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June 24, 2021
Open Thread 2021-048
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looks like the sociopath elite don’t want no McAfee fucking up their next move when they hit the polygong and greatly reset all you funny little ants that think there’s BIG differences between Russian sociopaths, Chinese sociopaths and American ones.
I hope you keyboard commentators are ready in your respective locales to survive the purge that’s coming. from my sporadic assessment of the analysis here, you aren’t.
Posted by: lizard | Jun 24 2021 13:33 utc | 1
A residential building has partially collapsed in South Florida today.
The US Space Force wants to be able to patrol and defend cis-lunar space.
Inflated military budget, military overextension, collapsing infrastructure, societal divides, overt racism, paranoia, despair; were have I heard this one before?
Posted by: Akilliy | Jun 24 2021 13:48 utc | 2
“In June 2016, Defender, in conjunction with Australian and French ships, seized a total haul of 1020 kg of hashish from a fishing dhow south of Oman.”
Might be that the crew had run out of stash and just tried to find the quickest route to Afghanistan.
Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Jun 24 2021 14:00 utc | 3
In case anybody missed it, Iran will soon have a hardline president. . . .uncompromising, strict
CNN–Iran’s hardline president-elect Ebrahim Raisi says he will not meet with Biden
NPR –President Ebrahim Raisi Brings Hard-Line Mentality To Iranian Ambitions
The Times of Israel– Iran’s election of hardline president unsettles Biden’s hope for a nuclear deal
CBS News–Iran’s hardline president-elect rules out meeting with Biden
NBC –Iran’s new hardline president could complicate Biden’s foreign policy agenda
The Daily Beast–Iran’s New Hardline President Says He Won’t Meet Joe Biden
Al Jazeera–World reacts to election of Iran’s new hardline President Raisi
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24 2021 14:43 utc | 4
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24 2021 14:43 utc | 4
They do repeat themselves a lot, don’t they. And very fond of pejorative cliches that mean nothing like “hardline”. I have observed they like them when it’s their hardliners being discussed. Sometimes I get the feeling they really just don’t think at all.
Posted by: Bemildred | Jun 24 2021 14:54 utc | 5
Akilliy @2:
And so Rome burns. I’m not much to listen to on a fiddle so I’ll just thump on my bass and toot my flute instead.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it much here but my most honest analysis is that the West is heading for a new Dark Ages. Indeed, we are well down that path already. I’d prefer humanity not to end up there again, of course. I hold out hope that the US population can shake off the mass media imposed brain fugue long enough to recognize the cultural disease it is spreading to the world and halt the spread by isolating itself before the damage is irreversible. That damage may be irreversible already, though.
On a more positive note, the Chinese have had some practice at keeping the barbarians out. They are well positioned to carry the torch of civilization while the West wallows in the mud and darkness of ignorance, delusion, and anti-science (yes, “Critical Race Theory” and gender confusion issues are anti-science). As the new Dark Ages develops, more countries will do like Russia and orient themselves around the light in China.
Now my most optimistic hope is that the West can descend into the madness it is hell-bent on pursuing without loosing the nukes or a really deadly virus.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 24 2021 14:55 utc | 6
Ukraine’s debt further deteriorates; time running up for the West:
Payback hour: Ukraine has nothing to pay off its debts
The state debt of Ukraine has reached $ 90 billion [i.e. almost 65% of its GDP]. […] A new tranche from the IMF is urgently needed to repay the loans, but the fund has been on pause for a year.
[…]
Back in 2020, a huge hole was formed in the budget of Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Finance, the deficit reached $ 11 billion. The value has become a record in five years. The country’s economy is already not in the best shape, and last year it was hit by a pandemic. As a result, tax revenues to the budget have seriously sagged. Since the beginning of 2021, the gap in the treasury has continued to widen – another minus one billion in the first quarter.
[…]
As noted in the department, all this “will require significant funding, including external.” Hope is still pinned on “further cooperation with international partners”, which should ensure low cost of new attraction and stable access to world financial markets.
Ukraine is so a lost cause that even the IMF has stopped giving it money. Without virtual monopoly over Russian gas transit to the European Peninsula, all the economic base over which it could leverage its sovereign debt is gone. That’s why the USA is so hellbent on stopping the Nord Stream II.
Time (and peace) is definitely on Russia’s side on this one. No need to fall into military provocations at all – Ukraine will soon collapse.
–//–
Now it’s home price ‘hyperinflation’: The 30-year mortgage rate is now lower than the inflation rate for the second time in history
Oh, forgot to say: the USD Standard will collapse even if the rest of the world continues to accept it until the end of time. That will happen because the rest of the world is also finite, therefore there is a theoretical limit to which it can sustain the USD Standard.
That means the USA cannot print USDs to oblivion either way. Even if the rest of the world continues to be entirely submissive to the USA, the USD Standard – and with it, probably also capitalism – will eventually collapse.
But in the real world, we have this: even with the USD Standard still intact, there’s growing inflation in the USA. The USD Standard doesn’t immunize the USA from (hyper/super/high)inflation, that’s a Keynesian myth.
–//–
China becomes the highest-grossing e-sports market in the world
The white supremacists who made up the vast majority of the “gaming community” in the West will lose their minds when they read this.
–//–
The idea that America ‘won’ the Cold War has made Washington believe only supremacy can bring peace. Now, that’s causing problems
There’s no mystery here: the Cold War was never about Geopolitics, but about class struggle. It was a war between capitalism and socialism, not between the USA and the USSR (Russia). Americans have nothing personal against the Russians as an ethnicity or culturally.
That’s why the Cold War continues. Socialism still survives (mainly in China), therefore the Cold War must go on.
I repeat: Geopolitics is not a science. It is a pseudo-scientific theory created in Germany at the end of the 19th Century in order to create an alternative interpretation to the rising of the correct scientific theory of world affairs (Marxism). If you take Geopolitics too seriously, you’ll come to absurd conclusions, such as that what is happening between Palestine and Israel is merely a conflict between equals, and not a genocide/massacre by the Isrealis against the Palestinians. It’s ok to use the term geopolitics with a lower case “g” as a useful term, but not as a science.
–//–
Modern America & some of its so-called ‘democratic’ allies have turned into ‘liberal-totalitarian’ states, claims Russia’s top spy
–//–
1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or no wealth at all
As Marx once said: capitalism results in a dialectical process where extreme generation of wealth is combined with extreme generation of misery.
Those 3 billion people don’t use the internet (which is the playground of the middle class). They are silent. They are the true silent majority.
Who said Israel doesn’t like Muslims? They love Muslims!
Israel shifts China policy, condemns its treatment of Uyghurs at UNHRC
The deliberate promotion of wealth inequality, the relentless determination to continue privatizing as much of investment decisions as possible and the resolute refusal to challenge imperialism but work to defend business in competition are all SOP in imperialist and subaltern capitalist countries. But they are leading to the impending crisis of counterrevolution in China. The demonization of the Cultural Revolution and the absurd and disgusting adulation of Deng are in effect the low-key Khrushchevian assault on Stalin. The myths of massacre in Tian An Men square is matched by the myth that the capitalist counterrevolution was decisively defeated forever in June 1984. When Michael Roberts highlights the increase in wealth inequality in the richest imperialist nations, he is highlighting the success of the ruling class. When he shows the same process in China, he is showing the weakening of China, socially and politically. Economics is not measured by GNP alone.
The idea that hyperinflation is at hand is dubious. Genuine hyperinflation appears to be pretty much limited to war, even more to defeat in war. And the superficial exceptions omit the category of economic warfare by imperialism against weak nations, like Zimbabwe and Venezuela. (Trump was an economic warrior so around here lots of people refuse to accept that economic warfare is a thing, much less that Trump was an aggressor, not a peacemaker.) Inflation tends to devalue government debt, which is a prominent form of fictitious capital. So, hating inflation is very often about supporting capitalism with sound finance, which imagines that “everybody” has some property and assets and therefore inflation will undermine their net worth. On the other hand, the unemployed in particular are hurt by inflation of food and energy prices. Still, the real problems for the mass of people is they are underpaid by the bosses, a function of class struggle they are losing. Extraction of surplus value is the primary form of exploitation. And some consumer items, especially rents, power, telecommunications are pretty heavily monopolized, a secondary form of exploitation. So yeah, the panic at inflation is very petty bourgeois.
The recent historical examples of Lebanon and Bosnia and Liberia and Libya and Syria prove conclusively that enough outside money can keep bandits operating in an area. Ukraine’s collapse will not stop the servants of imperialism. The implicit notion that some imperialist has to pay for Ukraine gives far too much credit to imperialism, which takes no responsibility for anyone. As long as certain key policies are carried out, the local collaborators can turn the rest of the country into a hellhole for years on end.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jun 24 2021 15:23 utc | 9
@ vk | Jun 24 2021 14:59 utc | 7:
Americans have nothing personal against the Russians as an ethnicity or culturally.
Oh, they do now, although that’s just a byproduct of the forces you identify.
That’s why the Cold War continues. Socialism still survives (mainly in China), therefore the Cold War must go on.
This doesn’t explain the cold war against Russia, which is now hardly a socialist country. In this case it’s no longer capitalism vs. socialism; it’s Western capitalism wiping out the last pockets of resistance to its hegemonic control. Those last pockets need no longer be socialist; they need only resist Western exploitation.
Posted by: corvo | Jun 24 2021 15:25 utc | 10
corvo @10:
Capitalists are perfectly happy with devouring other capitalists. They do it all the time. That’s how capitalism works. Always has and always will. Socialist states are just particularly tasty feasts for them.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 24 2021 15:34 utc | 11
A residential building has partially collapsed in South Florida today.
…
Posted by: Akilliy | Jun 24 2021 13:48 utc | 2
Has anyone seen any close-up pics of the buildings?
Reinforced-concrete multi-storey residential building rules and regs were complete worldwide by the early 1960s. There should be a lot more steel reinforcing mesh poking out of the broken floor-slabs. And some walls have broken part-way along and there’s not much mesh in those either. Imo.
When was Building Regulation in Florida privatised?
There have been lots of structural ‘mishaps’ in Oz since Regulation and Inspection were privatised.
It would have been illegal, in the 1960s to 1990s, to build some of the crap masquerading as high-end residential hi-rise in Oz since 2000. In the late ’70s Dominion Properties were forced to demolish, and remove, a near-complete non-compliant 6-story block of flats in South Yarra, Vic.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 24 2021 15:39 utc | 12
corvo @10:
There is also a little bit of socialist meat left on the bones of the old USSR. That’s what keeps the vulture capitalists circling. It’s not as if they have anything else to do anyway.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 24 2021 15:40 utc | 13
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/north-korea-may-be-brink-collapse%E2%80%94or-not-188407
The cute NK defector lady nailed it ahead of everyone else. National Interest now has lots of ‘what if NK collapses’ articles. Fall and winter aren’t atht far away with estimates of half the population without enough food.
Posted by: Eighthman | Jun 24 2021 15:57 utc | 14
A Headline over at Xymphora…
Female Weightlifter Suffers Tragic Testicle Injury Just Weeks Before Tokyo Olympics” (Babylon Bee):
…
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 24 2021 16:00 utc | 15
From 2009…
https://harmoniaphilosophica.com/2011/11/10/h1n1-a-bioterrorism-attack-or-a-pandemic-2jszrulazj6wq-68/
Jane Bürgermeister is an Austrian investigative science journalist who, as the anticipated July 2009 release date for Baxter’s Swine flu pandemic vaccine (H1N1) was approaching, warned the world the greatest crime in the history of humanity was underway.
Jane Burgermeister, a science journalist, filed charges at the FBI against the UN, the World Health Organization (WHO) and various pharmaceutical companies in which she accused those organizations of deliberately creating the H1N1 virus in a lab and spreading it with malicious intent for profit.
On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations (UN) declared, without adequate scientific evidence, resulting in much criticism from experts, a worldwide ‘Level 6 Pandemic’, so triggering laws that allow control over troops, law enforcement and health services to be transferred to the WHO and UN. According to the International Health Regulations of 2005, which has been incorporated into legislation also in The International Partnership on Avian Influenza of 2005 of the USA and other country’s national pandemic plans, the WHO and the UN become the controlling agencies of the US in the event of a declared Level 6 Pandemic, and are entitled to control of this country under martial law, with obvious implications for all of the above under the pretext of fighting a pandemic emergency.
Refusing a WHO-mandated vaccination has been criminalized; police can therefore use deadly force against “criminal suspects” refusing these vaccines.
WHO refused to release minutes of a key meeting on July 7, 2009, when its “vaccine advisory board” — packed with transnational pharmaceutical corporation executives as observers — recommended to WHO that it order forced vaccinations around the world using their vaccines, ensuring them vast profits.
An Emergency Use Authorization allows any company that gives experimental vaccines to Americans during a declared public health emergency to be protected from liability in case of injury to those vaccinated.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Jane_B%C3%BCrgermeister
Posted by: toshi | Jun 24 2021 16:02 utc | 16
How are lies & myths promoted in the English Union (EnU – Five Eyes)? Let’s look at the UK.
“In Britain’s hierarchical culture, the crime for the upper classes isn’t telling lies—it’s getting caught…
Lying, ultimately, is an exercise of power, which is why the styles of lying practiced in different countries can tell us something useful about how they are governed…
if you learn one thing at a British elite school, it is how to lie responsibly and with a grave face, as if it were done for the good of the people who believe you…
The distinctive quality of traditional British political lying, though, is the understanding that there is not one audience but two. One is made up of the other members of the elite minority who understand the truth and who deserve to do so, and the other is everyone else. They may take your words at face value—and if they do, they also deserve what they get…
This consciousness of a double audience is related to the distinction between public and private truth that has to be maintained in a hierarchical society…
The Denning doctrine is that for lies to do their necessary work of holding society together, it must never be admitted in public that they are in fact lies…
Once trust is lost, you can’t appeal to the truth of the matter.”
Psychopaths are the ultimate traitors – they have no loyalty towards anyone – just money and power. All they do – lies, fake charm, telling their victims exactly what they want to hear and ideally trying to elicit some sympathy.
How are lies and myths promoted and maintained in the U$A?
Posted by: Max | Jun 24 2021 16:05 utc | 17
@ 1 lizard… here is my friends comments on mcafee… – he was a successful con man, and not much more. imo. he’s kind of a folk hero for libertarians because he thumbs his nose at the system. the whole antivirus goldrush in the 90s was total scam. especially mcafee, which itself was almost worse than actually having a virus..
Posted by: james | Jun 24 2021 16:17 utc | 18
So Brutain deliberately sailed into what Russia sees as its sovereign territorial waters, as a piece of planned provocation, and has the temerity to squeal when Russia fired warning shots* at it?
Someone should remind the Brutish that Brutannia stopped ruling the seas long, long ago, and if it tries gunboat diplomacy it should pick on someone too helpless to shoot back. Sao Tome and Principe, maybe.
*Warning shots are fired at, not on. Russia didn’t fire on the Brutal Navy ship, just at its general vicinity.
https://www.anorak.co.uk/466093/news/russia-fires-on-british-ship-for-first-time-since-1919.html
Meanwhile the MSMaganda is weeping over Afghan CIAgents who are now desperate to escape to Amerikastan but can’t because their CIA masters didn’t give them any papers to prove that they were CIA.
Oh, poor Quislings. So very sad for them. 🙄
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jun 24 2021 16:17 utc | 19
“Hard-Liner” Raeisi. Sounds like Israeli and those elected to federal office in the U.S. and bribed by Iarael propaganda. Israel doesn’t want competition in the Middle East and America always needs an enemy to keep the threat of attacks in a high-gear mode.
Posted by: Frederick | Jun 24 2021 16:17 utc | 20
Outlaw US Empire goes ass-backwards in its weaponizing of Climate Change by sanctioning Xinjiang’s solar panel material companies, which “contributes around 45 percent of the world’s supply of polysilicon.” Do consult the excellent infographics display at the link to see how utterly futile the Outlaw US Empire’s move is which prompted this comment:
“‘Considering the US photovoltaic (PV) market only needs 10 percent of the world’s polysilicon, we don’t believe it will create a significant impact on our businesses,’ Xinjiang Daqo told the Global Times on Thursday.”
China could easily turn the tables on the issue of forced labor by citing farm worker and prison labor stats in the Empire for starters, and then remark that everyone is “forced” to work within capitalist nations if they wish to live. IMO, China can easily prove its workers are far better off than those within the Outlaw US Empire by citing all the support they get from government that makes them more competitive, which is why businesses want to locate their production facilities in China and not within the Outlaw US Empire. So, once again, those running the federal government have no clue as to what they’re doing aside from following an ideological line aimed at the domestic audience.
@Eighthman No 14:
Oh, right, the National Disinterest is such an accurate source of information, especially about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 😈
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jun 24 2021 16:20 utc | 22
A U.S. Air Force base responded to controversy about a drag queen show hosted by the base by saying the performance was “essential to the morale, cohesion, and readiness of the military.”
Yes, really.
U.S. Air Force Base Says Drag Queen Show Was “Essential For Morale’
Posted by: Down South | Jun 24 2021 16:46 utc | 23
@ William Gruff | Jun 24 2021 15:40 utc | 13 :
There is also a little bit of socialist meat left on the bones of the old USSR. That’s what keeps the vulture capitalists circling. It’s not as if they have anything else to do anyway
One can say the same for countries with, say, state-run health care systems. Now of course the capitalists want to rid the world of state-run health care systems too, but they’re not declaring countries like UK and Sweden mortal enemies for that.
Posted by: corvo | Jun 24 2021 16:54 utc | 24
Within his long and excellent analysis of Iranian elections he wrote for The Saker’s blog to which I can’t link thanks to Typepad, Mansoureh Tajik (use his name to search Saker’s for the article, or use the direct link from Pepe Escobar’s article about the Raisi Era) provided a definition for “hardliner” from the Iranian perspective where they are known as “Revolutionists” having a social policy deemed “Moderate Conservative,” economic policy centered on “Social Justice, Anti-Corruption” and “Islamic Resistance,” and a foreign policy based on “National Independence” that “Support[s] Resistance Against Arrogant Powers and Zionism.” Also dissected are the criteria used to select presidential candidates by the Guardian Council (one of the great attributes of the essay is its detailing the structure and inner workings of the Iranian government that very few Westerners know about, which makes it easy for BigLies to be told):
“The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran entrusts the Guardian Council with three major responsibilities: a) Oversight of all laws, legislations, and rules to make sure they are in accordance with the constitution AND fiqh according to Shi’a Islam; b) Interpretation of the Constitution where and when such interpretation is needed; and c) Oversight over all elections and their components including the qualifications and records of the applicants and their approval as candidates.[2] In a nutshell, the Council is obligated to use the tools and the authority given to it by law to guard and protect the Constitution and when an interpretation is needed, to make sure that interpretation is in accordance with Shi’a Islam fiqh.
“As far as the presidential candidates are concerned, if someone openly and publicly expresses his rejection of the Constitution or its key components, for example, and there is solid proof of that, or if he acts in violation of key components of the Constitution and there is solid proof of that, or if he breaks the law and has a file in the legal system, then he should not expect to be approved as a candidate to run for the position of the president, which is the 2nd most important position in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is regardless of how popular that person may imagine himself to be. Should the person of that caliber be approved, then the Guardian Council must be held accountable for breach of duties. This is not some revolutionary idea or practice. It is a wise and reasonable expectation of a body with responsibilities of that nature in any system of governance anywhere in the world.”
Sounds rather similar to China’s meritocratic system and far better than the contrived process used within the Outlaw US Empire and elsewhere that’re nowadays controlled by Big Money and no longer serve the public’s interest. I sorta like the Revolutionists given the five other categories described. Their opposition to the Arrogant Powers and their imperialism and domestic points make them fine by me and a massive improvement over any POTUS candidate I’ve ever had to choose.
The National Interest is a good site to keep tabs on Deep State thinking. It seems that their thinking about NK has finally caught up with what Yeonmi Park has been saying.
If the unlikely happens and NK falls apart, I would not be surprized if conservative opinion fails to see it coming,as with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Posted by: Eighthman | Jun 24 2021 17:05 utc | 26
Down South@23 forgets (ignores?) that drag and for that matter some versions of transgender/transsexual ideology rest on the principle that men and women are different mentally, even spiritually. And therefore there are in fact only two teams. The lesser principle that some people can play games for the other teams, or were inadvertently assigned to the “wrong” team is never as profound in its effect as the re-affirmation of the idea men and women have separate but equal souls. This is especially true since separate is never equal.
So, despite the prudery and sex panic, a drag show doesn’t threaten a damn thing, it’s just low fun and coarse humor. In general, sex panickers are in the end reactionaries. Free lovers and egalitarians are generally in the end lefties. Exceptions are usually signs of confusion and incoherence, overlooked because no one is totally consistent.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jun 24 2021 17:06 utc | 27
@ corvo (#10)… you state, “Western capitalism wiping out the last pockets of resistance to its hegemonic control. Those last pockets need no longer be socialist; they need only resist Western exploitation.” It is the Global Financial Syndicate that wants to create a global private empire where everything is privatized and under its control. In its structure each nation is a suzerainty whose currency, corporations and culture are controlled by the Syndicate (or CROWN?).
This Syndicate has been working on capturing Russia and has betrayed it thrice in the last century. In 1917, head of the Red Cross mission to Russia, William Boyce Thompson , may have lacked the know-how to bandage a wound, but he was a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and agent for J.P. Morgan’s British securities operation. How did he betray Russia? Even after realizing that this Empire is ‘agreement incapable’ Russia hopes for what?
Unfortunately, the U$A has been captured by the Global Financial SYNDICATE , too.
Do China & Russia see this reality? Do they want to be sovereign or suzerainty. Name a democracy that isn’t a suzerainty. Democracy, capitalism, free markets, independent media, free speech, rule of law, human rights… are MYTHS.
Posted by: Max | Jun 24 2021 17:20 utc | 28
corvo @24: ”… but they’re not declaring countries like UK and Sweden mortal enemies for that.”
The vultures are not hungry enough yet. Don’t worry, they will be.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 24 2021 17:41 utc | 29
@ Posted by: corvo | Jun 24 2021 16:54 utc | 24
Those social-democracies you mention are being dismantled since 1975. For Sweden, see:
Sweden in deadlock
Also for Sweden, see the seventh graph in my link @ 7 (“1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or no wealth at all”).
karlof1 “So, once again, those running the federal government have no clue as to what they’re doing aside from following an ideological line aimed at the domestic audience.”
I think they know exactly what they are doing. China went to great efforts to take away incentives for young people to join extremist groups in Xinjiang. Poverty alleviation and opportunity. The targeted sanctions are designed to again create poverty in Xinjiang, to try and keep terrorism alive there. What is happening now is a US attack on China from all angles using all possible tools.
I have been thinking about the possible response to the way the US and five-eyes are headed in relation to Russia and China. To simply defend as well as possible from the US full spectrum attacks but short of all out war.
Do they continuously defend until a point in time where the US collapses, or do they make planned moves to speed up the demise of the US? Do they put up with this which could continue for a number of decades? The western financial system is a house of cards. The capability of Russia’s strategic weapons systems and their ramifications for the US looks to be starting to sink in. I think we will see a ramping up of demonstrations of the capabilities as the new systems head towards full deployment. Especially in sea power. Russia has isolated itself from the western financial system, whereas China is currently using it to hold its enemy close. Be interesting to watch what moves China makes to limit damage to itself from a collapsed western financial system, though for China, crashing that system may be very much a last resort. Though as US ramps up its moves against China, I think they will take a good look at it.
Both China and Russia want to trade and interact with the world. With the American (so called western) financial system collapsed, Five eyes will be the isolated countries, with the rest following Russia and China’s multi polar world.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 17:46 utc | 31
This one is for other Australians that read this blog and I hope its okay to put this here b.
At voting time, I generally go down to vote so I don’t have to pay the fine, put a diagonal line access the the crap paper supplied’ place it in the ballot box and have done my civic duty.
I run onto the website of a small party I had never heard of by accident the other day. Looking through their foreign policy page, I thought I would put a link to it here. At the moment I know nothing of them other than what I see at the website. Worth a look for other Australians. Foreign policy is very similar to what is looked at and discussed here.
https://citizensparty.org.au/policies/foreign-policy
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 17:58 utc | 32
Crossposting from “Britslap” thread which has died:
Max | Jun 24 2021 15:29 utc | 126
“How will one define the “Ring of Power”?”
Hi Max.
The Ring of Power is the Treason Felony Act of 1848.
The reason it is the ring of power is that it is employed to control the actions of the civil service. And it can be so deployed because of the terrible drafting (“any person whatsoever..within the United Kingdom or without..any act or deed..)
Yes indeed, there are myriad other laws. But they must be enforced by civil servants like the judiciary, like the constabulary, like the military and so on. And if those civil servants know that to enforce those laws would in itself be construed by the monarch as breaching the TFA they will not enforce them. They will find some excuse and deploy it with great bluster. The monarch always strikes first!
Let me give you a couple of examples. First, look at what happened when the TFA was challenged as contrary to the Human Rights Act:
https://archive.fo/44P7i
The Lords considered the matter, concluded the act was illegal, but then shied away from striking it down.
Ten years later the old witch was still at it, controlling the civil service, hiding behind the abolition nonsense:
https://archive.fo/7gmLt
The second example should be right up your street. The BCCI affair:
https://archive.fo/jvQ0h
https://archive.fo/EuoTw
The liquidators – accountants Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu – dropped the case after the chancellor of the high court said it was no longer in the best interests of creditors for the litigation to continue.
You see? There was no finding by the court. It just “forced” the complainant to drop the matter.
Just like the court never ruled on the legality of the TFA in 2003.
Amongst many quotes is this one:
“I am delighted that the allegations of dishonesty against 22 staff of the Bank of England have been unconditionally withdrawn,” the Bank’s governor, Mervyn King, said.
Surprise! Mervyn King is now a Knight of the Garter!
With all these links this may not go through. If not I will repost in pieces.
Posted by: John Cleary | Jun 24 2021 18:07 utc | 134
Posted by: John Cleary | Jun 24 2021 18:13 utc | 33
steven t johnson @ 27
This isn’t about equality. It’s about an ideology that is being used to fracture a society and now it’s military to keep it distracted from the ongoing and in my opinion irreversible collapse,
American society is deeply fractured. The US elections proved it. When the inevitable economic collapse occurs, you will need a national institution to help rebuild it, The way I see it the military in the US is about the only national institution that American society can coalesce around.
Fracture that and the United States are going to be anything but that,
Posted by: Down South | Jun 24 2021 18:16 utc | 34
A residential building has partially collapsed in South Florida today @2
Another triumph for Desantis and Republican deregulation, getting the iron boot of Govt off out necks. Where was Desantis anyway, on the Laura Ingraham show taking victory laps for his high Covid death rate, or in Israel congratulating Netanyahu for destroying 9 apartment buildings in Gaza?
The other great example of Republican deregulation was the power grid in Texas.
Well, at least we can ‘replenish’ Israel’s stockpile of Iron Dome missiles by writing a check so that they can build more using their own Defense sector. Replenish means boosting their economy at the expense of ours.
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jun 24 2021 18:16 utc | 35
@WGruff 6
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it much here but my most honest analysis is that the West is heading for a new Dark Ages.
Certainly the US is. All the major statuses are bad compared to other ‘advanced’ countries and are headed south: Life expectancy, healthcare, imprisonment, homicides, infant mortality, maternal mortality, birth rate, income, suicide, assaults, personal debt, homelessness — the list goes on.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24 2021 18:17 utc | 36
@ Peter AU1 (#31),
The U$A financial system isn’t ‘collapsing’ until the US$ is the world reserve currency. There are many ways for the Global Financial Syndicate to maintain its hegemony. If China and Russia are waiting for this collapse scenario then they might wait until they’re captured. This is a no win scenario for them.
China and Russia are on defense and only retaliating. There is no creativity and courage in their responses. The Empire is working to go after them aggressively. They can’t even state REALITY in their media. What is their response to the Empire’s framing of the global conflict as between “democracies and autocracies”? How are China & Russia framing the global conflict or competition? Unless, they respond to this negative framing they have no plan.
NATO plans to lead naval ‘war games’ with other countries (totaling around 32!) in the Black Sea at end-June. Maneuvers have started already & one report says Russia sent a warning shot vs a British ship. However, as discussed at the “Crimean Platform Summit” organized by the German Marshall Fund, NATO’s plan is to confront Russia this summer and leave the military hardware in Ukraine and Russia’s neighborhood, so it is available later for immediate use. What is the Empire planning for China?
Posted by: Max | Jun 24 2021 18:24 utc | 37
Ryan Grim has promised to Aaron Mate that he will look into the OPCW scandal. He seems honest. An important case where someone thoroughly in the mainstream bubble got out of it was Nils Melzer. From https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange
In December 2018, I was asked by his lawyers to intervene. I initially declined. I was overloaded with other petitions and wasn’t really familiar with the case. My impression, largely influenced by the media, was also colored by the prejudice that Julian Assange was somehow guilty and that he wanted to manipulate me. In March 2019, his lawyers approached me for a second time because indications were mounting that Assange would soon be expelled from the Ecuadorian Embassy. They sent me a few key documents and a summary of the case and I figured that my professional integrity demanded that I at least take a look at the material.
Melzer had to overcome a considerable threshold to start looking into the issue but he’s competent and independent and quickly changed his mind.
The OPCW case is similar . It takes significant effort to go through it but the outcome for someone independent and competent is straightforward. Only there is a high threshold to avoid getting drawn into the case.
Imagine having to deal with crackpots/conspiracy theorists who drain your time and as soon as you give them a finger they take the whole arm, they demand that you convince them to change their mind and so on. All that while serious journalists have already published consensus conclusions on it. Why redo their work? There is also the angle of the Russians hammering on the case. These are good reasons for not looking into the case. I doubt if Mate fully understands that. I’m not sure what Greenwald thinks of it now but he certainly wasn’t on the ball.
Grim is surrounded by sources he takes seriously and which point to the official conclusion. He is surrounded by people who are motivated to keep him from straying from the right path and who will insist on helping him out. I saw BobFromBrockley commenting on the discussion (he’s active with P.Cross on Mate’s wikipedia page). So chances are not good. I don’t know if Grim is sharp enough to see that through but I hope he does. If he does he won’t be able to stay on at TI. They are too committed to the standard narrative.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Jun 24 2021 18:29 utc | 38
From the Moscow Security Conference we have Russia’s Sergey Naryshkin who heads Russia’s Security Services saying:
“It is astonishing to see how the West is trying to divide our diverse world into two completely artificial camps – a supposedly democratic one and a supposedly authoritarian one…
“The US and other so-called models of liberal democracy seem not to notice that they themselves are rapidly turning into a liberal-totalitarian regime.”
And Naryshkin’s not alone in his assessment. Lavrov’s speech to the conference (transcript still in Russian) also echoes them:
“Various situational coalitions for the interests of limited constituencies are being formed outside the universal multilateral organizations, trying to claim the right to speak and act on behalf of the whole world. Among the most odious examples is the ‘Alliance for Multilateralism’ project implemented by Paris and Berlin and the ‘Summit of Democracies’ initiative promoted by the United States with the support of NATO and the EU. All this is done in ignoring the universal framework of the UN, on the basis of declaring the right of the West in a convenient circle, without opponents, to determine the criteria of behavior, which will then be imposed on all other states. Needless to say, such an approach, when a small group of countries with a sense of their own superiority declares themselves the executor of the fate of the rest of the world community, undermining the principles of equal collective work on the basis of the UN Charter. All this is not conducive to an effective solution to common pressing problems and risks the emergence of new dividing lines in international affairs.
“We see how ‘block thinking’ is imposed in the Asia-Pacific region (APR),which should be free from geopolitical games, especially given its importance as a locomotive of the world economy. What is the promotion of Washington, Australia and Japan – and with the support of NATO, which considers itself an organization with a ‘global mission’ – the so-called ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’ that is designed to frankly belittle ASEAN’s constructive, unifying role in the region in order to reformat it to the task of containing China and isolating Russia. These goals are not hidden….
“Another area of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the need to strengthen the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Accumulation of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxic Weaponsas much as possible. We have been proposing this for decades, but the United States has consistently, persistently, steadfastly departed from the discussion of the creation of such a universal mechanism. Meanwhile, they are developing their military-biological activities on a bilateral line, creating military biological laboratories, including along the perimeter of the Russian borders….
“Today, new technologies are rapidly bursting into our lives, opening up great opportunities, but also carrying huge risks. The intention of individual states to militarize the Internet and unleash a dangerous cyber-arms race there is a cause for concern. For our part, we are actively working on the adoption of a code of responsible behavior of states in the global information space in terms of the interests of each country in the sphere of military and political security. At the same time, we are promoting the draft universal convention to combat cybercrime. Both of our initiatives received very strong consensus support at the last session of the UNGA. Special negotiating mechanisms have been put in place on both fronts, which will consider these two crucial projects involving all States….
“I would also like to note that serious changes are brewing in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). We have introduced an extensive initiative in the OSCE aimed at getting the Organization back to its original purpose of providing a framework of cooperation based on the principle of indivisable security through mutually respectful dialogue and respect for the principle of consensus.”
The last cited paragraph would appear to confirm Putin’s accepting the Merkel/Macron invitation to the EU Summit, but that has yet to be confirmed. Lavrov was questioned on this topic and reminded the press that such EU/Russia Summits were held every two years until 2014 when the EU conspired with the Outlaw US Empire to overthrow Ukraine’s government. Lavrov also mentioned the fact that Putin converses with Macron and Merkel in other formats on a regular basis, so my above assumption may be erroneous.
Some observations about the successes and failures of the development of Russia.
For those interested, there is a YouTube channel with speeches by the participants of the Moscow International Security Conference. Videos in both Russian and English. A surprise for me was the speech of the Minister of Defense of Belarus – so far one of the best speeches. A surprisingly clear, concrete, sober assessment of the international geopolitical situation. I recommend watching (although the quality of the translation is poor).
@ John Cleary (#33),
Hi John,
Thanks for your detailed response. I will review these links and grok over your response.
Yes, the CROWN wants to control the civil service along with control of congress, courts, capitalists, clans,… to enslave consumers. Clans control credit, countries, corporations, content, channels,… Consumers just want to be CONSUMED.
A few questions to help in connecting the dots and understanding the matrix and debtrix.
– You’re confirming that the command center is “The City of London”
– Who is the chief of staff, main organizer and administrator in the Order of the Garter?
– What is the next in the hierarchy below the order of the Garter?
I look forward to your clarification. Thanks, once again.
Posted by: Max | Jun 24 2021 18:49 utc | 41
and in followup to #38 before it trips up more people, I modulate perceptions in the ‘crackpots’ paragraph, changing to what I think is a plausible version of the point of view of Grim and other mainstream journalists. I am not communicating my own perception there. That happens only in the next paragraph.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Jun 24 2021 18:51 utc | 42
Peter AU 1 @31–
IMO, China can absorb any losses it incurs to its trove of US T-Bills when they’re defaulted. It will simply write them off the books and continue its development policies. The Outlaw US Empire will clearly be the entity hurt the most when it does default. You may have read what I wrote about Russia’s coming ability to defend itself against a second strike, and that capability will likely extend to China and perhaps all of Eurasia given the extent of Russia’s area within Eurasia. But the biggest differences IMO are those taking place in the domestic realm as both Russia, China, and their trading partners are ascending while the Neoliberal world is drowning in debt and parasitism. And within the Outlaw US Empire as I’ve argued, its continual, lied about, GDP slide renders its military system even more unsustainable than ever before, while Fed policy since Greenspan will cause a collapse greater than 1929-1940 that will continue even longer unless a Revolution occurs to oust the Parasites and drastically alter policy.
And Yes, IMO the joint policies of Russia/China aim at exacerbating the weaknesses within the Outlaw US Empire’s political-economy. Glenn Diesen’s work on Russian geoeconomics details the lack of Russian dependency whereas a great many nations are dependent on China, so the Outlaw US Empire is essentially bereft of any functional coercive tools, which was not the case 40 years ago when the situation was reversed.
@ karlof1, … thanks for sharing the Russian info. If you think they have a good position then please summarize China & Russia’ global conflict framing in a single sentence.
They don’t have a good and succinct response to the framing of the global conflict by their opponents, “democracies vs autocracies.” They can say what they want, until they’ve framed their position clearly and concisely they are not winning hearts and minds in the world. They need a tagline.
They would do better by framing it as between, “sovereignties vs suzerainties” or “unilateralism vs multilateralism”,… Until they’ve a response to this framing by their adversaries they’re losing.
Posted by: Max | Jun 24 2021 19:01 utc | 44
Does anyone have an account with The Times?
I am trying to read this article but you have to give them a credit card number before you can start your free 30-day trial.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/marie-colvin-iraq-war-report-uncovered-the-secret-grave-of-600-murdered-kuwaitis-7jl58mmrn
Post here what you are able from the article.
Thanks!
ps.
I tried the Wayback Machine, still have to give up a credit card number.
Posted by: librul | Jun 24 2021 19:13 utc | 45
Down South@34 believes that men laughing at men in dresses is undermine society, God, etc., probably ending up with dogs and cats getting married. This is hysteria in my view, much like the firm belief of hundreds of thousand of mean yet fearful men and women in the Sixties that long hair on men was a sign of the end times. Yes, there are people who are convinced that censoring culture will somehow keep some of their sons from acting on sexual responses to others’ sons, as if censoring every hint of heterosexuality ever kept boys from girls if they were so inclined. And they no doubt still believe their sons should marry lesbians and theirs daughters marry gays and all will be well if the lesbians and gays don’t marry each other. But it’s just folly.
As for the tender concern for the military, who act as mercenaries in endless wars abroad and haven’t defended any freedoms here for decades? The class divide between the officer corps (best thought of as a caste, I think,) and the rank and file is vast. The chief officers may get to retire to corporate and political office to continue their warfare against humanity (or imagine they will,) but the majority of veterans will be neglected. Lip service doesn’t count. The reputation of the military for genuine competence is like the delusion that conservatives are good administrators, when they mainly preside over self-serving cost-cutting of essential services while pretending they’re fat in the budget, weakening society with regressive taxation to support the rich, and so on. The hope for the military to kill here instead thousands of miles away is a bloody wish, not a rational goal. My opinion, of course. Even on the simplest level, thinking a drag show is more harmful to morale than endless wars strikes me as kind of nuts.
The fact that Trump couldn’t win the vote in two separate elections is not proof the US is polarized. The fact that the rich are getting tired of mere elections deciding things and so many of them supporting Trump is a sign US society is polarized between the owners and the owned. It’s not the *election* but the shameless moral, intellectual, political corruption in wanting the violent overthrow of the majority by a minority that is the the symptom. But as to that, the bulk of the commentariat here is part of the problem.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jun 24 2021 19:24 utc | 46
Posted by: vk | Jun 24 2021 14:59 utc | 7
Boy, do you hear yourself talk? Please try to understand what the word science (scientific method) actually means and where it comes from.
The law of large numbers does not concretely apply to notions of “justice”, “emotions”, “relations”, or “distributions”.
If you have no honest hypothetical case in which your “theory” can be falsified, you do NOT have a theory but a belief system.
Posted by: VVKK | Jun 24 2021 19:52 utc | 47
Max 37
As for Russia and China lack of creativity, Russia has spent time insulating itself from the western financial system and finishing testing, production, and deployment of its new generation weapons systems. Syria was too early and Russia was hesitant to move in there until its weapons systems were close to deployment knowing full well it would have to face down the US in a game of chicken.
If you don’t already do so, it is worth reading Andrei Martyanov’s blog as part of your daily reading. He is a former soviet naval officer and analyses the new Russian weapons systems that are appearing and the ramifications of these systems, which are one to two generations ahead of the US.
Not long from now, Russia’s sea, subsurface, and air will be fully armed hypersonic long range weapons systems. Data fusion has been around a long time now and for US surface vessels and air there is nowhere to hide. A firing solution can always be arrived. With full deployment, US will no longer control the seas. Russia faced down the US in Syria. I think soon we will begin to see a lot more of this. The British ship incident I think just a taste of what is to come. Not forgetting quietly facing the US down in Ukraine just aq short time back. A lot of people are disappointed because they don’t see knee jerk reactions from Russia. Russia is a little smarter than that.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 20:03 utc | 48
@31 Max
With every single sanction, the US are sinking their dominance in world trade and finance a step further. Also their and their “western” partners is shrinking fast. The share of the G7 in world economy shrunk from 44 to under 30% in the last 20 years. By PPP GDP, Russia is now ahead of Germany, the leading west European economy.
When the Ukraine crisis started, Russia was deeply dependent from western imports and finance. Nowadays, Russia has widely decoupled from financial and trade dependencies with the west, while western investors strive not to lose foothold on the Russian markets entirely.
As to the dollar, Russia widely decoupled, her stupidly low rouble forex favoring her industries, while China is still keeping trade relations with one of her largest foreign markets. Well, one of, as European and developing world share grew over that of the US. But maintaining her “dual circulation” (developing internal economy while upholding relations with the world markets) makes it sensible not to let the RMB forex go over the top, in other words, not allow the dollar to crash prematurely.
In a way, the US, having lost the trade war with China, are at China’s mercy now. China of course is not interested in a catastrophic downfall of the US which would hurt the world economy. But it would not harm her badly, and Russia even less.
Posted by: aquadraht | Jun 24 2021 20:08 utc | 49
@ William Gruff | Jun 24 2021 17:41 utc | 29:
Absolutely. The appetite of global capital(ists) is insatiable.
@ vk | Jun 24 2021 17:44 utc | 30:
Absolutely. This went hand in hand with the neoliberal hollowing out of socialist/social democratic parties all over Europe (and, to a much lesser extent, the elimination of New Deal Democrats in the Democratic Party — I say “to a much lesser extent” because the Democrats were socialist to the same degree that Bismarck was when he introduced national health insurance in Germany, i.e., bait the public with ever so mildly socialist programs in order to keep real socialism from gaining a toehold in the national consciousness). I got to see a socialist party destroy itself when living in Austria in the 1980s.
Posted by: corvo | Jun 24 2021 20:09 utc | 50
karlof1
I was thinking more of manufacturing and trade. A sudden break in trade with the US means a big hit to Chinese manufacturers. China as a whole can absorb this, and being centrally governed as it is can quickly mobilize the population to move in another direction, but still it would be a big hit if it came suddenly. Might be worth watch for some sign that China is preparing for a sudden break. The way the US is and wanting to crank up hostilities in the asia pacific, they probably should be looking at and preparing for that scenario anyway.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 20:09 utc | 51
@ Down South | Jun 24 2021 18:16 utc | 34
American society is deeply fractured. The US elections proved it. When the inevitable economic collapse occurs, you will need a national institution to help rebuild it, The way I see it the military in the US is about the only national institution that American society can coalesce around.
As Kevin Baker observed in a Harper’s discussion: “In the end, we’ll beg for the coup.” That was 2002.
Posted by: corvo | Jun 24 2021 20:13 utc | 52
700+ dead indigenous children found at another genocidal Canadian “school”.
There are likely tens of thousands of these unmarked, mass infanticide sites across Canada.
Trudeau, the biggest phony of all, will quickly “mourn” but do nothing to change the colonial nature of Canada. Canada’s entire oil, gas, forestry, pulp and paper, agriculture, and hydro electric industries depend upon ongoing genocide of indigenous peoples.
Posted by: Prof | Jun 24 2021 20:21 utc | 53
@ Prof | Jun 24 2021 20:21 utc | 53:
Hey, let’s not just blame Trudeau here, slimy as he is. Think of it this way: What’s the fun in becoming a Roman Catholic priest or nun if you can’t abuse children to the point of murder?
Posted by: corvo | Jun 24 2021 20:25 utc | 54
Marxism is a not well tested belief system (in terms of time), that filters for psychopaths and is without a well formed (over time) or inherently stable clergy.
Psychopaths win in a marxist state because “dialectics” means verbally rationalizing opportunism while being without ethics at all. Both things, psychopaths can do best.
Like any religiously led state, marxism sees “other” religions as toxic, and punishes apostasy with immediate death, even on vague suspicion or just for pleasure (because ethics are inverted by the psychopaths in charge).
Posted by: Marxist | Jun 24 2021 20:32 utc | 55
@ Peter AU1 (#48),
Russia has de-dollarized, developed weapon systems and denied victory to the Empire in Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Belarus,… However, in order to checkmate the Empire it needs a network that is strong in multiple arenas. China and Russia have been working together to form a common front against the Empire. However, this Non-$ Bloc doesn’t have a consistent message (“Tagline”) of clarity and competition. They’re being outsmarted in the information warfare, including at the last Biden-Putin summit.
Fools would expect a knee jerk reactions from Russia. The Fifth column is still active in Russia. Russia has come a long way and build a good siege economy. However, it continues to be abused and betrayed by the Empire. What’s its VISION for its alliance network?
FYI, I do read Andrei Martyanov’s blog and many other information channels.
@ aquadraht (#49),
China has outsmarted and outperformed the Empire in the trade, technology, currency warfare arenas. China has been slow in making progress with Iran and Syria. Similarly, Russia has done well in the military, economic and global conflicts arenas. However, China and Russia need to TRANSCEND in the information warfare space. One is not hearing a vision and consistent messages, that will enable them to grow their network and compete with their opponents.
Posted by: Max | Jun 24 2021 20:33 utc | 56
Peter AU 1 @ 32:
You can subscribe to the Australian Citizens’ Party’s weekly newsletters and watch its videos on its YouTube channel to get an idea of its principles and agenda. The ACP supports former Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate’s aim of providing savings bank services through Australia Post. I have seen two of its videos, one of them an interview with a British-Australia citizen who lives in China and who has ridden around Xinjiang on bicycle, and the other on postal banking in Japan. I have donated money to ACP.as well.
Posted by: Jen | Jun 24 2021 20:39 utc | 57
In a previous thread there was some discussion on Yeltsin. A lot of hatred for here but I have for a long time thought that in going through a good number of prime ministers in a short time, then after Putin had been Prime Minister for several months appointing him president, that Yeltsin was looking bfor somebody who could lead his country out of the quagmire, something he knew he could not do.
When it comes to Russia and Putin there are always comments about the oligarchs and why hasn’t Putin taken all of them down.
Something I remembered in a recent comment to Gordog in the other thread.
Yelktsin wanted to break up the soviet union, and lot of Russians it seems were sick of carrying the hangerson. Yeltsin also wanted to put and end to communism and to that end, I think it was the treasurer at that time, Charblay or something like that his name was came up with the plan of giving certificates to all citizens giving them all part ownership of state assets.
In those hard times, the certificates were not worth much, but the soon to be oligarchs started snapping them up for peanuts.
this part of the history throws another light on both Yeltsin, but also in Putin not taking down the oligarchs that were willing to obey the laws, pay taxes and properly pay there workers. Although not nice, the way in which they acquired those assets had a good amount of legality to it.
As for Yeltsin, I think good intentions but simply incapable of achieving the result he wanted. I think his speech to the nation at the handover of power was genuine and for all his mistakes, the one that counts most, choosing a successor to lead Russia out of the quagmire, he did get right.
Yeltsin – a sad story, wanted something good but created great hardship unintentional, hated by the people and died soon after handing over power. Choosing Putin as the person to lead Russia out of the quagmire is something I think should be remembered.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 20:44 utc | 58
@ Max 56
China and Russia . . .[don’t] have a consistent message (“Tagline”) of clarity and competition.
Yes they do, along with Pakistan and Iran. It’s a simple message of multilateral coordination under the UN charter, with every nation being sovereign and not a lackey under the West. They also emphasize cooperative economic progress over military alliances.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24 2021 20:46 utc | 59
Psychopaths win in a marxist state because “dialectics” means verbally rationalizing opportunism while being without ethics at all
Dialectical materialism was rhetorical window dressing for regular old power plays in the CPSU. The CPSU’s problem – far from being caused by ideology, as the historical idealists in the conservative movement will tell you – was that democracy in the party was fundamentally undermined by a central committee accountable only to itself. That is an organizational issue, not an ideological one. Marxist parties don’t have to operate that way. They operate that way, historically, because of the export of the Stalinist-type Marxist-Leninist party form, which simply replicated the leadership structure of the CPSU if they weren’t the outgrowths of indigenous communist movements (or, if members of the Comintern, was simply imposed by the Comintern, which suffered the same defect).
“Psychopaths” won in the CPSU because the organizational structure of the party was prime for such a takeover. It was only a matter of time until the true believers would be replaced by the ambitious, as the true believers – being true believers – did not foresee the organ of popular virtue becoming its own bureaucratic strata.
But is bureaucratization a tendency inherent to Marxism? I would disagree with some libertarian socialists, like Cornelius Castoriadis, in arguing that it isn’t. There is a strong libertarian (in the European, not American sense) strain in Marx and Marxism which was strangled by the bureaucratization of the communist movement in the 20th century, and in places where the communist movement was forcibly suppressed (including the US), this Stalinist organizational form has already been put to death, and can’t resuscitate its status as a mass movement. Stalinization came after the popularity of communism, and Stalinist-style organizations won’t ever be popular under normal circumstances. That leaves us with the workers’ movement, which still needs scientific socialism in order to oppose the power of bosses.
Posted by: fnord | Jun 24 2021 20:51 utc | 60
Last December the US passed a bill designed to upgrade U.S. support for Tibetans in key areas, and paved the way for the U.S. government to issue economic and visa sanctions against any Chinese officials who interfere with the succession of the Dalai Lama.
And now, six months later, there is progress in Tibet. Starting tomorrow, Fuxing bullet trains will run in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region for the first time.
Good for Tibet! The US may have a bullet train someday, who knows. Not soon.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24 2021 21:08 utc | 61
Max 56
In Russia the fifth column has been effectively castrated. No need to hang them from lamp posts. A good part of what is Russia today is various freedoms including free speech. The US funded fifth column have been declared, I forget the actual wording at the moment, but something along the lines of foreign agents and must put this on all their publications. Due to the laws on foriegn funding of political/’civil service’ ngos ect many are either disintegrating and losing followers or breaking laws and getting put away. They are now a non entity in Russia due to those laws on foreign funding. A very effective means of countering them.
The other thing you will not see is either Russia or China crowing about victories. Ifd they were to do that, the enemy can longer back of off but must stay and fight to save face.
The Galwin valley indecent between China and India was a great example of that. In the weeks after I was able to find enough sat pics that along with Modi’s or announcement at the Indian meeting, to piece together what happened. There was also video on Indian media from the weeks leading up to the incident that showed Chinese with riot shields, no batons or any other form of weapons, and the Indians carrying wooden clubs.
The actual event was the Indians heading across to the Chines side to beat up the Chinese. They killed a few before support came and the the Chinese beat the shit out of the Indians with rocks, iron bars whatever, forcing the Indians back across the river at patrol point 14. It was five k’s back down the valley to their permanent quarters and they ran like rabbits, leaving their injured mates in that river and freezing mountain night to die. Modi’s ‘brave’ jawan.
Nothing on it from China, trying to wind things down, Indian media and politicians like rabid dogs, but although Modi is head of the political party of the delusional Hindutva sect of Indian nationalists, he at least had the sense to take it no further.
China could have crowed about their victory there but with the rabid anti china shit filling Indian media, full scale war along the border would have been inevitable. India would have been beaten, but in the process many Chinese would have been killed and injured, not to mention just the straight out economic cost of war, and that that would be playing directly into US hands.
The US will fight Russia and China to the last Ukrainian, to the last east european nazi to the last indian tiawanese japanese and australian. It must be very frustrate for those arseholes that they can’t make this happen.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 21:23 utc | 62
wikipedia says Australian Citizen’s Party is a Larouche outfit. A moment’s googling found the party website, which a moment’s reading gave me this: “For over 30 years, while collaborating with the international organization of the late U.S. statesman and physical economist Lyndon LaRouche, and the European based Schiller Institute chaired by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the Citizens Party has advocated for peace in the world through economic development and cooperation between sovereign nations, especially in our region.” This party is a political cult, probably funds itself with criminal scams if it closely imitates Larouche and is a cryptofascist crank embarrassment to humanity. I remember Larouche buying up half hour blocs on local TV stations to make a speech about a Mars colonization project as the driver for reindustrialization. Behind the scenes some of them were involved in creating/promoting Star Wars. Fusion energy was also one of their panaceas.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jun 24 2021 21:25 utc | 63
steven t johnson
wikipedia for political information ????? showing your class there stevo. They also have it on their website.
What I look at is policies, and for this time and place, foreign policy is the main one I look at.
Foriegn policy is an interesting one in US presidential elections. They don’t have it. No need for it I gues as that comes under war policy which is the US foreign policy. That was all candidates not just a few. Sheepdog sanders did at least make his “War and Peace” For the rest it was simply war policy.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 21:35 utc | 64
Being an internet hipster who thinks dissing someone for being so uncool as to start with wikipedia (but ignore the double checking!) really is no class at all.
Larouche was a sleaze and a crank and crook and generally despicable. His National Caucus of Labor Committees engaged in an anticommunist street fighting campaign. But this is basically a hard right site and commentariat, despite the occasional socialist veneer. So I guess it is appropriate Larouche is sold here.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jun 24 2021 21:46 utc | 65
Jen 57
I haven’t looked into them much other than looking through a number of policies. My main impression is of going back to pre-privatization type policies with infrastructure building banking and so forth.
10 years ago I would have looked into it a lot more and maybe get involved, but my health has gone downhill a lot since then.
They seem to have been around for sometime but I had not run across them which is why I thought I would put a link to their website here as a number of other Australians read this blog.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 21:53 utc | 66
Max | Jun 24 2021 18:49 utc | 41
Max, glad to help.
I take the view that the only agents in this world are people.
People act. People do right and wrong.
So I stick to talking about people.
QUEEN ELIZABETH controls the civil service.
The source of her power, the Treason Felony Act of 1848, is specific to “our most gracious lady The Queen”.
And through her control of the civil service she also controls Parliament.
The control centre is Buckingham Palace.
Have you ever looked at the size of that place? I read somewhere that it contains more than seven hundred offices. It is surrounded by the military. Take a look on Google.
It is also the place from which orders in council are issued on a daily basis.
The Order of the Garter is the personal property of QEII. She is the Sovereign of the order. She decides who joins. She administers the oath. She determines the statutes that must be followed.
It is like the privy council, where a quorum is three persons (one of which must be Her herself).
To talk about “the crown” is missing the point.
It is Queen Elizabeth, knowingly supported by her family and the rest of the Garters, who is doing all of this evil. Evil domestic, and evil international.
Posted by: John Cleary | Jun 24 2021 22:02 utc | 67
It is a good sign a political party is on the right track when the mere mention of it’s existence elicits an immediate weak strawman attack from the resident fascist gatekeeper!
Thanks for the info…I am not Australian but always looking for political organizations that can be used as a model. What we have here in the USA is rapidly collapsing, and after the dust settles something new will be needed.
Posted by: John B Stevens | Jun 24 2021 22:11 utc | 68
Look look! My three second jaunt to that institute of honest information known as Wikipedia suggests a vague overlap between Larouche and a minor political party…therefore MOA readers are far-right extremists. BTW, Clinton won the 2016 election, derp, derp.
If you don’t believe me I will talk in circles until you are dizzy in the head…don’t make me do it!
Posted by: NukeTheWorkingClass | Jun 24 2021 22:26 utc | 69
That someone happens to have a name stevo and is not someone who is simply concerned about what is going on in the world and society. That someone with a name comes here in the interests of those that cause the problems brought up here.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 22:28 utc | 70
@ Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 24 2021 20:44 utc | 58
When you’re transitioning from a superpower to a Third World country, you’re bound to be a sad story.
@ Posted by: Marxist | Jun 24 2021 20:32 utc | 55
Whatever makes you sleep better at night, but evidence shows the Bolsheviks didn’t treat Marxism as a religion at all.
@steven t johnson 27
It’s not about drag shows. It’s about denying observable, biological reality.
In Canada the MSM, government and health boards now write and say “pregnant people” because acknowledging that it’s the female of the species that gets pregnant and gives birth is apparently “anti trans”.
Do you think a man who ‘feels’ like he’s a woman in a man’s body is a woman like your mother and sister are women? Should this man be legally recognized as a woman and allowed, for example, to compete on women’s Olympic teams?
If you disagree or think it is completely illogical, you are obviously a bigot who hates trans people. [sarc tag]
That’s where we are at with this reality denying circus. It has nothing to do with drag, being gay or even trans rights and has everything to do with dividing and ruling the plebs and basically erasing womanhood as a meaningful category.
There are good people who have fallen for this stuff and believe it’s about equal rights. No, it’s not about that at all. Look into it a bit deeper and you’ll see that all the shaming and accusations of bigotry are in fact a textbook example of ‘gaslighting’. Don’t fall for it.
Posted by: Antibody | Jun 24 2021 22:47 utc | 73
Lyndon Larouche was definitely a sleaze and a crank. Flattering him with “anti communist street fighting” is a bit rich. The Larouchies once upon a time did attempt to infest any gathering of lefties. The cadres came across as something like Mormon missionaries in dark suits and white shirts. Glazed eyes and rhetoric. And FBI shoes. They were barely National, there was never a Caucus, they had zero connection whatever to Labor, there were no Committees. Just old Lyndon carrying on year after year. He did somehow manage to relieve various old ladies of some funds, most of the funding would have been from COINTELPRO and follow-ons. Just a con artist who was useful for a time. Government funding for such projects is eternal so lingering remnants can be found here and there.
If your reading ever connects to anything that mentions Lyndon or Helga, NCLC or Schiller Institute, you have found a government project. Just walk away. It was never real in 60s or 70s, it is emphatically not real now.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jun 24 2021 22:59 utc | 74
Posted by: librul | Jun 24 2021 19:13 utc | 45
Interesting find. I have a paywall defeat add-on, but it hasn’t been working too well lately.
Interesting to me because I was just reading this bit on a flap involving a US congresswoman and it goes into some of the numerous war crimes committed by the USSA and her proxies. One of them was the “Highway of Death” during the first invasion of Iraq in which I’m comfortable stating that at least 600 surrendering Iraqi soldiers as well as civilians that probably make overall count much higher were massacred by the US Army with planes and Bradley vehicles.
But now we’re supposed to re-think that, I guess since they found some bodies of Kuwaitis that I guess are supposed to be civilians (but couldn’t read the whole thing). Guess the moral equivalence thing only works in one direction for the Western elites. Saddam, Taliban, Hamas = BAD; USA, UK, NATO, Israel == GOOD!
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 24 2021 23:02 utc | 75
When my report for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was suppressed (submitted in 1994; suppressed in 1996), George Erasmus, the “Native” co-commissioner ranted that he’d “promised his mother” that he wouldn’t let anyone say anything bad about the Catholic Church. I wonder what he’d say today?
Posted by: Roland Chrisjohn | Jun 24 2021 23:06 utc | 76
steven t johnson #63
I get that you hate La Rouche and that any one even advocating ideas in any way similar or even the same is therefore a La Rouche cultist.
You have a problem so look into it and consider the world of ideas and human progress. We arrived at this place through the transmission/sharing of human ideas, ideals etc., combined with considered thought as to the value and acceptability of ideas and ideals.
It is disingenuous in the extreme to keep branding ideas that you personally disagree with as La Rouchian and cultist and then run back into your cave.
Please do not cite the propagandist wikipedia as a source it demeans your case and makes me laugh.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 24 2021 23:12 utc | 77
Peru is a window into the hard-baked caste systems of Latin America: the elites of which are welded to the imperial system of the time. In the 1500s, it was the lighter skinned Castillians from Spain (in spite of their mixed Arabic blood); Spain degraded and ceded to the U.S./Anglo and the Castillian caste in the imperial centers–Lima, in this case– re-configured and learned to love Miami along with Madrid, Rome, Paris, Berlin and London.
Pedro Castillo is a peon. His parents are illiterate, poor, they farm their tiny farm with oxen. barefoot. He wears a cowboy hat. He teaches 5th grade. He speaks for the Indigenous “untouchables”, the Quechua, Aymara, the peons outside Lima. The “professionals” and the professional wannabes are revolted by what he stands for. Peru has been a divided country for centuries. Now, the polarization will increase: people will feel pressured to choose a side. Bolivia will support the left which is the indigenous. Castillo will likely be allowed to assume the presidency and then the elites will attempt to block him and eventually push him out. Bottom line… up and coming elite “wannabes” will feel the pressure to choose. If a significant amount go with the left Peru will rise. If not it will continue to fall apart.
My guess: Peru will rise. The indigenous appear to be increasing and strengthening their street presence. Looks a lot like Bolivia.
https://orinocotribune.com/peru-a-president-elect-non-existent-fraud-a-fractured-country/
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Peru-Election-Board-Suspends-Member-Over-Conflict-of-Interests-20210624-0012.html
Posted by: migueljose | Jun 24 2021 23:33 utc | 78
Posted by: librul | Jun 24 2021 19:13 utc | 45
I am trying to read this article but you have to give them a credit card number before you can start your free 30-day trial.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/marie-colvin-iraq-war-report-uncovered-the-secret-grave-of-600-murdered-kuwaitis-7jl58mmrn
Post here what you are able from the article.
Posted by: pogohere | Jun 24 2021 23:39 utc | 79
@74 oldhippie – “If your reading ever connects to anything that mentions…”
Funnily enough, my reading did connect me once to the suggestion that LaRouche and/or his wife had proposed the BRI of China some time before China had. I didn’t get a chance to investigate any further on that one yet. But I have come across a few papers from that institute, and I found myself quite impressed.
I know nothing about the activities you cite, and nothing about any of the people involved in this organization. I had long ago absorbed the concept that they were fringe crazies – but I absorbed countless lies back then and I find I’ve had to review everything I was once told.
But the ideas, the recitals of facts, the diagnoses and proposals that I’ve glimpsed so far suggest to me a coherent body of thought devolving from LaRouche. And I just looked at Helga’s Twitter, and find that she tweets many of the people and views that we support here.
I would like to see LaRouche’s thought critiqued by any who might be familiar with it. It strikes me as being substantial enough to deserve that.
Posted by: Grieved | Jun 24 2021 23:51 utc | 80
I don’t see where anyone has provided a link to the video showing the pancaking of the Florida Condo building, so here it is and as you can see it occurs almost like the Twin Towers.
@ Don Bacon (#59),
Thanks for your response and your succinct statement. Maybe Russia and China will consistently share a similar statement.
Even that was my takeaway from listening to various discussions of Putin, Lavrov and others. However, I haven’t come across any official communication in the press releases or in the Russian media, and particularly contrasting it with the framing of the Empire. Please share articles or shareable content that can be used as validation of Russia’s position and vision, and contrasting in from a competitive frame. When engaging with Americans that view Russia and China negatively, their media position will help. Thanks in advance.
Neither did Vladimir Putin reiterate it in his summit press conference. Biden did reinforce Empire’s framing.
There was only an article from China’s Global Times where they framed U$A’s allies as “suzerain-vassal relationship.”
@ Peter AU1 (#62), agree with your last paragraph. The Empire won’t give up without a fight. This was Vladimir Putin’s conclusion too and he prepared Russia for it.
Posted by: Max | Jun 25 2021 0:00 utc | 82
Grieved 80
I too had seen the policies, infrastructure projects ect by LaRouche. It could be he or they was also a shyster when it comes to money, but if not, it would have been nothing for the CIA or their type set things up to look that way. Seems a bit odd for someone to put that much effort into looking into infrastructure projects to simply fleece people.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 25 2021 0:06 utc | 83
Peter AU 1 @ 58:
Anatoly Chubais was indeed the fellow in charge of privatising state companies in Russia in the mid-1990s and issuing vouchers to the public to buy shares in these companies was one part of the privatisation program.
Yes I’m aware that the ACP is philosophically linked to Lyndon LaRouche and his widow’s Schiller Institute but I should think most of us Australians here at the bar can decide for themselves how far they want to be involved with the ACP and on what basis.
All I can say about Steven T Johnson is that he had better not be a sleaze, a crank and all-round despicable person himself.
Posted by: Jen | Jun 25 2021 0:07 utc | 84
@ John Cleary (#67)
Thanks for clarifying the questions regarding the order of Garter.
Why aren’t China and Russia exposing this order and showing the world who are the real autocrats? This way they can debunk the “democracy” myth. China and Russia don’t challenge the Monetary Imperialism and its enslavement of the populace too. Do these nations have any members in the order?
China and Russia come across as passive in the information warfare.
Posted by: Max | Jun 25 2021 0:15 utc | 85
Honesty about Larouche has struck a nerve. Again, starting with wikipedia is common sense, double checking like I did is too. Also wikipedia is only a place to start looking up Australian Citizens’ Party.
I read Dialectical Economics by “Lyn Marcus,” a Larouche pseudonym meant to evoke Lenin and Marx. It was crackpot. That was almost fifty years ago, so the details are long gone, sorry. Nonetheless it is a far better source than anyone else has cited. Also crank were the Fusion Energy Foundation (I read some of their publications, caught unawares.) Also crank was Star Wars aka Strategic Defense Initiative. A review of Larouche in the olden days was the journalist Dennis King’s Lyndon Larouche and the New American Fascism.
oldhippie says Larouche is a government operation, but the idea that anybody and everybody can be a government operation is self-defeating. Also, it doesn’t explain why Larouche targeted Kissinger and the Queen of England. Explaining away embarrassing fellow travelers as secret agents may be fun but it still needs evidence. The evidence is that the Republican Party was and is full of far rightists with a weak grasp on reality, easy prey for swindling cultists like Larouche. As to the intimidation by NCLC goon squads being ineffective, my second-hand information is that it wasn’t terrifying. Not really the point though, is it? The real point is that Larouche was a virulent anti-Communist who *wanted* to beat up Commies.
My political sympathies and intellectual influences are fairly obvious to those familiar with the left and qualify me as a sleaze and a crank and an all-round despicable person, just like J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy and a host of other clergymen, policemen, politicians and fellow conservatives have said for years. Standing with Larouche just makes you look gullible. Sorry, it’s true.
Antibody@73 seems to think that being a woman is a simple biological reality, which generally means, believing nonsense about women’s minds being different. A separate kind of thing but equal in its value, except, to repeat myself, separate is *never* equal. Transwomen in sports? I don’t believe in capitalist sports, i.e., for money and don’t believe amateur sports is really a thing in the sense civic piety proclaims. I will say that there are people who do buy into crazy ideas about women’s souls and are horribly distressed by their very own bodies. This strikes me as very sad. The intense desire to beat up or even kill men who dress as women strikes me as beastly. It’s never self-defense. I think trans issues are puffed up out of all proportion, in terms of numbers. Further body dysphoria is confused with what used to be called “transvestism,” And I think given that the premise of trans that there are in fact essential (as in Aristotelian essences no less!) differences between men and women, like anarchism it tends to end moving right. Antibody’s moral panic over the idea that men and women are both human instead of two separate species is sad too, but I can’t cure that. I suspect the vogue for trans is cover for a groundswell against mere gay. And to a degree lesbian too, though lesbian chic is I think a real thing.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jun 25 2021 0:48 utc | 86
Max
One thing to remember is Russia and China don’t consider themselves as world policemen. China’s foreign policy is very peaceful and means at times they will take big hits and they accept this. Five-eyes attacking them in this I think will be different story.
Rule number one of war is deception and keeping an enemy in the dark or misled as to intentions.
There was a change at the meeting between the foreign ministers of China and Russia. Put in a supply of popcorn and wait for the main event to start.
I saw a bit of a doco on China’s policy in the middle east the other day. It was about the silk road running to the middle east, both old and new, of the muslim cultures of western China. China has good relations with all countries in the middle east and trades with and invests in all of them. The goal there is to pull people out of poverty to make them less susceptible to extremism. To take some of the anger out of the area to allow parties to begin negotiating with each. China is also in the position to be able to mediate or communicate between them. It is about bringing peace.
Perhaps that’s not for everyone, but that is China.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 25 2021 0:51 utc | 87
You talk about believers and things that went “wrong” that cannot even be quantified.
Which is the ultimate precursor to any science in the enlightenment sense. (Remember, Materialist? Matter first, look at it closely, quantify, then try to determine or examine mode of being or reality? Exactly: replicable or even nameable quantification not possible with key marxist axioms)
Truuu believers make a vocabulary game and say all marx is science and all not marx is not science.
But that’s not even the common sense definition the inventors of marxist thought used or based their hypotheses on.
Marxist thought is holistically driven by the (christian) eschatological idea to be in control of human history and dynamically escape humanity’s faith. Form it, transcend it, even leave it all behind. (Because original sin!)
Only the correct conduct in this world would matter, and Humanity would “scientifically”, even “mathematically” transcend into the place Jesus told us, ahem, a weird image of a historical Marx.
As with every real religion/belief system, it makes the adherent feel superior, furthers group thinking and helps the individual live better.
Only caveat is that it absolutely filters out psychopaths, as every political system, but in marxism, psychopaths have not only plausible deniability, but even encouragement to make no sense and just “get shit done” without ethics behind the curtain of dialectics.
Marxism is a not well tested new faith (in terms of time), with little well canonized sacred script.
Also any marxist clergy does not have much systemacity in itself, as the precise thought doctrine does not, either.
Whoever says marxist thought and thinking isn’t a religion must only exchange that vocabulary to “belief system”. The entire system of thought is not scientific in the common sense sense (of the inventors, even) and it is not tested in terms of time.
Posted by: ccFNORD | Jun 25 2021 0:52 utc | 88
China runs well because they collectively run away from real bad recent poverty.
Also inherent cultural scientific racism helps with nationwide kit and confidence.
Marxism is code for politics.
It being weird and not understandable is a feature, not a bug.
Like any text or system used for legitimizing purposes, it shouldn’t be understood by the masses.
Posted by: Chinist | Jun 25 2021 1:16 utc | 89
Re; Down South @ 34 It’s about the use of an ideology to fracture both a society and .. it’s military. [the purpose of the fracture [divide and conquer] process is] to keep [the members of the fractured society] ..distracted from the ongoing … irreversible collapse, ..
<=While I agree the American society is deeply fractured I do not agree the purpose of fracture is to hide collapse, but instead the purpose is to hide the extraction of the entire wealth of the target nation state. Collapse eventually comes to the nation state, not because of a failure of the theives, but because the nation state has no wealth or resources remaining.
from Karlof1 @ 39 ..thanks, my take is =>: the chief complaint is that independent Western powers declare they have the right to] both divide the world into two artifical camps [“democracies vs autocracies.”] .. and to impose standards .. which everyone must follow.
Karlof1 @ 43 responds to AU 1 @ 31.. Fed policy since Greenspan will cause a collapse greater than 1929-1940 <= Agree, this is part of the plan to completely bankrupt USA governed America just as was done to Britain.. Bretwood..
Steven t johnson @ 46 i cannot agree the major polarizers of society between the owners and the owned are centured cultures and mercenary military mentality. Polar separation of societies usually occurs when governments create ways to bequeath public property to the ownership of private parties. Land ownership, ownership of the expressions of the mind of mankind, and owership of the creations of art produced by the imagination of mankind are captured into the nation state created private property laws (private ownership of copyright, patent, and land). These laws create monopoly powers which are distributed in feudal fashion to private owners.
There is no greater separator of society and its wealth than private ownership by one in the mist of a crowd of many.
Peter AU1 @ 51.. ' A sudden break in trade with the US means a big hit to Chinese manufacturers. ' <== such a break would destroy USA governed Americans, governed Americans would not be able to buy computers, food, or many pieces of heavy equipment.. massive inflation and scarity of supplies would be the result?
J. Cleary @ 67 The control centre is Buckingham Palace<= and the Pentagon.
Posted by: karlof1 @ 81 "I don't see where anyone has provided a link to the video showing the pancaking of the Florida Condo building, so here it is and as you can see it occurs almost like the Twin Towers." Not likely a coverup for genocide somewhere? The news said the annual structural inspections pointed to soil crepe under weight .. 2 mm per year..
Posted by: Snake | Jun 25 2021 1:33 utc | 90
steven t johnson #86
Your arguments in defence are ridiculous. No one is “standing with LaRouche” and you stating that completely reveals the false frame up operation that you do. You are smearing by association, indulging in cancel culture by association and you are a fake propagandist for the right.
The other site you could start at for information about the Australian Citizens Party is their website! You could read their policies, they might seem a little socialist lite or a tad nationalist and yes that might coincide with something akin to Karl Marx or even Michael Hudson regarding national/civilian economic theory. Maybe LaRouche had some ideas that were common to that as well but then so might Idi Amin, Bernie Sanders, FDR, the Pharaohs, the Venetian rulers, the Haitians ~ that does not make them LaRouche cultists.
Your attempts to assert cancel culture hysterics in the thread are really very silly.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 25 2021 1:50 utc | 91
Posted by: Max | Jun 25 2021 0:15 utc
“Why aren’t China and Russia exposing this order and showing the world who are the real autocrats?”
Elizabeth bears lineage from, amongst others, Armenian, Arab, British, Chinese, Cuman, Danish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Monégasque, Norwegian, Old Prussian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, and Yugoslavian ethnicities.
https://www.geni.com/projects/Ancestors-of-Queen-Elizabeth-II/13383
The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III of England in 1348. It is the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system, outranked in precedence only by the Victoria Cross and the George Cross. The Order of the Garter is dedicated to the image and arms of Saint George, England’s patron saint.
Compare the George Cross medallion with the center depicting the effigy of St George and the Dragon, with the coat of arms of the Russian Federation.
Posted by: Agin | Jun 25 2021 2:08 utc | 92
Xerxes Biden has walked in to his first brutal loss: Afghanistan.
Just as the englanders did in the 1800’s, the USAi is setting the stage for a rerun of the retreat from Kabul. There will be no shortage of actors to fill Elphinstone’s small boots. Perhaps the leader of the Turkish garrison at the Kabul international airport sees himself as that heroic clown.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 25 2021 2:12 utc | 93
@ 81Karlof1
This is what happens when you pivot to Asia instead of rebuilding your infrastructure. It is also what happens when you gut safety and deregulate.
It was known years ago the ground under that building was sinking rapidly, with one side sinking faster than the other…much of South Florida is sinking…Miami is a goner and will be swallowed by the sea in my lifetime.
Just more symptoms of a rapidly collapsing Empire heading towards third world status.
Posted by: Jason | Jun 25 2021 2:28 utc | 94
The Russian voucher privatization scheme: I thought that was the work of the Harvard boys, Jeffrey Sachs and some protege of Larry Summers. “Shock therapy” as they call it.
Posted by: Robert Macaire | Jun 25 2021 3:21 utc | 95
@ Agin (#92),
Thanks for the insights. So Russia is connected to the UK? Is this the reason that Russia fought on the British side in both world wars? Didn’t Tzar in 1917 was hoping to move to Britain?
So the world wars were family feud or ending small empires to build a private global empire?
Based on the suffering and enslavement of people this order doesn’t seem to have conscience and integrity? Why call it Noble? Why not call it an EVIL order?
Posted by: Max | Jun 25 2021 3:22 utc | 96
Max
I take it you know but the great powers of pre revolution Europe married into the royalty of other great powers to create alliances and so forth but still they would pick a team and go to war. Napoleon was a bit like Trump, an outsider so the whole gang was after him.
I wish I knew where to look for it now but a meeting between Macron and Putin. Macron said something along the lines of Russia being a backwards country back whenever, so Putin’s Reply was to bring up and recount the history of a French queen, that she was Russian and he gave a bit of french history of that time and I think something about the culture she brought to France. It was quite a good put down of Macron.
The royalty all being related and there schemes was probably one of the drivers of the French and the Russian revolutions. Brits were a bit smarter than the Russian and French royalty and they always gave out just enough line to stop the peasants revolting.
That fishing line was called democracy. Now with the collapse of the Soviet Union and total control of the media, dangers of the peasants revolting past, that line is being quickly reeled back in.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jun 25 2021 3:41 utc | 97
:So the world wars were family feud or ending small empires to build a private global empire?”
—
Posted by: Max | Jun 25 2021 3:22 utc | 96
Pretty much a family feud, yep. Although quite a lot of others jumped in. Quite self-destructive too. And as the fellow said (Talleyrand?) “they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”
Many of our US “elites” have and treasure such connections too. European aristos have always been, uh, decadent, and traded wives back and forth and so on. A sorry lot, really.
Posted by: Bemildred | Jun 25 2021 3:49 utc | 98
Re: Florida building collapse.
In the early 1980s, I was studying theater design and we were kind of in that transition period between traditional flats (muslin covered lumber frames) and Hollywood flats (heavy Masonite over lumber frames) and there was a lot of experimentation. As a result we built one show out of a new material we had found- a load-bearing heavy one-inch corrugated cardboard that had been treated with some waterproofing. It could be cut with a table saw and was a fraction of the weight and cost of plywood. It was an interesting experience, but we didn’t repeat the process (The cardboard was hard to reuse and didn’t take paint the same.)One of the set carpenters though was an older guy who built condos in Florida in the summer. He said they were using that corrugate in condos all along the coast.
When I saw that building pancake on the news today, I knew it had to be from the 80s. Maybe it was one my fellow student’s.
Posted by: val | Jun 25 2021 3:57 utc | 99
@ Peter AU1 (#97) & Bemildred (#98), thanks for your insights.
In their lust for power these monarchs have sacrificed too many innocent lives. Greed is a bottomless pit.
Peasants’ revolt case study is taught in the leadership classes of U$A’s military academy. I don’t understand why our military people don’t learn from it and stop being played. Maybe they learn wrong things. We won’t let them betray us this time.
All palaces need to be turned into Airbnb units. Let’s see how China and Russia play the game. Time will tell.
Posted by: Max | Jun 25 2021 4:29 utc | 100