The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-078
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
- Oct 4 - U.S. Government Provides Another Trove Of Offshore Papers Of People It Dislikes
Related:
- Pandora Papers: Every US state-funded exposé on the lavish lives of elites is about Russia & Putin, even when he’s not mentioned - RT
- Czech PM Andrej Babis loses close election amid Pandora Papers scandal - UPI
- Oct 5 - CIA Laments About Loss Of Spies In Russia And Elsewhere
Related:
- CIA will focus on China with new mission center - CNN
- Oct 7 - How The 'China is a Threat' Fake News Cycle Works
Related:
- What Biden’s Top China Theorist Gets Wrong - Lawfare Blog
- The US cannot defend Taiwan, and China knows it - Scott Ritter / RT
- Starting a Fire’: U.S. and China Enter Dangerous Territory Over Taiwan - NYT
- Oct 9 - The U.S. Wants Back Into Afghanistan
Related:
- Taliban say they won’t work with US to contain Islamic State - AP
- U.S. holds first direct talks with Taliban since withdrawal - Washington Post
> Placing Deputy CIA Director David Cohen at the head of the U.S. team, which also includes the State Department’s deputy Afghanistan envoy, Tom West, and a representative from the U.S. Agency for International Development, was intended to emphasize that point and to lead to discussions on terrorism. <
----
Other issues:
Covid Delta Variant of Concern (VoC):
- 'The virus has become smarter': COVID variants causing more severe disease, Canadian study shows - National Post
> People infected with the variants were, on average, younger, but still had higher risks of hospitalization and ICU admissions. With Delta infections, the risk of hospitalization was 108 per cent higher, admission to intensive care was 235 per cent higher and death, 133 per cent higher. <
- Research Evaluation of the relative virulence of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants: a retrospective cohort study in Ontario, Canada - Canadian Medical Association Journal
- Data from Iran:
Mahan Ghafari | ماهان غفاری @Mahan_Ghafari - 16:51 UTC · Oct 7, 2021
2/ a particularly worrying sign that natural infection didn't do much to stop the spread in many provinces despite several waves of infection.
Another key finding was that the estimated IFR increased by a factor of ~2 over the course of the epidemic (from wave 1 to 5).
Use as open thread ...
Posted by b on October 10, 2021 at 14:20 UTC | Permalink
next page »Soon, all USSA (and other) food will be grown on CIA/Microsoft/Windows owned farmland. It's feudalism 10.1
"What Biden’s Top China Theorist Gets Wrong" calls for an article entitled "What the author of 'What Biden’s Top China Theorist Gets Wrong' got wrong."
American propaganda has become so engrained in the Washington narrative that nobody understands it is propaganda anymore.
Posted by: Ghost Ship | Oct 10 2021 15:31 utc | 3
@3 I'm curious how they plan to deal with the 100 million or so very well armed, non-vaxxed people occupying much of that farmland right now?
Like all comic book super villain plans, it seems they didn't think this one through very well as per usual. I presume it is the usual scenario: Step 1, create chaos. Step 2, ? Step 3, profit!
Posted by: Krungle | Oct 10 2021 15:33 utc | 4
Thanks b, for your efforts. Re Bellingcat - thanks for that Gray Zone article - it's good to peel back the layers of 'honest brokers' to see the rot that permeates everything Empire touches.
Re food production etc.... it's too bad things like Covid (purposely) divide us as we slouch toward a Billionaire's dystopia that makes the work of Orwell and Huxley look tame.
You will own nothing. Especially not your mind.
Posted by: gottlieb | Oct 10 2021 15:34 utc | 5
Long time no post, been busy with video games.
This China-Taiwan tension is worrying to say the least.
Global Times Op-Ed seem more hotheaded than usual.
Posted by: Smith | Oct 10 2021 15:35 utc | 6
Talking of propaganda imbedded in the Washington narrative, this is how it happens:
Taliban say they won’t work with US to contain Islamic State
Now the Taliban looks pro-Islamic State when the truth imbedded later in the article is that the Taliban believes it is capable to tackling Islamic State itself without the dubious support that the US might provide given its own previous "support" for Islamic State.
Posted by: Ghost Ship | Oct 10 2021 15:41 utc | 8
Interesting read by Tom Luongo.
There is no Agenda 2030 on the horizon if Germans freeze to death in their homes or get decimated by COVID-9/11 because they can’t afford to heat their homes.This will crush France and Macron, overthrow Davos at the mid-terms here in the states and break the European Union in the process.
Germany is the lynchpin to the entire Davos edifice. Without a compliant and beaten Germany there is no further Great Reset. A Germany that breaks from the euro becomes a Germany that realigns with Russia and Eastern Europe. It’s a Germany no longer hell bent on internal European mercantilism and the establishment of the Fourth Reich through the EUSSR.
The German people keep asking for that policy to end but aren’t given the options by their leadership to make that happen. Then again, they keep giving their leadership just enough power to forestall their having to make a real decision. That decision is coming at them, fast.
As it is everyone across the West in various guises.
So, as as Powell under extreme pressure to go full MMT retard with five little basis points, Putin, with a few million BTUs of gas, is forcing open fault lines in the aristocracy that thinks it deserves to run the world. Together, if they simply sit back and continue to do nothing, can bring down the whole rotten edifice.
European Energy Crisis — And is That Gas You Think You’re Burning?
Posted by: Down South | Oct 10 2021 16:00 utc | 9
What about the cut of electricity supply in several German regions, due the bankrupt of some electric giants?
I am surprised you have not noticed here, since always so informed...there are millions without electricity in Germany right now, like in Lebanon btw, and this seems just a maneuver by the elites to justify a sudden turn to much more expensive "green energy", which is what is needed to promote The Greens to the coalition government along SPD to fullfil the 2030 agenda
https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1446444984782266372
Posted by: Black bread | Oct 10 2021 16:11 utc | 10
went and looked at that shitty right wing rag - the national post which you linked to in the covid article, to see what stupid headlines they had... they didn't disappoint! it's why i never read that paper!
top headline -
'No illusions:' Taiwan president says country refuses to bow to China
Posted by: james | Oct 10 2021 16:16 utc | 11
This was in the links at NC recently:
It's about Obama's family and its possible (probable?) links with the CIA (including the Geithner family).
The way Obama was sold to us was a masterpiece of marketing. Should be a case study in all serious business schools.
Posted by: Robert Macaire | Oct 10 2021 16:23 utc | 12
I am concerned about the inclusion of Mahan Ghafari's research on the basis that it is a preprint and hasn't been peer reviewed and is not balanced with preprints that do not support the pro-Covid-19 narrative. Also, I find the estimates questionable and alarmist and the research emanates from Oxford rather than an Iranian institute. Ghafari's research, if accepted, is, by implication, damning of Iran and the help they received from, I believe, both Russia and China
Regardless, this propaganda has been going on for quite a while, see Excess deaths associated with the Iranian COVID-19 epidemic: a province-level analysis (also authored by Mahan Ghafari, dated December 2020 on Researchgate.net) which makes much the same points. However, in this particular report I am struck by this comment:
"We also detected unexpectedly high levels of excess mortality during fall 2019 (from 23 September to 21 December 2019) across 18 provinces. Our findings suggest that this spike cannot be a result of an early cryptic transmission of COVID-19 across the country and is also inconsistent with the molecular phylogenetics estimates for the start of the pandemic and its arrival to Iran. However, in the absence of appropriate surveillance data for detecting severe acute respiratory infections we were unable to make a determination as to what caused the spike in fall 2019."
So the excess deaths from 23rd September to 21st December 2019 are nothing to do with Covid-19 whereas the excess deaths from 22nd December 2019 are due to Covid-19. Talk about having your cake and eating it!
Posted by: ADKC | Oct 10 2021 16:29 utc | 13
@Black bread #11
It isn't just Germany...
In Global Energy Crisis, Anti-Nuclear Chickens Come Home to Roost
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered companies owning backup diesel generators to operate them nonstop when electricity demand is high in order to avoid rolling blackouts. In Britain, exploding natural gas prices have shuttered factories and bankrupted power companies, and threaten to cause food shortages. Germany meanwhile is set for the biggest jump in greenhouse emissions in 30 years due to surging use of coal for power generation, which the country depends on to back up weather-dependent wind and solar energy and fill the hole left by its shuttered nuclear plants.
This is the result of Energiewende and its 520 billion euro price tag?
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 10 2021 16:51 utc | 14
Tsai’s 'Double Ten' speech is a carefully choreographed performance: Global Times editorial
The GT Ed is correct in calling Tsai's speech "a farce". As a historian, there's one piece of information that gives it away: that the speech was done in an air force base (in Hsinchu - this information later mysteriously vanished from the media, and only appears on Google cached versions). If Tsai - and, therefore, the DPP - had the unconditional support of the Taiwanese population, she would've made the speech on "national" (i.e. provincial) television, preferably from a well-known and public and crowded place, so as to give morale and amp up the masses for total war.
But since she gave the speech in a controlled and closed place (an air force base), that means a combination of these two factors: 1) she can't fathom the entire Taiwanese population fully mobilizing for a total war against China, therefore she's just giving the usual call for mobilization of the professional military personnel and/or 2) she's (therefore also the DPP) not so popular with the Taiwanese population as the Western media portraits to be. Sure, the DPP is a major party in Taiwan, but it probably is not the 97% popular support party the CPC is. In this second factor also falls the expectation of "America is coming to save the day", because, is she's counting with a foreign empire to serve as her benefactor, it is implied she doesn't have even close to enough popular support in the island province.
Another factor that indicates she's a farce is the fact that her most recent interview (the one she used the adjective "Western" to describe Taiwan) was published in the rarefied, elitist and specialized magazine Foreign Affairs - not in a major opinion-making mass newspaper in the USA like the NYT or the WaPo. Well, if she - and the American elite - thought her position would be so popular with the American population in general, her interview would be published and widely talked upon by those public-opinion-maker newspapers. No American (except if you are from the political elite) reads Foreign Affairs.
--//--
No time for US’ James Bond theatrics – let’s talk recoupling, China’s envoy Qin Gang says
Envoy Qin is correct. The fact is: the West has become so good on propaganda warfare (polished by decades of Cold War) that they started to believe themselves in their own propaganda. As a result, it seems their approach to foreign policy came directly from a Hollywood movie or tv series.
--//--
India military learned nothing from last year’s clash: observers
Speaking of farces, India is probably the greatest farce of capitalism in the 21st Century.
China started to develop its Western provinces as a natural consequence of socialist development. There is a village on the Chinese side of the border in that region, which started to be developed. The Indians, probably to avoid envy from their side of the border, made an incursion to the Chinese side of the border in order to try to trigger some kind of war in order to both stop Chinese socialist development in its most poor and isolated regions and to, maybe, start a war to conquer the entire Tibetan Plateau.
This bizarre plan - clearly made out of desperation - obviously didn't work, even the USA not taking India's side on this.
--//--
The collapse of First World capitalism:
Life expectancy gap in England ‘a growing chasm’ exacerbated by Covid
The West has no one to feed: it is waiting for salvation from Russia, by Valery Mikhailov, for Ria Novosti
Empty shelves across the UK amid reports one in three lorries on roads are empty
Just one observation on the EU gas fiasco: when I talked about the Green Party in this blog some weeks ago, I had a theory that Baerbock had to improvise her anti-NS-2 narrative with an 11th-hour interpolation in order to save face at the gates of the elections. Now, observing the what the EU itself is talking and also the USA, I think I was proved right: those motherfuckers simply didn't know a gas price spike could happen at all; their team of "experts" and political geniuses were completely blindsided by this. Russia has them by the balls now.
--//--
Meanwhile, far from the kabuki that is American domestic politics, capitalism continues to be capitalism:
Coca-Cola bottler invests 900 mln yuan in China's Henan
You know those op-eds in the NYT talking about a "labor crunch" and a wages rise in the USA? That's Keynesian bullshit.
The American successful companies know where the good labor power and good infrastructure and governance are. They're not willing to throw some dozen billions down the drain in some random factory in the Midwest, where infrastructure is shitty and the labor force is meth/heroin-addicted and of low quality and morale.
--//--
Speaking of Keynesians:
Stop the Debt Ceiling Nonsense, NYT Editorial Board
Neoliberalism was already dead (after the humiliation of September 2008). Now, with this NYT-EB, the epitaph finally came out.
The problem isn't in the fact that Neoliberalism is dead - that's good news. The problem is that, with neoliberalism's death, the (Post-)Keynesians (MMTers and friends) think they've come back. That's the dangerous path the USA seems to have chosen, one that will certainly lead to endless decline.
--//--
Xinhua Commentary: Why bearish takes on China's economy always proven wrong?
The obvious answer to this is that the Western economists are bourgeois, therefore they use capitalist metrics to try to measure a socialist economy.
The other factor is that the West is going through a process that I like to call "imbecilization", which describes the process where an empire or civilization goes through a path of intellectual degeneration and decline, alongside economic degeneration. This is a normal process in History, and it's inevitable.
Speaking of the imbeciles at Bellingcat, people here will probably know that this outfit has been branded as a "foreign agent" by the Russian Federation last week. I think that was long overdue and should prevent some international organizations, like the OPCW, from relying on the crap Bellingcat puts out. Because the organizations in question still need some degree of acceptance by Russia, acceptance Russia can now officially refuse to give if any of those organizations invoke Bellingcat "information".
What I found particularly noteworthy: this latest Russian move has not been mentioned in German state media at all. Both "Tagesschau" and "Heute" seem to have quietly avoided the subject. You'd think that they would have welcomed the Russian move against their darling Bellingcat to further portray Russia as evil, authoritarian, oppressive etc. But no, not this time!
Something else that hasn't made it into official state news in Germany: the latest exchange in the OPCW over the Navalny fairy tale. Russia asked some rather serious questions and made some demands. No efforts at exploitation for propaganda purposes by Germany, not even hidden away on the homepage of our State Department.
I'm wondering, is the propaganda machine down for maintenance in the interim between two governments, after recent elections?
Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Oct 10 2021 17:20 utc | 16
"Creative destruction" is, in capitalism, the birth of a new company from the bankruptcy of a business.
When I look at US and EU policy it seems their goal is the birth of a new political system from the moral bankruptcy of the current ideologies.
Posted by: Passerby | Oct 10 2021 17:24 utc | 17
Ghost Ship @ 9 Taliban say they won’t work with US to contain Islamic State
does this propaganda fit the structure that defines the mind control technique used by those who have monopoly power of the media (PIGOs private imperial global oligarch).
<==inversion.. <=protected space or interest< infringement <=propaganda <= distribution to target audience.
inversion <=here Mulsim are seen as the imperialist.
protected space or interest <= here it is Afghanistan political and religious system
infringement <=claim Muslim will invade and violate a protected interest that does not exist.
propaganda <=the claim and facts which support the claim are produced into propaganda (a report).
distribution <= a headline and short summary about the report is made known to the target audience but the report often is not made easily available to the audience.
lets see the inversion is that the protected space is non Muslim, the invaders (infringers of the protected space) are the Muslims. the claim and facts reduced to content and packaged into propaganda is a claim the Taliban will not work with the US, to contain Islamic State
Posted by: snake | Oct 10 2021 17:57 utc | 18
The review published by Lawfare - “What Biden’s Top China Theorist Gets Wrong” - is a product of The Quincy Institute, which hosts the Responsible Statecraft website, a home for the “realist” school of American foreign policy wonks. Certainly part of the mainstream - I.e. the Institute receives funding from the Iikes of Rockefellers, Ford Foundation and Open Society - the “realists” have had little post-war influence other than being often correct in analysis of the pitfalls of US belligerence. Their position today, a subtext of the review, is that the US should accept the soft-landing out of its now unsustainable hegemonic ambitions offered them by their strategic rivals - a responsible and realistic stance. However, as long as the US can always blunder through its overreach, the realist school will be politely read and ignored in favour of policies which ensure large national security budgets, a situ which has been baked into the US polity since the late 1940s. Hard landing ahead, maybe by end of this decade, and then they’ll try to take everyone else down with the ship.
Posted by: jayc | Oct 10 2021 17:58 utc | 19
So the excess deaths from 23rd September to 21st December 2019 are nothing to do with Covid-19 whereas the excess deaths from 22nd December 2019 are due to Covid-19. Talk about having your cake and eating it!
Posted by: ADKC | Oct 10 2021 16:29 utc | 14
A safe assumption is that the excess deaths are from sanctions not covid-19. The sanctions did'nt stop when covid started, so they have to be subtracted from the alleged covid excess deaths.
Posted by: BM | Oct 10 2021 18:26 utc | 20
"They're not willing to throw some dozen billions down the drain in some random factory in the Midwest, where infrastructure is shitty and the labor force is meth/heroin-addicted and of low quality and morale."
vk | Oct 10 2021 17:08 utc | 16
Here we go again. First, thank you again for your great analysis. Here I do a sanity check rather than a fact check of any depth.
How bad is the drug problem in the US Midwest?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/midwest-states
65 of 350
0.1857142857 of the population lives there.
18%
https://www.opioidhelp.com/epidemic/midwest-opioid-abuse/
9,853 of 40,000 =
0.246325 of opioid deaths occur there.
25%
I am the last one to minimize the seriousness of addiction and while there is some truth to this characterization I find it is also overblown.
I would agree there are issues with morale and skills training. The economy is bad which drives these things.
What's perhaps more revelant is that this belief is fairly common to the detriment of an already struggling region. vk isn't the only person holding these views.
Empathy is a strength vk. Easy does it friend.
Posted by: David G Horsman | Oct 10 2021 18:50 utc | 21
"So the excess deaths from 23rd September to 21st December 2019 are nothing to do with Covid-19 whereas the excess deaths from 22nd December 2019 are due to Covid-19. Talk about having your cake and eating it!"
ADKC | Oct 10 2021 16:29 utc | 14
This is the THIRD time I have heard this canard used with Covid911. It's getting old by now. Sigh.
The first time concerned the mysterious disappearance of all cold and flu last year. Why it was a miracle I tell you.
Posted by: David G Horsman | Oct 10 2021 19:05 utc | 22
@ Posted by: David G Horsman | Oct 10 2021 18:50 utc | 22
Relax, man. It's just an obiter dictum and doesn't affect my overall argument. This is not a serious scientific forum, just a blog comment section, we can make light-hearted jokes and other less rigorous observations.
--//--
@ Posted by: BM | Oct 10 2021 18:26 utc | 21
Your observation doesn't make any logical sense. We can make many critiques of Western civilization - but incapacity to gather reliable statistics is not one of them.
The USA (or any other major Western nation, for that matter) has a reliable national/state death certificate system and data collection. For all practical purposes, there's no reason not to trust these kind of sources. Your argument would be valid up to the end of the 19th Century, but not in 2021.
@ Posted by: David G Horsman | Oct 10 2021 19:05 utc | 23
Here are the flu statistics for the USA, up to 2019-2020 (that is, they're updated):
Past Seasons Estimated Influenza Disease Burden
The 2019-2020 flu numbers are within the historical range. I don't see any abnormality here.
All the China tough talk must be making the Taliban laugh very hard.
With respect to virus variants... not having confidence in what either side is claiming... biology / science / history say that viruses generally get more contagious but less harmful.
Posted by: Rae | Oct 10 2021 19:52 utc | 25
The roots of Trudeau’s embarrassing Venezuela policy
Why is Canada still humiliating itself on the world stage by persisting in its regime change efforts against Venezuela?
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-roots-of-trudeaus-embarrassing-venezuela-policy
Our establishment news media and ostensible opposition parties never go into any of this. Better to keep the electorate in the dark in our "democracy" that is really a plutocracy.
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Oct 10 2021 20:00 utc | 26
Chronicles of Democracy.
It is reported that three American Marines, employees of the US Embassy in Moscow, in a Moscow cafe stole a backpack from child psychologist Dmitry Kornilov, who, according to him, came to the capital's bar in the evening "after a hard day's work."
The investigation has a video of how the Americans enter the US Embassy building with a stolen backpack.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that representatives of the US Embassy, who were suspected of stealing a backpack in Moscow, left Russia.
DOUBLE FACEPALM.
European Energy Crisis — And is That Gas You Think You’re Burning?
Posted by: Down South | Oct 10 2021 16:00 utc | 10
The link is to an article with a lot of invective, but scant amount of facts. The author is a gold bug who could not tell natural gas from soot in the coal furnace -- at least is careful to hide any knowledge. The few facts he mentions are wrong. E.g. "The hidden purpose of 3rd Energy Directive was to oppose a single supplier, Gazprom". If the author spend the last few years under a rock, or with his entire attention directed at the prices of precious metals, that could be hidden, but in fact, it was very loud in discussions on the directive, and the combination of rigid requirements with grandfather clauses was overtly designed.
Many basic aspects of the "gas crisis" are omitted from the press, at least from our side of paywalls, hence it could help the public to know a journalist who posts them.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Oct 10 2021 20:44 utc | 28
The roots of Trudeau’s embarrassing Venezuela policy
Why is Canada still humiliating itself on the world stage by persisting in its regime change efforts against Venezuela?
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-roots-of-trudeaus-embarrassing-venezuela-policy
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Oct 10 2021 20:00 utc | 27
Trudeau is innovative* in finding ways to humiliate himself, but his policies on Venezuela, China, and I bet on many other foreign issues are not among them. How many folks in Canada care? How many folks abroad are surprised that the country plays a faithful dog (the breed in dispute, Labrador, Foundland? Chihuahua?).
-----
Perhaps the most generous interpretation for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s waiting—fully over a third of a minute, time it—to answer a reporter’s question at a press conference in the capital last Tuesday comes from that reporter’s own outlet: “long.” [...]
The scene outside the Prime Minister’s residence that late-summer day in Ottawa was about as remarkable as any stock photo. At the foot of the steps leading up to the porch flanked by generic green shrubs, symmetrically framed by quaint white railings, insert politician here: at lectern, talking head. Perhaps the only difference in this case being that Trudeau’s coif had just the right amount of shaggy growth to be indelibly COVID-style.
But then came a question from the CBC’s Tom Parry that was followed by...nothing. No answer. And the scene suddenly changed.
“You’ve been reluctant to comment on the words and actions of the U.S. President,” Parry began, “but we do have Donald Trump now calling for military action against protestors. We saw protestors tear-gassed yesterday, to make way for a presidential photo-op. I’d like to ask you what you think about that.” Hastening to add: “And if you don’t want to comment, what message do you think you’re sending?”
It was then we noticed the chirping birds.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Oct 10 2021 20:54 utc | 29
More signs of what is to come:
supply chains disrupted through to 2023?
Even as Crews abandoned on abandoned ships
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 10 2021 20:56 utc | 30
"Our establishment news media and ostensible opposition parties never go into any of this. Better to keep the electorate in the dark in our "democracy" that is really a plutocracy." Canadian Cents @27
There is so much, foreign and domestic, that our establishment news media and ostensible opposition parties never go into. Very sad.
Posted by: spudski | Oct 10 2021 21:19 utc | 31
@ vk
Fascinating to watch the epidemic of 'shortages' across the world. You may like this one too. In Australia we are facing a teacher-crisis: school-leavers rightly see high-school teaching——once one of the most respected middle class professions in Australia——as a dead-end. Why? My wife, a senior English-History teacher, could tell you: low-paid relative to other sectors by education and experience, overworked, shortages force teachers to cover areas outside their expertise, increasingly dangerous, compelled to act as unqualified counsellors, and in regional areas chronic shortages see teachers working 75+ hr weeks.
Meanwhile, governments hollow out education and underfund teacher supply. This forces universities to cut entry requirements to boost demand, producing poorly-trained, sub-par inexperienced 22-yr olds who quickly become disillusioned with the job and leave. Stress levels and despair are widespread; even in elite private schools teachers are poorly remunerated relative to comparable professions in the private sector. Meanwhile, as public education declines those with means shift into private or Catholic education. In the 1970s 85% of high-school students attended free public schools (my parents paid $70/yr in fees!); today the figure would be around 60%. Yet these very elite private and Catholic schools are recipients of public subsidies to the tune of $100sM a year, while public schools decay. And so the cycle continues.
I see parallels with the truck-driver shortages. It seems as though most of the shortages are exacerbated by the decoupling of the real economy from the fictional one: while asset prices soar, wage and salary earners find their incomes stagnate. Young people see no future in employment that will exclude them from home-ownership and the middle class security taken for granted by their parents. So who will do these jobs in the future? We know that neoliberal governments will not solve these problems by a return to public investment, rather they will Uberize the labour market, forcing low-paid sub-contractors into the professions thereby accelerating the decline of the middle class. This is happening in public universities too. All these consequences are not a failure of first world capitalism; it is capitalism functioning normally to produce 'creative destruction'. There will be a slow but bitter harvest.
Posted by: Patroklos | Oct 10 2021 21:36 utc | 32
I find it remarkable that experts who were unable to foresee today's natural gas prices are able to forecast when natural gas consumption will peak.
Posted by: Passerby | Oct 10 2021 21:50 utc | 33
Posted by: Patroklos | Oct 10 2021 21:36 utc | 33
All this just in time logistics buffoonery just makes your supply chain brittle, it will collapse in every crisis. If you want "resilience" you have to pay for lots of redundancy, among other things. "They come in threes."
You can have exorbitantly paid CEOs or you can have resilient businesses, you can't have both.
Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 10 2021 22:10 utc | 34
@ Posted by: Patroklos | Oct 10 2021 21:36 utc | 33
I think the problem in the West is much deeper than a simple lack of education/teachers. Your example falls more in the case of the problem of "imbecilization".
The West not only has a problem of absolute lack of intellectualism, but that the intellectuals they're graduating are simply of inferior quality, and/or outright bad-faith sellout propagandists. And this is not a new phenomenon: it goes back to the High Cold War (1945-1975). If you read, for example, Edward H. Carr's 14 volume "A History of Soviet Russia", and then read the (much smaller, even though they claim to have more material) works of his successors (e.g. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Wheatcroft), you can clearly see a steep decline in the quality of the Western intellectuals - in this case, historians. They are clearly intellectually inferior, and clearly more "pamphletary" and ideological than their predecessors.
Just to stay on the example of historians in the West, you can also observe the rise of those Holocaust Institute-sponsored historians who made free-association hodgepodges with clear propaganda goals (e.g. Timothy Snyder). In the case of the Anglo-Saxon historians, this is amplified by the fact that they envisage earning a significant amount of money publishing books for general consumption, so they publish absurd books full of errors and imprecision that would not pass the undergraduate level.
Of course that the process of imbecilization is not genetic. The present generation of Westerners is not literally dumber than its predecessors. In this specific case (of the History of the USSR), I think there are two classes of historians that turned propagandists:
1) cold warriors who consolidated their fame as serious academics during the Cold War for the simple fact they had restricted (or could claim access was restricted) access to Soviet archives, therefore they could comfortably extrapolate "partial" evidence without this fact clashing with scientific method. After the fall of the USSR, they finally had access to the Soviet archives, and those archives disproved their hypotheses, over which they built their entire careers (and fame). They then resorted to pure propaganda and lying by omission. This is clearly the cases of Sheila Fitzpatrick and Wheatcroft (who, coincidentally or not, are both Australian), but you can also observe this phenomenon in "transition" intellectuals - those who got their Ph.D.s in the end of the 1980s - like Roger R. Reese. In simpler terms, a class of historians had to keep they myth of "Communist Darkness" alive after 1991 for the simple reason this was a necessary condition for the continuation of their own academic careers;
2) a new class of postmodern and global history historians. Many of these are obscure historians or not historians that were recycled as the new generation of historians of the Soviet Union (or, to update it to the 21st Century, "Eastern Europe History"). They make the most absurd free associations of evidence, taking them completely out of context, they resort to the most dubious methodologies (like using demographic extrapolations through crappy models of population growth to prove Stalin killed 3.3 million people during the First Five-Year Plan), "comparative history" (i.e. fitting history into a formula by comparing two completely unconnected events of History) and absurd scientific objects deduced from postmodern ideology (e.g. a "history of violence", "history of exploitation") to build chimeras that don't make any sense. In this class I would put the likes of Timothy Snyder and many others.
The process of imbecilization happens in many ways - and it doesn't happen in all areas of society. Sure, as the economy shrinks, this process becomes more and more bestial and barbaric, but not all areas go through this process. The USA, for example, still thrives on the field of financial innovation.
"It depends on your definition of death"
Owen Jones visits the annual Tory Party conference, where most delegates seem to agree that Boris Johnson's government has done a great job handling the pandemic, casualty statistics notwithstanding.
Posted by: farm ecologist | Oct 10 2021 22:54 utc | 36
Swift, relentless Australian justice..(link abc news)
But not enough...(link abc news)
Posted by: Dim sim | Oct 10 2021 23:06 utc | 37
"I'm curious how they plan to deal with the 100 million or so very well armed, non-vaxxed people occupying much of that farmland right now?"
Krungle | Oct 10 2021 15:33 utc | 5:
Easy. Declare them as terrorists.
Posted by: Ian2 | Oct 10 2021 23:35 utc | 38
Trudeau... here to do the dirty jobs against Canadians for his bosses.
This term will be particularly vicious as his rhetoric is increasingly hostile and outright punitive towards the unvaxed.
Next up Victoria Nuland
We will wish for Trudeau! (jk)
Posted by: ld | Oct 11 2021 0:23 utc | 39
I meant Chrysta Freeland
forgive me
I am having gray moments
lol
Posted by: ld | Oct 11 2021 0:38 utc | 40
Ian2 #39
"I'm curious how they plan to deal with the 100 million or so very well armed, non-vaxxed people occupying much of that farmland right now?"Krungle | Oct 10 2021 15:33 utc | 5:
Easy. Declare them as terrorists.
Terrorists? All the more so if you can catch them doing this.
Two people one rope and voila!
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 11 2021 1:07 utc | 42
Just wondering, how many people feel their individual rights are being violated when they stop at a red light, or a stop sign?
Maybe it's just a public safety measure, and nothing more.
Posted by: vetinLA | Oct 11 2021 1:08 utc | 43
Mark my words: when this Merck pill comes out in the USA, all of those "miracle drugs" conspiracy groups will suddenly disappear. Those groups of rogue doctors are just one of the many "astroturf" movements that abound in America, and all they want is to bait some corporate sponsor.
Dim sim #38
Thank you for those links. Re the second ABC propaganda piece:
It was a deliberate attack on the Syrian Arab Army that was right on the point of decimating the ISIS forces besieging Deir al-Zor. The city had been under siege for years and is the gateway to eastern Syria. The USA was desperate to break the final SAA assault on its ISIS mercenaries as it would enable the Syrian government to cross the Euphrates and regain access to its oil fields and reunite with arab rural inhabitants. This was never a Kurd homeland at that time. The Kurds have occupied it now along with the USA and (I guess) continued Australian illegal air support.
This Australian attack in 2016 and murder of the Syrian Army Soldiers was a war crime and a continuation of the USA crime against humanity. It caused an uproar in Australian political circles although little was public and certainly smothered from media noise.
The context is critical in this incident. There have never been any prosecutions for the illegal US/Australian invasion of Syria.
Two Australian hornets dropped six bombs as part of botched coalition air strikes which killed dozens of Syrian forces earlier this year, a US-led military investigation has confirmed.In September, coalition aircraft accidently bombed forces aligned to the Syrian government in an operation around the Deir al-Zor military airport in Syria's east, which was supposed to target fighters in the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.
Russia claims as many as 83 people were killed.
The investigation blamed "unintentional human errors" for the deadly mistake, while Australia's Defence Department has confirmed two RAAF hornets dropped bombs in the incident.
The department said there will be improved information sharing among coalition partners following the review, but no coalition personnel will be sanctioned.
The strikes came less than a week into a fragile ceasefire aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria's five-year civil war.
Listen to Andrew Greene's story on AM(Andrew Greene)The US military and Australia's Defence Department at the time said the attack was called off after Russia informed the coalition that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 11 2021 1:29 utc | 45
Re: b's link about increasing virulence in the Delta.
Will people be able to put 2+2 together now to realize that you mustn't force vaccinate everyone during a Pandemic, especially with a leaky vaccine that makes the virus behave in ways that are contrary to the nature of viruses in general?
Viruses want to survive. They do not want to kill their host. A virus' sole mission in existence is to achieve a symbiotic equilibrium with its host where it actually may prove BENEFICIAL to the host in the long run. That is why it is downright foolish to think to ourselves that it is better to simply outrun the virus. I have seen "Fact-Checkers" try to dispel as myth this simple understanding that viruses have an innate desire to proliferate, meaning that their existence is by definition "apologetic." If they hurt the host, they apologize and adjust their behavior for the next one. But the fact-checkers try to list the Spanish Flu or Ebola as evidence that sometimes a virus can mutate for the worse naturally. Yet they provide no evidence as to whether these two diseases have ever been dealt with "naturally." Ebola's worsening effects have come after the introduction of vaccines in those regions. And the Spanish Flu was a global pandemic which, by virtue of it being global, is unnatural or alien to a virus' natural evolution and how they have spread in history (slowly and locally).
Enter covid with its unheard of mutant powerhouses. Verdict is still out as to if the vaccine helps against it. In this article there is a comment below that wants to draw attention to excess death in the UK currently in the vacc'd:
Seems this article's theory hinges on if the CFR data interpretation the author uses is accurate - author states the unvacc'd CFR is worse than vacc'd CFR and that "vacc'd are doing better". BUT in a Recent interview with Malone and Bossche, interview with Dr. Phillip McMillan on Odysse. Covid-19 The Meeting of the Giants. Bossche- they stopped doing this data..data is not shared. Malone- "I call this the ghost in the data. "There is a signal in the UK data. Seems to be an excess of death in the vacc'd but not severe disease. So it's paradoxical.". M - goes on to explain Defective Interferring Particles. Immune Complex Disease. Auto immune risk in the higher viral loads. This B and M interview ends with ...more is not better, not with vaccines. M- I think they don't know what to do. Give a child a hammer and everything is a nail. Helpful from Geert Bossche -How can we protect ourselves? Care about your susceptibility. Not if someone is vacc'd or unvacc'd. "Stop mass vaccination - there is no scientific basis whatsoever.
I shudder to think that most of calamity in human existence has been due to hubris. Science divorced from spirit seems to be the current paradigm we are suffering through where technocrats have a wonderful idea of how society should be ordered, but that they just need us to get out of the way for this to happen. There may just be enough sheep out there this time to fuck us right for good.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 1:47 utc | 46
@45 vk
I thought you were trying to tell us that ivermectin was snake oil, vk?
Now you are willing to admit that a similar drug may be effective but that you want to chastise those that believed in the therapeutics for being capitalists.
What a silly man you are. Always moving the goalposts. If you could, you would probably go back and scrub any prior posts that cast doubt on your ability to read the writing on the wall. You are one of the only people in history to be absolutely devoid of its own dialectical ability. Sad!
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 1:59 utc | 47
@ vetin LA 44
wondering. . .a red light, or a stop sign . . .Maybe it's just a public safety measure, and nothing more.
Excellent. When they told you and me to roll up our sleeves for vaccinations, we just did it. And that was for self-infections with no thought about transmission which is killing people currently. Denying public safety is just stupid, so man up and do the obvious.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 11 2021 2:06 utc | 48
@ Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 1:59 utc | 48
This Merck pill is also a fraud - there's no reason to take a pill that best case scenario will only give you a 50% chance of surviving.
What I'm saying is that this fraud is USD 700.00 a piece. Which one do you think those charlatans doctors with their astroturf will promote? There's no doubt promoting the Merck pill is one hell of a shortcut (Ivermectin you have first to prop up its price through speculation, then profit; Merck's already blessed by the USG itself, so it's already propped up from the very beginning).
@50 vk
"A planned interim analysis of 775 patients in Merck's study looked at hospitalizations or deaths among people at risk for severe disease. It found that 7.3% of those given molnupiravir twice a day for five days were hospitalized and none had died by 29 days after treatment. That compared with a hospitalization rate of 14.1% for placebo patients. There were also eight deaths in the placebo group." Here
A +50% boost hospital/survival-rate versus control group doesn't sound like a fraud to me, vk. I once again gave you an out and you plowed right through anyway.
Double-down, you say? I would hate to be your wife at a poker table.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 3:22 utc | 50
Viruses want to survive. They do not want to kill their host. A virus' sole mission in existence is to achieve a symbiotic equilibrium with its host where it actually may prove BENEFICIAL to the host in the long run. That is why it is downright foolish to think to ourselves that it is better to simply outrun the virus. I have seen "Fact-Checkers" try to dispel as myth this simple understanding that viruses have an innate desire to proliferate, meaning that their existence is by definition "apologetic."
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 1:47 utc | 47
This is a strange explanation. Equally useful would be to say that volcanoes want to survive, and have no desire to harm humans. The first claim is based on careful study of volcanoes that reveals that all existing volcanoes did survive, many for millions of years... would that be possible without any WILL to survive? The second claim is based on the symptoms of happy volcanoes -- the methodology borrowed from studies of snorting horses. Are horses that snort more often happier than non-snorting horses. Indeed, they are. For example, horses allowed more time outside their stables snort more frequently, and, more convincingly, when let to graze on a better pasture, they snort even more frequently, several times per hour.
In this vein, a happy volcano has a steady supply of lava, with enough eruptions to keep it from eroding away. As a result, eruptions are predictable, and people avoid them. Unlike, say Krakatoa, a singularly unhappy volcano that exploded, leaving a hole in its former location. The resulting tsunamis etc. killed a huge number of people, but Krakatoa was not there to realize that.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Oct 11 2021 3:55 utc | 51
NemesisCalling #51
Double-down, you say? I would hate to be your wife at a poker table.
Thank you NemesisCalling, can I suggest your scribe be sentenced to 100 years of servitude before Pat Lang and his adoring fans ;))
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 11 2021 4:00 utc | 52
There Is Shadow Inflation Taking Place All Around Us
Some companies haven’t been raising prices. Instead, they’ve been cutting back customer services and conveniences, but how should that be measured?
You never heard of this "shadow inflation" for a very simple reason: this is not inflation, but extraction of surplus value, by lowering the cost prices.
There's only one way to take that into account scientifically, and that is with Marxist theory, more precisely, with Marx's Theory of Value. But I guess the Americans won't use that.
P.S.: this is how Japan has been keeping its prices frozen for some decades now. That's why, in Japan, you have the weird phenomenon where unemployment is very low, there's no immigration pressure on the labor market, but wages continue to fall. The Japanese capitalist class is simply forcing the Japanese working class to give up stuff for free.
--//--
‘It’s Not Sustainable’: What America’s Port Crisis Looks Like Up Close
Remember 2008, when the American elite told everybody to get used to the "new normal"?
Well, that didn't last long. Welcome to the "new new normal".
--//--
@ Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 3:22 utc | 51
It is a fraud because the context is absurd. The USA has more than enough vaccines to immunize its entire population, it doesn't need a 50% effective.
Viruses are a unique concept in Being. As such, they differentiate themselves from everything else in Being. Is it not reasonable then that we should therefore be able to talk about the nature of viruses?
Sure viruses kill a onesie or a twosie here or there, but when it comes to taking a broad, step-back picture of the nature of viruses in history, it is easy to see what I am hinting at.
Viruses are endemic to not just human history, but history, itself.
Hubris is what you get when you try to remove something from Being which rightfully belongs there.
As I have written before on this topic: it is a spiritual matter. And our betters in government have failed in just about every regard.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 4:02 utc | 54
Sometimes Scott Ritter is really insightful. But sometimes he writes just utter nonsense.
So if the Chinese intelligence service finds out the position of every single fighter jet, supply depot etc. on Taiwan the Chinese military will be able to precision-bomb every single fighter jet. supply depot etc. and the Taiwanese military will have to raise the white flag.
Ehem.
Yeah, I mean, technically thats not even wrong. The notion of infinite information dominance on the part of Beijing and infinite intelligence and military incompetence on the part if Taipeh is just a bit optimistic. To put it mildly.
Posted by: m | Oct 11 2021 4:10 utc | 55
I'm not arguing (but I'm pretty sure I'm wasting my time); people should not take this into account for any of their own personal decisions or any such made by anyone else, there should be real individual personal choice (and the lack of this has become a big part of the problem).
However…
vetinLA wrote:
Just wondering, how many people feel their individual rights are being violated when they stop at a red light, or a stop sign?Maybe it's just a public safety measure, and nothing more.
It can be whatever it likes but that becomes irrelevant the moment someone takes that same stop sign and decapitates me with it. Even if something as outlandish as that was to happen it could still be sold as a public safety measure and I wouldn't be able to feel or complain anyway because I would be dead and that would for the most part be the end of "the stop sign fairytale" no matter if anyone cared to sue or protest afterwards (even if they were successful).
Don't believe me? Look at the widespread use of Agent Orange in the US and those who were killed and damaged in the US (and of course there's everything in Viet Nam too).
No, "the stop sign fairytale" is only for those who want to be "simply right" in a complex world. An example where one takes the wonders of binary logic and entirely disregards that the whole wonder of it lies in ensuring the sufficient complexity of its application instead of falsely believing everything reduces to a plain single yes/no (it does not; without the relevant structures of combined yes/no one is only left with garbage) :)
So forget oversimplifications:
· I trust my doctors when it comes to long established medicines that have been in use for decades and which they themselves warn me to be careful to use properly because of the strength of the chemicals.
· I do not trust any doctors when it comes to a slew of experimental chemicals clearly selected on the basis of political and foreign policy bias and then mish-mashed together on a whim in addition to successively requiring second, third, and fourth doses that can include new changes and where hardly anyone in power utters any words of caution and the entire propaganda apparatus is in action including insane misuse of police powers in places like Australia and France.
Never.
It is entirely wrong to call the western stuff vaccinations or medications, and to the extent that the rest of the world makes the same mistakes the same goes for them (even China if they do!).
It is a horrendous level of hubris.
I have plenty of prior vaccinations, in fact so many as to require having two of those small WHO yellow books (aka vaccination passports) alongside my passport. I know the difference by experience.
I also know how it looks like if anything goes wrong.
Now of course anyone can say that all of the above hardly matters when considering the numbers so far, and that might even be correct for the vast majority of people although it isn't possible to tell who exactly in advance. However I know it applies to me.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 11 2021 5:56 utc | 56
@m 56
Fanatic and fact resistant as always, yawn. What Ritter was writing, included
Any surviving Taiwanese units would then be faced with the daunting task of repelling a massive invasion which would likely comprise a combination of amphibious and air assault forces. Assuming enough units survived the pre-assault bombardment to put up a competent defense, they would rapidly run through their on-hand stocks of ammunition, fuel, and food.
To explain it to you: Of course a considerable number of ROC units would possibly survive the first onslaught, at least on Taiwan itself (the Islands close to the Fujian coast would be gone immediately for sure). But, as Ritter rightly explains, those units, already significantly reduced by the initial attacks, would be under sustained attacks over the whole period of combat, before and after PLA soldiers hit the ground of Taiwan. So would be all there supply lines, airfields, radar stations, and other communications.
Outnumbered by a factor of ten at least there would be no chance of survival for the ROC units. A week until all major cities and ports under PRC control, maybe a few weeks to eliminate the remaining pockets of resistance are sound prognoses.
Even US exercises have proven that there is no way, in military terms, to stop that attack. The US may target some PLAN ships outside Taiwan, risking counterattacks on their carrier force which are sitting ducks to hypersonic missiles. Once Taiwan has fallen, the US would not be in the position to launch a counter invasion.
And the question is whether the US would go to war with the PRC over Taiwan.
Posted by: aquadraht | Oct 11 2021 5:58 utc | 57
Canadian Medical Association Journal article would have it that covid is overwhelmingly affecting young people with no comorbidities. Also asserting that vaccination offers near perfect protection.
Why would anyone read this? Why do we not laugh?
Posted by: oldhippie | Oct 11 2021 8:34 utc | 58
@11
black bread
source pls
there are no blackouts in GER right now
maybe in the futere
Posted by: Kartoschka | Oct 11 2021 8:40 utc | 59
Dr John Campbell is 'grateful' (/s) that the BBC has employed two journalists to debunk Ivermectin and create a story fit to broadcast. Dr Campbell makes the case for both vax and treatment (heretic)!
This is a 27 minute video at utoob.
From Dr Campbell's introductory text:
Ivermectin: How false science created a Covid 'miracle' drughttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-581...
BBC Reality Check.
It is a long winded report and somewhat dismissive of the news outlet that brought us all the Salisbury/Skripal news story without one iota of critical consideration.
This is the same news outlet that seems incapable of standing up for a leading international journalist that is currently being tormented in the British prison and court system.
Thankfully Dr Campbell is able to deconstruct the BBC's confused state of mind.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 11 2021 8:58 utc | 60
58@comical aqua
"Outnumbered by a factor of ten at least (...)"
That would be more than 16 million men ...
Posted by: m | Oct 11 2021 9:30 utc | 61
I know you are all eagerly awaiting the answer I promised c1ue back in July, was it?
I have some great news: the text is finished! Or well ehrm finishedish. It’s about 40 pages long, and I’ve been working on it for months. So I thought I’d run it by a friend who teaches Marxism at university for quality control before I bother you with it. He’d love to read it and comment! Thing is, they’ve got exams now, and the text is a bit on the longer side, so the process will take another month or so...
Patience, barflies, patience.
Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Oct 11 2021 9:36 utc | 62
oldhippie @ 59
Canadian Medical Association Journal article would have it that covid is overwhelmingly affecting young people with no comorbidities. Also asserting that vaccination offers near perfect protection.
Why would anyone read this? Why do we not laugh?
I guess we don't have much of a sense of humour, but they, on the other hand, they're laughing all right...
Though the fireflies laugh in the dusklight
It's the Festival of Death
Crowd is all laughter, it's hollow, sadly
They may kill death tonight, but they still live beneath the volcano
Won't be so many more days
Isn't much time and it's gathering darkness, my friend (P. Brown)
Posted by: john | Oct 11 2021 10:00 utc | 63
@vk (54)
P.S.: this is how Japan has been keeping its prices frozen for some decades now. That's why, in Japan, you have the weird phenomenon where unemployment is very low, there's no immigration pressure on the labor market, but wages continue to fall. The Japanese capitalist class is simply forcing the Japanese working class to give up stuff for free.
I could've sworn there was a reason the yen went from 360 to the US dollar in 1971 to 100-some today, like with the Swiss franc (if we treat a yean as a cent to a dollar). At first I thought it was some policy of anti-inflation.
Then again, someone (here or somewhere else) did mention the Plaza Accord and its effects on the yen's exchange rate with the dollar.
I could be missing a few details, so hopefully one of you might probably better inform me on this. Thanks in advance.
Posted by: joey_n | Oct 11 2021 10:14 utc | 64
Sunny Runny Burger #57
Thank you, well said, and after that vent I shall shout you a drink or two.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 11 2021 11:11 utc | 65
Regarding Twitter - can anyone educate me please on the following new difficulty I appear to be having accessing it on my iPhone?
Until recently I could bookmark and follow Twitter feeds through my browser - I have not registered to use Twitter and so can’t use their App to do so but being able to read and posts and comment threads was useful through the safari browser.
Now I am constantly urged by a pop up to download the App and/or register to view the threads making my bookmarks useless.
Idiotically I can still do a search for Twitter feeds in safari and google which does allow me to then view the Twitter feed! But again won’t let me expand the thread to view comments.
Is this a change by Twitter?
Or IoS?
Or something else to do with my device?
Thanks in advance for any replies.
Posted by: D.G. | Oct 11 2021 11:23 utc | 66
@uncle tungsten (46)
The Deir Ezzor bombing in Syria happened at a time when the Syrian Army controlled area there was still an island of government control surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of land where Islamic State and other rebel groups ruled. IS immediately grabbed the opportunity and almost overran the area.
So this was not to block a government offensive. It was to have a continuous rebel controlled area that would be easier to defend. It would also have strengthened rebel claims that they were there to stay.
Posted by: Wim | Oct 11 2021 11:25 utc | 67
Re: b's link about increasing virulence in the Delta.
I remember similar claims about Alpha being much more infectious and deadly than the original European variant. Yet in the end the wave it caused was much lower and less deadly than that original wave. That was before the vaccines were available.
At that time there was also much upheaval about Manaus where the second wave looked just as bad as the first. Yet somehow we never saw that repeated in the rest of the world.
http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/09/all-cause-mortality-rates-in-england.html
Maybe it is time to pay attention to mortality rates. This summer more Europeans died than usually and corona explains only a very small part of it. Even Australia - with almost no covid - had 3500 excess deaths. It looks like not covid but the related government policies are causing most casualties.
Posted by: Wim | Oct 11 2021 11:47 utc | 68
@Wim - For all the things EU screws up, they are good at gathering statistics. Here is the mortality data. The blue-grey dotted line is the seasonal baseline (i.e. normal). Above that is excess. Once winter '20-'21 was over,the excess mortality in the group of countries displayed here was entirely unremarkable.
Posted by: ptb | Oct 11 2021 11:57 utc | 69
@Wim (part 2)
sorry, a bit trigger happy. The actual link
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
Posted by: ptb | Oct 11 2021 11:58 utc | 70
The great cover up of abuse continues
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/10/uk-met-police-reportedly-speak-prince-andrew-accuser-virginia-giuffre
The MO of this manoeuvre was set up a few years ago to ‘exonerate’ another high profile case against Lord Janner in the U.K.
The promised judicial Inquiry 10 years old, has been disappeared and many hundreds of accusers testimony equally so.
It works like this - pick a single hand picked complainant, make sure they are unreliable, get them to put fake accusations in and then concentrate on just that ONE.
Then reveal the unreliability of that witness and dismiss the charges - hence all other witnesses and testimony is ignored.
All safely dusted up and pushed under the lumpy carpet!
Voila. Gongs all round.
DAME. Cressida Dick the Commander of the Met Police did this when she oversaw the execution of Menendes on a tube train and has been doing the same covering up the disgraceful sexist racist culture of its unprofessional members, as she is doing with the murders and rapes by these officers currently with the high profile cases in London.
Posted by: D.G. | Oct 11 2021 11:59 utc | 71
m @56
Come on man! How many covert intelligence assets do you think the mainland has on the island of Taiwan right now? I would be deeply surprised if the headcount is less than fifty thousand, and suspect it to be closer to a hundred thousand. You are going to have ROC troops themselves phoning in the coordinates (or more likely just tapping an app on their smartphones) of the juiciest targets to be hit. There won't be an intact piece of military hardware left on the entire island worth more than $10,000 in the first four hours of open warfare.
Taiwan is following the American trends, and the key trend that interests us here is the trend towards gross incompetence. To be sure Taiwan is a decade or more behind the US in that trend, but they are already on the steep part of the curve and nearing freefall. The decline in STEM enrollments among college applicants from the island is the real tell. The mainland, on the other hand, is filled with optimistic determination and honing their skills. Their competence trend only shows growth. Hey, the "freedom" to be useless and incompetent is what losers like about American culture, and that sells well among the slack and dissipated middle class youth on the island of Taiwan. The working class youth on the island, on the other hand, look with admiration upon their motherland across the Strait.
You are best off not underestimating the mainland's intelligence penetration of the island's military.
Here is a little something for the Sinophobes to read and weep: China has won AI battle with U.S., Pentagon's ex-software chief says
It takes literally decades to fill the academic pipelines to accomplish dominance in the high tech fields. I urge every reader having any contact with America's education system to honestly examine what kind of talent America has in those academic pipelines and very carefully and deeply consider where those pipelines are channeling America's up-and-comers. The aware reader knows before they even start that analysis that the American academic pipelines don't lead to STEM for domestic students anymore. Taiwan is following the very same trends. Mainland China now owns STEM dominance for the foreseeable future... to the end of the century at the very least.
That, by the way, has a bearing upon China's intelligence gathering abilities.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 11 2021 12:56 utc | 72
vk @ 24 The USA (or any other major Western nation, for that matter) has a reliable national/state death certificate system and data collection. For all practical purposes, there's no reason not to trust these kind of sources. Your argument would be valid up to the end of the 19th Century, but not in 2021.
<= the strange thing about covid deaths is they have made the system highly suspect.. must be something in the incentive cocktail.. ?
take a look..
Farm Ecologist @ 37 says "It depends on your definition of death"
Owen Jones visits the annual Tory Party conference, where most delegates seem to agree that Boris Johnson's government has done a great job handling the pandemic, casualty statistics notwithstanding.
VetinLA @ 44
Just wondering, how many people feel their individual rights are being violated when they stop at a red light, or a stop sign? Maybe it's just a public safety measure, and nothing more.
<= public safety? On the Florida network one evening a few years ago the designer of the network of traffic lights explained that his designs were based on how much gas the lights could force drivers to expend by stopping and going at each light, and that lights were placed to stop people at or near intersections that had shopping malls or other consumer retail operations. A few months later another person explained how the camera system could be matched to every persons comings and goings..from residence to place of visit to return. A comment one day explained "In Lybia, Gaddaffi's people were restrained from getting from home to the royal palace during his siege by the traffic light system; the private, but foreign corporate contractors in charge of the lighting in his country, just turned red the light, so important defense people could not help Gaddiffi..
I calculated overpasses and underpasses could be built with the savings in gas alone yielding 3 to 5 year paybacks.. Of course that payback depends on the price of gas. But you are doing 45 mph to maintain that speed requires very little gas.. a light turns red, you must brake the forward flow, come to a stop, using up the number of times your brakes work before overall, and using up the gas you expended to get to that 45 mph, then you idle (if your billing rate is $100 per hour then you also loose billing time), using gas, but then real gas guzzle happens when you accelerate again to reach your original 45 MPH. Convert all of the events to minutes, and then compute those multiple events at one light over a day. Assuming the light turns red and stops flow every three minutes, that 480 stops per day. then multiply out the gas used to stop, idle, and start, you get the drift
the amount of consumer dollars for gas consumers buy, extracted by the state, from the pockets of consumers, is in the hundreds of X-lions each year.. and the traffic light system is living proof that the state serves its masters the oil and gas industry and their PIGOs.
The traffic light system will be used by the state to suppress any popular rising or to enforce its coming lock down mandates. The traffic light system is an automatic guard, with a state of the art 24/7 surveillance and video documentation system. it watches over, and monitors the behaviors of the its captive nation state citizens. The traffic light system is an important link in the chain of defenses available to the state to protect the PIGOs that own the nation state from the governed citizens. Build overpasses(job creating) and put trillions of dollars, paid by consumers for fuel, back into the pockets of the traveling public.
NemesisCalling @ 47 Ghost in the data.. we are suffering through where technocrats have a wonderful idea of how society should be ordered, but that they just need us to get out of the way for this to happen.
<= what a nice way of saying, except for the PIGOs, humanity might survive with increasing comfort, for ever?
NemesisCalling @ 51 I think the Merck molnupiravir solution is looking like it might be in competition with Ivermectin.. do they each work to stop the replication of the virus in its tracks..?
Piotr Berman @ 52 .. I don't think a volcano has the same bio molecular capacity to analyze its environmental needs, to relocate itself, and to reinvent its own biology so that the virus itself can defend itself against a vaccine threat to its survival? Volcanos cannot do this? ..
What NemesisCalling @ 47 <=I agee, vaccines that work cause red alert to the virus so the virus under attack by vaccines try to re-engineer their own molecular systems IOT overcome or get around the vaccine.
Alert to the Bar.. a different PIGO free Internet. is on horizon..
https://sputniknews.com/20211009/us-activists-prepare-for-possible-internet-shutdown-report-says-1089794607.html
If government [shuts down the Internet or block use of the Internet to certain parties] to maintain [government] control”, .. The Communications Act of 1934 allows the president to take control of "any facility or station for wire communication". <=then will the people use their own? IMO, people around the globe are going to work together to win back their freedoms.
Posted by: snake | Oct 11 2021 13:18 utc | 73
m @56:
You consider mainland China and Taiwan as mutual enemies.
I consider them family. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait are the same people, united by family ties, and kept apart by the US.
IMHO, if tomorrow the US withdraws, the result will not be an invasion but discussion. A discussion between politicians that results in nobody losing face, and business prospering.
Posted by: Passerby | Oct 11 2021 13:24 utc | 74
TextIt's a big club, and YOU ain't in it...Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Sep 30 2021 4:22 utc | 89
Hi Tom. Sorry I missed you before.
Remember this?
As a council estate dweller, it's good to read what my betters are up to. Post more, please.
SRP,It seems it's a shame that Violet Kray is no longer with us.
Were she alive, she and Queen Elizabeth would have so much to share and compare. What with both having their two eldest boys in trouble with the police at the same time.
Posted by: John Cleary | Oct 9 2021 9:45 utc | 186
It's amazing how fast the police work when the powers that be so command...
The Metropolitan police are taking no further action after a review prompted by Virginia Giuffre, who is taking legal action against Prince Andrew.Met officers made the decision to drop their investigation on Sunday....
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/10/uk-met-police-reportedly-speak-prince-andrew-accuser-virginia-giuffre
Take a close look at that URL. It says "uk-met-police-reportedly-speak-prince-andrew-accuser-virginia-giuffre"
That was the story published earlier on Sunday. That the met were questioning her second son.
Within hours the story had changed. It became
Met police drop investigation into Prince Andrew in Virginia Giuffre case
What do you think? Her Majesty didn't like the comparison?
Posted by: John Cleary | Oct 11 2021 13:33 utc | 75
Today's clipping:
--//
Sore loser:
Russian spy ‘stole Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine blueprint and used it to develop Sputnik jab’
The Kremlin had to answer to that nonsense:
Kremlin Slams Sun Article Claiming Russia Stole AstraZeneca Vaccine Formula as 'Deeply Unscientific'
Let's go back in time, to August 2020. What was the West's argument against Sputnik V? That it didn't work/was unproven/was rushed without the due trials. Put things simply, the West accused Sputnik V was a fraud.
Months passed without any hint AstraZeneca could even imagine Gamaleya - which is the global reference on viral vector technology - had (or could have had) stolen its industrial secrets. They had access to the vaccine, they could have millions of doses to analyze, but they didn't - because it wouldn't make any sense. Now, all of a sudden, the UK secret service accused Sputnik V of being essentially a rip off of AstraZeneca.
My guess is this: first, this is an admission the Sputnik V not only works, but is an excellent vaccine (couldn't have been different, as Gamaleya is a leader in the sector), which would easily wipe AstraZeneca out of the European market. Second, this is probably an eleventh hour maneuver to stop/delay the Sputnik V's imminent approval by WHO (which already is delaying it in order to please the Americans and Big Pharma).
--//--
India completely out of its depth:
India’s unreasonable demands in 13th military talks ‘risk new conflict’
For the ones who won't read it: India literally asked free territory from China.
--//--
Socialist pattern of development: territorial equality:
China issues outline to promote standardized national development
I know those chic and snob Europeans will accuse the Chinese of "eliminating cultural differences", but that's a tourism industry mentality. What the people wants is a decent roof over their heads and good food on their tables - they would gladly give up their 11th Century Gothic cathedral for those.
--//--
Congratulations, Ivermectin and HCQ conspiracy theorists: you just opened the gates for Big Pharma:
AstraZeneca drug effective at treating mild COVID-19 symptoms in trial
What's funny is that this article - which was published today - mentions that "The news comes after Merck & Co. fueled optimism that it will soon have the first COVID-19 pill.". "Optimism" here must surely be an euphemism, because Merck has already ordered (sorry, I mean, asked) the FDA for approval of the drug.
NemesisCalling already has converted himself into a Merck fanboy. I wonder who's gonna be next here?
--//--
Totalitarian Democracy, the Highest Stage of Postmodernism:
An alternative title could be: "Democratic Police-Statism, the Infantile Disease of Center-Leftism".
--//--
‘It’s already over’: US has lost AI battle to China, Pentagon’s former software chief admits
Pro-USA squad will say this is just a faint shot by the Pentagon in order to get more money from the Federal Budget, and that the USA secretly has the most super-duper advanced AI in the whole Universe - or, using Millennial and Gen Z pseudoscientific terminology, "Multiverse".
--//--
Virulent EU Secreatary-General Borrell finally comes to his senses:
Borrell Warns of High Likelihood of EU Losing Player Status on International Arena
That's the lesson: Westerners only learn through violence. If you want a Westerner to listen to you, subjugate him/her.
--//--
The EU's misery is Australia's fortune:
People think Australia is being stupid, but I don't think that's the case.
What Australia is doing fits perfectly into my "Byzantine hypothesis". It is betting it can flourish through preference and direct patronage from the American Empire in the long term (at the cost of the provinces of the East, i.e. the European Peninsula).
Sure, it's a high-risk, high-reward, bet, but it is a legitimate bet nonetheless.
--//--
An emperor who doesn't wage and win wars is a dead emperor:
Defeats, inaction and compromise drag Biden’s poll numbers down
The only acceptable way for a POTUS to end wars is with a victory. The American people will not forgive Biden for the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan, and every blunder he commits from now on in the domestic front will only amplify the disgust they feel for him.
Bolivia
Ranier Shea has a good, long summary of what happened starting with the coup, Evo Morales's realization that he and MAS members had mistaken in their soft approach toward military reform vs Venezuela and Cuba's hardcore, proactive purging and hypervigilence. That was then. Bolivia-- and Nicaragua-- are taking much more agressive actions toward the fascists. Both countries are on a knife edge of explosive violence. Shea exposes more detail of ongoing coup attempts and cites the parallels with Ethiopia: all roads lead back to Washington. Evo Morales and president Arce appear to have strengthened their ties and are coordinating MAS actions at both building AND fighting.
"Since the socialists retook power last year with the election of President Luis Arce, Morales has been continuing to try to prepare his movement for future backlash from his position as MAS leader; this summer, amid the revelation that coup regime officials had been secretly plotting to carry out a second coup to undo Arce’s election, Morales warned about the imperialists that “They do not forgive us.” He’s learned a jarring and painful lesson about the true conditions anti-imperialists face, and he doesn’t want other anti-imperialists to proceed without learning that lesson beforehand."
https://orinocotribune.com/the-new-bolivian-regime-change-attempt-its-terror-tactics/
Here's the Jan. 12, 2020 Reuters article linked by Shea in which Evo calls for armed militias modeled after Venezuela: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bolivia-evo/bolivia-exiled-ex-president-morales-calls-on-radio-for-armed-militias-idUSKBN1ZC066
Twitter followers--not me anymore-- can get good updates on South and Central America from Camila Escalante, a Salvadoran American now Bolivian citizen.https://mobile.twitter.com/camilapress/status/1445500214710734857
Posted by: migueljose | Oct 11 2021 15:23 utc | 77
@ vk 77
The only acceptable way for a POTUS to end wars is with a victory.
You forgot Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Venezuela and probably a few others, with no victories anywhere. It's become customary.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 11 2021 15:38 utc | 78
@77 vk
No, vk, I was merely pointing out that where once you wrote here that ivermectin was snake oil, now you say that it isn't but that merck will make money off the therapeutic so that now it is bad for making money.
Simple moving of the goalposts is what I was pointing out with you.
I will stick with Ivermectin where I can find it, dude. No need for the Merck.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 15:38 utc | 79
vk @Oct11 15:13 #77
NemesisCalling already has converted himself into a Merck fanboy.
No he hasn't.
I wonder who's gonna be next here?
No one. Merck is just another corporation seeking to 'cash-in' on the pandemic. Pfizer also is working on a drug that is much like Ivermectin.
Why are you so invested in smearing any treatment that might diminish use of vaccines? (@Oct11 1:20 #45 you decry "rouge doctors").
<> <> <> <>
Merck, who makes an approved Ivermectin drug (in contrary to the "horse paste" propaganda), throws shade on Ivermectin in February 2021:
Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies;
- No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and;
- A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.
Now Merck apparently repurposes their ivermectin pill to cash in on the pandemic:
Merck’s New ‘Gamechanger’ Pill Against COVID, Molnupiravir, Has ‘Molecular Similarities’ To IvermectinGiven that Merck's new "gamechanger" pill against COVID is an anti-viral drug, some cannot help but compare it with Ivermectin, a drug that has been widely used to treat COVID despite the FDA and CDC's advice against it. In fact, skeptics are wondering why Merck, who also produces Ivermectin, has now dropped it and instead has focused on Molnupravir.
According to The Blaze, a Cochrane-standard (the highest level review) meta-analysis on Ivermectin's efficacy in treating COVID has been published by Bryant-Lawrie in the American Journal of Therapeutics. The study concluded that "apparent safety and low cost suggest that Ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally." So why isn't Merck just pushing Ivermectin instead?
The reason is that Molnupiravir is reportedly very similar to Ivermectin. Moreover, the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company was compelled by a $1.2 billion procurement agreement to supply approximately 1.7 million courses of Molnupiravir to the U.S. government.
The report added that "it appears that Molnupiravir contains some of the same molecular qualities as Ivermectin," which is why it is questionable how Merck possibly rebranded the cheap drug to make it "more expensive" and could be "marketed as exclusive and new for COVID."
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 11 2021 15:39 utc | 80
@ Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 11 2021 15:39 utc | 81
Besides the fact that your source is not reliable (what the fuck is "Christianity Daily"?), you have the objective fact that the article itself doesn't quote any source for its claim Molnupiravir is "very similar" to Ivermectin - it's just a "dude, trust me" argument.
--//--
@ Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 11 2021 15:38 utc | 80
From your post @ 51:
A +50% boost hospital/survival-rate versus control group doesn't sound like a fraud to me, vk. I once again gave you an out and you plowed right through anyway.
You know policy is off the rails when ...
... you're urging the vaccination of kids that are barely affected by the virus - even allowing teens to over-rule their parents;
... you're engaging in nonsensical propaganda like "horse paste" and "trust the science" (of an experimental vaccine);
... governments show a preference for costly, 2-shot mRNA vaccines over much less expensive 1-shot vaccines;
... governments 'answer' to the pandemic virus is focused almost exclusively on vaccines;
... government fails time and time again: first saying that the virus was similar to a cold; then saying that masks were unnecessary; then sending sick people home to infect their family and community; then relaxing 'lockdowns' early (because ... vaccines! - vaccines that were late to arrive and then weren't as effective as we were told they would be).
And now can add the Ivermectin fiasco the list of profitable f*ck-ups.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 11 2021 16:06 utc | 82
@5
@3 I'm curious how they plan to deal with the 100 million or so very well armed, non-vaxxed people occupying much of that farmland right now?
Probably just by waiting the dumb fuckers out, but also probably by making them an offer they won't (not "can't") refuse: lots of money for their small plot of land. This is already how finance companies are buying up houses. Offer $300k for a $150k home. Economically rational people will accept such a deal.
There will be holdouts. They won't matter. Nor should we cater to them as if big business is really worse. America ruled by its petit-bourgeois class would collapse overnight. Their liquidation as a class is a prerequisite for a substantive revolution, and that liquidation will be accomplished by the laws and institutions that the petit-bourgeoisie established through its political dominance in the GOP. They made their bed, and now they get to sleep in it.
Posted by: fnord | Oct 11 2021 16:15 utc | 83
vk @Oct11 15:59 #82
1) I found the article in a google search. I chose it because it makes the relevant points better than other articles.
2) The article cites an article from Blaze Media, which is conservative but recognized jounalistic organization.
3) The points made stand on their own:
- Merck's 'pill' is an anti-viral just as Ivermectin, HCQ are;
- Merck criticized Ivermectin while they were producing it for human treatment then dropped Ivermectin about the time that they offered this new anti-viral pill which is expected to be much more profitable for them;
- Pfizer is also seeking to offer an anti-viral treatment.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 11 2021 16:22 utc | 84
@VetinLA 44
Just wondering, how many people feel their individual rights are being violated when they stop at a red light, or a stop sign? Maybe it's just a public safety measure, and nothing more.
I for one, hate stop lights. It is a flagrant display of incompetence and gross wastefulness, that ironically, most people never notice even when it is brought to their attention. And that is not to speak of "environmentalists" who are woefully ignorant of such simple, relatively low cost measures that can be implemented immediately. No, no, how about we make cars that turn off at stop lights instead? Or make cars that recharge a battery when they stop? And while we are at it, lets up the price of said cars! Ay caramba!
Stop lights do work, but they unfortunately are misused and outdated as snake points out @ 74. More overpasses, yes. Redesigned streets, yes. But most importantly cars have to be redesigned. As a driver I have 4 ways of communicating. Tail lights, turn signals, horn, and high beam flash. These are fine, but far too limited. For example, I have no way of showing drivers or pedestrians at an intersection that I am stopping, and I have no way of giving someone right of way except by using my goddamn hand. The streets are nothing more than a crowd of dumb mutes jostling around in a tube!
Posted by: Justin | Oct 11 2021 16:24 utc | 85
Jörgen Hassler @Oct11 9:36 #63
Thanks for the update. Looking forward to reading it.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 11 2021 16:24 utc | 86
Posted by: migueljose | Oct 11 2021 15:23 utc | 78
Thank you for the update on Bolivia. Much appreciated. It is good to see that they have things figured out now. You have to take all their money away, or they will never give up using it to take power back.
Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 11 2021 16:35 utc | 87
@m 62
As to the factor of ten: The PLA has 2,18 million active soldiers in the army, in addition an immediate reserve of about 1,2 million. Further 19 million every year are eligible for conscription, though this has not been activated beyond military registration and basic military training. During secondary education/vocational education and university, several forms of basic military training are undergone. The estimated number of available personnel to be included into PRC armed forces is 630 million.
As to ROC Taiwan, there are 163.000 active soldiers. There is conscription where each cohort coming to age has to undergo a 4 month basic military training, and to be registered as military reserve. With that, the ROC Taiwan reserve amounts to 1.6 million circa. Now, tell me, in case of a PLA attack, how long would it take to get these reserves from their jobs, schoils, whatever to the barracks? Do you really believe there will be a communication infrastructure left to call the "reserve" to arms?
You are such a fool. Mind that overall ROC population is 23 million, in excess of three million thereof permanently or temporarily living on the mainland, over 1 million married to mainland people. As @passerby 75 wrote, they are rather family than enemies.
The PRC will try to avoid use of force as long as they are able to. But they will not tolerate secession. https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3151850/chinas-commitment-unify-taiwan-cannot-be-doubted
Posted by: aquadraht | Oct 11 2021 16:40 utc | 88
#74 Gruff: "I urge every reader having any contact with America's education system to honestly examine what kind of talent America has in those academic pipelines and very carefully and deeply consider where those pipelines are channeling America's up-and-comers."
Posted by: jayc | Oct 11 2021 16:41 utc | 89
@joey_n #65
Here's a decent overview of what the Plaza Accords really were, and what the impact was:
What effect did the Plaza Accords have on the international currency market
Of all the currencies, the Japanese yen climbed the most against the greenback. The immediate impact of the appreciation was the stalling of the Japanese economy. Japan’s economy was in recession less than a year after the Plaza Accord. In response, the Bank of Japan initiated an unorthodox macroeconomic solution called quantitative easing.
Really excellent graphs, the full article (which isn't long) is worth reading.
Also notable is that the most frothiest period of Japanese real estate and art buying, etc occurred after the Plaza Accords when the Japanese government undertook "shock and awe" quantitative easing. That made the Japanese economy look ok on paper for a few years, until the Lost Decade(s) came.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 11 2021 17:03 utc | 90
@m #56
Have you actually met a lot of people from Taiwan?
I cannot imagine a group less amenable to military conflict, except perhaps Singaporeans.
I don't care how many are officially in the military - I simply don't believe there is much fighting spirit in that populace.
Japan at least has had a historical background of armed conflict and the samurai families still exist - but there is no such thing in Taiwan. Furthermore, its KuoMinTang immigrant's experience was mostly at losing to numerically and technologically inferior PLA guerrillas.
Mainland Chinese urban dwellers aren't much different - but China has an enormous rural population still who grew up with literal physical hardship and toil.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 11 2021 17:11 utc | 91
Thanks, migueljose @ 78 for keeping us informed! I remember when Bolivia was on the forefront of the water wars with the privatization corporations - surely the people have had a long education in confrontation of dark side entities that the rest of the world can learn from. Let there be light!
Posted by: juliania | Oct 11 2021 17:27 utc | 92
Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the Non-Aligned Movement and the celebration's in Belgrade, the city where it began. Lavrov was there to present Putin's words along with his own:
"Russia, like the members of the Non-Aligned Movement, regards the continuing attacks on the UN Charter as destructive and dangerous. The same goes for the attempts to replace the UN-centric architecture with non-inclusive concepts like the 'rules-based order,' which is actually based on double standards and threatens to take us back to the era of neo-colonial bloc politics and divides. I am confident that by its united action the Non-Aligned Movement can oppose these attempts with success and to defend the ideals enshrined in the UN Charter.
"The mutually respectful cooperation between Russia and Non-Aligned Movement members, including at the UN General Assembly, clearly confirms the consonance of our positions on key global issues from opposition to illegitimate unilateral sanctions to the fight against terrorism and the protection of human rights.
"I hope that Russia’s obtaining observer status will help to enhance the effectiveness of our joint work, mutual support and coordination of actions in defence of the principles of international law in the interests of bringing more democracy into international relations."
Far from being isolated, Russia's more deeply involved with the world's nations than at anytime in its past.
@Posted by: c1ue | Oct 11 2021 17:03 utc | 91
The US forcibly knee-capped the Japanese economy when it became a technological threat to US dominance. Not just the exchange rate, but also the massive tariffs on Japanese technology exports, the aiding of other countries (e.g. Korea) to set up alternative suppliers, and the deregulation of the Japanese financial markets. The Japanese Central Bank also conspired to destroy the MITI-driven industrial planning process to gain pre-eminence (I am sure egged on by the FED and the BIS). A great documentary about that "Princes of the Yen".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY
This is what the US does to competitor, basically mafia response. Free markets are only good as long as they benefit US capitalists, they have done the same thing to France and Germany through arrests of executives, massive bank fines, threats to remove foreign banks from the US$ funding mechanisms etc.
One of the reasons that the US elites are so exasperated is that this isn't working with respect to China; they are used to being the undisputed bully in the playground but now one of the other kids got bigger and ganged up with some of the other previous victims.
Posted by: Roger | Oct 11 2021 18:05 utc | 94
Roger @95--
Great observation! The Outlaw US Empire was very carefully taught by its predecessor the Outlaw Anglo Empire.
@Posted by: jayc | Oct 11 2021 16:41 utc | 90
Re: the attack on the composition teacher for showing an Othello.
The students involved should be so grateful that they are being taught by such an amazing teacher, and if they have an issue they can always ask him to explain and contextualize. Then to attack his letter of apology is just ridiculous, and shows the hyper-sensitivity and massive entitlement of these students. The administration reaction also just supports their continued lack of basic psychological and social resilience. When the going gets tough I wonder where they will be going?
I read somewhere that due to all the cotton wool placed around young people nowadays they tend to be 3 years less mature than their biological age. I have experienced this in teaching graduate students where some of the responses and quality of work are what I would expect from an undergraduate. Also, the hypersensitivity to "bad" grades and the open readiness to attack the messenger rather than carry out some introspection.
Its not just imbecilization through grade inflation and the acceptance of shoddy work, but also the complete lack of building of basic psychological resilience and strength, together with basic emotional control and maintenance skills. I would say that there is a still a subset that has been raised with these skills, but they are outshouted by those that do not.
Posted by: Roger | Oct 11 2021 18:32 utc | 96
@Roger #95
I don’t disagree with what you said.
I will add, however, that Japan made a pragmatic decision to acquiesce. Their view is that having the US protect them vs Russia and China is well worth the loss of 30+ years of economic progress. The amount of government spending saved by having very low military spending (up until recently) didn’t hurt either.
This decision isn’t far removed from what the EU has done.
And both economic areas use all manner of friction to delay and frustrate carpetbaggers.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 11 2021 18:46 utc | 97
@ Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 11 2021 18:56 utc | 32 of th Dark Side thread about my moniker
Yes, psychohistorian is from Asimov's Foundation series and the goal of Hari to shorten the time that humanity spends in a bad phase is also my goal...to shorten the time that humanity spends under the jackboot of global private finance.....I may be a butterfly but I am flapping my wings mightily.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 11 2021 19:20 utc | 98
@ Piotr Berman
Re volcanoes: ROFL.
Attributing anthropocentric subjectivity to a virus is absurd. And under the microscope their placards say that want the delta variant really wants is job security and a good dental plan and they want it now. Their posts are going viral on the internet...
Posted by: Patroklos | Oct 11 2021 19:21 utc | 99
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 11 2021 19:20 utc | 99
Cool, thanks. Best of luck to you. I think we're heading toward the culmination of this bad phase and what happens next is a big unknown. Clearly, as is the theme in many MoA posts by b and comment threads, global private finance (in reality "western managed globalist private finance") indeed will use any empire or hegemon it can control - along with the captured corporate media it owns - to smear, weaken, destabilize or topple any global entity (in the case of geopolitics this means country) that does not currently allow it to infiltrate to the degree necessary to extract every last bit of wealth and privatize every common good. This theme plays out in our media and government against China, Russia, Venezuela, Syria and every single country in Uncle Scam's "backyard" that elects a socialist leader looking to undo or remedy centuries of post-colonial, Monroe Doctrine theft of land, resources and labor.
I think the timing of the "Foundation" series on Apple TV is pretty apt.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 11 2021 20:27 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
We must rebel now. We must claw it all back. Nationalize it all. Now.
Posted by: blues | Oct 10 2021 14:51 utc | 1