
Other car manufacturers such as Toyota, Mahindra & Mahindra and Mercedes-Benz said they were also contemplating a similar move.

Why is this happening? After all, in Adam Smith’s world, prices should go down, not up, because demand is “low” and supply is “high”.
The answer to this is the bourgeois economists are wrong and Marx is right. Capitalism doesn’t care for “supply and demand”, but about valorisation.
For capitalism, it doesn’t matter if it sells one unit for one million or one million units for one each, but the fact it can at least reproduce its already existing capital. And, to reproduce capital, it needs value, which is created by labor power, not “supply and demand”.

Posted by: vk | Dec 4 2019 12:32 utc | 144

@ pogohere | Dec 4 2019 3:06 utc | 136 (E VII and W1/ Tarpley)
David Irving’s “Churchill’s War” and so forth seem to be more or less aligned with Tarpley’s ideas, with which I am familiar; that’s to say congruence as to the MacKinder thesis. Not necessarily perfection in alignment, but then in life little is. One might propose to ask what is the Island Empire E constrained to do save ruin others? Objectively one might take the view that the modus vivendi of Islanders tends to Piracy, but they put deceptive face-power on the enterprise out of the necessity for the Sovereign to obtain Consent by means of inducting the willing suspension of disbelief in his Subjects…
……….
Previously I have suggested the essay by law professor Ali Kahn, which is not too hard to find.
“ABOVE AND BEYOND INTERNATIONAL LAW:
GEORGE W. BUSH AS THE AUSTINIAN SOVEREIGN”
Professor Ali Khan
Washburn University School of Law
JURIST Contributing Editor
use the title in duckduckgo, or see tiny url [dot] /uyh5n9y
or at ssrn dot com us title.
It’s written some time past, but describes, I think, something about the danger of suspension of the principle that the Sovereign is subject to Law. That’s to say that The Great Writ is no more. He’s too polite, and too restrained, to say it, but the end of that foundational principle measured the end of the Imperial Contract with, well, anybody, especially the subject. The loss of this legal principle converted Citizen to Subject.

Posted by: Walter | Dec 4 2019 13:09 utc | 146

Below is a link to a ZH article that MoA barflies may get a chuckle over
Hunter Biden’s Lawyer Abruptly Quits After ‘Father-Of-The-Year’ Blows Off Child Support Hearing
The take away quote
”
Lunden Roberts, 28, is suing Biden for $11,000 in legal fees, plus child support payments after a DNA test revealed he was the father. Biden, meanwhile, says he’s broke an has requested that the judge seal his financial records due to “significant debts” despite having been paid vast sums of money while sitting on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 4 2019 18:23 utc | 148

psychohistorian @149–
That report makes no sense as there’s always a “threat of an attack on US interests” in the region in response to any attack on Iran, and that’s been reality since BushCo. Brain dead “defense officials” are like zombies when it comes to Iran.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 4 2019 22:14 utc | 150

Harassment as … reason, treason…Nigeria, pots and kettles, the traitor holds a “traitor” … Illegally. Now that’s theater. And a bit like brother Assange.
adeyinkamakinde [dot] blogspot [dot] com
It just caught my eye…

Posted by: Walter | Dec 5 2019 0:43 utc | 152

THINK GLOBALLY – ACT LOCALLY
Ellen Brown has also written another book that karlo1 did not write about but which I have and read called “Banking on the People”
In it there is a chapter where she describes banking alternatives that being tried in Asia, mostly about China and India
While I will continue to push for global public finance, I have decided to put my effort into local efforts to work around private finance. Within the last 1 1/2 years I have moved out of Portland, OR and into Corvallis, OR which I have recently learned has been running a version of the Ithaca Hours alternative currency program for almost 20 years….see link below about Ithaca Hours
The links I am providing below are about local, regional and international programs to provide alternatives currencies. The first link provides a list of Alternative Exchange Systems and the rest are links to those I found most interesting. Since this is a blog that has international reach, I am hoping there is something below for all MoA barflies who want to Think Globally but Act Locally……The BerkShares one appeals to me most at this time. but I am going to go try and support the Ithaca Hours one being run locally.
Alternative Exchange Systems
BerkShares Local Currency – Local Currencies Program
Community Exchange System (CES) A World Without Money
Ithaca HOURs Online
LETS = Local Exchange Trading Systems

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 5 2019 1:12 utc | 154

Below is a link to a study comparing about 32 million students around the globe
How Dumb Have We Become? Chinese Students Are 4 Grade Levels Ahead Of US Students In Math
The take away quote
”
We were once a great light to the rest of the world, but today a large chunk of our population can barely read, write, speak or function in society. Just consider the following numbers…
#1 One recent survey found that 74 percent of Americans don’t even know how many amendments are in the Bill of Rights.
#2 An earlier survey discovered that 37 percent of Americans cannot name a single right protected by the First Amendment.
#3 Shockingly, only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government.
#4 During the 2016 election, more than 40 percent of Americans did not know who was running for vice-president from either of the major parties.
#5 North Carolina is considering passing a law which would “mean only scores lower than 39 percent would qualify for an F grade” in North Carolina public schools.
#6 30 years ago, the United States awarded more high school diplomas than anyone in the world. Today, we have fallen to 36th place.
#7 According to the Pentagon, 71 percent of our young adults are ineligible to serve in the U.S. military because they are either too dumb, too fat or have a criminal background.
#8 For the very first time, Americans are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than they are in a car accident.
#9 One study discovered that one-third of all American teenagers haven’t read a single book in the past year.
#10 A recent survey found that 45 percent of U.S. teenagers are online “almost constantly”.
#11 Today, the average American spends 86 hours a month using a smartphone.
#12 Overall, the average U.S. adult “logs 6 hours, 43 minutes of total screen time daily”.
#13 In more than half of all U.S. states, the highest paid public employee in the state is a football coach.
#14 During one seven day period last summer, a total of 16,000 official complaints about human feces were submitted to the city of San Francisco. And apparently the problem is very real because one investigation found 300 piles of human feces on the streets of downtown San Francisco.
#15 Every 24 hours, more than a third of all Americans eat fast food.
#16 Less than half of all Americans know which country used atomic bombs at the end of World War II.
#17 Even though we fought a war in Iraq for eight long years, 6 out of 10 young adults cannot find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. And that same survey found that 75 percent of our young adults cannot locate Israel.
#18 Today, the average college freshman in the United States reads at a 7th grade level.
”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 5 2019 2:29 utc | 156

Iran to Hold Joint Naval Drill with Russia, China in Indian Ocean (Tasnim News Agency, November 30, 2019).

Posted by: S | Dec 5 2019 3:28 utc | 158

In order to achieve our national goals, increase the life expectancy and improve the quality of our people’s life, we must do more to develop mass sports. Moreover, interest in fitness and sports is constantly growing in Russia. I have just had a meeting with Paralympians, and I had to tell them, just as I have to tell you, that it is true that the situation around fitness and sports has changed significantly in Russia. But we still have room to grow, because some neighbouring countries have more athletes per 1,000 people than we do. This means that we have done a lot, but we must go further.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 5 2019 4:57 utc | 160

Another victim of Epstein came forward just two weeks ago with a forceful indictment of not only Epstein, but his circle of friends and acquaintances, who, she said, couldn’t have possibly been unaware of what was going on: New Accuser Speaks At News Conference Detailing Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein (vid, 6:33). Quote: “I’m here today to ask that when you hear about more of the crimes committed against me and other victims that you don’t stop at feeling sorry or bad for us, but that you feel angry.”

Posted by: S | Dec 5 2019 7:24 utc | 162

@ psychohistorian | Dec 5 2019 2:29 utc | 156
I know personally a Georgetown Law graduate who was surprised by my referring to the 3 branches in conversation. She had not been aware of this feature. I think she runs a restaurant and has some ties to cia, at this point. Actually she argued that there were only 2 branches. To be fair, though she graduated, she failed the Maryland Bar Exam. That, by the way, is the easiest Bar Exam in the US. They say it’s the one Dan Quail coulden’t pass – they say his wife took it for him.
#3 Shockingly, only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government.
I read the list mooted in you #156, and think it is accurate, but only a moment, a frame or snapshot, taken from a general and rapid decline. If so, then it understates the way things are now.
If an Nth State desired a stable and healthy population this process of ruin would not be permitted and it would be reversed. This is easy, Cuba did basic literacy in a very short time and from that, well, everyone knows.
But as it is, it’s clear that the State in question desires…?
Well, I hope someone can think of a reason other than that said State Policy is the destruction of that population.
And why would such a State claim that it has the power to force injections, since it cares not for their health?

Posted by: Walter | Dec 5 2019 12:08 utc | 164

@ 165
Your experience is telling. I do not expect MoA volk, or really anybody else with something other that gas in between their ears, to doubt the statement @ 156.
The reality, however, begs the question I mooted. What does this process of stupidification and deterioration say about the unstated policies of the government that permits, nay, encourages and profits by such a process?

Posted by: Walter | Dec 5 2019 12:47 utc | 166

And while other MoA barflies continue to be engrossed about Epstein there is the undiscussed hypocrisy linked to below that seems much more pertinent to me
Buffalo Bishop Resigns Over Sex Abuse Cover-Up
The take away quote
”
Since the Catholic church’s sexual abuse scandal reignited in 2018, bishops across the country have come under greater scrutiny for the crimes and cover-ups alleged to have occurred during their tenure. That’s what got Malone: records showing he actively sought to protect pedophile priests.
In one incident back in March 2018, Bishop Malone released a list of 42 priests accused of abuse over decades. But Siobhan O’Connor, a source worked in the bishop’s office, had seen 117 names on a draft list in the diocese’s secret files, and began photocopying and then leaking the documents to WKBW, the local ABC affiliate.
The leaks revealed that Bishop Malone, who had been the highest official in the diocese since 2012, clearly tried to minimize disclosure of the full extent of the diocese’s sex abuse issues.
”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 5 2019 13:57 utc | 168

@ 168 (what is the policy)
Thanks for the response. I agree about the idea that the stupidification does allow “them” to “maintain control of the entitlement narrative”. It does do that.
But the reply does not quite address my question, as the (unstated) Policy evidently leads to the destruction of the volk and the general population.
If one assumes that “they” are rational, then one is obliged to deduce the Policy as a design to eliminate the, ah, nutzlosen.
As you say, government is sharing. As a buttress to the idea that the policy goal is liquidation (Rupert thought that), we note that the “sharing” is niggardly and becoming more so with every collapsed bit of infrastructure.
That, if we accept (and I do) the idea that “government is sharing”, then we are seeing government collapsing, ending. Well, with no people they won’t need to share… Won’t need to share their space down in, as Doctor Merkwurdigliebe said, “the deeper mine shafts”.

Posted by: Walter | Dec 5 2019 14:24 utc | 170

PM Medvedev expects Russia’s GDP to grow by 1.3-1.5% in 2019
Long story short: the Russian Federation, at age 28, has been an objectively worse experiment than the USSR. With the aggravating fact that the it doesn’t face the threat (and effective tries) of immediate anihilation as the Soviets did.
So, now we have the fact that the USSR faced a violent counter-revolution — the first and, so far, the bloodiest attempt of a color revolution/regime change in History* –, a brutal embargo (after the Winter War it was kicked out of the League of Nations), a war of anihilation (WWII) and another brutal embargo (Cold War) — and, yet, it did much, much better than the Russian Federation is doing under much more favorable circumstances.
Putin is running out of time. Russia will fall again to the Yelsin era if it doesn’t abandon neoliberalism now and immediately go back to socialism. He’s playing with fire.
*”To support the White cause, American and British soldiers landed at Arkhangel’sk and Murmansk in the north, and additional British and French forces operated in Odessa, Crimea, and the Caucasus. In Siberia, the highly effective Czech Army, composed of former Russian prisoners of war (POWs) who had enlisted to fight against Austria-Hungary, dominated the transcontinental railway line in support of the Whites. Japanese, American, and other troops spread westward to Irkutsk in Siberia from the Pacific port of Vladivostok. […] Even after the Western Allies defeated the Germans in November, German troops supported the breakaway Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia as well as a separatist movement in the Ukraine.”
[…]
“Once the Bolshevik government signed the armistice with Germany, its former allies also intervened in an effort to reverse the revolution and bring Russia back into the world war.”
(GLANTZ, When Titans Clashed, chapter 1).

Posted by: vk | Dec 5 2019 15:41 utc | 172

@ vk | Dec 5 2019 15:41 utc | 172 > “Putin is running out of time. Russia will fall again to the Yelsin era if it doesn’t abandon neoliberalism now and immediately go back to socialism. He’s playing with fire.”
I agree that Socialism is a good way to create the circumstances favorable to domestic happiness and prosperity, and that would be good. And that neoloberalism is bad (to say the least!).
Are you not assuming that the opponent and declining Empire does not fail, or, as Putin said, “collapse soon”? It’s a matter of circumstance that remains to develop. Yes, of course he’s playing with fire, this is what rulers do in the atomic age. It’s what the entire world is doing.
If Empire retreats, (or collapses) then Russia will have another circumstance. In such a circumstance the liquidation of insane neoliberalism may be assumed, and not only in Russia.
The Yeltsin Era came about through corruption, did it not? Bribery, greed, murder, and plenty of Imperial curation…
The ongoing war drags out the clock. It’s perhaps a race to see which Government fails first… Putin is playing out the clock…tictictic – because that avoids atomic war-suicide and seems to offer the prospect of Imperial Collapse, which would liberate the Russian government from the constraints of the war.

Posted by: Walter | Dec 5 2019 16:08 utc | 174

@ vk | Dec 5 2019 15:41 utc | 172 > “Once the Bolshevik government signed the armistice with Germany, its former allies also intervened in an effort to reverse the revolution and bring Russia back into the world war.” (GLANTZ, When Titans Clashed, chapter 1).
To this reading some may also wish to find Brusilov’s letter to Pravda written in regard to the Allied Invasion of Russia, the war against Russia – well, that’s how General B saw it… Everybody has a story.
Brusilov’s letter (forgive me, as I cannot read the Russian, I think this is right, but do not know)
Brusilov’s letter in Pravda in 1920: 23 мая 1920 года в «Правде» был напечатан, пожалуй, самый знаменитый документ, составленный Брусиловым лично — воззвание «Ко всем бывшим офицерам, где бы они ни находились». В нем бывший Верховный главнокомандующий русской армией призывал: «В этот критический исторический момент нашей народной жизни мы, ваши старшие боевые товарищи, обращаемся к вашим чувствам любви и преданности к родине и взываем к вам с настоятельной просьбой забыть все обиды, кто бы и где бы их вам ни нанес, и добровольно идти с полным самоотвержением и охотой в Красную Армию, на фронт или в тыл, куда бы правительство Советской Рабоче-Крестьянской России вас ни назначило, и служить там не за страх, а за совесть, дабы своей честной службой, не жалея жизни, отстоять во что бы то ни стало дорогую нам Россию и не допустить ее расхищения, ибо в последнем случае она безвозвратно может пропасть, и тогда наши потомки будут нас справедливо проклинать и правильно обвинять за то, что мы из-за эгоистических чувств классовой борьбы не использовали своих боевых знаний и опыта, забыли свой родной русский народ и загубили свою матушку-Россию»
machine translation> Brusilov’s letter in Pravda in 1920: May 23, 1920 in Pravda, perhaps the most famous document personally compiled by Brusilov was published – the appeal “To all former officers, wherever they are.” In it, the former Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army called: “At this critical historical moment in our people’s life, we, your senior comrades, appeal to your feelings of love and devotion to your homeland and urge you to forget all insults, whoever and wherever they didn’t inflict any damage on you, and voluntarily go with complete selflessness and hunting to the Red Army, to the front or to the rear, wherever the government of Soviet Worker-Peasant Russia appoints you, and to serve there not for fear, but for conscience, so that you can serve with your honest service not well the avenue of life, to defend at all costs Russia, which is so dear to us, and to prevent its plunder, for in the latter case it can irretrievably disappear, and then our descendants will rightly curse and correctly blame us for the fact that we are due to the selfish feelings of the class they didn’t use their fighting knowledge and experience, they forgot their native Russian people and ruined their mother Russia ”

Posted by: Walter | Dec 5 2019 16:50 utc | 176

Gentlemen, Not to engage in an argument, but the term “racism” or “racist” is pretty much just name-calling, a rhetorical usage to de-legitimize the other. It’s a fairly recent word in English, maybe 200 years old.
I understand that the term actually refers to people who wish to keep their customs, laws, ways of thinking – people of an established group that want to stay that way. Today, the term “conservative” probably means what “racist” originally meant.
Long ago, oh, about 1958, in a discussion with a lawyer who was a good man, he said of the Negro Americans : “They have their rights, and I have mine.”
Yes, that sounds “racist”, but it is also fair-minded – as of course in those days the laws applied to all, that’s before the coup of 1963.
“racist” does not equal “Bigot”.
The Rabbi who tried hard to teach me some Hebrew many years ago was a “racist”, but not a bigot. In the example of the Anglican) lawyer, I think he was both, but not mean. He was always polite.
And polite will always help, eh?
I believe Brother Linh Dinh recently wrote something about this. You come ’round a corner and a green-skinned thuggish man is beating a orange-skinned man. You have orange skin. What are your reactions?
Similarly, your family has lived in the valley for centuries, and one day men come and try to force you and the kinfolk to abandon your valley. If you agree, and leave, you are not a racist. If you object, you are.
Zionists are obviously both racists and bigots. And many Jews reject zionism. I would ad that zionism seems to be a curated project by MI6, one that has got loose and Golem-like, rampages ’round, and which no one can yet stop. A monster.

Posted by: Walter | Dec 5 2019 23:42 utc | 178

Lots of people say with today’s internet access, the truth is out, its much harder for the [[[5liars]]] to hoodwink the mass.
Really ?
In Oz, people who approve of China dropped from 52%
to 32% in less than a year.
Courtesy of the fukus orchestrated saturated bombing by
B.S.,
China has a huge 5th columns sleepers in Oz , waiting for
the command to rise up..
China is gonna take over Oz one of these days…
China is committing genocide in Xinjiang….
China is ‘iterferring’ in HK , bashing up ‘benign protestors’…
Well done !
Works like a charm, every single time,…..
iraq, YUgo, LIbya, Syria, TAM, Tibet, Xinjiang….

Posted by: denk | Dec 6 2019 2:26 utc | 180

@ karlof1 | Dec 5 2019 0:06 utc | 151
Oh noooooes, more public/private banking balderdash and blather; how difficult is it to understand both are required because both fill and address differing economic needs. All the plethora of opinion is still nothing but opinion, nothing based on factual considerations concerning actual economics; just as the growth of current heterodox economic thought is based solely upon the internal discordance, inconsistencies and contradictions of neoliberal economic theology, its catechisms and dogma, courtesy Chicago School of Economic Phrenology and the Harvard School of Business Chicanery. Every bit of current economic language has issues from those anal sphincters and leaves a discernible stench on modern economic discourse.
Not one current heterodox essayist has provided an alternative economic concept to neoliberal construct, only providing some critique thereof, and sadly show no sign of doing so. The most current (and only) construct, growing out of Keynesian analysis is the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), currently in use to enable unlimited Military, Industrial, Congressional Complex (MICC) [to use its original intended form]. Again sadly, until there is a viable alternative, economics will remain under the control of the neoliberal thought collective that has grown out of the Master of Business Administration (MBA) subornation, subversion of economic theory curtesy Econ 101 in institutions of supposedly higher education. Not worth the pixels are the degrees granted, undergraduate or otherwise adhering to one’s name on faux-sheepskin diplomas.
For a brief moment Newton had been heterodox but quickly became orthodox. It took some three hundred years before that orthodoxy became transcended which has become the new orthodoxy of today, unlikely to be transcended for half a millennium or more so soundly is it’s authority established. The science (analytical observation) of economics is not different and any critique of current economics has the nature of speculative supposition. Adam Smith opened economic speculation using ethics and morality as his measure of what he observed and had familiarity with in his day, just as John Maynard Keynes did in his, having intervening economic observations from which to construct his thesis from. All that has been trashed by the current neoliberal theology and is gone from economic consideration. The bond between political and economics cannot be broken, however the bond between history and economics, equally important to economic intelligence, has be destroyed, just as any cognizable record of current and recent history has become fodder for historical revisionists insisting on some political correct historical point of view. Once memory is gone, like in Alzheimer’s, there is no longer a there there to interact with. This seems the bend which the culture is embarked upon and it becomes far more important the preservation of history, incomplete as it is, to allow reconstruction and analysis of the ‘Camino Real’ which has led to the future, a service to that future of signal importance.
I can vouch safe that there is little significant difference between the syllabus you seem to be using and that I experienced in my education in the late fifties, beginning sixties; I had thought that had disappeared forever. I would advise against taking any position that would in effect destroy millennia of economic development in currency, in institution, in management and control without long and serious thought; once destroyed those things cannot or cannot easily be replaced. The forbearers who developed the system were not fools though it is highly likely this generation of intellect are just that – fools.
YMMV

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Dec 6 2019 11:24 utc | 182

The confused and directionless nature of contemporary economic thought is understandable. The same problem would be seen in the biological sciences if the last century and a half were spent pursuing any avenues of inquiry possible except those that might validate the findings of one particular Beagle-riding biologist. If science is directed towards avoiding the correct answer then it is unsurprising that it is always wrong. Efforts to build the biological sciences in such a way that they invalidated evolution could only result in invalidating those efforts at developing biological science. Fortunately the capitalists running society didn’t feel threatened by the direction accurate biological inquiry was taking, and indeed could see profits in it, so it was encouraged. Sadly, the same could not be said for the direction economic thought was taking at the same time, so the captains of industry made sure endowments were unavailable for those who pursued such heresy.
Since economics is necessary as the foundation for all of the social sciences it is also no wonder that even after many decades of efforts to harden those sciences that whole broad field of inquiry remains soft, squishy, and basically useless.
Oh well, I take heart in the observation by Churchill that “Americans will always do the right thing… after trying everything else.”

Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 6 2019 13:59 utc | 184

Mr. Gruff @ 184:
I agree with your thesis and would pursue it a bit further, though many will disagree. I also think in the field of morality (which has a social component, though I would be hardpressed to include it among the sciences) it has been in the interests of the powerful to downgrade all aspects of this field. That would include, very largely, education of the masses; and very small-ly, religious or spiritual pursuits. (Somewhat also, are affected the medical sciences, since from their inception the honorable edict “First, do no harm” was the code of those employed therein.)
It had at first puzzled me as to why ‘creationism’ and Darwin’s scientific observations would be seen in opposition, much as the early physicists’ scientific discoveries would be seen as opposed to the religious beliefs of their day. That’s not a new thing of course, but a science, purely considered, is always an adaptation construct – new ideas bring new formulations and that is as it should be. Knowledge is reshaped as better observational techniques correct previous dimly seen models, and new scientific theories replace the old. (The latter remain as excellent tools for the mind that shouldn’t be completely discarded.)
Rather than concentrate on that small component I mentioned, we ought to fasten on the large one – education. I think that is where the assault on morality really has made exceptionally devastating inroads. The good thing is that education has an un-economical component. It can take place, and does, on the streets. Libraries are free. All that is needed is the desire, which is innate in every person. Occupy had libraries, which the powerful made sure to bulldoze. That was, for me, the most powerful element of what took place then.
Work doesn’t make free; books do.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 6 2019 18:23 utc | 186

Walter @185 re: economics
The basis of economics is effort; the expenditure of energy by humans. All human interaction (obviously including violence) involves the expenditure of effort. Human effort is thus to the social sciences what energy is to the physical sciences, and in fact the two are identical under certain circumstances. It just depends upon what scale and aspect of society one is observing. Moreover, such crossovers between seemingly disparate fields of study are to be expected, and if not found it suggests that one or both fields of study in question are not adequately founded in the real world.
Wealth is itself a human construct so thus cannot serve as the connection between society (another human construct) and the natural world. Human effort, on the other hand, crosses domains into physics, biology, chemistry, etc, to tie the sciences of human behavior and interaction to something concrete, and of course all human constructs of whatever form you can imagine arise from human effort. This makes human effort the key starting point for all social sciences that anchors them in the natural world, and the study of human effort is economics… or it should be if people who claim to be students of economics were not obsessing over silly pieces of paper that have no significance outside of what humans arbitrarily assign to them.
A bigger problem with wealth having any central significance in the study of economics is that the quantity of it can change depending strictly upon the attitude people have towards it in their imaginations. Can a mole of nitrogen molecules have any count other than Avogadro’s number because people want it to be more or less? Can people wish the charge on an electron to be something other than the inverse of the elementary charge? When fundamental values in your science are dependent upon humans’ transient internal mental states then it is not a science at all but something more like delusion.
Of course, you can study humans’ transient internal mental states themselves, but doing so strictly relative to other transient internal mental states cannot yield any kind of useful understanding, at least outside of rigorous Zen meditation, and then it is debatable how useful such understanding would be in any scientific sense. For such a study of transient internal mental states to be meaningful those states must be correlated with behaviors and with conditions external to the mind.
As for Churchill, I respect Trump more and I despise Trump, so that should give an idea where I rank that corpulent arrogant beast.

Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 6 2019 18:35 utc | 188

@ Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 6 2019 18:34 utc | 155 who posted his response to Walter on the wrong thread and who wrote
”
The basis of economics is effort; the expenditure of energy by humans.
”
I have to disagree. The basic of economics is the EXCHANGE of human effort, not the effort itself.
And that exchange of human effort is part of a social contract that currently has that exchange controlled by those that own global private finance in the West. They control it by creating the medium and manipulating the relative value.
Going back to one of my earlier comments yesterday, in essence, those of us in the West live in a dictatorship because of the private control of effort exchange, but we are inculcated not to think of it that way.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 6 2019 18:58 utc | 190

psychohistorian @189
I cannot agree that exchange is the most fundamental aspect of economics. Individuals can produce items for themselves and those items have economic use value without ever having been exchanged. Furthermore, the act of exchanging items in and of itself does not imbue those items with any value more than the value of the effort involved in exchanging those items required. If exchanging the items involved moving them from one location to another and then locating individuals with interest in acquiring those items, then that process itself can add value to the exchanged items, but no more than the value of the effort that was required to complete that exchange process. The exchanged items started with value already, which was the value of the sum of the effort needed to produce them. The process of exchanging them added some aditional value, which was the value of the effort required to complete the exchange.
It should be noted that exchange is just another form of applying human effort. It is not inherently any different from any other form of human effort, such as farming or manufacturing work or entertaining the laborers with song and dance after their hard day in the code mine.
It always distills down to human effort. Building rockets, growing veggies, cutting people’s hair, teaching the next generation to function in society, sanitizing telephone headsets, writing books, or whatever. Every imaginable economic activity just boils down to human effort being applied.
We live in a dictatorship because of private control of the tools used in the application of human effort to productive processes. Those who own the tools get to dictate to those who do not. In the case of finance, the tool that is privately controlled is currency itself.

Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 6 2019 20:08 utc | 192

The #1 most fundamental aspect of economy is work–without work you have zero. Value is then appended to the work, with value being relative depending on the importance of the work. I did this explanation for all introductory econ students and had them use their body and its upkeep as the first lesson. I suggest this be done by everyone reading. The two things of greatest value to a human are symbiotic–breathing and blood circulation–both must occur or neither does. And both are also autonomic in that they occur without conscious effort yet both are work as energy is required for those functions. I suggest being extremely basic in constructing your fundamental personal economy. Obviously to breath and pump blood food and water are required. Thus the main task for the human economy is obtaining those two items. Next would be shelter, and so forth. One might engage in commerce to obtain goods that are needed, but then something having exchange value must be produced for the commercial exchange to be consummated. Again, please keep it all very simple before moving on to more complex series of interactions. The only violence that enters into such a basic economy is that used to provide food for the energy needed to do work, and it does not enter into commerce at such a fundamental state.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 6 2019 22:52 utc | 194

@ Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 6 2019 20:08 utc | 192 who wrote in response to my comment bout economics
”
Furthermore, the act of exchanging items in and of itself does not imbue those items with any value more than the value of the effort involved in exchanging those items required.
….
The exchanged items started with value already, which was the value of the sum of the effort needed to produce them.
”
I posit that exchanged items only establish economic value when they are exchanged. Yes, we each could make a loaf of bread and it has value to us individually but in economic terms the value is established in society when it is exchanged via barter for X number of eggs or via money as defined externally
Otherwise I think we agree and are into semantics…thanks for the response

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 7 2019 2:15 utc | 196

psychohistorian @196
Unfortunately what you are discussing is metaphysics and not science. We can define “value” any way we wish, but if it is not bound to something in the real world then it is meaningless from a scientific perspective. I am arguing that artifacts have an intrinsic value that is a characteristic of the artifact itself and not some nebulous subjective impression that is based upon internal emotional states of people who happen to be nearest that artifact, or who happen to have a piece of paper defining ownership of that artifact. To suggest that passing the artifact from one hand to another causes it to acquire value is to suggest that value arises spontaneously from the aether. Such a quality could certainly exist in a metaphysical sense, but that sense is not useful from any scientific perspective.
If one wants economics to be more like a science then it has to be bound more intimately with physical reality. To qualify as science the units of measure cannot be subjective. Those units must exist independent of the observer.

Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 7 2019 3:24 utc | 198

Below is a posting link from Xinhuanet about the attempted incremental implementation of the US ME peace plan with an interview with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
Palestinian president warns of gradual implementation of U.S. Mideast peace plan

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 7 2019 5:45 utc | 200