@ zarathustra and james about the Ukrainian plane downing
Here is another link saying similar things
Iranian Military Now Claims US ‘Cyberattack’ Brought Down Passenger Plane

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 16 2020 17:46 utc | 4

Looking at all the stories coming out, the deep state is getting pretty serious about getting rid of Trump.
What if they get Biden as the democratic nominee too and we have a Pence/Biden matchup?
Top that with everything the Fed is doing to keep the market bubble from bursting and it raises interesting possibilities.
Trump laughing it up from the sidelines, for one thing.

Posted by: John Merryman. | Jan 16 2020 18:13 utc | 6

Macron order aircraft strike group to the middle east,
https://sputniknews.com/world/202001161078054516-macron-announces-charles-de-gaulle-carrier-will-be-sent-to-help-french-military-ops-in-middle-east/
Something about to happen?

Posted by: Zanon | Jan 16 2020 18:14 utc | 8

It doesn’t matter in which order they’re read, but Escobar’s latest intersects with Alastair Crooke’s to provide Big Picture perspective.
Towards his conclusion, Escobar cites retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2001 to 2005:
“We are going to lie, cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That’s the truth of it. And that’s the agony of it.”
But nowhere in the citation does Wilkerson say that any of this effort’s being done to defend the USA, whereas its beyond clear that Iran, China and Russia are all working to protect their nations and people. Rather, it appears as if “the profound disgust and revolt against US policies all across the Global South” is finally being adopted by a majority of the USA’s polity as it becomes clear that all the lying, cheating and stealing is being done at the expense of the 99% for the 1%’s benefit.
As Crooke alludes, wagging the dog a la Clinton might save Trump from being convicted and removed by the Senate, but such a move will likely cost him the election, although much depends on how those controlling the D-Party behave in the face of Sanders winning the nomination via the primaries prior to the Convention.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 16 2020 18:37 utc | 10

Now that Warren has been exposed as the charlatan (The Damned Debates) many of us knew she was all along, the media is all freaked out that her plan to attack Bernie Sanders is backfiring and that she is losing support rather than gaining it. It looks to many like she made a deal with the Wall St. crowd funding the DNC who support Biden to attack Bernie for them in exchange for a VP spot. They are obviously very worried about Biden though because the Trump-GOP attack on Biden over Burisma is coming, and they know they have nothing to stop it. That is what the impeachment is all about (Impeachment For Dummies: or How progressives were conned into supporting Joe Biden for President), and what the recent claim of Russia hacking to harm Biden is all about. It is all about trying to protect Biden from the upcoming Trump-GOP Burisma related attack on Biden. So with Biden in trouble and Warren stumbling, expect Hillary to save the day? LOL. They are worried, but unless Bernie is far ahead when it matters then the superdelegates will save them. But if they do that then they fear many people will go 3rd party next election cycle, meaning the DNC has no chance to beat the GOP in the future if that happens. What will they do? Right now they are full on trying to threaten their way to keep their new world order as it crumbles around them (Pax Americana: Between Iraq and A Hard Place). Times they are a changin.

Posted by: Kali | Jan 16 2020 18:40 utc | 12

this video analysis by a privat german researcher showing the ukraine plane was hit two times – first by a kind of “Stinger”-missile, which hit its front… and second when the plane turned around going back to the airport without any transponder signal by the iranian air defense. this scenario is currently the most valid conclusion imho. I.e. a clandestine “terrorist” attack first and a “official” missile second with radar jamming in between…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfteAQOmNuM&

Posted by: sirius | Jan 16 2020 18:50 utc | 14

ok this is way over my head but i’m posting a link on the Ukranian crash in Tehran to get you all’s perspective.
Russell Bently has a piece on Information Clearinghouse where he says the “accident story is bullshit” and details his reasons. Many of you know a great deal about planes and missiles so here you go….
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52851.htm

Posted by: migueljose | Jan 16 2020 18:56 utc | 16

Strong analysis by WSWS today on core legal foundations currently under threat by the determined persecution of Assange –
The prosecution of Julian Assange, the destruction of legality and the rise of the national security state
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/15/assa-j15.html

Posted by: jayc | Jan 16 2020 19:12 utc | 18

@13 “following an american private intelligence company … citing a mexican source”.
are you serious ?

Posted by: murgen23 | Jan 16 2020 19:18 utc | 20

Since it is an open thread here, I ‘ll repeat my off topic request from yesterday.
What is the story about “Mr expert on everything, every week” Gwynne Dyer? I’ve just endured another of his gatekeeping, boundary defining columns where he states “…but the Iranian government lied about it for three days…”
https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-ps752-shootdown-a-human-error-driven-by-paranoid-politics-time-pressure
WTF is this broadly published disinformer? Out there, there is probably some indepth erudite deconstructions of the Gwynne Dyer machine. Can someone supply them or point me to them?

Posted by: tucenc | Jan 16 2020 19:34 utc | 22

Posted by: Joe | Jan 16 2020 18:46 utc | 13
Thanks for the concern trolling, Shlomo…sorry, I mean “Joe”.

Posted by: Information_Agent | Jan 16 2020 20:05 utc | 24

@21 (and earlier post)
The largest UK union UNISON came out in support of Keir Starmer
https://www.unison.org.uk/news/article/2020/01/blog-starmer/
As a Branch Secretary of this Union I can endorse the earlier comments about rampant Blairism and antidemocratic tendencies.
This is no coincidence of course.

Posted by: KarenEliot | Jan 16 2020 20:12 utc | 26

migueljose | Jan 16 2020 18:56 utc | 16

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jan 16 2020 20:22 utc | 28

Funny how everyone talks about “Iran and its proxies” but never mentions Saudi Arabia’s proxies… Oops because that would be ISIS et al wouldn’t it. Actually the US itself behaves as one in a way as well… Orwell’s world.

Posted by: Blofeld | Jan 16 2020 20:26 utc | 30

Can anyone verify authenticity of the attached document allegedly sent from Pentagon to House, signed by James P. Hogan?

The page link here.

Posted by: araa | Jan 16 2020 20:59 utc | 32

Please ignore comma after ‘wrong’.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Jan 16 2020 21:15 utc | 34

There is a lot of talk here and in comment sections at forums about how the American Empire is going to collapse soon due to its blunders and Russia and China gaining military superiority over it. This kind of talk is a type of magical thinking and has no basis in reality. The United States’ most potent weapon isn’t military, it’s economic, and through it the US government controls the world. That weapon is the US Dollar and ever since Nixon took it off the gold standard it has been used to further the Empire’s imperial hold on the global economy. The economist Michael Hudson in an article called A Note To China (link at bottom) explains how this works:

The U.S. strategy is to control your economy in order to force you to sell your most profitable industrial sectors to US investors, to force you to invest in your industry only by borrowing from the United States.
So the question is, how do China, Russia, Iran and other countries break free of this U.S. dollarization strategy?

There are a lot of articles on alt.media sites about how China and Russia are de-dollarizing their economies in order to resist, and eventually end, the US domination of the global economy that is preventing them from maintaining independent economic policies that benefit their citizens rather than global elites and US central bankers.
Russia managed to put a stop to overt US economic imperialism after the looting spree in the post-Soviet 1990s decimated Russia’s ability to provide for its citizens and degraded the country’s ability to maintain economic independence. But it still ultimately got caught in the neoliberal trap. Hudson again:

Yet Russia did not have enough foreign exchange to pay domestic ruble-wages or to pay for domestic goods and services. But neoliberal advisors convinced Russia to back all Ruble money or domestic currency credit it created by backing it with U.S. dollars. Obtaining these dollars involved paying enormous interest to the United States for this needless backing. There was no need for such backing. At the end of this road the United States convinced Russia to sell off its raw materials, its nickel mines, its electric utilities, its oil reserves, and ultimately tried to pry Crimea away from Russia.

China, Hudson argues, by accepting the advice of American and IMF/World Bank economic “experts” and through Chinese students schooled in American universities in American neoliberal theory is in great danger of falling into the same trap.

The U.S. has discovered that it does not have to militarily invade China. It does not have to conquer China. It does not have to use military weapons, because it has the intellectual weapon of financialization, convincing you that you need to do this in order to have a balanced economy. So, when China sends its students to the United States, especially when it sends central bankers and planners to the United States to study (and be recruited), they are told by the U.S. “Do as we say, not as we have done.”

He concludes that:

The neoliberal plan is not to make you independent, and not to help you grow except to the extent that your growth will be paid to US investors or used to finance U.S. military spending around the world to encircle you and trying to destabilize you in Sichuan to try to pry China apart.
Look at what the United States has done in Russia, and at what the International Monetary Fund in Europe has done to Greece, Latvia and the Baltic states. It is a dress rehearsal for what U.S. diplomacy would like to do to you, if it can convince you to follow the neoliberal US economic policy of financialization and privatization.
De-dollarization is the alternative to privatization and financialization.

Loosening the Empire’s hold on economic and geopolitical affairs and moving to a multipolar world order is a tough slog and the Empire will use everything it can to stop this from happening. But at the moment even countries under American sanctions and surrounded by its armies, with the possible exception of Iran, aren’t really fighting back. That’s a bitter pill for many to swallow but wishful thinking isn’t going to change the world. After all, the new world has to be imagined before it can appear and right now it’s still global capitalism all the way down.
Link to article: https://michael-hudson.com/2020/01/note-to-china/
The article in full, and Hudson’s work generally, is well worth reading. He is one of only a few genuinely anti-imperialist economists and he is able to explain in layman’s terms exactly how the US-centric global economy is a massive scam designed to benefit US empire at the rest of the world’s expense.

Posted by: Daniel | Jan 16 2020 21:18 utc | 36

paul @1:
What the hell are you talking about? What has happened that led to your question? Please post a link to the article.

Posted by: Ian2 | Jan 16 2020 21:57 utc | 38

@ Daniel | Jan 16 2020 21:18 utc | 36
Yes, Michael Hudson is excellent, mostly because he’s rare economist, that is, one who begins from the premise that the ‘economy’ is a set of historically-situated and specific modes of exchange and forms of human relations. Aristotle located what we call the economy in ethics and politics; we follow the fairytales of neo-classical economics and global capital by imagining that it has some scientific autonomy from human social relations. Marx was right in following Aristotle’s insight by critiquing the very idea of an autonomous economy, which the chief ideological fiction of late capitalism. Sam Chambers and Ellen Meiksens-Wood are also excellent critics of this obstacle to reimagining a viable alternative to the economy as it is propagated by the US neoliberal global apparatus.

Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 16 2020 22:20 utc | 40

Does anyone here have any insight on the future of Oman now that Sultan Qabus bin Said has died? His portrayal in Western media reminds me of that of the Shah of Iran: He was an absolute monarch, but the West praised him for “modernizing” his country.

Posted by: Inkan1969 | Jan 16 2020 22:34 utc | 42

@ Posted by: Daniel | Jan 16 2020 21:18 utc | 36
Exclude me from this squad. I’s always from the opinion that the USA would collapse slowly, i.e. degenerate/decay. I won’t repeat my arguments again here so as to spare people who already know me the repetition.
However, consider this: when 2008 broke out, some people thought the USA would finally collapse. It didn’t – in great part, because the USG also thought it could collapse, so it acted quickly and decisively. But it cost a lot: the USA fell from its “sole superpower” status, and, for the first time since 1929, the American people had to fell in the flesh the side effects of capitalism. It marked the end of the End of History, and the realization – mainly by Russia and China – that the Americans were not invincible and immortals. It may have marked the beginning of the multipolar era.
–//–
The world (bar China) never recovered from 2008. Indeed, world debt has grown to another record high:
Global debt hits a record high in 2019 at 322% of GDP, or $267trn
The world governments – specially the governments from the USA, Japan and Europe – absorbed private debt (through purchase of rotten papers and through QE) so the system could be saved. But this debt didn’t disappear, instead, it became public debt. What’s worse: private debt has already spiked up, and already is higher than pre-2008 levels. The Too Big To Fail philosophy of the central banks only bought them time.
–//–
Extending my previous link (from the previous Open Thread) about money laundering:
No tax and chill: Netflix’s offshore network

The global TV subscription streaming company, Netflix made $1.2bn in profits in 2018, of which $430m was shifted into tax havens, reports Tax Watch UK.
The estimated revenue from UK subscribers was about $860m, but most of this was booked offshore in a tax haven Dutch subsidiary. Netflix claims its UK parent company got only $48m in revenue. When the costs of Netflix UK productions were put against this, Netflix was able to avoid paying any tax at all to the UK government. Indeed, it received tax reliefs for productions in the UK from the government.

Posted by: vk | Jan 16 2020 22:50 utc | 44

8 On can only hope that the “Gharles De Gaulle” get destroyed and that the french military at least take some initiative to get rid of Macron.

Posted by: Bob | Jan 16 2020 23:26 utc | 46

Macron order aircraft strike group to the middle east,
https://sputniknews.com/world/202001161078054516-macron-announces-charles-de-gaulle-carrier-will-be-sent-to-help-french-military-ops-in-middle-east/
Something about to happen?
Posted by: Zanon | Jan 16 2020 18:14 utc | 8
—
Yes, get ready for an attempt to bring Reza Pahlavi back. Why do you think he splits his time between LA and Paris.

Posted by: ebolax | Jan 17 2020 0:12 utc | 48

Karlof1 – I always appreciate your comments. In fact I often do commandF and find your comments. however your comment, “…nowhere in the citation does Wilkerson say that any of this effort’s being done to defend the USA,…”, are uncharacteristically naive. When, not if the dollar ceases to be the world reserve currency and all that that means, the USA will collapse in the worst possible way.
I am not defending the Outlaw US Empire, I am simply stating that all thoughts, considerations, and analysis needs to be centered on this single, simple reality or otherwise be useless. It is why we can not even think about getting out of the middle east, it would be game over for USA. Again I am not siding by making this comment, just that that is how it is, and nothing we can say or do will change that.

Posted by: jef | Jan 17 2020 0:13 utc | 50

Gather around the fireplace barfiles. Skripals & Sturgess in the news.
In The WILTSHIRE AND SWINDON CORONER”S COURT Case No 1380/18
PRECAUTION: Remove all liquids
John Helmer [in Moscow] finds strange goings on with Coroner Ridley’s inquest on death of Dawn Kelly Sturgess.
Full Article

Excerpts:
In a ruling issued by the Wiltshire county coroner David Ridley (lead image) this week, the British Government allegations of a Russian assassination plot against Sergei Skripal by the nerve agent Novichok were repeated and accepted — without the qualification that they have not yet been tested and proven in the coroner’s court.[.]
“On the face of the evidence I have seen,” Ridley said of Sturgess’s death in Salisbury District Hospital on July 8, 2018, “[she] appears to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and her death may well have arisen as a result of ‘collateral damage’, a phrase that I apologise in using but I am unable to express it any other meaningful way.”[.]
Ridley’s ruling was directed at the London lawyers for the Sturgess family, barrister Michael Mansfield QC and solicitor Irene Nembhard. They have proposed putting Russia’s military intelligence agents and also the British security services on trial in a scheme for a large payout in compensation to the Sturgess family. The lawyers claim the Russian assassination threat was so well-known to the British services, they were negligent in their duty to prevent it and to protect the people of Salisbury, particularly Sturgess.[.]

Shocked I am not.

Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 17 2020 0:17 utc | 52

S@27
Stratfor wrote the report, dated February 2009, and cited a “Mexican source,” described as a former police officer and a current military analyst. Pretty sure Stratfor does not encourage BS reports. Doesn’t make it true but without knowing who the military analyst (ex-cop) was working for and his access how can it be dismissed as BS. If it was disinfo planted by Stratfor for subsequent wiki leaks one would assume they could invent a source people might find more credible. And why would Jerusalem post write a story on it calling it obvious BS if thats what it was?
The major point being not that it is true or not but that it does plant the seeds of doubt in Russian weapons among those who may purchase such weapons to be used against Israel and its allies. Perhaps this is the point behind the email , leaking and reporting, but we still have the inexplicable shooting down of a civilian aircraft in Iran using a Russian missile system, which was surely a gift to Israel and its anti-Iran objectives. Reports coming out that external actors may have played a role and perhaps using those Russian codes (impossible to say) to facilitate conditions that prompted the operator to fire.
The smart thing would be to assume the codes of any Russian or US piece of equipment are in Israel hands and do whatever tech thing needs to be done to counter that

Posted by: Pft | Jan 17 2020 0:35 utc | 54

Vk@44
Creating debt is the same thing as creating money. If you have debt (US government) you create the money via your central bank (Fed) , so you can never default. Commodity inflation wont be a problem because the money created is never seen by the majority of households. Instead you do have asset inflation which actually removes money from the bottom 90%, and you have stock market inflation which benefits the top 10% on paper. You also have plenty of cash to exercise dollar diplomacy or dollars tyranny to acquire other countries resources or impoverish them with debt which must be repaid in a currency they cant create (USD)
Its really a fool proof system. Not that they wont pull the plug at some point since crashes are great buying opportunities. Paper losses can be used to offset future taxes. Up or down, those with cash on hand make money. Also, such events create opportunities to implement solutions that are favorable to the elite. The Hegelian dialect process of action-reaction = solution is a time proven winner. Some call it disaster capitalism. 2008 was a big win for the elite. The next crash will be as well. But it doesn’t mean the system is failing. On the contrary, its the way the system was meant to work.

Posted by: Pft | Jan 17 2020 0:54 utc | 56

https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/leftist-jews-want-stop-normal-americans-protesting-israels-wars/ri28159
Last weekend, I went with some friends to an anti-war protest. We wanted to point out the obvious: that America’s Middle East wars are favored by Israel, and they are backed by many wealthy, powerful Jews in the US. Of course, many non-Jews are guilty too, and that’s also a problem. But it cannot be disputed that the heavily Jewish, pro-Israel lobby has been pushing America into wars that are good for Israel and bad for most Americans.
If you doubt that, consider this. Have you ever heard of the “pro-Palestinian” or “pro-Arab” lobby? How about the “pro-Iranian” one? No? That is because no such lobby exists. But there is a massive pro-Israel lobby, funded in no small part by many very rich Jews.
If you think my argument is “anti-Semitic”, you might be right! But that should not matter. What matters is: Is it true? Because if it is true, then it needs to be talked about.
We will never stop these wars if we cannot talk about their causes. You cannot cure a sick person if you cannot diagnose their ailment. Therefore, we need to talk about Jewish power, and how rich Jewish people living in America are able to steer our foreign policy to give Israel what it wants.
…
If we cannot talk about Israel and Jews, then we will never stop the wars with all of their killing, destruction, and horror.

Posted by: Sarah | Jan 17 2020 1:06 utc | 58

karlof1 @ 47 said;”The sooner the SCO community, or just the core nations, can produce a new currency for use in trade, the sooner a crisis can be created within the Outlaw US Empire–essentially by turning the “intellectual weapon of financialization” against the global rogue nation foe.”
Yep, but, as psychoh @ 51 opined;”Creating a new public BIS (Bank of nation’s Central Bankers) is a necessity more than a new global Reserve Currency, IMO.”
IMO, both are a necessity, in any order..

Posted by: ben | Jan 17 2020 1:18 utc | 60

Posted by: Pft | Jan 17 2020 1:00 utc | 57
Lol-fooled you again and again and again
What are you talking about? About the codes for Tor-1M that the Russians handed over to the Jews?

Posted by: Mao | Jan 17 2020 1:37 utc | 62

Nicholas Wilson, a financial services whistleblower who was fired by UK law firm, Weightmans, after exposing millions of pounds in unfair customer charges, claims the City of London relies on “dirty money” and says the world economy would collapse if the City stopped laundering it.
https://sputniknews.com/business/202001161078000377-world-economy-would-collapse-if-city-of-london-stopped-laundering-money-says-hsbc-whistleblower/

Posted by: Mao | Jan 17 2020 1:44 utc | 64

This was already common sense among (serious) historians. I’m surprised it is not common sense at least in Europe:
75 years later: Newly-released wartime docs debunk myths about WWII’s liberation of Warsaw

Posted by: vk | Jan 17 2020 1:49 utc | 66

Oman, Inkan1969, and Jen:
I don’t know much but I’ll stick my neck out and disagree with Jen and instead say that no matter who becomes the next sultan Oman would want to stay the course they’ve been on, at least I think it would be wise from their perspective to do so (they like to keep out of trouble). Maybe I am wrong because there’s so much I don’t know but I see them as a little bit like a Switzerland of the Arab peninsula despite being a monarchy by the sea.
I could be very wrong.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jan 17 2020 2:06 utc | 68

With zero taxes on labor ….
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 17 2020 0:13 utc | 49
Brief points in this regard: that by not taxing labor you encourage, dignify, make more valuable, human labor. You encourage independence. This also has environmental benefit. Also freedom to decide what to spend on is increased.
So, via simple example, if someone say grows a tomato plant, and sells some of those tomatoes or products derived from those tomatoes, under the current system the income is taxed, and the sales transactions may be taxed. These taxes are disincentives, penalties in effect. The producer has less; the system gains without contributing, and may even use the proceeds to help pay for a cluster bomb….
The environmental benefit can come from, for example, by making human labor more valuable, human energy itself becomes more valuable, and human energy is in itself in harmony with the biosphere, even allowing for flatulence….

Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Jan 17 2020 2:22 utc | 70

I’ve been looking at IRNA somewhat regularly recently and it can be interesting. Here are some short news items from today.
· Rouhani says Iran is getting better at dealing with the sanctions.

“…stressing that the Iranian nation has become stronger and more powerful in dealing with the US sanctions and plots.”

and

“President Rouhani made the remarks through his speech to the 59th annual session of the General Assembly of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) underway in Tehran on Thursday.”

There’s not much more than that, essentially just a claim but interesting nevertheless.
· Zarif talks about opening a branch of the Iranian bank in India and India seems like it might be interested.

“Bank Pasargad is poised to set up a branch in India, Zarif said, noting that it has proposed to India to open a branch in Chabahar.”

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jan 17 2020 3:30 utc | 72

Below is a ZH link about the US in Afghanistan that is probably preaching to the MoA choir but at least shows that US Congress Critters are told how bad it is.
‘Mendacity, Hubris & Lies’ Defined US Nation-Building In Afghanistan, Watchdog Tells Congress

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 17 2020 5:39 utc | 74

Former congressman Ron Paul, the father of current US senator Rand Paul mentions the possibility of foul play & electronic warfare by DeepState adversaries of Iran. Causing the Ukrainian plane crash in Teheran: ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/january/16/who-targeted-ukraine-airlines-flight-752-iran-shot-it-down-but-there-may-be-more-to-the-story Iran must investigate!‬

Posted by: Amir | Jan 17 2020 6:00 utc | 76

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/january/16/who-targeted-ukraine-airlines-flight-752-iran-shot-it-down-but-there-may-be-more-to-the-story
Former congressman Ron Paul, the father of current US senator Rand Paul mentions the possibility of foul play & electronic warfare by DeepState adversaries of Iran. Causing the Ukrainian plane crash in Teheran
Sorry for posting it 3 times, the links were not working

Posted by: Amir | Jan 17 2020 6:05 utc | 78

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jan 17 2020 3:30 utc | 78
Economies just go underground with sanctions. It complicates things, makes stuff more expensive and money less controlable. But of course, Iran can get everything via third countries and third parties.
It basically makes everything harder. Part of this plane tragedy meant Teheran airport was taken out of business. Very few international airlines are servicing it.
US has put no “deal” on the table, just surrender.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 17 2020 6:51 utc | 80

11 US troops were injured in last week’s Iranian missile strike in Iran after all (sorry for long link but in a hurry) https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/01/eleven-us-troops-were-injured-jan-8-iran-missile-strike/162502/?fbclid=IwAR1lsFO-jpo8wjPhYM_Ma2hdwwi225y6G-ETvByt2LBTsSCNPt_fhU3UTEc

Posted by: Jonathan W | Jan 17 2020 7:24 utc | 82

Yes, get ready for an attempt to bring Reza Pahlavi back. Why do you think he splits his time between LA and Paris.
Posted by: ebolax | Jan 17 2020 0:12 utc | 48

I don’t think Macron is about to go off on foreign military adventures, other than in former French Africa. The reason Reza Pahlavi “splits his time between LA and Paris” is that the French have always had good relations with Iran, going back to the Qajars in the 19th century, no doubt exploiting Iranian hatred of the British. That doesn’t mean Macron is planning war just because he is friends with the exiled elite. He has more sense than Bush. And LA – LA is known as little Tehran in the Iranian community.

Posted by: Laguerre | Jan 17 2020 7:50 utc | 84

From Hollywood to Hitler is worth a read at Zeroanthropology

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 17 2020 8:57 utc | 86

Posted by: chu teh | Jan 16 2020 22:23 utc | 41
Apparently, we are in some kind of very advanced trap. So advanced that it is designed so that even if it was recognized as a trap, any attempt to resolve the trap would destroy humankind. I.e., the attempt itself would be booby-trapped.
An exquisite trap designed by [theoretically] advanced beings;…dare I say, “minds”?
There were a few comments on the previous thread touching on this as well. On the surface it seems we have the hominid brain which evolved to become clever with tools and was equipped with appendages uniquely suited to manipulating tools. (It’s impossible to answer chicken-and-egg questions about the development of the neurology, the hands, and the facility with tools, how “accidental” as opposed to “teleological” such development was. The best anyone can say is that these mutually reinforced one another.)
Then evolution selected for linguistic capacity, perhaps for the rudiments of culture. (Again we can’t know to what extent cave painters were “self-conscious” or “unconscious” artists, except that here too there must have been a mutually reinforcing development.)
At any rate self-conscious human sentience must have developed first as a side-effect of these practical developments, an evolutionary fluke. (Unless one wants to posit a Creator God, or what’s the same thing extraterrestrial tutors, sowing sentience, “educating” us to it.) Then this fluke messed with the practical wiring, became inflamed and bloated, and convinced itself that it was the real driver of the brain. No one knows what genome processes (informally and fake-formally called “genes”) combine to form this self-consciousness. Reg Morrison developed a descriptive theory of this brain inflammation and its characteristic extremism in his Spirit in the Gene.
This self-consciousness often has been pegged as the “original sin”, the point at which hominids started to become sundered from their environment. (Sundered in mind and destructive action; of course it’s impossible for any animal truly to separate from the ecology, in spite of all the de jure (Dominion, Heaven, Rapture) and de facto (scientism, technocracy, eugenics, space colonization) religious fantasies about doing so. The only thing the mind-sundered humans can do is destroy their biological basis and thus commit collective suicide.)
That as well is difficult to assess since we lack good ways to understand the sentience of other animals and plants, and whether these have any affinity with ours as well. Except for other primates and cephalopods, other animals lack the type of versatile appendages that could actually use the tools, even if they’re otherwise capable of conceiving them. Someone once wrote of the paradox of thinking about a “Raphael who was born without hands”.
And then what about the ancient Greeks and Romans (and perhaps others), who were aware of how to burn fossil fuels and conceived how to use this for steam engines, and had the hands to actually do it, yet chose not to/failed to do so.
That example seems to prove that it wasn’t necessarily sentience in itself, but that the fanatical expression of the “spirit in the gene” also had to undergo considerable development, mutually reinforcing through its fixation on Sumerian-Judeo-Christian-scientistic Dominion theology, and through the mutual development of Dominion thought, especially in Christianity, and technological development, culminating in modern scientism, technocracy, “Progress” theology. Cf. David Noble’s The Religion of Technology..
So that’s my description of the human trap. How to get out of it? It’s impossible consciously to “engineer” a way out; this route can only be doubling down on the pathology. Needless to say all “solutions” which remain enmeshed with the framework of the economic civilization, from de jure denialist advocacy of Business as Usual, escalate the Status Quo (Keep Shopping), to the climate-industrial movement’s utopia of green capitalism, Green New Deal, green cancer aka “growth” (IOW Business as Usual, escalate the Status Quo, Keep Shopping, just do it the “Green” way). None of these are solutions, just expressions of the inflamed brain’s destructive and self-destructive fanaticism.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I can think of one analogy that seems helpful. It’s long been clear that no Western intervention in the Global South is anything but destructive. Invariably it has an ulterior motive, and the malign motive always overrides whatever sincere “humanitarianism” there was in the intervention. This was true of the “Green Revolution”, it’s been true of each and every war of aggression under the rubric of “humanitarian intervention”, it’s been true of every activity of the likes of USAID and the Peace Corps, and of every Western Big NGO and professional campaign (for example Western anthropologists who slander and steal).
Based on this unbroken record, it’s clear that the one and only thing the West can do to help the South is to Get Out. Completely.
In the same way, probably the best humanity (or, to be realistic, whatever small handfuls of humans care about anything but destruction and self-destruction) can do is to end its industrial and technological interventions and learn to live as a value in itself (the way all other creatures live) rather than to pursue the pipebomb dreams conjured up the Dominion-obsessed inflamed brain.
Certainly modern civilization as a whole never will do this. Only the Earth itself will impose it by force.
And afterward, assuming humans have survived at all, they’ll have another chance to rebuild a communal life. The best we can say about the future prospects of subduing the inflamed brain is that at least the physical drugs – the massive easy upfront capital in the form of easy-to-tap oil gushers and huge mineral hunks just lying around – will no longer exist, and anyone who wants still to dig for them will have to work very hard for very little gain. That physical fact may finally subdue the inflammation and finally bring an end to the Dominionist cycle.

Posted by: Russ | Jan 17 2020 9:41 utc | 88

My previous comment dwelt only on the phenomenon of human self-consciousness and its theoretical genetic root.
There’s another realm of significance I didn’t talk about but which needs to be included in order to have an integrated theory. This is the endosymbiotic origin of neural cells, the fact that like all other animals humans form a symbiotic organism with internal bacteria (the microbiome), and that there’s a particular faction of bacteria which especially are advantaged by human industrial actions.
These – the botulins, salmonella and others advantaged by the massive deployment of pesticides, factory farms and similar practices, antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, Agrobacterium tumefaciens used in most genetic engineering – are by now in a mutually reinforcing process with human extremist action, so that looking at it from an evolutionary point of view one can’t separate humans-using-them from them-using-humans.

Posted by: Russ | Jan 17 2020 9:59 utc | 90

Interesting … take a look at this

Posted by: Maximus | Jan 17 2020 10:10 utc | 92

Maximus | Jan 17 2020 10:10 utc | 99
There was this article in an Israeli newspaper claiming 9 US planes arrived from Irak with injured and deceased American soldiers that was cancelled 2 hours later. To be correct: there was a claim such an articles had existed.

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jan 17 2020 10:17 utc | 94

Maximus | Jan 17 2020 10:10 utc | 99
Fake or not?
(Once they’ve admitted to cases of concussion others may come out, the buildings looked pretty wrecked).

Posted by: Laguerre | Jan 17 2020 10:32 utc | 96

Russ @ 95 says:
(Again we can’t know to what extent cave painters were “self-conscious” or “unconscious” artists, except that here too there must have been a mutually reinforcing development.)
Werner Herzog’s 2010 documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, makes a pretty convincing case for the “self-conscious” artist, 32,000 years ago. a beautiful film.

Posted by: john | Jan 17 2020 11:06 utc | 98

Walter @79
“The United States did not have Patriot air defenses at the base, putting the onus on local commanders to protect their troops. ” source reuter
So US outsourced the air defense to Iraqis which do not have any, so the US soldiers rushed to Sadam bunkers.

Posted by: murgen23 | Jan 17 2020 11:30 utc | 100