Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
April 23, 2021

When Regime Change Does Not Change A Thing

Some people think that a change in government actually changes things. Not so.

Venezuela - Before - After:


Ukraine Before - After:


Afghanistan - Before - After:


Nord-Stream - Before - After:


Yemen - Before - After:


Navalny - Before - After:


Crimea - Before - After:


Iran -Before - After:


Xinjiang - Before - After:


Myanmar - Before - After:


I could go on ...

Posted by b on April 23, 2021 at 13:07 UTC | Permalink

Comments

I could go on ...

Taiwan

North Korea

Syria

Assange

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2021 13:17 utc | 1

It saddens me that my taxes are paying for this......

Posted by: Dean Collins | Apr 23 2021 13:17 utc | 2

Since the multi-front attack on Rus western border failed, will they start from scratch for new attack there or move the attacks to Taiwan and Myanmar?

Did Rus threaten to close Hormuz if US cut Rus off from SWIFT?

Posted by: j. casey | Apr 23 2021 13:24 utc | 3

#onetrick_bony_tlinken

Posted by: Et Tu | Apr 23 2021 13:26 utc | 4

You should add some right-wing zionist news papers to your regular reads (Israel Hayom for instance). They see this very differently.

Posted by: m | Apr 23 2021 13:41 utc | 5

Didn't you hear the newest joke? Americans think Joe Biden's "infrastructure package" will work, that the "Green New Deal" will happen, and that Biden is "the next FDR"".

Posted by: vk | Apr 23 2021 13:43 utc | 6

"Yeah, but Trump is gone so it is all better!"

For full effect I should have typed that in ALL CAPS to reflect the delusional hysteria of the poster.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 23 2021 13:52 utc | 7

Did anyone believe that the "to parties" in US politics actually represent anything but a single block of interests? Do you think there is any limit to what they could lie about? Why would you believe these people on any issue?

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 23 2021 14:18 utc | 8

"to parties" ==> "two parties"

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 23 2021 14:19 utc | 9

There does seem to be remarkable continuity between administrations regarding foreign policy. And it is almost always malicious.

If you took all foreign policy actions from the last 4 decades and stripped out the dates and names of the president at the time, only extremely well informed experts would know which administration it was.

That is how little difference there is between presidents.

Posted by: Mar man | Apr 23 2021 14:25 utc | 10

US Foreign Policy is fully bi-partisan. Trump tried to change it on a few different fronts - Afghanistan, Syria, Korea, etc - but was thwarted by hooks and crooks (CIA, Deep State) each time, especially in Afghanistan. Biden's extension of Trumps Afghan agreement will prove its undoing and the US and its 'contactors' will be there until the last poppy has met the last ounce of a trillion dollars worth of 'rare minerals'.

Nothing will stop the USA's loan shark foreign policy until it resembles the Black Knight in a Monty Python movie.

Posted by: gottlieb | Apr 23 2021 14:29 utc | 11

I was composing this comment for the earlier Ukraine thread, but it fits well here with b's masterful summary:

wrt NS2: the Oxford report which I believe I posted a link to some weeks ago holds the decisive clue. The gas to be brought to Germany and the region beyond is very much favored by industry there, both for the potential volume and the cost favorability compared to LNG from the US. Many people focus on the gas wrt winter heating, but powerful influential interests in industry will be the decisive factor. I would re-post the link but the most recent "update" to Windows 10 decided to vanish my favorites list. F#%k Microsoft.

The "crisis" was/is indeed about Ukraine - and Belarus - and Georgia - and NS2 - and... Look folks, take a step back: It's called hybrid warfare and we can argue the rest of the day just how really good the US is at it, but what isn't arguable is that the US is relentless, scurrilous, and Orwellian, and remains determined - no matter how eventually unsuccessful and self-destructive. It is hard to favorably propagandize tens of thousands of body bags (REAL war against a PEER) but dozens (hundreds?) of operations in the dark (compliant, obedient media) is easily twisted into the belief that "The whole world's pickin' on us."

Someone yesterday (sorry, forgot who) made a passing reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis and yes the Russian missiles in Cuba were a response to the provocation of US missiles in Turkey (and Italy?) targeted at Russia. Two takeaways: US policy = relentless; Russian "diplomacy" = consistent.

It does seem though that western pedagogy has had some success teaching shrimps to whistle, or to at least hum along. Global financialization.

Posted by: vinnieoh | Apr 23 2021 14:45 utc | 12

Why would anyone think that the pompeo's words and blinken's words would differ?
Why would anyone think that murika would become something different with little joe bidet in charge?

I don't get it.
The same people that were running/ruining the country under D.T. B.O. the village idiot, B.C. the village idiot's father and ad nauseum are still running it.
Why would anything change?

MAGA, "Yes, we can" and all the rest of it is for your enjoyment as you slide down the slippery slope to obscurity.

Brings to memory the movie titled "Brazil"

Posted by: robert wydler haduch | Apr 23 2021 15:16 utc | 13

Nothing changes when you replace a jew worshipper (wannabe jew) with another chosenite who believe God or their Cult Commander is on their side and approves of their work.

Posted by: Stratos | Apr 23 2021 15:17 utc | 14

The great Norwegian author, poet and polemicist Jens Bjørneboe (fluorit 1956-79) had also been a teacher of history and carpentry at an anthropology Steiner school in Oslo, Norway. -- two subjects he viewed as very much the same hard stuff to treat. He over and over told me that he would insist if allowed into public (i.e. state-run)schools to teach history there, then he would insist on only letting the pupils read historic documents -- be it in the original or in translations.
I submit had he been alive today, he would such extracts of real e.mail boops and blipps as presented here into the field of "original documents" he would encourage his high-school pupils to study as souce codes to thei understanding of present.day contemporary distortions and rapp-like raps to supress and work against real human ratio.

Posted by: Tollef Ås اس طلف | Apr 23 2021 15:57 utc | 15

- I was hoping that the Biden administration would work to improve the relationship with Russia. But this news shows that the US still has no interest in improving the relationship with Russia, now or in the future.
- If the US is serious about improving/repairing its relationship with Iran (think: JCOPA) then it also should/must improve its relationship with Russia as well.

Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 23 2021 16:14 utc | 16

excellent post b... it shows the duplicity in maintaining false narratives including the one about how voting dem or repubs .. none of it makes a difference when it comes to usa foreign policy objectives...

Posted by: james | Apr 23 2021 16:30 utc | 17

A friend in Germany told me that, as he understod the background of the coup i Belarus; it all started with the World Bank offerd loans, in exchange for Lukashenko introducing Corona lockdowns, which he refused This led to all these demonstrations. It did not help, so the next step, he guessed, was to take him out ...

Posted by: Anders Eliasson | Apr 23 2021 16:31 utc | 18

Awesome! You could probably go back decades. Which one do I pull?

Posted by: so | Apr 23 2021 16:37 utc | 19

Mr. Tollef Ås اس طلف

The Records of the Historians (in Chinese), the Histories by the late Tabari (in Persian), and the History of The World Conqueror by the late Juvayni (also in Persian) make for very very depressing reading indeed.

And then one asks oneself what has really changed?

Posted by: fyi | Apr 23 2021 17:03 utc | 20

Also - Mr. Tollef Ås اس طلف -

It is not "anthropology Steiner school" but "anthroposophy..." - another dreadful racialist concoction of a feverish Northern European mind.

I guess once the Christians of Northern Europe went into schism from the sources of their culture & civilization, they opened themselves to all manner of demonic influences.

Posted by: fyi | Apr 23 2021 17:07 utc | 21

Posted by: Tollef Ås اس طلف | Apr 23 2021 15:57 utc | 15

i envy you the luck of meeting Bjørnebo.
E slukte alt han skreiv når e vokste opp, har samlede verker å e lese han den dag i dag.

Per

Posted by: Per/Norway | Apr 23 2021 17:39 utc | 22

A brilliant synopsis, b.

It would be good to bookmark this column to show to Americans who still think there is any real difference between their two political "choices".

Posted by: farm ecologist | Apr 23 2021 18:28 utc | 23

A great summary, but again - is this not precisely the swamp?

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2021 18:48 utc | 24

@ Posted by: vinnieoh | Apr 23 2021 14:45 utc | 12

Reply to 4th paragraph = MarkU

VS

Posted by: VS | Apr 23 2021 19:30 utc | 25

Serg @25

We know that the "Havana syndrome" was due to crickets. This isn't really a surprise as most of today's officially payrolled CIA staff are "traditional" (from high school straight to college with no detour to experience reality) Ivy League grads who are recruited directly from university. Most of those kids grew up in manicured suburbs with regular bug spraying in the spring and summer, so they have never heard a typical American cricket, much less a Cuban one. Furthermore, when they are assigned a post abroad and away from suburban northern Virginia they know that they are covert hostiles in enemy territory, even if their post is in a place like Germany or Australia. They imagine Cuba or China to be super-hostile postings, so they are hyper-paranoid and expecting from their "enemies" the kind of attacks that the CIA itself does to others. It is thus no surprise that when in "enemy territory" they hear a constant noise that they cannot identify at all or locate the source of and that everyone else seems to just ignore they assume they are being zapped by an evil communist brain ray.

Of course, they are not being zapped by an evil communist brain ray. They are just hearing real live crickets for the first time in their lives.

There is something much more interesting about the linked article, though. Americans constantly project their own behavior onto others and always believe those others are committing nefarious deeds just like Americans are. If the American intelligence community is taking the "evil Soviet mind ray" nonsense seriously it can only be because US military and intelligence agencies are doing that very thing to foreign diplomats and officials.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 23 2021 20:24 utc | 26

Getting the straight goods from Biden. Team Depends, Blin and Noodle and the rest of the gang will continue the DT policy of the gang who couldn't shoot straight.

From John Helmer Dances with Bears.
TRANSLATION NOTE: Blin (блин) means a small flat pancake. Nudel, reports the food encyclopedia, is from the 15th century German when the word originally meant a small dumpling or a turd.

Biden's "Nothing Will Fundamentally Change" Promise Extends To His Foreign Policy

As candidate Joe Biden promised that there would be no changes.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56407.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q Wont get fooled again. Ha! Still getting fooled.


There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right


YEAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Posted by: Tom | Apr 23 2021 20:34 utc | 27

Below is a ZH link to a posting about the US changing its policy towards Turkey

Biden Informs Incensed Erdogan Of Armenian Genocide Recognition In Friday Phone Call

So, what are the implications? Speculation here is above my pay grade....

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 23 2021 20:36 utc | 28

@29

This really seems unreasonable and counterintuitive
What's the point in alienate erdo right NOW?

Posted by: Kartoschka | Apr 23 2021 21:00 utc | 29

#30 Kartoschka

There are a lot of Zionists in the Biden administration, so I suspect it may have something to do with the developing anti Turkish alliance between Israel, Greece, Cyprus and the UAE.

https://greekreporter.com/2021/04/17/greece-cyprus-israel-uae-forge-common-front-mediterranean/

More specifically, something to do with the EastMed gas pipeline.

https://greekreporter.com/2020/01/23/we-dont-need-turkish-permission-pm-mitsotakis-declares-on-eastmed-pipeline/

The message to Turkey may be, don't annoy Israel or we will make you pay reparations to the Armenians.

Posted by: Fnord13 | Apr 23 2021 21:35 utc | 30

Excellent compilation – thanks for putting this together. Very frustrating to say the least.

Posted by: Dave | Apr 23 2021 21:54 utc | 31

@F13 31:

You are implying that so much stratejic thinking went into this message.

Posted by: young | Apr 23 2021 22:04 utc | 32

to Robert etc etc Yes indeed. A fly falls into the ointment and you can't get off the train. I really want to say "I told you so" to all my friends who thought Biden would save the world - but they're not speaking to me. That ole "for us or F' off" beverage. The same bunch of crooks and war mongers - for decades! Crime does pay - if'n you're a member of Con-gress or on the lobby-ist carousel. Re Turkey: the Blob likes to yank Mr. E's chain just as much as he enjoys yanking whatever chain is closest to hand. Sort of a back stabbing festival. Am I being too harsh? Is Mr. E still selling stolen Syrian oil to Izzyhell? All is not what it seems...

Posted by: Miss Lacy | Apr 23 2021 22:05 utc | 33

Maybe with this post b will no longer see Trump as somehow different than other Presidents. Excusing Trump's failure to effectively fight the pandemic (in early August, IIRC) was a low point. Even after it was reported in September that Trump blatantly lied to the American people about the severity of the virus (making a mockery of 'America First'), b didn't revise his view.

Maybe others will also be less inclined see Trump as some kind of savior also. He's just a conman doing a job for the Deep State.

As I've been saying for years: faux populist Trump is the Republican Obama.

Enjoy the show.

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2021 22:26 utc | 34

I enjoy watching the demise of Duh'murca immensly, even if I live in this absurdist backwater of narcissitic dementia, the birds sing yet, the sun rises and sets, the weather becomes ever less predictable (/s).

Oh! won't SOMEONE think of the children...besides the pedo's I mean..

lol, what a bunch of shit flinging monkeys we are. Just fucking nuke us and be done with it.

Likelihood of survival = 0. The false idea that the universe is dead and money is all that matters is the rot that eats everything.

"And we are so dumb they're lining up at our door" - Zappa

Posted by: Covergirl | Apr 23 2021 22:31 utc | 35

Thanks for the comparisons b. As with the Presidents, the Secretary of States change but the policies' remain the same. Unipolar uniformity.

Posted by: Michael Crockett | Apr 23 2021 23:00 utc | 36

Nothing will fundamentally change. TINA....

Posted by: Michael Crockett | Apr 23 2021 23:36 utc | 37


not the least bit surprising, but glad to see it in black and white. thanks b


as Gore Vidal used to say there's really only one party in the US, the War Party


they're all imperialists driven mad by their own greed, lack of good sense and wisdom


Posted by: michaelj72 | Apr 23 2021 23:57 utc | 38

There is a YouTube interview with Pelosi in which she says they will support Israel even if the Capitol was in ruins.
I guess that's the deal with Erdogan. Maybe he touched the 3rd rail in regard to Israel.

But wow! Erdogan endorsed Ukraine with Crimea, etc. and the US just trashed him like he was nothing. It's just stunning. Guys like Kissinger must be frustrated and disgusted at the lack of deal making and strategy.

Posted by: Eighthman | Apr 24 2021 0:30 utc | 39

Wow! I totally didn't expect that two identical "parties" would produce the sane foreign policy! How could this be?

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 24 2021 1:02 utc | 40

After following the link on Biden, Erdogan, and Armenian Genocide, I was distracted by a jumble of charts predicting a doom to come, illustrated with these specifics:

Coca-Cola CEO says company will raise prices to offset higher commodity costs
Procter & Gamble to raise prices on baby care, feminine care and adult incontinence products
Kimberly-Clark raises prices on Scott toilet paper, diapers in U.S. and Canada
Another furniture maker raises prices to cope with rising costs

Seems that North Americans experience problems with defecation, handling and controlling the increasing volume.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 24 2021 1:51 utc | 41

@ Piotr Berman | Apr 24 2021 1:51 utc | 42 who wrote
"
Seems that North Americans experience problems with defecation, handling and controlling the increasing volume.
"

Yes, the shit show continues in America and it is getting tedious to pick ones way through the piles of it......the only one you missed that I have seen is Whirlpool who is raising prices 12% and that will effect those that wash their own diapers....

Inflation is headed humanities way across the world and it seems to be coming in whipsaw fashion along with shortages of some products.

And the elite are trying their hardest to create a war or other distraction to cover for their ongoing anti-humanistic perfidy and morals.....I hope they continue to fail...

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 24 2021 2:06 utc | 42

Pity South Korea, constantly badgered, undermined, aggravated by the USA while equally keen to maintain alliances, good relations with its immediate neighbours.

On April 2-3, Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong visited Xiamen, China, at the invitation of the Chinese side. The foreign minister was last in China in November 2017, and the meeting of foreign ministers of the two countries took place for the first time since November 2020.

Jake Sullivan and his cockroaches met with South Korean officials wringing their hands about those dreadful nuclear weapons in North Korea.

The meeting between Suh Hoon, Jake Sullivan and Shigeru Kitamura took place face-to-face at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis (symbolically, experts say) near Washington, and Suh Hoon became the first high-ranking South Korean official to visit the United States since the creation of the Joe Biden government.


Not a word about those same weapons in the USA. Sullivan dribbling weasel words about peace on the Korean peninsula and all the while goading the South Koreans to 'just do it' yankee style. At least the current South Korean President had the sense to indicate his small independent scope by having his Foreign Minister visit China in the same period.

This report from Journal NEO sets out how the regime change in USA doesn't change a thing.

Two important visits took place on April 2-3, 2021, the combination of which perfectly illustrated the difficult situation in which Seoul finds itself amid the standoff between Beijing and Washington. On the one hand, the US is South Korea’s main military and political ally, and the policy of rebuilding alliances that the new President Biden has addressed is trying to further strengthen the trilateral interaction in the Washington-Tokyo-Seoul triangle, both on the North Korean issue and in terms of “deterring” China. On the other hand, China is North Korea’s leading trading partner, and interaction with it has a chance to push North Korea toward inter-Korean cooperation.

I am quite confident that the USA will again confirm that it is never agreement capable and that it will repudiate the agreement between Trump and Kim Jong-un. That alone will simply confirm the lunacy and exhausting futility of any nation engaging in 'talks' with the USA while having any illusion of 'success and achieving breakthrough'.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 24 2021 2:37 utc | 43

Mr. Biswapriya Purkayast

There are different nuances in foreign policies that the Republican and Democratic governments in the United States have pursued.

In my opinion, US and Iran would have been in a shooting war if Mr. Trump had been re-elected. Mr. Biden is not seeking to have a shooting war with Iran. Even though he is still waging Mr. Trump's economic war.

Such marginal differences are important to countries like Iran.

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 2:48 utc | 44

Mr. Fnord13

US needs Turkey against Russia.

Turkey needs European banks - as usual - to keep herself financially afloat.

Trust US & Turkey to find a way to work together.

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 2:53 utc | 45

Mr. Eighthman

The Judeo-Christians are still unrepentant.

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 2:56 utc | 46

@ Uncle tungsten, good morning


That alone will simply confirm the lunacy and exhausting futility of any nation engaging in 'talks' with the USA while having any illusion of 'success and achieving breakthrough'.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 24 2021 2:37 utc | 44


Engaging in talk with Yankees is only an opportunity to show how much you are looking for submission.

I wrote a lot on neurobiologist Pr. Laborit. The 3rd experiment with rat is putting 10 rats in a too small cage, resulting on 2 dominants, 2 victims and 6 submissive.
Got the same with wolf packs.
The travesty fight between two from the pack is in order
1/ to confirm the dominance order
2/ to satisfied "ego" of dominant who win the "fight"
3/ inform the pack on dominance order

So, engaging in talk with Yankeestan WITHOUT having any illusion is usefull for the shit pack.

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 24 2021 4:20 utc | 47

Democrats vs. Republicans

Coke vs. Pepsi

The Crips vs. The Bloods

A big plate of steaming donkey shit vs. A big plate of steaming elephant shit.

Posted by: ak74 | Apr 24 2021 5:32 utc | 48

Thanks b., good job [as always ;-)]
Impressive how much copy-paste.

Mostly the same vocabulary. Venezuela [unwavering], Ukrain [integrity & sovereignty], Navalny [wrongfully detained]

But it's a good news! .


An organism that endlessly repeats the same ineffective action is not likely to thrive or even survive.

And, assuming SoS work with a full team, a total lack of imagination. Just copy and paste the last one. Failure to find alternatives to a changing ecosystem is the primary cause of species extinction



Very interesting are the small changes!

Yemen : no more "Iranian backed."
Iran : violators are "individuals" not something like "the regime"

When back to old vocabulary...
Music is over, turn out the light.

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 24 2021 5:36 utc | 49

>>>>>: William Gruff | Apr 23 2021 13:52 utc | 7

"Yeah, but Trump is gone so it is all better!"

If that's the entire post, I would say the poster is being sarcastic.

BTW, has anybody established where there are any differences in policy tweets between Pompeo and Bkinken? Is there even just one where Blinken has spewed a tweet which is diametrically different to Pompeo's recent tweets?

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Apr 24 2021 6:10 utc | 50

Thanks b., once again on Covid-19...

I promised to be back and to post on France. Too much to explains, could be very long. This is a 1st part, for the next one, you can ask for precision or any point of view

Disambiguation 1: coronavirus exists, Covid-19 could be a serious desease for some people and many of old ones as the seasonal flu.

Disambiguation 2: as well documented principles of neurobiology, a stressed organism with no possibility to escape/avoid, lost ability to fight back deseases


France was a great scientific and industrial country. That hasn’t been the case for 30 years. In the pharmaceutical field of Covid-19, no French company has been able to develop a vaccine or a medication. After 15 months of sterile "research", Sanofi will reduce R&D workforce and prepare to becoming subcontractor bootleggers for Pfizer
https://www.ladepeche.fr/2021/01/28/sanofi-rd-veut-supprimer-364-postes-principalement-en-recherche-selon-des-syndicats-93396

No research and therefore no funding induce flight of the best researchers abroad. For20 years, those an laboratory who remained had their survival funded by studies for Gilead or Pfizer. So when Covid-19 arrived, France naturally succumbed to all the campaigns conducted
1/ AGAINST PHYSICIANS
and
2/ FOR THE EXCLUSIVE SEARCH FOR A BIG PHARMA SOLUTION.

Doctors have been effectively banned from prescribing any drugs.
Chloroquine has been banned and even classified as a poison. Everything has been organized to favour Remdesivir, which can only be administered in hospital. And indeed the patients were admitted to the hospital only late for resuscitation.

It should be noted that the French hospital structure has been shrinking for the past 20 years despite the ageing of the population. Saturation was therefore inevitable.

One can think that all the people in charge are incompetent.

But in France there is a hospital structure specialized in the research of transmissible diseases. I.H.U. is known and recognized worldwide.. But France is a "parisienne oligarchie", and IHU in MARSEILLE.. ..

As of February 20, 2020, its director, Pr. RAOULT announced that there were therapeutic alternatives with older drugs with limited side effects and that it was necessary to remain calm, that doctors had to treat very early.
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/coronavirus-vers-une-sortie-de-crise

The media outburst was extraordinary. And it hasn’t stopped in a year.

Once, it’s a coincidence. Twice may be a coincidence, but 365 times?

The hospital and university structure deserves many posts. It has established its financial independence from BigPharma, its own scientific publications database, its own open statistical data, its own medical information chain...

Résiste !

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 24 2021 7:42 utc | 51

Anders Eliasson | Apr 23 2021 16:31 utc | 18

Belarus

I don't think anyone should underestimate the scope of the attempt. It was more than the one or two people remaining on Belarussian soil being arrested. It was not a "Maidan" style regime change, but planned to be a really violent "overthrow" or elimination (!) of the present Belarus Government. Since the "popular" support the US was trying to build up - didn't exist (ie. their mrs. muppet did not have a large enough impact), and Lukashenko has been quite efficient in "calming" regular protests. The US seems to have decided that an old style military "coup" would be the only way for them to seize power. (Type planned for Venzuela without the Guaido figurine)

The Russians have said as much:

Zakharova: We were outraged to learn about the recently uncovered conspiracy against the
Belarusian leadership.

It is hard to imagine that an action of this scale was organised without the
US intelligence agencies’ knowledge.

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 24 2021 7:58 utc | 52

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 24 2021 7:42 utc | 52

Étudiant en médecine
Tu vas marner pendant sept ans
Pour être marchand d'pénicilline
Tes saloperies d'médicaments
Aux bourgeois tu r'fileras
Des cancers à tour de bras
Et aux prolos des ulcères
Parc'que c'est un peu moins cher
Et l'tiers-monde qu'a besoin d'toi
Là c'est sûr que t'iras pas
Malgré tous ceux qui vont crever
T'oublieras que j't'ai chanté
La médecine est une putain
Son maquereau c'est l'pharmacien

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWdIati5vGs

Posted by: Paco | Apr 24 2021 8:30 utc | 53

This brings to mind the quote from Frank Zappa:

"Politics is the entertainment branch of the Military Industrial Complex."

It's all show. Don't listen to what they're saying, watch what they're doing.

Posted by: Zweckpessimist | Apr 24 2021 10:29 utc | 54

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 2:48 utc | 45

"In my opinion, US and Iran would have been in a shooting war if Mr. Trump had been re-elected."

"In my opinion" is mot in any way evidence that there is a subtle difference.

Posted by: arby | Apr 24 2021 12:09 utc | 55

Mr. Paco

I have first hand and second hand experiences with what a few tablets of sulfa drugs or antibiotics can do for you.

When you are suffering from excruciating dental pain, when a consultation estimates that without immediate graft bypass surgery you will die very shortly, when chemotherapy buys you ten more years of life to see your child grow and knows her mother, when your husband is going through a bout of maniac-depressive phase and you hope that he will respond to Lithium-based drugs, then you will see the song that you referenced as one written by a fool and sung by another fool.

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 14:10 utc | 56

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 14:10 utc | 57

Mr. Fyi, I'm glad your experience with medicine has been positive, in every human group there are heroes and there are corrupt people, take as an example priests abusing children and on the other hand priests that give their life for the benefit of their congregation like Monseñor Romero in El Salvador.

Concerning medicine and bigpharma, probably you've heard about the current scandal concerning the convict Navalny, all the western MSM media is screaming foul since the convict wants personalized medical care choosing his own doctors, but keep silent about the fact that 500 million Europeans are limited in their choice of vaccines, well I as a European would like to choose freely which vaccine I take, but due to bigpharma's greed I'm not able to choose, IMO that gives creedence to the singer Renaud's view on medicine based on greed and profit. If you live in the richest country on earth I really hope you have insurance, otherwise you would experience what greed before the life and well being of people is all about.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/

Posted by: Paco | Apr 24 2021 15:14 utc | 57

Foreign and domestic policy totally changed from Obama to Trump and now to Biden. The few examples MoA quotes are fields where Trump wasn't directly involved (Venezuela, Belarus, Nordstream), was outmaneuvered (withdrawal of troops), or followed a pro-Israel policy (Iran).

Since Biden is in office, migration and climate policy have turned 100%. Ukraine war is being restarted. Syria war is being restarted. And the first 100 days aren't even over yet. Trade and China policy also totally changed from Obama to Trump, and is difficult for Biden to reverse quickly.

Posted by: NOX | Apr 24 2021 15:29 utc | 58

Great analysis of U.S. foreign policy, and why it hardly changes, no matter who's president: https://swprs.org/us-foreign-policy/

"How can US foreign policy be explained in a systematic and rational way? The following chart – based on a model developed by political science professors David Sylvan and Stephen Majeski – reveals the longstanding imperial logic behind US diplomatic and military interventions around the globe."

Posted by: Milkman | Apr 24 2021 15:33 utc | 59

Mr. Paco

You live in Spain, where medical office visits are free of charge, not even one Euro.

For measles, polio, smallpox, cholera vaccines, you would not have demanded a choice among vaccine varieties. Furthermore, even given the choice, you would not be scientifically competent to make an informed choice; you would rely on some one else's opinion to make that choice.

This line of argument that you make does not have any significance.

The Big Pharma, as you call them, have supplied mankind with enormously useful drugs and medical devices. Their products have been used all over the world by non-Western people.

If Big Pharma be as corrupt as you insinuate, then why are others producing and consuming these generic drugs? Why are others using stent technology? Why are not Indians produce alternative or better drug therapies, they be the Kings of Generics?

Corruption runs through the fiber of mankind, Big Pharma is not an exception.

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 16:00 utc | 60

Mr. Milkman

That article and the chart in it which you supplied the URL, perpetuates a very dangerous fallacy, that of Rational State Actors.

You need only consider the Second Thirty-Year War (1914-1945) in Europe to notice this fallacy.

The Judeo-Christians War against Islam to gain and maintain the control of Palestine, The Tenth Crusade (1918-Present), is still going on with no plausible end in sight.

These men and women are ruled by their passions and their appetites. They almost always opt for war since it is exciting, which harken back to Pleistocene.

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 16:13 utc | 61

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 16:00 utc | 61

This line of argument that you make does not have any significance.

Sorry to tell you that for me it is significant that a vaccine like SputnikV based on an old and proven technology is not available for political and economic reasons, the vaccines available are all unreliable but our politicians take great care of big-pharma's profits, therefore I think that Renaud is not too far off when he sings: Medicine is a whore and the pharmacist is her pimp.

Posted by: Paco | Apr 24 2021 17:40 utc | 62

Mr. Paco

You be wrong.

Sputnik V is denied to you because of its origin and not because of Big Pharma.

Americans told you not to procure it and you did.

Spain and Spaniards have been all too happy to be vassals of the United States for decades. This is what loss of political independence means.

I would like to suggest Spain needs men like the late Hernando Cotrez. Spaniards must learn to be Spaniards again and not good Southern Europeans.

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 24 2021 17:50 utc | 63

@ Milkman | Apr 24 2021 15:33 utc | 60

THANKS FOR THE LINK

I saved it. Must print the chart, enlarged as poster.

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 24 2021 18:18 utc | 64

@ Paco | Apr 24 2021 8:30 utc | 54

Louis Jouvet 1951: Knock

250 thermometer https://youtu.be/yL8tWtY4UAI

Physician and little pharma
https://youtu.be/kN59h1Pv9DI


À voir et revoir

Posted by: Bernard F. | Apr 24 2021 18:29 utc | 65

arby @56

""In my opinion" is mot in any way evidence that there is a subtle difference. "

Not to speak for fyi, but I assume that is why he or she qualified their statement with "In my opinion"

I would also add that - in my opinion - I agree that we would be in a shooting war with Iran or Hezbollah now if Trump won and Pompeo was waiting until after the election since there is not much appetite in US public opinion for direct involvement in another hot war.

Posted by: schmoe | Apr 24 2021 22:54 utc | 66

schmoe and FYI.

"IMO" is not evidence that Biden has not attacked Iran where Trump would have.

Neither one of you have any evidence that your conjectures are even self evident.

Even Dubya or Obama or Trump or Biden would have attacked Iran. Unfortunately for them Iran can defend itself and inflict immense pain back. Much more so in the last few years and now they have those evil Russians to perhaps contend with as well.

Did you not notice how the US's overt warring came to an abrupt stop when Russia put its foot in the door in Syria?

The reason Trump did not attack Iran is the very same reason that Biden is not attacking Iran.

Posted by: arby | Apr 25 2021 14:25 utc | 67

Mr. Arby

Your conjecture is as good as mine.

A conjectures, by definition, is not based on evidence.

It is based on tacit knowledge that cannot, often, be articulated.

Posted by: Fyi | Apr 25 2021 15:19 utc | 68

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