“…Dr. Hudson has now reached the point where he understands only a revolution could change the course of (economic) history in the US…” c1ue@100
Hudson knows his history. But the conclusion he reaches is not that which you attribute to him. There is no doubt that the excesses of capitalism which characterised the liberal Free Trade society of the C19th gave rise to a massive movement for social reform. It was so broadly based and widely understood to be necessary that Conservatives could often not bring themselves to ioppose it.
The classic case in Germany was the series of basic social reforms that Bismarck introduced in order to slow the growth of the Socialists.
In the United States similar movements in both state (not to mention municipal) and federal politics were characterised as Populist or Progressive movements. These were far from being revolutions but they did lead to great changes in society. In the New Deal this impulse was revived.
As to the UK and the Empire similar movements can be seen.
Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation (1944) explained this as a double movement, a necessary adjustment by society to mitigate and obviate the terrible consequences of allowing communities to be ruled by untramelled greed.
““Our thesis is that the idea of the self-regulating market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his his surroundings into a wilderness.”
“The Industrial Revolution was merely the beginning of a revolution as extreme and radical as ever inflamed the minds of sectarians, but the new creed was utterly materialistic and believed that all human problems could be resolved given an unlimited amount of material commodities…..”
“…But the peculiarity of the civilisation the collapse of which we have witnessed was precisely that it rested on economic foundations. Other societies and other civilisations, too, were limited by the material conditions of their existence-this is a common trait of all human life, indeed of all life, whether religious or nonreligious, materialist or spiritualist. All types of societies are limited by economic factors. Nineteenth century civilisation alone was economic in a different and distinctive sense, for it chose to base itself on a motive only rarely acknowledged as valid in the history of human societies, and certainly never before raised to the level of a justification of action and behaviour in everyday life, namely, gain. The self regulating market system was uniquely derived from this principle….” Karl Polanyi The Great Transformation 1944
Everything that Polanyi observed as liberalism gave fruit to extremes of inequality, fascism and social breakdown has been observed by Hudson as neo-liberalism has broken through the social barriers preventing it from tearing communities to pieces and has come close to making large parts of the planet uninhabitable.
He does not foresee a revolution (I do) but he understands that unless society quickly takes care of problems such as unequal access to health and basic services, inequality of incomes and, the unequal distribution of power that reduces 90% of humanity to political impotence in the face of oligarchy, then either socialism or barbarism is imminent.

Posted by: bevin | Jul 11 2022 17:26 utc | 103

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 11 2022 17:11 utc | 102
Thanks for addressing this question, karlof1. I am reminded of your posts some time back pointing out that the US Constitution is supportive of the UN and international law.
It doesn’t seem to me that we need a new Constitution, and I’m reminded that changing the Russian constitution wasn’t the first order of the day when Putin took over from Yeltsin. There were some new rules assuredly, to eliminate the power of oligarchs over a foundering state. But they had to regain stability and faith in what they were trying to do from a mightily disheartened population.
What has to happen, and this is perfectly within Constitutional limits, is to raise taxes on the mega rich and get money out of the electoral system. It’s not the Constitution that’s at fault; it is the people going without legal redress of wrongs being perpetrated in the financial system and in government itself.
I know you can point to absolute chicanery going back to pre-revolutionary days. We’ve had some successes though it’s been a rocky road. So, we need punitive measures to stop that happening in future. A united public can still force there to be some semblance of restoration of voting rights, and can, if Biden won’t, put in power leadership that can take on this task. It wasn’t just Putin that did this in Russia – it was a cadre of purposeful people who had suffered long enough under a corrupt regime. They didn’t revolt. They worked, and are still working, from within.
It’s very similar to a special operation that has the citizenry’s needs front and center. It’s not a revolution or even a revolt. It’s what Russia is doing from the bottom up as it were. China as well. It’s really how you build an enlightened civilization. Our Constitution led to the United Nations. Both are good systems. They need overhauling in light of current needs, tightening up and including where needed (and that is definitely not on the corporate level!)
Any system needs people of integrity running it. Michael Hudson does a great job pointing out the wrongs with great clarity. Most of the problem has resided in terrible rules being orchestrated by a non-Constitutional Supreme Court, starting in 2000 when the vote was taken away from ordinary folk. The rot began there, so leadership is out of the hands of the people and wrongs cannot be corrected.
But that isn’t the Constitution’s fault. This is not an ideological struggle. It’s one between greed and equity, simple as that.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 11 2022 17:58 utc | 105

Media Lens has a great new piece today:
https://www.medialens.org/2022/the-great-merger-the-rise-of-oligarchical-politics/
Here’s an excerpt
“Millions of people in the UK are beset by insecurities and worries about the rising cost of living. Fuel and energy prices are escalating, variously blamed on Brexit, Covid, and the war in Ukraine. A recent survey reported that 67% of Britons are worried about paying food and fuel bills, and 56% believe their household finances have worsened in the past 12 months….
“The NHS is experiencing huge pressures. Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor and the author of ‘Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic’, said in March that the NHS:
‘is not coping much better now than it was at Covid’s peaks. We are drowning – in Covid patients, cancer patients, the patients on the waiting list backlogs, and the patients whose conditions have become infinitely more complex and harmful because they’ve been waiting so long. There are so few staff – and those left are so burned out and traumatised – that patients are inevitably being neglected.’
“Too many people in this country are relying on food banks. Between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022, the Trussell Trust network, the UK’s largest foodback organisation, distributed over 2.1 million emergency food parcels to people in crisis. This is an increase of 81% compared to the same period five years ago.
“Hundreds of thousands of disabled and chronically ill people are having to wait an average of five months for disability benefits. Employees are working long hours on short-term and zero-hour contracts. There are persistent delays and poor services on public transport. And people have to wait inordinately long times to obtain driving licenses and passports.
“All of this is taking place against the reality of industrial action and rising public dissatisfaction with what passes for ‘news’ or ‘politics’ in the Westminster bubble, or any of the other bubbles inhabited by Western elites….”
“… The prevailing public mood was pithily summed up by writer Umair Haque as a ‘feeling of downward mobility’. This, he said, is how many people feel today: ‘They don’t feel good. Confident. Assured. Optimistic. They feel…worthless. Defeated. Helpless and hopeless. Traumatized and weary.’
“Haque continued:
‘I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it financially — how am I going to make ends meet? I can’t take it economically — no matter how hard you work, little seems to change. I can’t take it culturally — nothing, no one out there seems to help me, aid me, be there for me. I can’t take it socially — this whole society feels like it’s against me.’
“There is, warned Haque, a ‘tsunami of demoralisation’ sweeping our societies:
‘And as people grow demoralized, they grow de-moralized. Their moral centers and cores stop working. Only the strong survive, and the weak perish? I had better become ruthless, cunning, cruel. I must learn how to be a knife. Not a lever, not an open hand. A closed fist. In the bitter battle for self-preservation, the great virtues — empathy, grace, truth, knowledge — all themselves become needless luxuries and unaffordable indulgences.’
But there is hope
“RMT union leader Mick Lynch has been a ray of hope for many people.
“Speaking live on BBC News from a picket line in London last month, Lynch said:
‘The whole country is suffering. And we have got a membership and a trade union that is prepared to fight for what we’ve got. What the rest of the country suffers from is the lack of power.’ Lynch expanded: ‘The lack of the ability to organise and the lack of the wherewithal to take on these employers that are continually driving down wages, and making the working class in this country poorer, year on year on year, while the rich get richer and dividends are accelerated and the stock market is reasonably healthy. We’ve got full employment and falling wages, and that is a situation that has never happened before and it cannot be tolerated by working people or by the trade union movement.’
“In a Sky News interview, the union leader highlighted the deceptive rhetoric of many businesses:
‘What we’re seeing here is a smokescreen caused by Covid, and many employers are taking this opportunity. They’re using what is a temporary phenomenon – Covid – and the temporary phenomenon of people being told not to go to work as a smokescreen to get rid of decent conditions, decent pay rates and decent agreements.’
“Making the kind of rational, reasonable points that rarely get an airing on state-corporate ‘news’ outlets, Lynch added:
“‘Everybody wants our cities, towns and villages to recover. The way we do that, and one of the most important aspects of that, is by having a decent public transport system that can be relied on, is safe and accessible. Cutting staff, cutting services and cutting funding is the opposite to that, and nobody in our community should tolerate that from this government of billionaires who tell everyone else they’ve got to tighten their belts while they’re raking it in.’…
That is in the UK is the rest of NATO any better?

Posted by: bevin | Jul 11 2022 18:28 utc | 107

108 Cont’d–
Sorry, but I must disagree that it’s not an ideological struggle. It very much is so as different ideologies underpin the differences between Industrial and Finance Capitalism that all comes down to the notion of all income being earned, meaning there’s no such thing as unearned income and the free lunch that it allows. As Hudson has and continues to document, that change was thought up by those designing the reaction in England to the reforming efforts led by those known as the Classical Economists, whose aim was to eliminate what then remained of Feudalism–land and monopoly rents as enjoyed by Royality and their rentier allies: The Idle Rich gorging on their Free Lunches.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 11 2022 18:56 utc | 109

RT reports 4chan has a new hack or several of Hunter Biden‘s iPhone mobile phone iCloud backup account with files being torrented etc. (I haven’t looked at it and I’m not confirming anything; only passing the word).
Maybe some Tree Letter Agency is behind it and wants Joe Biden gone as soon as possible, or maybe it’s someone else (could be anyone including the “Democrats”).

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 11 2022 19:06 utc | 111

@phiw13 #82:

The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

Thanks! This explains the reason for the assassination and why the Japanese media are obfuscating it.

Posted by: S | Jul 11 2022 19:39 utc | 113

All of the grains we eat today – whether maize, wheat, barley etc were originally grasses, i.e. weeds.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 11 2022 16:22 utc | 95
I don’t think “weed” means what you say it means, when yer nomenclature relies on which people determine which grasses’ and their seeds are “invasive” suburban lawn species. lol.

Posted by: sln2002 | Jul 11 2022 19:51 utc | 115

The Vineyard of the Saker is down again, at least from the belly of the Satanic beast. Looks like the junta doesn’t want their multi-decade record of biological terrorism (including SARS-CoV-2, a viral weapon designed at Fort Detrick, Maryland) made public.

Posted by: Doug | Jul 11 2022 20:57 utc | 117

@bevin #103
You said

In the United States similar movements in both state (not to mention municipal) and federal politics were characterised as Populist or Progressive movements. These were far from being revolutions but they did lead to great changes in society. In the New Deal this impulse was revived.

Perhaps it has escaped your attention, but the Populists were utterly destroyed as a political movement.
Yes, a few of their stronger platform points did eventually arise during the New Deal, but the New Deal was created entirely because FDR gathered up a sufficient coalition to go against his own class. He was then pushed into these extremes by the remaining former class compatriots.
Is there anyone remotely resembling FDR today? Is there anything remotely resembling the threat of Communism, post 1929 Great Depression, to spur an FDR to tell his compatriots that either they reform a little via FDR or get reformed on pitchforks via the Commies?
I don’t see it.

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 11 2022 21:11 utc | 119

@sln2002 #115
Definition of weed:

a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.

Does anyone grow any ancestral grain as a lawn ornament?
I don’t think so.
Ancestral gains were wild; they are weeds today.
Still failing to see what you apparently believe is a strong point of some type.

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 11 2022 21:25 utc | 121

Thank you phiw13 (and S for repeating it).
By the way (and this can be entirely wrong since I haven’t checked) but entirely off-hand I think “Tetsuya Yamagami” could be read as something like “Steel(y) Mountain-god”?
I’m sure others could clarify if it is indeed the case, and also whether the association and interpretation would still remain in case the name is spelt with kanji meaning other things. I suspect it might.
A name like that almost makes the assassination seem like a deliberate/arranged case of Shinto “shinbatsu” (meaning divine punishment or retribution) meted out by a “kami” (sometimes translated and pronounced as “gami”) which is the word for Shinto gods or gods in general of which there are easily millions (for example every yama/mountain has its own kami/god/spiritual ruler and that’s just a small example).
Or it could be coincidence or a contributing psychological and/or religious motivating factor for the decision taken by him to perform the assassination.
Interesting (to me).

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 11 2022 21:33 utc | 123

c1ue wrote:
“Definition of weed: a wild plant growing where it is not wanted…”
And who defines what “wanted” means?

Posted by: jinn | Jul 11 2022 23:19 utc | 125

@ tim rourke | Jul 11 2022 23:02 utc | 125
i liked your review of geoffrey roberts book… thanks for sharing…

Posted by: james | Jul 11 2022 23:56 utc | 127

@bevin #127
You said

I really don’t think that you know anything about the history of the Populists- their influence was enormous and long lasting. It resonated in the Progressive movement, in the municipalisation projects and in the Socialist Party. In the South it reappeared repeatedly right into the fifties.

The Populist party failed. It fielded a Presidential candidate, then disappeared from history.
This is fact, whatever you want to believe.
If you want to conflate one failed (as defined as not actually accomplishing anything said party stood for) political party with 2 more, that’s your prerogative but the fact is that neither the Socialist party or Progressives or whatever amounted to anything to speak of in the United States – which is where the Populist party was created.
“Influence” – meaningless drivel, particularly since the people and areas which hosted the Populist party have House of Representative members and Senate representatives – why exactly wouldn’t at least some of their main goals remain visible long after the actual party failed?
You said

“The Bolsheviks were numerically weaker than the Mensheviks, but they were more ruthless and wound up winning.”
What was important in the Bolsheviks success was not numbers but programme. Bread, Peace, and Land summed up the demands of the Russian masses. The slogan also reminds us that Russia was not out of the war until Brest. Kerensky lost power because he insisted on returning to war and mobilising the nation again to fight.
The Bolsheviks simply left the war, aware that the consequences of doing so would depend, in the end, on revolutions in the West. And they were right.

If you want to argue facts, it is more helpful if you actually debate the fact in question. You want to say that the Bolsheviks won because despite being numerically inferior (i.e. you are agreeing with what I said) because of platform (i.e. you are supplying a different reason): meaningless. I am not the least bit interested in arguing with someone who is clearly ideologically motivated as opposed to conducting pragmatic analysis. You can believe what you want; you’re not going to convince anyone with bait and switch rationales which are 100% unprovable.
You said

“…the New Deal was created entirely because FDR gathered up a sufficient coalition to go against his own class. He was then pushed into these extremes by the remaining former class compatriots.”
It is pitiful. Even supposing that there was any merit in your “coalition against his own class” idea the questions as to why such a coalition arose and what kept it together would have to be answered.
In fact the New Deal was the most viable alternative to a civil war, in which the ruling class, with a tiny army to defend it and an angry population opposed to it would have been reduced to taking precisely the kind of ruthless measures that catalyse demands for reform into revolutions.

Are you even American? Have you even studied the details of Roosevelt’s many rancorous exchanges with his fellow class members?
Nor am I the least bit convinced by your assertion of a “Civil War” impending. Between who and who? Over what?
The danger FDR saw was the lure of Communism in the post-Great Depression environment – this isn’t civil war, this is Revolution.
The reality is that FDR’s many and varied executive fiat actions did not break the US out of the post Great Depression economic malaise. Not the CCC, not Social Security, not the confiscation and revaluation of gold, not the Pecora hearings etc etc.
It was World War 2 and the subsequent warflation that did it, reinforced by the subsequent golden age of US manufacturing as American companies supplied the rebuilding of destroyed Europe.
Good for him – nothing wrong with being in the right place at the right time, especially since it is highly likely that FDR deliberately provoked the Japanese in order to get the US into the war and to free his hands for warflation printing and Supreme Court packing and all the other highly dubious actions he tried – some successful, some not – in order to get his political way.

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 12 2022 0:33 utc | 129

@ c1ue who doesn’t get that change is coming whether ready for or not.
The change is going to be forced by external forces, China/Russia so your whole view about internal (r)evolution is backward…..there will be evolution forced externally which may cause some internal revolution as the evolution of our species progresses.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 12 2022 0:48 utc | 131

grieved@133, thank you for saying exactly what i feel both russia & china are trying to do, & so far succeeding. i think the iranians also have been aiding in this, holding their grief for solemani patiently knowing as russia did in 2014 the time was not yet right, bt their day & time will come. gently leading the drunk to sleep at the back of the bus.
jeffery sachs’ declarations are exceedingly curious. some view the change as a very welcome awakening. i am usually given to such inclinations bt his history to this point, being spring of this year, has not lead me to expect such a turning. medvedev’s awakening i’ve surmised was libya & the obscene debacle. primakov i’ve read alerted the foreign ministry what to expect, & i have suspected putin, lavrov, patrushev all then began to work to restore & save russia. we, in the empire of lies, have no such visionaries, we shall have to suffer first before we come to understand what it is we value & to let go of our false gods. mao helped china burn through her illusions. when i was young researching mao i came across the peasants starving & grinding stones to make cold stone soup. there was a popular cookbook in canada called stone cold soup, bt it made no reference to that recipe…at least my copy didn’t. in canada now we are accustomed to censorship. SC is still blocked. newspaper editorials contrary to local or federal politics are never published.

Posted by: emersonreturn | Jul 12 2022 1:59 utc | 133

@ Grieved | Jul 12 2022 1:29 utc | 133 with the follow up and question
Thanks for the follow up….it is nice to interact with your textual energy.
Your question is
”
If the matter of the military dominance of the US is being gradually dealt with (which I think it is, and decisively), is the matter of the financial dominance of the dollar in a similar way now coming to be grappled with?
”
This is where I get way out on a limb but don’t know any other place to be.
Put the context of your question in your head and think like a futurist/cultural anthropologist in a leadership role in our world, sans the Western part.
Yes, you want to bring the Western empire to the ground as safely as possible but still get there from here.
Yes, you know that the God of Mammon cult that owns global private finance and lots of private property has used nukes before and is quite desperate in attempting to maintain unipolar world dominance through private finance.
Yes, this is an end state that needs to be managed and so you agree with empire to tell the public at the beginning of the year that nukes would not be used….and then February came along….Hmmmm
Yes, the instantiation of an alternative Reserve Currency with intrinsic value is a neutron bomb to the Western social order and needs to be handled carefully to minimize the adjustment needed for many. Therefore, the time at which the alternative to the US dollar happens needs to be done when the back office structure is ready and able to take the scaling necessary.
When a person is faced with a piece of paper or cryptocurrency that can be exchanged for a loaf of bread on one hand and similar on the other but without the intrinsic value, the shift to that value associated money will be immediate, IMO…and hence the geopolitical dance to wake up the people to reality of a future other than the 2000+ years of a Might-Makes-Right social order.
Back to that limb I am out on….I think some of this conflict has been decided but needs to play out in a public defusing of hate, greed and all those anti-humanistic ways supported by the M-M-R social order. Are there really people capable of pulling this scenario off in our world?….Blessings to them for trying.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 12 2022 2:19 utc | 135

@ 130 c1ue
What does this civil war have to look like and what would have to be its length or duration?
Obviously the lines would be to a greater extent red state v. blue state and to a lesser degree urban v. rural.
But how would it play out? Imo, we do not know. It won’t be a la the Civil War with large rows of riflemen shoulder-to-shoulder.
Imo, the civil war will most likely culminate in a coup where the military takes over. Now, how will the military treat urban uprisings or rural reactionaries?
How will the Pentagon fall: to its hidden centralizers or to its nationalist patriots? That is the biggest question. Second to this, you have National Guards…who will take their orders from dipshits like the governors on the west coast? I don’t know.
It’s very confusing to me and I wonder how it will shake out.
But dollars-to-donuts says runaway economic collapse from the currency crisis, culminating in the fall of the greenback, and then the military coup.
I know how you so love my prognosticating…but how would you see it if the economy starts to unravel to a catastriphic degree?

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jul 12 2022 2:51 utc | 137

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-07-11/how-a-band-of-activists-helped-bring-down-sri-lankas-government
What a scoop for Reuters and such an extraordinary coincidence and not one mention of any NGO or George Soros 😉

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 12 2022 4:00 utc | 139

What a good discussion today! I love this site.
Now, let’s look at reasons why revolution would be unlikely in the US in the near future.
First, while the economy is doing badly right now and might even be falling into a long-term depression, the blow against the US is likely to be less than that against other countries. This is because there is still a lot of the fat of the land for people to live from. Coupled with this is the fact that the US middle classes, even if declining, still have a lot of material stuff that they are not willing to risk in any kind of protest movement or revolutionary activity. While people will not like the increasingly intrusive and authoritarian state that is coming, many will be inclined just to go along with it as long as their material needs are being met and while they still have some illusion of possession of stuff. This is a terrific restraint against revolution in the US. On the other hand, the national bourgeoisies had a large hand in setting the French, Mexican, Russian, and Iranian Revolutions in motion.
Second, as has been pointed out, there is no even partially unifying revolutionary ideology that is currently widely disseminated. It would seem unlikely that an actual revolution could take place without a program being in place first. Communism was one revolutionary program, but it never gained traction in the US, and most of the minority of people who mention it now really don’t have a grasp on it or on its history.
Third, the forces of repression would have to turn against their employers; that is, the police and armed forces rank and file would have to disobey orders and turn their weapons on those giving them commands. That is something that might develop quickly when the troops are ordered to fire on the people. Such turning of the forces of repression clearly happened in the French, the Russian, and the Iranian Revolutions, and probably also in the Mexican, although there I do not know the details of what became of the federal army, which participated in the Huertista counterrevolution on 1913-1914. In the US today, there is no sign of such a military insurrection occurring at all.
Fourth, I think that revolutionary leadership emerging at least partly from the ruling class would be necessary. Despite Trump, there is no sign of that either.
Much of what passes for protorevolutionary activity in the US, from the Proud Boys to the so-called Antifa, actually comes from government informed and controlled agent provocateurs who are trying to entrap the real protorevolutionaries. Such false flags were rife in other revolutions too, as exemplified notoriously by Father Gapon in the Russian Revolution of 1905.
What is going on and has gone on since 2016 in the US has been the displeasure of a large mass of the American public who have come to despise the government, the system that is fleecing them, and the mainstream media. These have expressed themselves as Trump supporters precisely because the MSM turned its hate machine, the Mighty Wurlitzer, against Trump, and it was that mass’s way of expressing their opposition and blowing off steam, just what the two-party system was designed to do. The large new element I saw was their mass apostasy from the US political system, even denouncing the elections in general as fraudulent. The coming big test will be whether that will stick, or rather whether as usual that idea will flag, and the system will succeed in reasserting itself. Probably a modest Republican victory in November would do a lot to deflate claims of election fraud. Were the elections to bring into office truly anti-state people to throw a monkey wrench into the system, that would be quite a step, but how likely is that? The Republican Party remains populated by deep-state loving hacks just like the Democratic, so the possibility that the ship of state may right itself for a time looms large.
As for who would constitute the sides of a civil war in the US, it would be the deep state versus a large mass of the population motivated by the only ideological matter they possess, US nationalism, something they would have to challenge the deep state for possession of, as the deep state won’t give that up as its slogan either, obviously. The revolutionary nationalists would have to accuse the deep state loyalists of treason, but there is no sign of any such movement yet, and charges of treason seem mostly only to emanate from the lips of people like Liz Cheney.
Therefore, while I still think a revolution would eventually be a likely possibility, and while a revolutionary situation also might develop quickly, it would seem that the US is still far from that or in the early stages of it if at all.

Posted by: Cabe | Jul 12 2022 4:11 utc | 141

uncleT@143, thank you so very much. i tried to follow the links & connect with telegram, unfortunately all delivered me to the land of 404. i try each moment of each day not to give chrystia more important than she desires, bt i do feel her effects. thank god her reign will be short. 😉 thank you again, uncle T.

Posted by: emersonreturn | Jul 12 2022 5:45 utc | 143

Who is buying what weapons from the USA?
https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales
Defense Security Cooperation Agency
Australia is buying HIMARS and part of the deal includes “Implementation of this proposed sale will require the assignment of two (2) U.S. Government and five (5) U.S. contractor representatives in Australia for a period of one year.”
I guess if Ukraine gets a similar deal plus the longer range missiles then it will be safer to station the USA operational team further from the contact line.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 12 2022 7:14 utc | 145

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 11 2022 18:45 utc | 108,109
Thanks very much, karlof1 for your lengthy reply to my thoughts. First up, it would be extremely helpful if you could quote Michael Hudson on the Constitutional issue. I might have missed his explanation of that, and it would be great to get his opinion on what was going on when the country’s founders put that document together.
I have two points to make continuing my argument. And to begin, you certainly have followed US history much more closely than me, as it was only in my senior year at college that I read many of the founding documents, the Constitution itself, Federalist Papers, and parts of The People Shall Judge. I don’t remember that we went much further than those items, though I’d had two years of skimming through American History in high school in this country, and I have read various biographies of the main characters through the years.
My first point occurred to me earlier this evening, and that is that we ought to have much more respect for those Founders than we do. Assuredly they were men of property, and most of them slave owners. But, and this is most important, they were not the kind of oligarchs we are facing today. I think you would cede this point. And they never became the ‘dark force’ behind the scenes manipulating the course of events that are in charge today. They were wealthy, but that meant they were also educated. There are wealthy persons in China and in Russia, but they are not a threat to the country because they are nationally oriented, far from being the oligarchs even of that day, which the British and Dutch and other colonists were. Our founders were not colonists.
This is an important point. They may have been imperfect, treating both slaves and native populations worse than they should have, but they did not have a grandiose plan to rule the world. They were rightly proud of what they were accomplishing, but as I think Abraham Lincoln said down the line, it was always the goal to have a government of the people, and by the people, and most of all for the people. And so it developed right down to and through the civil rights era, which you and I lived through as young people. That wasn’t just armchair gluttons sitting back and dreaming of becoming rich. A lot of young folk put their lives on the line back then, and some of them lost those lives.
Okay, that’s point one. I’ll set out point two next.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 12 2022 7:35 utc | 147

Here’s my point two:
We tend to think these oligarchs we have today are on some high plateau of invincibility. That’s wrong. I think Professor Hudson is showing us that they have feet of clay. That’s what is causing this horrible ghastly prolongation of the Ukraine war – they are throwing everything they’ve got (within reason as they see it) at extending the conflict.
The only thing is that it is pretty clear they are losing that battle. Which they ought never have begin in the first place. Because, as Putin and Lavrov rightly point out they are revealing themselves as colonists, and depraved colonists at that. Somebody has to make public now – and it ought to be a book written on the subject because it is vast (bravo to PeterAU for getting the word out) —some 360 biomilitary labs, and not one in the US! That’s world domination with genocidal intent!
There have to be ramifications on an international level to bring this edifice crashing down. Already the EU is starting to break up as far as supplying the Ukraine demolition derby. Not to mention supporting sanctions, scrambling to keep the lights on, etc. etc.
What’s the second point. The avalanche has begun. Russia has named names. The world now knows what is or was going to be happening. That means international attention and international reckoning, whatever form that will take.
I don’t think we need a revolution; we just have to wait for the tsunami – head for the hills maybe, shore up the windows maybe. And hang onto the good with all our patriotic hearts and souls. Help it along, yes; but that will mean going with the flow. So, patience, dear hearts. Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 12 2022 7:56 utc | 149

Germany’s Habeck is in the news again (who’s becoming somewhat of a Canadian celebrity — completely unrelated to Canada’s natural resource industry honest, no connection)
https://www.lapresse.ca/debats/editoriaux/2022-07-12/quand-gazprom-attend-ses-turbines-la-main-sur-le-robinet.php
« En moyenne, un Allemand passe plus de 10 minutes sous l’eau chaude de la douche.
C’est beaucoup trop, a dit leur ministre fédéral de l’Économie, Robert Habeck. »
Putin is always in the news. Here he is on Telesur commenting on the death of former Angolan president, dos Santos —
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Putin-Sends-Condolences-on-Death-of-Former-Angolan-President-20220709-0007.html
And here he is commenting on Canada’s recent Internet network outage (satire and very very funny imho)
https://www.thebeaverton.com/2022/07/putin-determines-cyber-attack-against-canada-not-necessary-since-rogers-is-far-more-effective/
“Putin expressed his admiration of the NATO country’s ability to concentrate tremendous power in unaccountable corporate oligarchies whose incompetence is far more efficient at disabling critical infrastructure than cruise missile strikes hitting major telecommunication sites. … “Call off the attack, and purchase some more stock in Rogers,” Putin added.”
Then there are conversations which just suggest the support of the invisible hand of Putin (it’s not always paranoia):
Alberto Fernandez, ‘the OAS is useless’ (Just over a minute vid)
https://youtu.be/2ua2ReO5UoA

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 12 2022 12:34 utc | 151

An important article on Egypt by the former Investment minister,Yehia Hamed :
“Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started last February, countless articles have been published on the devastating impacts this war will have on wheat-importing countries in the MENA region, especially Egypt.
“But due to the incompetence of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s regime and the short-sightedness of his international backers, the severe deterioration of the economy actually started years ago.
“Many in the Egyptian opposition believe that we have finally reached a turning point, one where Sisi’s regime has been severely weakened
“The war in Ukraine has only unmasked it and shed light on the crude reality: Egypt is just a few months away from bankruptcy and the 30 percent poverty rate will soon turn into an unbearable hunger rate. ..
“..Sadly, Egypt’s biggest nightmare is yet to come with the consequences of the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. In 2015, the regime gave away Egypt’s historical rights on the Nile.
“This catastrophic decision threatens the lifeline on which a 7,000-year-old civilisation has been built. Today’s economic crisis will violently impact millions with poverty, hunger and instability. But tomorrow’s water crisis will endanger the very existence of our country…”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/egyt-crash-life-saving-plan-chaos-limit

Posted by: bevin | Jul 12 2022 14:11 utc | 153

Just a gratuitous post on the Boris Johnson situation… I watched the most recent 10 Downing Street video of him at Francis Crick Institute and also some coverage that night by Ashley Burke on CBC’s The National. I noticed two things: first his accent seemed more posh, like more Prince Charles-like than I’ve heard before. I havent much experience in these matters so I may be completely wrong. But it seems like he Americanized his accent before… and to me he now sounds very much like a man with an elite English education behind him. The second observation was from Ashley Burke’s report, when he was explaining that he won’t endorse any candidate… he looked… great. Like seriously, much more relaxed, animated. Like he’d slept for twelve hours. Maybe he’ll start losing pounds and combing his hair properly now, who knows.

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 12 2022 19:40 utc | 155

Motor on…. do us all a favour and Motor On
permanent ignore

Posted by: ld | Jul 12 2022 22:05 utc | 157

Fire in Trafalgar Square, across from the Canadian embassy, “Canada House is NOT/NOT involved” … wording changed to “Canada House is A-OK” in subsequent Tweet. Not involved. I certainly hope not.
This is from the Twitter account of Canada’s High Commissioner to the UK, Ralph Goodale, who’s from prairie province of Saskatchewan, has been in politics for 40 years and is in his 70’s.
https://twitter.com/RalphGoodale/status/1546939111264735233
He was also in that brief report on CBC’s the National about the race to replace Johnson. This may just be me, but — I didn’t recognize him at first. Is that what happens when you live in London? Or maybe he’s angling for a position in the UN?
https://youtu.be/4EVyjuOk3jA

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 13 2022 13:12 utc | 159

For the price of a new car (30K EUR), any Western European can now buy a Javelin ATGM! Come one, come all, from established separatists to ordinary people holding grudges. Unit comes disguised in a barrel of engine oil.
This can only end well.
https://t.me/intelslava/33001

Posted by: Peter | Jul 14 2022 0:23 utc | 161

For those who don’t know about orange shirts, I refer you to orangeshirtday.org
John Manley gave an interview this morning again discussing inflation
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/video/anticipation-of-inflation-makes-it-harder-for-the-boc-to-turn-things-around-former-finance-minister~2484450
In the Honduras, former president Porfirio Lobo’s son was shot dead
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Honduras-Former-President-Porfirio-Lobos-Son-Was-Shot-Dead-20220714-0011.html
In Bolivia, a second state-owned fertilizer plant is under construction
https://kawsachunnews.com/bolivia-building-second-state-fertilizer-plant
MK Bhadrakumar links to Canada’s BNN Bloomberg — “Russia to launch oil trading on a national platform secure an independent Russian benchmark!”
https://twitter.com/BhadraPunchline/status/1547636236713881602

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 14 2022 17:46 utc | 163

Tourism was Sri Lanka’s top earner, which’s devastated by the USAss engineered COVID, IT totally collapsed after the USAss orchestrated terrorism on Easter 2019.

Some analysts say that the targeting of Sri Lanka was not surprising. Sri Lanka is among several other Asian countries where ISIS attacks have unexpectedly occurred in recent years, offering an entry-point for Western-sponsored counter-terrorism activity or humanitarian assistance.
Many targets of these latter-day, often inexplicable attacks claimed by IS, or other little-known terror outfits, have been strategically located states benefitting from China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which dispenses multi-billion dollar investments for infrastructure projects like deep water ports, roads, railways and industrial parks. Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh are cases in point.
The Philippines, whose president Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 threatened to ditch its longtime military alliance with the US, and turn to China, next year faced an attack by IS terrorists in the town of Marawi, leading Americans to further consolidate their military presence.
In Myanmar in 2017 a little-known terrorist group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) staged attacks on security posts in Rakhine state, sparking a destabilizing security crackdown on the Rohingya community that resulted in a huge refugee exodus to neighbouring countries. Rakhine state is home to Sittwe port and a starting point of BRI infrastructure projects linking Myanmar with China’s Kunming city. The shadowy leader of ARSA is said to be not native to Myanmar but a Rohingya born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia.
Last month in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province five people were reported to have been killed in an attack on a star class hotel located near the port of Gwadar, which is being modernized under China’s BRI. Baluch separatists claimed responsibility. “The Baluch Liberation Army carried out a dozen attacks last year against Chinese-linked projects. In November, the group attacked a Chinese consulate in the major southern city of Karachi …” AP reported. It’s worth noting that in Sri Lanka too, two of the sea-front hotels that came under suicide bomb attacks overlooked the $1.4 billion Port City project, China’s single biggest infrastructure investment in Sri Lanka.
Those who hold a microscope to these ‘politically convenient’ conflicts in South and South-East Asia keep finding foreign fingerprints of big powers that seek to gain a foothold, in order to challenge a rising China. The American geopolitical researcher Tony Cartalucci gives a clue to what is happening on the global stage when he says “The US is both arsonist and self-appointed fireman.’

The US is both arsonist and self-appointed fireman.’
Been saying this since time immemorial.
https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/64698

Posted by: denk | Jul 16 2022 1:19 utc | 165

psychohistorian | Jul 16 2022 2:11 utc | 167
‘We have gone from the level of proxy wars for profit and control to concerted efforts to bring the Western bully empire down. All the poor small countries are pawns in this efforts but important pawns that want to end the Western debt jackboot.’
Sri Lanka’s been bankrupted by soaring inflation,
triggered by…
USAss orchestrated fuel and food crisis,
Tourism, its top earner, was destroyed by USAss engineered COVID and Easter terrorism.
USAss mastermind economic reset had claimed its first
soverign victim, by design.
But true to form, the entire anglophone MSM is screaming the ‘China dept trap’ destroy Sri Lanka. !

Posted by: denk | Jul 16 2022 2:31 utc | 167

@ denk | Jul 16 2022 4:49 utc | 169 with the East Asia/Native America related ancestry
My questioning brain asks what if Native Americans populated east Asia instead of assuming the other way around?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 16 2022 5:47 utc | 169

Question (maybe only valid in North America and/or the Anglosphere): when is it just politics as usual… and when is it civil war or war ofr some other kind?

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 16 2022 14:47 utc | 171

Meridian (MEM) “about us” page, partial quote:

“Meridian closely cooperates with the UN and NATO on the delivery of urgent cargo, including military and dual-use cargo.”

So there’s that at least but not conclusive.
Maybe it was to Al Tanf by way of Jordan?

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 17 2022 0:16 utc | 173

Australia is buying HIMARS and part of the deal includes “Implementation of this proposed sale will require the assignment of two (2) U.S. Government and five (5) U.S. contractor representatives in Australia for a period of one year.”
I guess if Ukraine gets a similar deal plus the longer range missiles then it will be safer to station the USA operational team further from the contact line.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 12 2022 7:14 utc | 146
—
I think HIMARS, unlike nuclear submarines, are perfectly suited to the defensive needs of Australia.
Australia is uniquely vulnerable to dangers that can come on ships. Imagine a ship laden with some devilish species, like poisonous frogs, sent by a malicious foreign power to crash on Australian coast and unleash a plague, especially when Australians lack sufficient number of golf clubs and cricket bats to handle the plague of poisonous toads that they have already. Mind you, sending Australia more bats and clubs is (a) difficult, as they may be produced by the malicious foreign power (b) futile, as the bats would be used to play cricket and clubs to pay golf most of the time. Combine forces of poisonous frogs and poisonous toads could overtake survival capacity of Australia.
That said, are nuclear submarines the best weapon to stop the frogs? Frogs were stopped already by breaking a huge contract with the French (a.k.a. Frogs), so high time to cancel the huge contract with Americans. With all due respect to nuclear submarines, simple speed boats could intercept a frog laden armada more effectively AND with a smaller cost.
Thus ordering HIMARS could alleviate American wrath caused by the cancellation of the submarine contract.
I would also theorize that HIMARS are well suited to the most probable combat mission aimed at the safety of Australia, intervention in Solomon Islands.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jul 17 2022 4:11 utc | 175

You know, certain events of the past few days are leading me to conclude, for the first time ever, that the switch from hegemony to multipolarity here in North America is likely to be handled in “politics as usual” manner and not outright civil war. (Well — just the quasi-permanent war-like power struggle that is politics over here.)
First, b has posted like a boss these past few days with no consequences. He was much more careful, imho, a few weeks ago.
Second, the New York Post, yes, that and John Manley’s recent media appearance have changed my perspective on how things might unravel. Today (Sunday’s) NY Post includes several “anti-woke” articles. In general, I thought these ones were especially worth noting:
Opinion: Gavin Newsom thinks California is a model for America – we’d better hope not
https://nypost.com/2022/07/16/gavin-newsom-thinks-california-is-a-model-for-america-we-better-hope-not/
Opinion: Green food fight over farms will end in disaster [which impressed me by using the phrase “extremist agricultural policies”]
https://nypost.com/2022/07/16/green-food-fight-over-farms-will-end-in-disaster/
Larry Summers talks on when the Fed lost its way
https://nypost.com/2022/07/15/larry-summers-says-the-federal-reserve-is-wrong-about-economy/
From July 15: Western ‘dictator envy’ ignores the far greater strengths of democracy [emphasis on limits to centralized power in USA]
https://nypost.com/2022/07/15/western-dictator-envy-ignores-strengths-of-democracy/
Russian space chief fired
https://nypost.com/2022/07/15/russian-space-chief-dmitry-rogozin-fired-after-elon-musk-troll/

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 17 2022 10:10 utc | 177

From NY Post link of Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 17 2022 10:10 utc | 178
But Putin’s advisers fear telling him the truth. It’s fun to watch one of his flunkies groveling.
I understand why his adviser stammers. Pointing out a problem might get him jailed, if not killed. It’s why dictators get bad information. They make bad decisions because there’s no open dissent.
“That’s what happens when you centralize,” says Norberg. “You lose individual initiative . . . local knowledge. If you can mobilize everybody in one direction, sometimes they mobilize us all over the cliff.”
“Democracy cannot guarantee the best governance, but it can prevent the worst from happening,” concludes Norberg. “That is enough. That’s really what freedom and democracy is about. It doesn’t guarantee us heaven, but at least it makes us sure that we won’t end up in hell.”
—————–
This Norberg styles himself as a “historian”. Historians avoid fantasy reconstructions of events that are not supported by some citable evidence. Evidence for Putin “jailing advisers”. ..???
Stoessel who interviewed Norberg, and quite possibly Norberg himself, is a libertarian (of sorts). Actually, many observations of Norberg are valid, the “dictator envy” definitely exists, Justin Trudeau is a foolish leader, but the heavy admixture of fantasies into their worldview prevents them from recognizing real problems and impels them to offer pseudo-solution.
Democracy can be distorted (and is), and in its distorted state does not “prevent the worst from happening.” Is “local power, decentralization” a cure? I doubt it, this cure does not address the origin of the problems at the “central levels”. We are ruled by lobbies. Lobbies train “elected representatives”, ply them with money, provide with templates of new laws and regulations etc. Sufficiently well funded lobbies do that in Federal level, state level and if needed, municipal etc. De-centralization is just a redirection of lobbying efforts. If war or sanction powers require consensus of a group of states, war+sanction lobby trains, cajoles, bribes and threaten democtratic representatives of ALL member states, big and small. So what does Norberg do? He adds platitudes to his otherwise valid remarks to appease the war lobby. See — I even said something bad about Putin and Xi!!! I even praised our superiority, however tenuous!!!

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jul 17 2022 11:13 utc | 179

“Justin Trudeau is a foolish leader” you say (as do many others) with no evidence. Never mind, someone will craft something.
Yes, Canada is a constitutional monarchy and is thus a source in North America of a completely different group of Anglo elites than the ones housed in the US.
It’s about balance of power — democracy in the context that the centralized diktat from Washington can no longer rule without concessions to other powerful groups. The key message from that article is the end to the rule by the Washington consensus. Is that draining the swamp?
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 17 2022 11:28 utc | 181
Of course, there are several issues here. Mental acuity of Justin Trudeau. Hm. Detaining a Chinese high executive with an obvious follow up by the Chinese, the reason for the lengthy detention and eventual release “murky”, and IMHO, idiotic. Detaining an important piece of machinery from Germany, an allied state, under suspicion that Germany, an allied state, will misuse it. IMHO, idiotic. War on truckers… it remind me a Putin’s “war with truckers” that to Western dismay, ended in COMPROMISE! That is an autocracy for you, democratic government is too dignified, being ennobled by the MANDATE OF THE PEOPLE, to stoop so low. Putin was so craven that he did not even badmouth his truckers. But Trudeau showed his mettle doing exactly that, and more. Tremble, weaklings in Russia and elsewhere.
The second issue is that a more intelligent leader could be equally if less obviously beholden to “Washington consensus”, and results would be only marginally better. But with a leader as intelligent as his father? Sadly, a hypothetical situation.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jul 17 2022 12:45 utc | 181

Not to get into this again but it was John Bolton who forced that arrest. Anyway.
Time will tell whether substantive changes come about in the USA. But the suggestion in the NY Post’s coverage is that there is a separate faction in the USA with power/influence over what policies are set in Washington. That is new, I think? The Washington consensus seemed to have full concentration of power before. Further, Russia’s new arrangement with NASA implies a concession was made by the USA to Russia. So Putin is part of the discussion; some non-Washington-specific elite group (based in New York?) is negotiating with Putin and has the power to force Washington’s hand. Which moves the US towards the reality that most other countries are in. Post-hegemony (pun intended).

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 17 2022 13:28 utc | 183