I don't know whether to laugh or cry ...

Vladimir Putin issues new 'kill list' - and six of the targets live in Britain

EXCLUSIVE: The warning of a deadly post-pandemic campaign comes from same spy who alerted that Salisbury novichok victim Sergei Skripal was earmarked for assassination

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vladimir-putins-issues-new-kill-23765739

Posted by: Francis | Mar 21 2021 13:19 utc | 1

Ford Motor Co said on Thursday it will for now assemble its flagship, highly profitable F-150 pickup trucks and Edge SUVs in North America without certain parts and idle two assembly plants due to the global semiconductor chip shortage.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ford-motor-semiconductors/ford-partly-assembling-some-vehicles-idling-two-plants-due-to-chip-shortage-idUSKBN2BA2TP

Posted by: Francis | Mar 21 2021 13:21 utc | 2

Aaugh! A Brief List Of Official Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus

The Director of National Intelligence releases a report, and the press rushes to kick the football again.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official-russia

Posted by: Mao | Mar 21 2021 13:50 utc | 3

Western Media "Fact-Checker" (Crime Scene Cleaner of the Mafia)

Actually, one could extend this statement to the Western MSM in general.

This is not a joke! This is a fact-based analysis of the dismal state of Western media.

Posted by: Nionde | Mar 21 2021 14:03 utc | 4

Followed the links to Tracey and Frank. Tracey is vapid and being on Tucker Carlson makes you an asshole, unless you piss him off so much he strokes out, at least kicks you off the show.

The Frank isn't quite so empty, but his implicit acceptance of the two-party system framework seriously impairs the analysis. The real point for the owners is that the two-party system means the exclusion of a left, i.e., workers, who are largely white. And even in detail, forgetting that the Democrats won the presidential election in 2016 and won it big in 2020 is just wrong and very misleading about blaming "Democrats" for something, I forget. Oh, yeah, being down on white blue-collar workers. There's something to this, but it doesn't matter because Frank seems not to be aware that part of that is the decline in unions. The problem for Frank there is that the decline in unions is pretty closely tied to the purge of the Communists post-war. There are professional intellectual thugs like Erik Loomis who will insist that the Communists aren't the left and there were real leftists in the unions after, meaning in effect McCarthyism was a blessing. But no, the anti-Communism of George Meany, Jay Lovestone, etc. at the top of the AFL-CIO was never offset by the gestures at leftism undermined by agreement with reaction by a handful of figures like Reuther, Dubinsky or Quill. (Quill a leftist? Gah!) Worst of all, the way Frank ignores the increasing corruption of the elections that is leading to the predominance of Republicans on the state level is shockingly obtuse. The desire of academics to blame the masses is nearly overwhelming, it seems.

Didn't follow the Taibbi link, no longer interested in what the silly boy thinks.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 21 2021 14:30 utc | 5

"Recall that in 2005, after the lashings Hurricanes Katrina and Rita delivered to the United States—which led to an increase in heating prices and a shortage of fuel—President Hugo Chávez created the Venezuela-CITGO Heating Oil Program to help more than 200,000 low-income US families in dire straits."

Diesel Blockade’s Goal: ‘Accelerate the Collapse of Venezuela

Posted by: arby | Mar 21 2021 14:53 utc | 6

The Owl of Minerva etc. etc. etc.:

Drug companies defend vaccine monopolies in face of global outcry: As immunization gap widens between rich and poor countries, the industry faces a battle over patents and know-how

Drug companies are lobbying the Biden administration to block a push at the WTO by India, South Africa and about 80 other countries for a temporary waiver on patent protections for the new vaccines. The pharmaceutical industry argues that innovation as well as vaccine quality and safety depend on maintaining exclusive intellectual property rights.

“Eliminating those protections would undermine the global response to the pandemic,” industry executives and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, their powerful lobbying group, warned President Biden in a letter this month. Biden has sided with the drug companies so far. The United States on March 10 joined Britain, the E.U. and Switzerland in blocking the push for waivers.

I told you.

--//--

A crack in the unbreakable [silicon] shield:

Taiwan hits back at mainland Chinese firms fishing for its chip makers

Beijing’s drive for technological self-sufficiency has led to an exodus of Taiwanese engineers lured away by the promise of a big salary. But Taipei also accuses mainland Chinese firms of illegally setting up operations on the island to feed the recruitment drive.

As I said before here during the HK riots time: Taiwan is not even the top national security priority for the PLA (they're third place, behind Tibet and Xinjiang).

Taiwan is a pesky bug, but a bug nonetheless.

--//--

As a historian, I like those cool archaeological discoveries, so I'll put it here:

Gold mask among 500 relics found in prehistoric Sanxingdui Ruins; discoveries to shed light on China’s cultural origin

--//--

Big W for the PRC in the Alaska meetings:

Netizens applaud Chinese delegation’s sharp response to US at Alaska talks

--//--

Signs of decline of an empire:

How to Collect $1.4 Trillion in Unpaid Taxes: Wealthy Americans are concealing large amounts of income from the I.R.S. There is a straightforward corrective.

Most tax havens are either American possessions or British possessions. Then there are the tax havens that are firmly under American geopolitical control (Switzerland, Monaco, Luxembourg, Ireland). Then there is the State of Delaware (of which the present POTUS is from). There are no tax havens under the control of an enemy of the West.

The USA should stop with that charade. If it wanted to curb on tax evasion, it would've already done so decades ago.

Capitalism is value that self-valorises. The rich must get richer and the poor must get poorer over the long term. That's how a healthy capitalist system operates. To try to claim USD 1.4 trillion from their bourgeoisie is not how the American Empire should work. This is a desperate attempt of the American Federal State to survive.

--//--

Biden sleepwalks into a stagflation nightmare: US economy simply doesn’t have the productive capacity to meet the demand created by Biden's stimulus package

The sub-headline is true, but the headline not necessarily. The USA still is the financial superpower, therefore its fiat currency is the universal fiat currency (Dollar Standard). Stagflation will only happen if the Dollar Standard is to be severely weakened in a very short period of time; otherwise, what will happen is some form of partial reverse-stagflation: low unemployment (officially), low inflation (even to the point of zero inflation or even deflation) and low economic growth.

This situation will go on until the Dollar Standard disappears. After that, the American Empire will quickly and inexorably collapse through a spiral of hyperinflation and economic recession. At this phase, it will probably go all-in with WWIII, with military invasions of Latin American, the Middle East and China, while preparing for a delusional strike-first nuclear attack on Russia. By this time, the American people will be completely hallucinated and fuming with anger in a fascist frenesi against the rest of the world (China in particular), so popular support for a global invasion would not be a problem.

--//--

Xi leads China's grand reform of new era

The document is indeed heavy. Literally and figuratively.

--//--

The end of the "Superpower by 2020":

India Battles a Second Covid-19 Wave and Vaccine Skepticism

--//--

China and Cuba developing a vaccine against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants:

China y Cuba desarrollan vacuna contra varias cepas de SARS-CoV-2

--//--

Turkey's slow-motion collapse continues unabated:

Erdogan Sacks Central Bank Governor Amid Ankara’s War on High Interest Rates

Posted by: vk | Mar 21 2021 14:53 utc | 7

Thanks for the Taibbi link.

It's interesting to observe how liberal fascism develops and operates in the modern environment.

It seems that the next natural step should be to ban unsanctioned publishing on the internal networks and erect a border-firewall. To prevent all this malicious meddling and disinformation, y'know. To slay, like St George the dragon, all the racists, misogynists, homophobes, disunity-fomenters, and other enemies.

And then, if necessary, censoring of the private communications. This could get tricky, though. So, only monitoring, perhaps.

Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Mar 21 2021 15:16 utc | 8

From the link to Xi vk@8: "Under Xi's leadership, China, through eight years of sustained work, has lifted the entire rural poor population under the current standard out of poverty and nearly 100 million poor people have shaken off poverty."

The poverty standards are a low bar, just as poverty definitions in the US are. (That's why it's necessary to sometimes award benefits by a means test using multiples of the official poverty levels!) Nonetheless, this is indeed something to be proud of. There is one problem, however, with poverty reduction on the capitalist road. If you finally arrive at the capitalist paradise, the need for an industrial reserve army of the unemployed will regenerate poverty in the name of profit. Indeed, the chaos of production will generate a lumpenproletariat, just as it generates a new bourgeoisie, both great and small. The determination to increase opening up and reform at the highest levels is a determination to create a bourgeois state that will attack the workers do defend bourgeois property. It is impossible to have both. Xi may be smart and competent and may even be sincere, even heroic, in a determination to serve the nation...but false consciousness instead of a scientific understanding of social reality will defeat him. The enormous emphasis on defense, by the way, has its own problems on the capitalist road. "Defense" requires a chip industry, but private development of high technology is a mirage. Planning industrial investment is required...but like higher-level opening up and reform versus poverty, higher-level opening up and reform is against industrial planning.

It is the remnants of social production that have permitted China to have achieved so much despite the compromises with world capitalism. But the determination to go all the way to the end of the capitalist road is like the New Silk Road, aka OBOR, aka BRI, it is a road to nowhere.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 21 2021 15:27 utc | 9

Hey b

Its Schneier not Schneider for the techie security guy

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 21 2021 15:38 utc | 10

@ Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 21 2021 15:27 utc | 10

Nobody was complaining about the World Bank's poverty threshold (which it kept frozen for some thirty years, before adjusting it well below the inflation rate some years ago) when it fitted the West's propaganda. Now that China's benefiting from it, they start to get scientific about it.

China's playing by the rules - rules that were imposed on it. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

Posted by: vk | Mar 21 2021 15:49 utc | 11

So now I read the complete posting by Bruce Schneier about blockchain and illegal content

I agree with all of it but want folks to know that what he talks about is permissionless blockchain and if you read the article you can understand the limitations to that approach.....don't buy tulipbits

What was not discussed was the permissioned blockchain alternative which I think that China is using for its Digital Yuan

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 21 2021 15:52 utc | 12

The Joseph Biden administration has named Richard Nephew as its deputy Iran envoy. As the former principal deputy coordinator of sanctions policy for Barack Obama’s State Department, Nephew took personal credit for depriving Iranians of food, sabotaging their automobile industry, and driving up unemployment rates.

Nephew has described the destruction of Iran’s economy as “a tremendous success,” and lamented during a visit to Russia that food was still plentiful in the country’s capital despite mounting US sanctions.

Nephew’s appointment to a senior diplomatic post suggests that rather than immediately returning to the JCPOA nuclear deal, the Biden administration will finesse sanctions illegally imposed by Trump to pressure Iran into an onerous, reworked agreement that Tehran is unlikely to join.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/08/biden-iran-envoy-starving-civilians-pain-sanctions/

Posted by: Mao | Mar 21 2021 16:06 utc | 13

Enjoy your jab cocktail! (soon)
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3126321/coronavirus-hong-kong-medical-expert-suggests
"People who experience severe side effects such as facial paralysis after their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine should be allowed to switch their choice of jabs, a medical expert suggested on Sunday"

Posted by: Mina | Mar 21 2021 16:12 utc | 14

Crooks are not only in the US, for sure.
https://www.thelocal.de/20210321/german-health-minister-in-spotlight-over-mask-contract-with-husbands-firm/
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/moeglicher-interessenkonflikt-unternehmen-von-spahns-ehemann-verkaufte-masken-an-gesundheitsministerium/27026126.html

Posted by: Mina | Mar 21 2021 16:30 utc | 15

“for the most part to the lumpenproletariat… a recruiting ground for thieves and criminals of all kinds, living on the crumbs of society, people without a definite trade, vagabonds, gens sans feu et sans aveu, varying according to the degree of civilisation of the nation to which they belong, but never renouncing their lazzaroni character.”

Posted by: Duncan Idaho | Mar 21 2021 16:35 utc | 16

karlof1, grieved, others...larry romanoff has an essay on the saker, captain america, well worth reading.

Posted by: emersonreturn | Mar 21 2021 17:08 utc | 17

Bhadrakumar: "Ten Years On, Syria is Almost Destroyed.Who Is To Blame?"

https://www.indianpunchline.com/ten-years-on-syria-is-almost-destroyed-whos-to-blame/

A concise summary. A cold geopolitical decision by arch war criminal Obama, following decades of meddling.
The destructions of Iraq, Syria, and Libya are the most serious state-led crimes of this century, yet in the western bubble the fingers point to Crimea, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. Bhadrakumar's "Animal Farm" reference is apt.

Posted by: jayc | Mar 21 2021 17:09 utc | 18

@10 steven t jophnson
Strange "argument". Nobody in China is willing to stop at that waystone, yet it is an impressive achievement. In comparison, in India, over 800 million peaple are living below 35 cent per day. Mind that at the time of the foundation of the PRC, living standards in China were somewhat above those in India. So much about the achievements of the "world's greatest democracy".

In 1976, Deng Xiaoping designed a 73 year plan of China's modernization and development, up to the end of the first century of the PRC. So far, all goals have been reached, many of them surpassed.

Posted by: aquadraht | Mar 21 2021 17:10 utc | 19

thanks for the week b and for the many additional links here to pursue.... i liked the follow up to the yellow pearl thread - "foreigners in their own country..." confirms my basic viewpoint... if you are asian, you are being singled out..

@ arby... wanted to tell you i appreciate you many short and passing comments, although i typically don't respond... thanks..

thanks to all the posters with links.. it is typically informative and educational...

here is the link @ 18 emersonreturn recommends.. i haven't read it yet... Captain America – The Man with Two Brains

Posted by: james | Mar 21 2021 17:30 utc | 20

The trio of linked articles in top post concerning covid are all excellent. Each highlights how very little is known, still, concerning viral transmission.

Yves Smith makes the suggestion that for starters we should just open some windows. Get some ventilation. Get some fresh air. When I was still employed I was a house painter. Way back in sixties and seventies painters learned drills for how to paint every surface of a window. This is no longer required. Most windows are never opened. In newer homes it is quite unusual to find windows that have ever been opened. Simplifies painting enormously.

Poor people live in small dank dwellings and open the window. The rich still believe in fresh air, have trouble finding painters who know what to do with double hung sash. Everyone else believes in the miasma. Windows are sealed shut. Sealed shut to keep out the unknown. Heating or air conditioning is on 100% of the time. Opening windows is something very old people or very rich people do, otherwise Americans do not.

The flip side of that is performative masking. When out of doors, even in the most uncrowded spaces, the maskies are never seen without the mask. Not science, fear.

Posted by: oldhippie | Mar 21 2021 17:43 utc | 21

Mao #14

Grayzone’s report is fascinating in a “banality of evil” kind of way.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/08/biden-iran-envoy-starving-civilians-pain-sanctions/

Nephew’s “simple framework” for “sanctions to perform their expected function” reads like a torturer’s manual (replace “target state” with “prisoner”):

- identify objectives for the imposition of pain and define the minimum necessary remedial steps that the target state must take for pain to be removed

- understand as much as possible the nature of the target, including its vulnerabilities, interests, commitment to whatever it did to prompt sanctions, and readiness to absorb pain

-develop a strategy to carefully, methodically, and efficiently increase pain on those areas that are vulnerabilities while avoiding those that are not

-monitor the execution of the strategy and continuously recalibrate its initial assumption of target state resolve, the efficacy of the pain applied in shattering that resolve, and how best to improve the strategy

etc

Posted by: jayc | Mar 21 2021 17:56 utc | 22

james@21, thank you for linking the romanoff. i refrain from linking b/c i do not want to throw a thread into complete chaos. my eyesight & tech skills dimming badly.

Posted by: emersonreturn | Mar 21 2021 18:00 utc | 23

Kudos to Alan Macleod and MintPressNews (cited above by b) for providing further evidence of how the US and its allies don't care about human suffering and death as long as they are able to further their political goals. A previous article in this series uncovers this striking bit of disregard for human life in the 2020 Annual Report of the US Department of Health (sic) and Human Services:

Combatting malign influences in the Americas: OGA (Office of Global Affairs) used diplomatic relations in the Americas region to mitigate efforts by states, including Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia, who are working to increase their influence in the region to the detriment of US safety and security. OGA coordinated with other U.S. government agencies to strengthen diplomatic ties and offer technical and humanitarian assistance to dissuade countries in the region from accepting aid from these ill intentioned states. Examples include using OGA’s Health Attaché office to persuade Brazil to reject the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, and offering CDC technical assistance in lieu of Panama accepting an offer of Cuban doctors.

Translation: Deaths in Brazil are skyrocketing, but at least we prevented them from using that damned Russian vaccine.

Posted by: farm ecologist | Mar 21 2021 18:10 utc | 24

I echo james' thanks to b for a week of important posts, and for the links given here that will give us plenty to talk about, and more importantly to think about. Also thanks in general to so many offshoot 'b' comments with links throughout the week.

I will add a thought that, in line with this Sunday being the first Sunday of Orthodox Lent, the recent comments from leadership in China and Russia sounded to me based in part on 'heritage' concerns. That's how I understand Putin's direct reference to the genes of his compatriots, and the hard line taken publicly by China's representative in Alaska.

The readings this Sunday [Hebrews,11:24-26; 11:32-12:2;John 1:43-51] directly point to the broad subject of heritage, so that is 'in the air' so to speak, and they even come down to Biden's mishap on the staircase - not to heaven but to his airforce one.

I have to say he gained my sympathy there - we oldies know how that feels, and I credit him for being able to regain his footing, and his composure, on his own, with a brave if tenuous final salute. While there is much early on we can point to as horrendous in this administration's appointments and policies, there are some good things being done - the childcare allowance is one of those.

At the same time, I agree with those that have said placing him in this leadership role was the height of elder abuse. We should be more critical of those who did this than we are of him. And I say that being still very mindful of his support for Obama's terrible policies in Ukraine and elsewhere heretofore. He's an old man now, and very frail. I do not believe he would willingly heighten our doomsday fears.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2021 18:12 utc | 25

I should explain I put 'b' in as a reference to the many commenters who follow in b's footsteps - there were so many good ones this week! I'm sure I didn't catch them all. Thanks to everyone.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2021 18:15 utc | 26

@ emersonreturn | Mar 21 2021 18:00 utc | 24

thanks. i understand.. i recommend you try by using the preview button when you have the option of posting or previewing.. it is very handy.. in the preview window you will see what the link loooks like and whether you have it right or not... so long as you use the preview option, i think you will be able to do it using the code given in the allowed html tags spot... it is worth giving it a try! just use the preview option and if you don't get it right, try again until you do! cheers..

Posted by: james | Mar 21 2021 18:16 utc | 27

@ juliania... i would like to 2nd your comments on biden and etc. too... thanks for saying all that...

Posted by: james | Mar 21 2021 18:18 utc | 28

Erdogan calls Bidens remarks on Putin 'truly unacceptable'. Interesting, considering Turkey is a NATO member.

Video by Alex Christoforou
Erdogan and Candace scold Biden on his Putin gaffe

Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 21 2021 18:38 utc | 29

Britain Shrugs Off Human Rights Concerns, Wants More Trade With China

The author of this article tries to be smart, but the question he posits is wrong to begin with: there are no Human Rights violations by the PRC. The accusations are 100% fabricated.

And the question is not new: otherwise, we would be seeing countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel being sanctioned and even invaded. Human Rights was never an issue.

But yes, the UK's decision not to go all-in against China may be a precursor of things to come in the European Peninsula, specially if the Nordstream II is finished and the EU keeps its diplomatic channels open with China.

On a side note, I think those European social-democrats should stop with their snobbishness of "money doesn't matter when it comes to values":

All, it would seem, still based on human rights as a weapon or tool to diplomatic gain. No such nonsense coming out of the UK foreign office press machine. The difference, one supposes, is that the U.S. is allowed the luxury of sounding off and feeding handout packages of fake news to its shoddy cabal of foreign correspondents while Britain’s media stopped writing up all that guff so long ago, that America is left alone on narrative, if not the action which it would like to take. British diplomacy is, like British media, at such an all-time low, that Ambassadors now working around the world have almost no significance to world events anyway. It’s got so bad, that they usually have to entirely fabricate events and important talking points with the help of an assistant and a smartphone. Britain has got real about what matters though, at least. It really is all about the money.

I understand the Post-war Miracle happened and that it was magical for the people who lived through it, but it's over, it's never coming back and you live in a capitalist world. It's important for the European people realize that quickly, because capitalism is going to suffer more structural crises in the near future, maybe even ending up with the destruction of the EU itself (keep your eyes on Italy!).

Posted by: vk | Mar 21 2021 18:44 utc | 30

@vk | Mar 21 2021 18:44 utc | 31

European people realize that quickly, because capitalism is going to suffer more structural crises in the near future, maybe even ending up with the destruction of the EU itself.

Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 21 2021 18:52 utc | 31

"Under Xi's leadership, China, through eight years of sustained work, has lifted the entire rural poor population under the current standard out of poverty and nearly 100 million poor people have shaken off poverty."

Steven J. Johnson's comment contained but one, and only one true statement. It is shown above.

The PRC under Xi's leadership did a full court press on poverty eradication. They created cadres charged with eradicating poverty in the communities they were assigned, under the charge: " Lift them up, or die trying"

Hundreds of them paid with their lives for this achievement. Xi further admonished the country "The battle is won, but the war continues. We must not slacken our efforts".

INDY

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Mar 21 2021 18:54 utc | 32

In the Spectator article linked—thank you b and all—Kimball quotes a canny friend who said "I'd rather be ruled by the Chinese than the Yale faculty". Yes, I thought, that is how the west is now. I am a teacher in Australia's oldest university whose new vice-chancellor (CEO) is a pure technocrat without academic background or a PhD. This is the strange norm now: grey neoliberal managers are rushed into areas that require specialists in order to 'streamline' or 'set up structures of accountability' or simply hollow out the joint. This guy sees 'tech' as the answer, so will accelerate the pedagogical catastrophe taking place across the world (Zoom-'teaching') whose implications are dystopian, psychologically alienating and frankly depressing. He is the Yale faculty at the local level; Blinken is the Yale faculty on the diplomatic stage: a recognisable and familiar type of manager from no particular background whose career is made leap-frogging from bureaucratisation process to bureaucratisation process. He berates the Chinese thinking that they are the old faculty resisting the newspeak of neoliberal managerialism, an empty meaningless feedback loop of tickboxing. The 'rules-based order' is some imaginary thing produced in the mind of grey men to obscure their self-aggrandisement in a vacuum; zero time has been invested in any thought about it. The 'Biden-Doctrine' is a vacuum of intellectual reflection. In short, Blinken simply doesn't care about his job, he just cares about ticking a box on his CV as he sets himself up for the promotion/next job. Where once we had career specialists dedicated to the actual job (like Chas Freeman) now the whole world is run by these empty people. The consequences are very depressing.

Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 21 2021 18:58 utc | 33

vk@12 somehow imagines "this is indeed something to be proud of" as a negative comment. It simply isn't. Equally imaginary is the implication I had no complaint about the World Bank's poverty level even as I talk about how the current US poverty level is set too low. In the long run, truth is a better defense for China's socialism than insisting on nothing but praise for the current administration. I think it's a great thing to expand the basic health care system but that in no way means it is a great idea to pretend that this and other great things are done, much less guaranteed permanent as the commanding heights of the economy are "opened up and reformed," i.e., surrendered. The members of the Communist Party are not Confucian sages who will bear the mandate of heaven.

aquadraht@20 thinks the idea that the current progress in China can be imperiled by further reliance on capitalist control of the economy (and the state and the party too, maybe, if party members in businesses are to be promoted for successfully defending "their" companies.) Why aquadraht would want China to be more like India, when India proves as much as any single comparison can, that socialism works better than capitalism, I do not know. There is one thing I am sure of, and don't agree with aquadraht about, namely, the rise of billionaires in China is a negative that imperils even the advances already made. But to be fair, I think invading Vietnam earns solid distrust.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 21 2021 19:10 utc | 34

Has anyone else noticed this piece of idiocy?

SAS ORDERED TO START DISRUPTING RUSSIAN MEDDLING AROUND THE WORLD
(Headline in the Daily Telegraph)
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sas-takes-fight-meddling-russiaSTARTns-194726807.html
SAS soldiers will be told to disrupt Russian meddling around the world as part of a major shake up of defence priorities.

The SAS and other units in the Special Forces Group will likely work alongside MI6 to conduct covert surveillance operations against Russian spies and military units.

Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, the chief of the general staff, told The Telegraph that special forces will be tasked with tackling “hostile state actors”.

The move comes ahead of the publication of the Defence Command Paper, the MoD’s contribution to the Government’s Integrated Review of foreign, defence, security and development policy, which will be published on Monday.

How can one interpret this except as an attempt to curry favour in Washington? Why now? Presumably, because the USG has just said that it is focussing on Russia. Even if this is a policy shift why announce it? This is the sort of information that, (You might think!) discovered and passed to the Russian Embassy would get you locked up for a long time! If this has any effect, I imagine it would be that if/when the Russians come across any unexplained Brits in (say) Syria, they will KNOW what they are there for and will deal with them accordingly. A more poodle-like action is hard to imagine.

Posted by: foolisholdman | Mar 21 2021 19:14 utc | 35

The face of the Asian immigrant to the USA:

Ying Ma: "All Chinese Americans should denounce China for infecting the world with the China virus."

Contrary to the previous immigrants - who were economic immigrants (not religious immigrants, as the official history of the USA states) - the post-war immigrants to the USA are all political immigrants. They're the remnants of South Vietnam, Kuomintang, South Korea, Mensheviks, Refuseniks, Zionism, Batista's Cuba, Latin American comprador elites. I remember that once Hugo Chávez or the then president of Ecuador claimed that in Florida alone were more than 2,000 wanted people (most of them compradores and generals) enjoying political refugee status.

The only exception to the rule are the Mexican immigrants and some Central American immigrants (El Salvador, Guatemala in some cases), which had their economies dollarized or devastated by the advent of NAFTA, and were by chance close to the USA's territory.

Posted by: vk | Mar 21 2021 19:30 utc | 36

Mr. B

The Five Eyes are servants of polities that are dominated by the English-speaking White Judeo-Christians.

3 of them - Canada, Australia, New Zealand - are military protectorates of the American wing of the Judeo-Christians.

Posted by: Fyi | Mar 21 2021 19:35 utc | 37

As a practitioner of permaculture I look for patterns, including power constructs of the U.S./5 eyes mafia. Here's one.
Look at Luis Almagro, enthusiastic mouthpiece and cheerleader for the U.S. empire. Now look at NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. They could be brothers or cousins judging their resumes and history of kissing the rings of powerful mafiosos. Norwegian has already given us a summary of how Stoltenberg "failed up" and Almagro's history is similar. He's most known lately for being the screamer who triggered the coup in Bolivia over a year ago.He didn't ask for my advice. I'd have told him: "run away and hide!" He's still in the limelight as he once again stepped up to call for Jeanine Añez's release from jail for her crimes during the nazi/keystone (cops) reign of terror. Bolivia is responding much like the Russians, Chinese and Iranians: they are standing firm AND now considering prosecuting Almagro!
https://orinocotribune.com/oas-almagro-defends-coup-plotters-in-bolivia-declares-court-case-political-persecution/
https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-considers-taking-legal-action-against-oas-secretary-general-luis-almagro/
To me, it is like Almagro is walking around naked and trying to act as if he has clothes on. Almagro is similar to Kamala in that his own people in Uruaguay don't like him: national hero and former Tupac Amaru revolutionary hero before he became president Jose Mujica canceled Almagro. He snuggled up to Pompeo and now seamlessly genuflects before... pick a name: Blinken, Kamala, Colombian born frat boy Juan Gonzalez. Fear of the U.S. is diminishing. Same in Ecuador. Alliances are growing stronger--Venezuela and Iran are a shining example of the way forward. They are not hiding their actions... they are BRAGGING about them! https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15133
Bottom line-- obvious dimwit psychopaths Elliot Abrams and Pompeo are gone, replaced by new guys who are not that bright but they think they are while they are losing the only leverage left: threats. No one likes them and no one fears them. China and Russia's smackdowns will resonate throughout Latin America. Alliances will grow at an increasingly rapid pace. Meanwhile, watch the Ecuador election results April 11. Arauz is strong and gaining more, the people there are getting more mobilized. another game changer in South America.

Posted by: migueljose | Mar 21 2021 19:41 utc | 38

As usual
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/407502/World/Region/Israel-takes-Palestinian-ministers-VIP-pass-over-I.aspx

Posted by: Mina | Mar 21 2021 19:42 utc | 39

A business dream
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/10-20-pilgrims-testing-ve-daily-centre-warns-of-covid-upsurge-during-kumbh/articleshow/81617692.cms
150 million pilgrims expected for the festival!

Posted by: Mina | Mar 21 2021 19:45 utc | 40

EU's market commissioner Breton has the best crystal ball on the planet:
EU's Breton: EU has absolutely no need for Sputnik V vaccine (Reuters)

The European Union has absolutely no need for Russia's Sputnik V vaccine for Covid-19 and will be able to reach immunity by July 14 with available European production, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told TF1 television on Sunday. Breton repeated a previous comment that the EU Union should help Russia with production of the jab if needed but priority should be given to the Europeans, he said.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/coronavirus-live-updates-march-21-2021/liveblog/81611713.cms

Posted by: Mina | Mar 21 2021 19:47 utc | 41

Thanks to both james and emersonreturns @ 24 above. I have to admit I went to the Saker essay with high expectations. Sorry to say, so far (and I've not yet read it all) I'm not impressed. Here's how far I have gotten:

"...it is interesting that Americans are of two minds with respect to their treasured democracy. On the one hand, they preach glassy-eyed and fervently that their multi-party political system is the pinnacle of human evolutionary development, a universal value gifted to them by their god and representing the yearnings of all mankind, while on the other hand vehemently condemning that same democracy as hopelessly corrupt and its politicians less trustworthy than snakes and used-car salesmen..."

To me, that is not a case of 'being of two minds.' That is the presentation of two truths, an universal ideal and an actual reality. There is nothing about the 'glassy-eyed' set of values that an ordinary American would consider to be what is the actual case today. Overwhelmingly the American public is dissatisfied with the condition of the 'two party system'. I am old enough to remember when a multitude of parties were indeed being publicly featured during political debates. We all, we Americans, KNOW that is not the case today; we wish it were! So, it is not the case that we vehemently condemn 'that same democracy'. I object, Mr. essayist! You are laying down a facade that does not comport with reality!

But maybe I'm being too picky - feel free to correct me as I read on.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2021 19:54 utc | 42

Mr. Patroklos

University administrators need not have doctoral or other academic achievements. What is needed, in any enterprise, is the commitment to the health and to prosperity of that enterprise.

In America, they promoted men who promised lower taxes and easier money. Men with dubious loyalty to the long term health and well being of that country or her population. The results is there for the world to see. Same in Italy; Mr. Berlusconi would promise to cut taxes, and would omit to also mention that he would also cut state services. And foolish plebians would vote for him.

When the late Mr. Khomeini came to power in Iran, one of his observations was that he could not find enough men with integrity to put them in executive positions.

I would like to respectfully suggest to try to preserve what you can but do not try to be a lean department or program. Maintain the "fat" so that you van save as much of the scholarly muscle as you can when the cutting times come.

Also, reach out to the public and the alumni and ask for whatever help you can obtain. Use Kung-Fu approaches, never attack directly. Keep trying to find alternative careers for your older or newer faculties. Take any and all positive action and try to preserve Learning and Scholarship for the future generations.

The late Joseph Stalin observed: "Cadres decide everything."

May be you cannot stop this, but you can delay and dlelay and derail, thus buying time for people to adjust to their new circumstances.

Posted by: Fyi | Mar 21 2021 19:54 utc | 43

That would be Mark Scott as Vice Chancellor of the University of Sydney? What a decline from when Enoch Powell was Professor of Greek at Sydney. I greatly admire Powell's scholarly work on Herodotus and his edition of Thucydides (one of my set texts when I was at Oxford). How much of that work did he do at Sydney?

Posted by: lysias | Mar 21 2021 19:59 utc | 44

It's a FOX World why does their stupidity bother me so much?

They develop the talking point first and then alter the 'facts' to support it. How can a brain survive on such a diet?

FOX on the U.S. meeting w/China in Alaska re-visited the consensus from all of the dimwitted hosts is that it was a dark day for the U.S. because ...

1. China insulted us because Biden is weak.
2. China insulted us because the Democrats have torn down our country for 4yrs
3. China insulted us because the Democrats helped BLM burn down our country
4. China insulted us because the Democrats emboldened them ! ! !

There is actually a much, much, more straightforward explanation that never occurs to these dimbulbs, China insulted us because we insulted them for 10 minutes. We accused them of aggression, genocide, crushing democracy and being evildoers. Only a Neocon slaps someone in the face and expects them to smile back at you.

Seriously, these people are demented.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Mar 21 2021 20:09 utc | 45

The correct analysis of the American economy for 2021:

The sugar rush economy

Posted by: vk | Mar 21 2021 20:13 utc | 46

The unprecedented pandemic, as defined by the timeous WHO (heavily diluted) definition of the term, has been addressed in the unprecedented locking down of entire populations manner. No consideration was apparently given to the prospective consequences of an array of this and related directives that withdrew normal health care from entire populations and rendered another prospectively fatal blow to global economies. The new flu has been repeatedly verified as creating no more deaths than its annually experienced (influenza) predecessors. The main-stream indoctrination propaganda narrative would have everyone believe that the flawed but purposeful use of the loudly ill-advised testing methods are proclaimimg an endless resurgence of the pandemic. The flawed tests produce false positive results in surges that rhyme with the surges of totally unnecessary testing which are ingeniously generated from easily abused track and trace amongst many other scams.
The absurd claims of the WHO that it has now pontificated is that natural herd immunity no longer exists and that immunity can only be obtained via mass and totally inclusive vaccination. Their infantile script appears to be the doctrine of their major self-appointed sponsor, being none other than the repeatedly discredited, unqualified and lifelong self-enrichment expert Mr Gates, who appears as a busybody manipu;ator at every turn.
It is now ascertained by a core of genuinely qualified, erudite, concerned and political immune knowledge that any attempt to achieve herd immunity via vaccinations will inevitably create endless leaks of virulent variants. The logic is not obvious to the lay person, but it is to those that know what they are talking about.
For me it is the initial approach as adopted by the UK govnmnt of aimiing for natural herd immunity that rings in my ears. The message from the original medical authority was clear and stated that any pandemic cannot be stopped, it can only be slowed down. As with all viral infections it must generate an overwhelming immune system response in the population which needs to be enabled as quickly as possible in order to defend against and counter the virus and the propensity for the generation of variants. Only the genuinely and highly vulnerable should be identified for protective isolation.

Posted by: Carver | Mar 21 2021 20:15 utc | 47

If people strengthen their immune systems with things like Vitamin D, that will provide protection against all strains of all infections. But governments are quite uninterested in encouraging this.

Posted by: lysias | Mar 21 2021 20:24 utc | 48

Posted by: lysias | Mar 21 2021 19:59 utc | 45

Hi Lysias (a good metoikos...). Yes Mark Scott. Enoch Powell spent only a year as Prof. of Greek at Sydney and complained about it as 'colonial service'. His other complaint was that Sydney held no MSS he could work on. But I agree: in spite of his later political career his Lexicon to Herodotus is still excellent and extraordinarily useful in teaching (I give students a PDF when we do Hdt. book V). He and Stuart Jones did the OCT of Thucydides too. Other memorable USyd profs of Greek include George Shipp, Bill Ritchie and my former mentor Kevin Lee (editor of Eur. Helen).

Mark Scott on the other hand is a bureaucrat and a 'fixer' who ripped through the NSW Dept of Education and the ABC; now he will wield his hatchet against our venerable liberal arts college.

Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 21 2021 20:36 utc | 49

Here is my critique of the "Captain America" essay at Saker linked by james @ 21:

"...But Americans have nothing valuable of their own, not in themselves, nor in their national identity, history or culture, so they compensate by denigrating those who do have."

We do have ancient traditions to draw upon in the US, even as those cultures, many and varied in the native populations, have had to struggle against the odds. Not all of the immigrant cultures have been despotic - a greater number of those populations have had positive intermingling with those who were here before us. The tradition for the US funnily enough IS multipolarity. It is not, until very recently, corporations, shallowmindedness, oligarchy uberall.

It is my hope that more and more native americans will enter politics; they have already begun to do so. At some future point, it is not unrealistic to hope, all the elements that now make up US culture will be proudly claimed and recognized as its inheritance, just as Putin has helped set Russian multicultural strains in harmony.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2021 20:36 utc | 50

@Carver | Mar 21 2021 20:15 utc | 48

Thank you. I appreciate common sense in insane times.

Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 21 2021 20:39 utc | 51

When "Holocaust Survivors" have been engaged in Holocausting Palestinians in Palestine for 75 years with no end in sight, with the blessing of the 'Christian' West, you know you're living in Upside-Down World.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 21 2021 21:27 utc | 52

Thanks to nakedcapitalism links today, this link:

https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.4/
indigenous-affairs-the-biden-administrations-critical-role-in-indian-country

The newspaper is High Country News, and I give this format because, like emersonreturns, I'm shaky on posting links directly to the article in question.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2021 21:33 utc | 53

I suspect most readers of this blog follow the Grayzone's Youtube channel, but for any that do not, this interview with the US Ambassador to Syria in 2011 is a much watch. The only good thing is you can say is he wants US troops out and seems to admit it was a calamity - perhaps he did not torture animals as a child, unlike Bolton or probably HRC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlIa5uRC5oM

Per this link China made an advance in semiconductor manufacturing, but this is still 12 years behind the west. Still good news if accurate:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1218715.shtml

Posted by: schmoe | Mar 21 2021 21:36 utc | 54

As I suspected, Putin shared his Taiga trip with Shoigu.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 21 2021 21:42 utc | 55

Posted by: foolisholdman | Mar 21 2021 19:14 utc | 36
(UK Drivel Factory decides on SAS solution to Russia Meddling)

This mawkish 'wisdom' reminds me of A A Milne's poem Sneezles which concludes...

And the look in his eye
Seemed to say to the sky,
Now, how to amuse them today?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 21 2021 21:49 utc | 56

Overseas fans banned from Tokyo Olympics over virus: organisers

Organisers of the Tokyo Games banned overseas fans in a bid to reduce virus risks and convince a sceptical Japanese public the Games will be safe. The decision makes it the first ever Olympics held without overseas spectators

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/overseas-fans-barred-from-tokyo-olympics-over-virus-fears/ar-BB1eMyQD

Posted by: Mao | Mar 21 2021 21:58 utc | 57

Facebook censorship: I can't post Patrick Armstrong articles or anything from Strategic p. I believe I have posted Armstrong before.
Here's how to verify this:
enter PatrickArmstrong.ca into Facebook and try to post it, you will get a series of FB dialog boxes. And are invited to agree or not with their decision.

Posted by: SinFronteras | Mar 21 2021 22:01 utc | 58

@Mao | Mar 21 2021 21:58 utc | 58

I think the world should just forget about "Olympic Games" permanently, starting from right now. It is thoroughly corrupt and politicized and it has been so for a long time. So just use this crazy made-up opportunity to shut it down forever.

Sports can live on without it.

Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 21 2021 22:10 utc | 59

@35 steven t johnson
You misread dramatically, if not outright dishonestly. I do not propose the ways of India to China. China removed absolute poverty as it exists for at least 800 million Indians, and your comment is ranting about standards it is based on (in the case of China of course) in order to badmouth the achievement. China will not stop there, of course.

As to the number of billionaires in China, I do not count that under achievements, but also do not regard it as worrisome. State, Legislatures, and Party control the economy, and the goals are set further to raise standards of living for the chinese people. Extension of social and health services is part of that programme which you obviously do ignore.So far, the chinese way worked and produced impressive results.

Posted by: aquadraht | Mar 21 2021 22:17 utc | 60

just curious what the vax status is of other major militaries of the world and do other countries allow soldiers to refuse covid vaccination. I can't imagine that if Mexico or Canada decides to invade, having 40% of soldiers refuse vaccination will be a good thing. also can't imagine that other countries, esp those gigantic security threats China and Russia, haven't noticed this, and that the US can't even keep an airplane in the sky.

wouldn't a real threat necessitate the vaccination of one's troops? freedom: believe any idiotic BS about China or VZ or whatever AND believe any idiotic BS about vaccines, coronavirus, masking, social distancing, etc.

remember: we don't do body counts.

Posted by: jason | Mar 21 2021 22:23 utc | 61

Speculations:

‘Do not come. The border is closed’: US Homeland Security sec warns migrants off, blames overflow crisis on Trump

It will be interesting to observe the consequences of this new border reality. Every Latin American knows that there is an unwritten rule in the American continent, which is this: the Americans can do whatever they want with the Latin American countries without risking losing their absolute obedience... as long as they keep the USA's borders open for immigration. That's the deal, that's the exchange.

Now the USA will continue to abuse Latin America without giving anything back. I'm curious to see how the Latin American peoples will react in the long term, if this "borders are closed" reality becomes permanent.

--

US Has Quietly Removed Third of Its Nukes From Europe, Report Says

If the report is true, is the USA secretly falling back? Is this one more sign of the shrinking of the American Empire?

--//--

Not a speculation:

China Border Rules, Meant to Stop Virus, Disrupt Business and Upend Lives

Normally, I would simply ignore such an article. But it is in the NYT's homepage, upper left position (the most prestigious).

Bizarre article. Couldn't be farther from the truth.

Posted by: vk | Mar 21 2021 22:23 utc | 62

[anti-Chinese quote by a Chinese immigrants] Contrary to the previous immigrants - who were economic immigrants (not religious immigrants, as the official history of the USA states) - the post-war immigrants to the USA are all political immigrants.

Posted by: vk | Mar 21 2021 19:30 utc | 37

Personally, I am NOT A POLITICAL IMMIGRANT -- just an immigrant. I got a job. And I know Chinese in the same situation, some quite patriotic and proud of their homeland -- you rarely talk politics on the job, so the comparisons are sparse. Mind you, a "job oriented" immigrant would typically be cautious about giving interviews with such views , loosing the job is a distinct possibility.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Mar 21 2021 22:28 utc | 63

Posted by: SinFronteras | Mar 21 2021 22:01 utc | 59
(Patrick Armstrong/FaceBook)

That mystery should be easy to clear up.
Email him and ask if that was his idea or FB's?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 21 2021 22:38 utc | 64

@65 Hoarsewhisperer
There's been problems with AIPAC "reporting" Palestinian web sites, which get banned on Facebook, and then there's push-back from solidarity groups and they get un-banned. I'm assuming this is like that, there was nothing QAnon-ish about Armstrong's post, just a reasoned argument.
If you are on Facebook, try to access the site, and then "disagree" with Facebook's decision. Maybe if enough of us do that, they will reverse themselves.
You could do the same with Strategic Culture if you want...

Posted by: SinFronteras | Mar 21 2021 22:51 utc | 65

@aquadraht 61,
I don't disagree with your points, and I completely agree that achievements of Chinese government are extremely impressive.

It's about the "absolute poverty" thing. I have the impression that hundreds of millions of people in China were 'subsistence farmers'. As such, they simply existed outside of the economy. They lived in a separate universe, so to say. Therefore, I'm not sure it's accurate to say that they've been raised from "absolute poverty". Rather, they were brought into the market system, the system of division of labor. Not the same thing. Personally, I don't know if for any particular individual it's better to work in a factory all day and buy their food, or to grow their own food. It depends.

Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Mar 21 2021 23:01 utc | 66

@ vk/37

Many Asian immigrants in America=Asian House Negroes.

They can be counted on to spew whatever is America's Two Minutes of Hate propaganda of the moment.

Such is life in the United States of Oceania.

We are at war with Eurasia ... I mean ... Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Posted by: ak74 | Mar 21 2021 23:03 utc | 67

Scotland's Dirty War

Can I please update this section:

didn't know much about liz lloyd prior to you mentioning here

Not surprised at all.

There is a cast of characters in what is Iraq Invasion redux. Amongst them are:

Nicola Sturgeon is Tony Blair with tits
Liz Lloyd is Alastair Campbell with tits
Sarah Smith is Comical Ali with tits

For the Iraq Invasion it was Alastair Campbell who was the prime mover. For the Salmond assassination it is Liz Lloyd who is the prime mover. Here is some of her involvement. In January or February 2018 she was involved in the coralling of fresh meat into the Scot Gov complaints "procedure". In March 2018 she lured Alex Salmond back into the web using Geoff Aberdein. On April 2 2018 she sprung the trap and sought, with Nicola Sturgeon, to blackmail Alex Salmond. When he resisted, and appeared to win the judicial review, Liz Lloyd recruited and suborned five other women to make claims for the criminal trial of Alex Salmond. Then Ms Lloyd made an accusation herself, became an alpha Betty, and was rewarded with lifetime anonimity (she is Ms A in the criminal pleadings).

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/open-thread-2021-022.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef026bdec51952200c#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef026bdec51952200c

There is a very important part I had completely forgotten.

After Liz Lloyd and Nicola Sturgeon met with Alex Salmond and sought to blackmail him on April 2 2018, Salmond launched a judicial review. That is, he called their bluff.

They sought to carry out their blackmail threat by publishing their doodles and fantasies on the Scottish Government website. Salmond sought an Interdict (injunction) to prevent such publication.

The Scottish Goverment accepted this instruction from the court.

Six hours later the findings went to press with the Daily Record.
Lloyd and Sturgeon had succeeded in carrying out their threat to rape an innocent man.
Thing is, how do you prove it?

Well, apparently thr Scottish Government have carried out a full investigation. They have been unable to identify the source of the leak.

So let me tell you what is being hidden from the Scottish people.

The story was broken by David Clegg, Political Editor of the Daily Record.

He just happens to be the former lover of Liz Lloyd.
It's all there on the internet from their trip to the United States.
Wings Over Scotland has documented it all.

So let me add it all up:

For the Iraq Invasion it was Alastair Campbell who was the prime mover. For the Salmond assassination it is Liz Lloyd who is the prime mover. Here is some of her involvement. In January or February 2018 she was involved in the coralling of fresh meat into the Scot Gov complaints "procedure". In March 2018 she lured Alex Salmond back into the web using Geoff Aberdein. On April 2 2018 she sprung the trap and sought, with Nicola Sturgeon, to blackmail Alex Salmond. Salmond launched a judicial review. That is, he called their bluff. They sought to carry out their blackmail threat by publishing their doodles and fantasies on the Scottish Government website. Salmond sought an Interdict (injunction) to prevent such publication. So Liz Lloyd leaked the report to her former lover at the Daily Record, who published and destroyed the good name of Alex Salmond. When Salmond continued to resist, and was about to win the judicial review, Liz Lloyd recruited and suborned five other women to make claims for the criminal trial of Alex Salmond. Then Ms Lloyd made an accusation herself, became an alpha Betty, and was rewarded with lifetime anonimity (she is Ms A in the criminal pleadings).

So I say again, and even more strongly:

Now here is the kicker.

Liz Lloyd has not appeared before the Fabiani committee!

Now it just might be that SOMEBODY is protecting Ms Lloyd.
I know who is that somebody. But I don't want to upset people by naming her.

Posted by: John Cleary | Mar 21 2021 23:14 utc | 68

Thank you, karlof1 @ 56, the ride was bumpy but I enjoyed it. Lovely lot of birch trees in the snow.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2021 23:16 utc | 69

JC@69. i visit craigmurray daily & loved the video he posted yesterday: bonnieprincebob. would we had such a candidate in victoria. wish you all the best of luck our mayor is very like nicola. thank you for your posts.

Posted by: emersonreturn | Mar 21 2021 23:24 utc | 70

@ Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Mar 21 2021 23:01 utc | 67

But that's the magic. China was able to do what no other Third World country could do: make the leap from a low-wage agricultural economy to a high-tech medium-low wage manufacturing economy (and there are signs it is going to leap to a medium/medium-high finance-high tech manufacturing economy by 2049).

And here there's no doubt: China did it because of the Communist Revolution of 1949. It is the true (Communist) Revolution that separates China from Brazil, India, Turkey, Argentina, Malaysia etc. etc. etc.

Mao was very prescient when he stated, while the Civil War was still going on, that, in the modern capitalist era (mid-20th Century), it was only socialism that was able to proceed with the unfinished tasks of the capitalistic development of the productive forces in the Third World. The First World countries and their micro-satrapies didn't need Communist revolutions to do that because they got there first (bourgeois revolutions/modernization), but the Third World was a completely different story: once established, the First World bourgeoisie would "kick the staircase down" so nobody else could climb the mountain of material progress. It would only be against their will that such modernization and progress could continue, and the only force capable of forcing them is the proletariat, the revolutionary class of the capitalist era.

This diagnosis was 100% right (and still is). In fact, the intellectual abyss that separated Mao and many of the CPC's high officers from Chiang Kaishek is enormous. They're not even in the same league, it's not comparable. Mao's ideas were so enlightening and correct that it went beyond China to influence the West, creating the Marxist current called Maoism.

I know that History is always more nuanced than myth. But, in this specific case, it is not: Mao was superior to Chiang Kaishek in every aspect, the CPC being superior to the Kuomintang in every aspect. It was a very lopsided fight after 1945. In fact, the only reason there was a fight after 1945 was because the USA directly intervened and helped the Kuomintang, otherwise they would've crumbled and utterly lost (the island of Taiwan included) in a little more than a year.

As for Gandhi and Nehru, well, just look at the results for yourself in comparison to China. Until today, the dream of every high-born Indian is to go to Cambridge or Oxford.

Posted by: vk | Mar 21 2021 23:26 utc | 71

Posted by: SinFronteras | Mar 21 2021 22:51 utc | 66
(Patrick Armstrong/FB)

PA doesn't use vulgar language so if FB is obscuring his prose, or references to his prose, then they've deemed him to be guilty of Thought Crimes. And if FB doesn't like PA's Thought Crimes then I don't like FB.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 21 2021 23:49 utc | 72

Mr. Vk

China was never a Third World country.

Africans are and many central and Northern countries of South America, for the most part.

Posted by: Fyi | Mar 21 2021 23:49 utc | 73

VK @ 72

" once established, the First World bourgeoisie would "kick the staircase down" so nobody else could climb the mountain "

Seems that is exactly what we are witnessing.

Posted by: arby | Mar 22 2021 0:01 utc | 74

The world changes, and so should the quotes from the classics:

"The fault, dear Biden, is not in our stairs, but in ourselves."

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Mar 22 2021 0:14 utc | 75

How many times people have said to me that an animal, say a raccoon or a coyote was bold going right down here past me. That shows me the inherent arrogance of people who somehow think that their superiority to that animal is sacrosanct and obvious.. Very similar to the west's attitude towards many different peoples, countries and cultures.

Posted by: arby | Mar 22 2021 0:27 utc | 76

@51 juliania

I don't think we're the only ones who found Larry Romanoff to be painting with very broad brush strokes in his latest piece linked up-thread. I tried it and had to give up because he was labeling the US population in terms that seemed far too black-and-white to reflect the reality. As we know, things are greatly more complex than that.

I don't know what to make of Romanoff. He's written some great stuff, superb work. I admire his knowledge and his perception. And I haven't had time to follow his "Bernays" series at the Saker but I did try this one, his epilogue for the series. Like you, I found it unhelpful.

I still find his article from January to be totally true and useful as a picture of the signature US delusion:
American Dystopia – The Propaganda Mask and the Utopia Syndrome

Oddly, I don't find it in his links at the bottom of the current article, I had to hunt for it, which is why I'm re-posting it now, in case anyone is interested. It's a wonderful article for what it says about life in the US mind and culture.

Romanoff is an important commentator in my opinion. But I don't understand this latest piece.

Posted by: Grieved | Mar 22 2021 0:42 utc | 77

aquadraht@61 Saying it is an achievement to be proud of is not badmouthing China. And I specifically mentioned expansion of basic health care systems. Nothing less than totally unqualified praise and instant acceptance of claims may be your personal standard for what counts as the minimally acceptable commentary but that's not the usual opinion.

The point about party etc. is that in declaration after declaration Xi and others insist they are expanding the power of private markets over investments, that is, loosening the same controls you cite as proof the billionaires won't run things to suit them (and their upper level employees, to a degree.) You're for private capital running things, not me. You instead are furious that I don't think this is a good plan for retaining the gains, much less continuing them. I suppose you just have more faith in capitalism than I do.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 22 2021 1:51 utc | 78

On Patrick Armstrong

Why You Won’t Find Us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

October 16, 2020
Dear readers of the Strategic Culture Foundation website,

In September 2020, the Strategic Culture Foundation was banned from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube following unsubstantiated claims that it was connected with Russian intelligence services and interfered in the US presidential elections on their orders. It means that you can’t find us on these platforms and, moreover, if you try to post any links leading to SCF on your personal page, you will most likely not be allowed to do that. This case provides a glimpse into the dystopian future of suppressing dissident voices by governments previously known as democratic. The overall picture is not that dire, though. You can follow us on Telegram and VK and sign up for our newsletter. Please spread the message if you value the freedom of information as we do.

Sincerely,
Strategic Culture Foundation

Posted by: Jason | Mar 22 2021 1:58 utc | 79

@ steven t johnson | Mar 22 2021 1:51 utc | 79 who wrote
"
The point about party etc. is that in declaration after declaration Xi and others insist they are expanding the power of private markets over investments, that is, loosening the same controls you cite as proof the billionaires won't run things to suit them (and their upper level employees, to a degree.)
"

I just want to point out the reality that if China has or looks like they are going to do what you say they are doing then we wouldn't be in the civilization war we seem clearly to be in. Look what is happening to Jack Ma and his organizations. It sure as hell isn't happening to Bezos or others in the US, is it?

....just trying to read the entrails of the reality owl

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 22 2021 2:04 utc | 80

@ Posted by: jason | Mar 21 2021 22:23 utc | 62

The USA has deemed current covid-2 vaccines as EUA, emergency use authorization. This means, according to existing law, usa people cannot be forced to be vaccinated with these drugs. And drug companies (and, side note, mask makers!) are exempt from liability. The public purse covers liability -- if one has the means to pursue it.

The EU pushed through complete authorization status for their vaccines but I'm not sure what this means regarding forced vaccination. It does have implications for drug companies' liability -- they are liable, unlike in usa, which is perhaps why the EU went that slower authorization route.

Can't imagine cannon fodder having much free will. As poverty, err patriot, recruits perhaps exercising "no" to vaccination is one oyster on an otherwise barren, compromised and ill-fated plate.

Posted by: suzan | Mar 22 2021 2:44 utc | 81

For those who like it raw... the full unedited exchange at the US-China summit in Alaska:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L28KvAPVZM

It took some effort to find, and it wasn't through Google's search engine... somehow not a surprise ;

Posted by: Et Tu | Mar 22 2021 3:35 utc | 82

@ 51 juliania.. i think you are right and there is more to it then that too... there is plenty of culture in the usa.. the article sounds messed up on a few levels.. i didn't read it.. speaking of american culture, music lovers can check this out... blues for fred - solo guitar joe pass in honour of fred astaire there's some american culture for you! american songwriters too!

@ 59 SinFronteras .. no one ought to be surprised by this.. fb is circuited into the intel agencies game... they make a decision on what to keep off... unfortunately not enough people have made a similar decision to maintain their own sanity! do the smart thing and get off fb... at minimum don't expect to post or see alternative viewpoints on reality, especially when it comes to russia, iran, china, syria and a few other 5 eyes targets! it ain't allowed on fb or twitter.. i see @ 80 jason has given us the direct answer.. thanks jason..

@ 69 john cleary... no need to be afraid to say.. it is the queen that is protecting her, or the queens people... got it... keep us updated.. thanks..

Posted by: james | Mar 22 2021 3:40 utc | 83

On Covid-19

Through TGP but very usefull Visuals

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/new-visual-compares-worlds-deadliest-pandemics-population-impact-covids-placement-may-surprise/

Posted by: Bernard F. | Mar 22 2021 4:16 utc | 84

posted by Jason @80,

well spotted. The social media titans are a law unto themselves.They have it all their own way.

Here is an interesting declassified and redacted 'confront China' White House document from the Trump era, Remember him?
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IPS-Final-Declass.pdf

I am interested in the redacted dot point part on page 8. Let me reproduce it with my guess on the redacted few words highlighted in caps.

"Invest in capabilities INCLUDING SOCIAL MEDIA that promote uncensored communication between Chinese people."

Censoring social media and manipulating social media for propaganda, promoting colour revolutions and regime change is what they do. Craig Murray names a few of the usual suspects at the end of his blogs. Cambridge Analytica are the real 'Russians.' Fakebook is their tool, 77th Brigade, the Atlantic Council and Hasbara trolls are the foot soldiers.

Isn't it strange the deep state wants 'uncensored communications' between the Chinese but not in the land of the First Amendment or among the Five Eye Anglo/Zionist Captive Nations.

I hope this is not distorted by Auto Correct.

Posted by: Paul | Mar 22 2021 4:23 utc | 85

Lavrov talking to China about saying goodbye to dollar, all in an attempt to nullify the impact of Outlaw US Empire sanctions.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 22 2021 5:06 utc | 86

The ABC live news on Iview has some amazing feed on the one in one hundred years Sydney and New South Wales floods. Now floods have hit Queensland.

First Australia suffered years of drought, then huge bushfires, then Covid lockdowns and now floods. The news is more rain is coming.

https://iview.abc.net.au

Posted by: Paul | Mar 22 2021 5:24 utc | 87

Interesting read by Engdahl in the roll out of the Great Reset

The top-down reorganization of the world economy by a cabal of technocratic corporativists, led by the group around the Davos World Economic Forum– the so-called Great Reset or UN Agenda 2030– is no future proposal. It is well into actualization as the world remains in insane lockdown for a virus. The hottest investment area since onset of the coronavirus global lockdowns is something called ESG investing. This highly subjective and very controlled game is dramatically shifting global capital flows into a select group of “approved” corporate stocks and bonds. Notably it advances the dystopian UN Agenda 2030 or the WEF Great Reset agenda. The development is one of the most dangerous and least understood shifts in at least the past century.

The Great Reset is Here: Follow the Money

Posted by: Down South | Mar 22 2021 5:32 utc | 88

Dr Anthony Fauci has claimed that in order for herd immunity against coronavirus to be reached in the US, children and even babies will have to be vaccinated.

Posted by: Down South | Mar 22 2021 5:38 utc | 89

@80 VK and Telegram founder is member of WEF. I wonder how is it different from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

Posted by: AV17 | Mar 22 2021 6:15 utc | 90

Another example of deviant behaviour from those appointed to mitigate against it.
https://www.hangthecensors.com/504921.html
The perp is in a gay marriage with 2 adopted infants. Clearly no one cares about the children nor about the Sodom and Gomorrah connection that this over-acceptance of sexual deviance and perversion has brought about.
These perps openly declare that they seek to groom future generations.

Posted by: Carver | Mar 22 2021 6:18 utc | 91

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 22 2021 5:06 utc | 87

Thanks for that link, I'm watching Lavrov's conference, by next evening the text should be posted in English, worth watching/reading.

Interview Lavrov Chinese MSM rus

Posted by: Paco | Mar 22 2021 6:48 utc | 92

Relax BlueAnon have everything under control. Rachel MadCow will keep you informed and there will be no problems as the 'intelligence community' is fully aware of the Russian threat. If you can stomach the odd replay of MadCow ranting, here is Aaron Mate and Jimmy Dore dissecting her unfortunate disorder for 23 minutes.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 22 2021 7:05 utc | 93

Down South | Mar 22 2021 5:38 utc | 90

How far away was the vaccine manipulator Gates when Fauci committed this perverse act of pure insanity?

Down South | Mar 22 2021 5:32 utc | 89

Note well that the financial favor and promotion is about the woke and that sexual deviation goes hand in glove. This is the realization of the usurping of authority by the perverse but highly intelligent. These characters have a self-destructive nature due to lack of self-control. They are clearly destined to continue promoting their own and grooming the rest as they bring about their new order replete with their very own version of Sodom and Gomorrah and all that goes with it.
Get to know the enemy and what makes them tick. They intend to do away with you.

Posted by: Carver | Mar 22 2021 7:07 utc | 94

Réponse du berger à la bergère
What's a beautiful week !
Lavrov want to negociate ... Keep smiling

$$$ an more ?
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/03/22/647815/Russia-US-sanctions-dollar-China-currency-Sergei-Lavorv--

Posted by: Bernard F. | Mar 22 2021 8:09 utc | 95

Someone here mentioned Herodotus,
is there a good book to read about his many lies?
Or on how the construction of history as a science depends very much on fictional narratives?

Posted by: Mina | Mar 22 2021 8:28 utc | 96

Anglo Saxon cultural arrogance started near this time according to Monty.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 22 2021 10:12 utc | 97

"Et la cerise sur le gâteau... *

Digital Yuan expected for 2022 Olympics Winter Game

https://amp.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3125658/china-digital-currency-us-worried-it-falls-behind-curve-race

What's a beautiful week, take it raw.

Thanks b. and everybody for mindstorming links

*french idiomatics for your convenience :-)

Posted by: Bernard F. | Mar 22 2021 10:20 utc | 98

Bloomberg: Crimea’s Water Crisis Is an Impossible Problem for Putin
The Russian-occupied peninsula is thirsty, with reservoirs running low. It’s an unwelcome predicament at a time when pressures on the Kremlin are rising.
By Clara Ferreira Marques
March 19, 2021, 2:35 AM EDT

A water emergency in Crimea is absorbing billions of taxpayer rubles as Russia tries to patch up an impossible problem stemming from the peninsula’s annexation in 2014. President Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea gem looks increasingly like a millstone. [tales of woe]

March 22. Rivers in Crimea are breaking their banks and flowing to reservoirs.

Piotr: someone has a Mandate of Heavens? Obviously, not Michael Bloomberg.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Mar 22 2021 10:26 utc | 99

Hoarsewhisperer #53

When "Holocaust Survivors" have been engaged in Holocausting Palestinians in Palestine for 75 years with no end in sight, with the blessing of the 'Christian' West, you know you're living in Upside-Down World.

Thank you and I fully agree. Even more so when you see them Holocausting Yemeni people as well.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 22 2021 10:42 utc | 100