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

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

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

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

@ 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

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

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

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

@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

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

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

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

@ 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

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

@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.

That has been my wish for at least 30 years. It needs to happen for things to improve.

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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 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

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

@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

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

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

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

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

@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

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

[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

@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

@ 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

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

@ 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

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

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

@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

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

@ 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

@ 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

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

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

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.

Fauci Claims Babies, Toddlers Need To Be Vaccinated For Herd Immunity; Touts 2022 As Viable Timeline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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