Seems like protests in Germany gaining steam
Twitter source
Video pan of crowd looks legit.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 13 2022 15:06 utc | 4

I learned from the reference below. that
On January 16, 1794, Congress passed a resolution that prohibited anyone who owned stock or held an office in a financial institution from being in Congress. also I learned that The original Thirteenth Amendment (1810) prohibited lawyers from functioning in Congress.. https://ia801500.us.archive.org/3/items/deanna-spingola-the-ruling-elite-the-zionist-seizure-of-world-power/Deanna_Spingola_The_Ruling_Elite_The_Zionist_Seizure_of_World_Power.pdf
It is becoming clearer and clearer that congress does not work for those it governs. What then are the governed to do?
How can the average members of the public in western prone nation states promote for their president and other members of their elected governments non pilgrim society members?
Membership in the society is secret; and i believe Epstein’s trial would have shown how threat, intimidation and blackmail keeps the affairs of secret societies secret and how such intimidation, is used to make government parties vote against the best interest of those it governs.
Over the years, nearly every president and high level member of governments seem to have been member of, or closely associated to one or more these secret organizations (mostly secret organizations seem to work by making government into a secret hidden arm of for profit influence on rule of law and formation and function of government institutions) operating both external to and embedded within the bureaucracies and working governments that govern us all.
IMO surveillance and secrecy are the feedforward feedback loop that allows special interest to carve out and profit from the privatization of monopoly powers. Surveillance and secrecy have captured “governed humanity” and surrendered it into “service of making oligarchs a profit”.
Rule of law created by biased or corrupt politics is a tool of tyranny; it converts government into an invasive imperialistic assault weapon capable to undermine human rights.

Posted by: snake | Oct 13 2022 16:07 utc | 6

Here we have some of the results of the CICA Conference, “Astana Statement on the Transformation of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia”, my emphasis:

We, the Heads of State and Government of the participating States of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), meeting on 12-13 October 2022 in Astana on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of CICA, decided to chart the following course of our further cooperation:
1. We are launching a structured, comprehensive and transparent negotiation process on a gradual, step-by-step, consensus-based transformation of CICA into a full-fledged regional international organization.
2. The CICA transformation process will pursue the following main objectives: to identify key areas of future cooperation and to strengthen the institutional and institutional framework of our interaction.
3. We believe that the organization will contribute to ensuring dynamic, equal, comprehensive and balanced economic growth, interconnectedness, social and cultural development of the participating States. We will step up collective work within the organization in order to find joint solutions to the problems common to all of us of the XXI century. to ensure the security and prosperity of the region, the peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with the UN Charter.
4. Our organization will engage and cooperate in areas of interest to all participating States with other States, organizations and forums that share our objectives and principles to strengthen results-oriented and consensus-based multilateral cooperation in the region.

So, yet another multilateral organization aims at joining with other like-minded organizations thus knitting the region more firmly together. And as with the SCO, a big portion of the organization’s focus is on anti-terrorism efforts which are detailed in other adopted documents that can be found here.
Putin made a short speech at the Summit which I’ll provide in my next comment.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 13 2022 16:31 utc | 8

Putin’s CICA Summit Address, emphasis mine:

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President of [Kazakhstan] Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich, Dear colleagues!
For 30 years, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia has been discussing pressing issues related to strengthening security and stability throughout the vast Asian region.
Today’s meeting is taking place against the backdrop of major changes in global politics and the economy. The world is becoming truly multipolar, and Asia plays a very noticeable, if not key, role in this, where new centers of power are growing stronger.
The countries of the Asian region are the locomotive of world economic growth. Such integration associations as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the Eurasian Economic Union are operating dynamically and with good returns.
Russia is also actively involved in all these processes. We stand for the development and prosperity of Asia and the creation for this purpose of a wide open space of mutually beneficial trade and investment cooperation, for the expansion and deepening of cooperation ties in various sectors of the economy.
Let me remind you that it was Russia that stood at the origins of the creation of the business council at the meeting, through which many successful conferences and seminars have been held over the past years on the entire range of economic topics.
And of course, together with other Asian states, we are doing everything to form a system of equal and indivisible security based on the universally recognized principles of international law of the UN Charter.
Our meeting and other regional associations have to deal with many acute problems, including the increased volatility of global prices for energy, food, fertilizers, raw materials and other important goods. This leads to a deterioration in the quality of life in developed and developing countries. Moreover, there is a real threat of hunger and large-scale social upheaval, especially in the poorest countries.
Russia, for its part, is making every effort to provide critical products to countries in need. We call for the elimination of all artificial, illegitimate barriers to the normal functioning of global supply chains in order to meet the urgent challenges of food security.
Like many of our partners in Asia, we believe that it is necessary to launch a revision of the principles of the global financial system, which for decades allowed the self-proclaimed so-called golden billion, which has closed all flows of capital and technology, to a large extent live at someone else’s expense.
As a priority step, we see a more active use of national currencies in mutual settlements. Such measures would undoubtedly contribute to strengthening the financial sovereignty of our states, developing domestic capital markets, and deepening regional economic integration.
It is extremely important, together with other regional forums and organizations, to continue to work actively to resolve emerging crisis situations and conflicts in Asia, to strengthen cooperation between our states in countering the terrorist threat, identifying and neutralizing extremist groups, blocking their financial support, combating drug trafficking and suppressing the propaganda of radical ideas.
Unfortunately, Afghanistan remains one of the most acute security challenges for our region. Our colleagues have already spoken about this today.
This country, after more than 20 years of military presence of the United States and NATO, the failure of their policy, was unable to independently solve the problems associated with terrorist threats, which is confirmed by the ongoing series of bloody terrorist attacks, including the explosion near the Russian Embassy in Kabul on September 5.
In order to normalize the situation on the territory of Afghanistan, of course, it is necessary to jointly promote its economic reconstruction. But above all, we urge compensation for the damage done to Afghans during the years of occupation and the unfreezing of illegally frozen Afghan funds.
In the context of a settlement in Afghanistan, it would be useful to use the capabilities of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and its regional anti-terrorist structure.
We also invite all Asian countries to cooperate more closely with the International Data Bank for Countering Terrorism, established at the initiative of Russia.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that Russia, together with China, has drafted a joint statement at this summit on security cooperation in the field of information and communication technologies. We hope that it will be approved.
In conclusion, I would like to mention the importance of strengthening multilateral cooperation between the states participating in the meeting in the social, cultural and humanitarian spheres, in promoting inter-civilizational dialogue and contacts between people.
In particular, volunteer movements also require support. The acute phase of the coronavirus pandemic, which we have passed, has shown the undoubtedly useful role that volunteer and youth structures play in providing assistance and assistance to the population. Russia has a good, rich experience in these matters, which we are ready to share with interested countries.
On the whole, I would like to note with satisfaction that the joint work within the framework of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures is progressing in a positive manner. Russia will continue to develop multifaceted cooperation with all the parties represented at this meeting.
We support the initiatives of Kazakhstan’s chairmanship.
Thank you very much for your attention.

With the latest acts of terrorism being performed by NATO, IMO it’s becoming clear that the term terrorism is becoming a cover term for NATO/Outlaw US Empire. The anti-terrorism principle, which also includes the extremism present within Color Revolution attempts, is now a major part of Eurasian multilateral organizations’s aims. Thus, while none of those organizations are overtly against any one nation or bloc, it’s clear that they’re against those that are responsible for Terrorism and Extremism, which as we know consist of the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 13 2022 16:47 utc | 10

And as one can imagine, Putin held a number of talks with others at the Summit some of which are reported at the Kremlin’s website. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement about yesterday’s UNGA vote which I’ve machine translated and post in full below with my emphasis:

On October 12, during the resumed 11th emergency special session of the UN General Assembly, a resolution “Territorial integrity of Ukraine: protection of the principles of the UN Charter” was adopted condemning referendums in the DPR, LHP, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
This odious initiative largely repeats the document vetoed by Russia on September 30 of this year in the UN Security Council. Once again, Western delegations moved the consideration of the Ukrainian story from the Security Council to the “platform” of the General Assembly, thereby proposing to sign the “inability” of the Council to implement its main task of maintaining international peace and security.
At a time when Member States were once again subjected to enormous pressure, reaching the threat of sanctions, Russia proposed to hold a secret ballot on the project. Obviously, this would allow many delegations to express their true position without fear of the consequences of their “wrong” – from the point of view of Washington and its satellites – decisions. However, this proposal was rejected following the results of unscrupulous procedural maneuvers organized by our opponents in violation of all existing rules for the work of the General Assembly.
At the same time, despite all the tricks and unprecedented pressure (direct threats were made to stop financial support or humanitarian aid if member states disobey Washington), the anti-Russian document did not receive unconditional support: dozens of countries refused to vote in its favor. “For” were 143 states, the remaining 50 countries voted “against”, abstained or did not take part in the vote. Among those who did not succumb to external pressure are such large and influential players as Algeria, India, Iran, China, Pakistan, South Africa, Ethiopia and others. We are especially grateful to Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria for their principled and resolute position.
There is no doubt that this resolution, contrary to its title, has nothing to do with the protection of the principles of the UN Charter. Statements of commitment to international law on the part of the United States and other NATO countries are nothing more than evidence of double standards, and there are many convincing examples in this regard. It was they who were in the forefront of supporters of the “independence” of Kosovo, insisting on its right to secede from the state, despite the absence of a real threat to the civilian population. Another example is the US statements about its readiness to use force to protect Taiwan, which is an integral part of the PRC.
Referendums in the DPR, LHP, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions were held in full compliance with the UN Charter, the norms and principles of international law and the 1970 Declaration on the Principles of International Law, which guarantees territorial integrity, but only to those states where “governments represent, without distinction of race, religion or skin color, all the people living in this territory.” It is obvious that the Kiev authorities absolutely did not meet this criterion and do not meet this criterion, using terrorist methods against the civilian population and infrastructure.
In general, the adoption of the resolution once again confirmed that the West is trying to solve, first of all, its own geopolitical tasks in opposition to Russia, to maintain an elusive monopoly in world affairs, to split a number of member states of the General Assembly. It is also obvious that this confrontational initiative is aimed not at finding a peaceful settlement, but at prolonging the conflict in Ukraine.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 13 2022 17:23 utc | 12

At his VK, Escobar provides an update on the protests in France that has an accompanying map lifted from Le Figaro:
“A nightmare. Major PORTS are blocked (see those red circles and red squares).
“Le Petit Roi’s goons are starting to introduce FORCED LABOR; if you don’t go to work, you will be fined or go to jail.
“You can’t get away with stuff like that in France. Blowback will be a bitch. Le Petit Roi can have his ‘transition economy’ and eat it too.”
Pepe also provides a link to this article, “Global finance vs global energy: who will come out on top?” by energy analyst Dr. Karin Kneissl, Austria’s Foreign Minister from 2017-2019. A tidbit:
“To really understand the core of the conflict in Ukraine – where a proxy war rages – one must break down the confrontation thus: The US and its European allies, who represent and back the global financial sector, are essentially engaged in a battle against the world’s energy sector.
“In the past 22 years, we have seen how easy it is for governments to print paper currency. In just 2022, the US dollar has printed more paper money than in its combined history. Energy, on the other hand, cannot be printed. And therein lies a fundamental problem for Washington: The commodity sector can outbid the financial industry.”
As you read, I’m not the only one who sees energy at the core of our conflict.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 13 2022 17:40 utc | 14

The Glass–Steagall legislation was enacted by the United States Congress in 1933 as part of the 1933 Banking Act, amended as part of the 1935 Banking Act, and most of it was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA). Its protections and restrictions had also been chipped away during most of its existence by lenient regulatory interpretations and use of loopholes.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 13 2022 15:00 utc | 2
Say was this not passed by the Republican Party? Which dominated the 1999 congress. The economic failure of course was during the era when the serving Republican Party GW Bush President’s term of office. GWB was noted for his long and very extensive holidays away from his main office at “Number One Observatory Circle”!
Of course, his father the third term President GHW Bush presided over the economic failure of the S&L Banks. This infers electing a Bush as a President of the USSA. This will thus guarantee a large Bank’s economic failure is basically set in concrete!

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Oct 13 2022 18:07 utc | 16

@karlof1 | Oct 13 2022 17:23 utc | 12
The new US National Security Strategy report is out. In it, there is a presentation of US-Russia relations that lacks veracity. (Not to say there aren’t more such.)
p. 25

The United States, under successive administrations, made considerable efforts at multiple points to reach out to Russia to limit our rivalry and identify pragmatic areas of cooperation. President Putin spurned these efforts and it is now clear he will not change.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 13 2022 18:29 utc | 18

Posted by: Die Niemandsfuchs | Oct 13 2022 17:12 utc | 11
Interesting Well sort of?
Back in the real world of reality of the virulent SARS-COVID-19 pandemic.
417,329 new cases in last 24hrs 620,301,709 cumulative cases 6,540,487 cumulative deaths
The official point of origin of SARS-COVID-19 is listed as Wuhan Mega City China.
China Cumulative cases 8,219,677 new cases 325,175 cumulative deaths 27,135
USSA Cumulative cases 95,472,135 new cases 271,978 cumulative deaths 1,052,114
China is a country with strict lockdown codes mass vaccination rigorous testing programs
USSA is a country that is all voluntary codes of practice Plus one very crappy price-gouged to the extreme end of scale. The third-world broken private health care system?
Loaded questions? Which country is of first-world standards in handling this particular virulent airborne virus pandemic? Which country is directly/indirectly killing its own citizens? From the so-called freedom of speech as sold to them by the political science-based corporate merchants of doubt. Aided and abetted by anti-vaxxers regurgitating an endless conveyor belt of clueless identical lies!
A lie gets halfway around the world. Before truth has a chance to put its pants on. Winston Churchill
Choices listen and heed the killer’s ignorant lies and die. Or get vaccinated and live a longer life!

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Oct 13 2022 18:53 utc | 20

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 13 2022 15:04 utc | 3
EV story was from the Daily Mail, so I wouldn’t get too Gell-Mann about it. Just saying…

Posted by: One Too Many | Oct 13 2022 19:58 utc | 22

Bad Deal Motors On @13
re nicknames for the The Daily Mail
My favourite: The Daily Heil
“We’re here to keep your prices down
We’ll feed you to the hounds
To the Daily Mail…”

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Oct 13 2022 20:53 utc | 24

@ Kali El | Oct 13 2022 16:33 utc | 9
“WEF Young Global Leaders” is a red-herring.
I watched/listened to Gabbard’s podcast on youtube. She is an american, somewhat privileged, heart-felt concerned, reciting bedrock america’s holiest myths. She has taken the Road to Damascus, spiritually, and physically too; but seems never to have left home.
She is not evil. She is naive and righteous. Which can be just as dangerous.

Posted by: Otter | Oct 13 2022 21:08 utc | 26

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Oct 13 2022 18:07 utc | 16
Gramm, Leach and Bliley were all Republicans. Like Bill Clinton.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 13 2022 21:22 utc | 28

Otter | Oct 13 2022 21:08 utc | 26
that people will come out and say certain things w/more honesty means nothing when her goal is simple:
successful
participation.
tulsi gabbard is as “anti” anything as AOC or Trump or Sanders. it’s theater so cheap that it’s free brain bleach. if the 1st words out of its mouth aren’t, “immediate 100% nuclear disarmament of the US” followed by “100% immediate defunding of the Pentagon”, why in the hell would i care what a politician has to say? it can put the lotion back on its skin and crawl back into its hole again. me & precious no like!

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Oct 13 2022 22:21 utc | 30

@Bad Deal Motors On
@Tom_Q_Collins
Focusing on the sponsors of the bill ignores the reality that Clinton signed it (Democrat president) and it was pushed heavily by Clinton’s Treasury Secretary – Robert Rubin.
Rubin not only promoted the idea before he joined the Clinton administration as Treasury secretary, he resigned right before the bill was signed so he could become Chairman of Citigroup’s Executive Board.
So the repeal of Glass Steagall was unquestionably a bipartisan legislation.
That’s the problem with CDS: it causes failure to understand that the struggle isn’t a Democrat/Republican thing, or even a conservative/liberal thing.
It is a class war.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 13 2022 22:31 utc | 32

In response to
”
Tulsi Gabbard is currently assigned to the 351st Civil Affairs Command (351 CACOM), an Army Reserve psyop unit.This same unit was once headed by psyop guru Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, a major Qanon proponent and co-author of “From PSYOP to MindWar” with Michael Aquino.
Wouldn’t trust a word this woman utters. Absolute shady figure. She was on the rooster of the Council on Foreign Relations for several years, and much more if you dig deeper into her vita.
Posted by: v | Oct 13 2022 22:29 utc | 31
”
I just finished reading a ZH piece with the title
AOC Humiliated At Town Hall In Viral Clip: ‘Why Can’t You Be More Like Tulsi Gabbard?’
GRIN! At least Tulsi may represent an break from the current group of insiders which provides opportunity for ??? when the opportunity door opens that this civilization war brings?
May you live in interesting times!

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 13 2022 22:51 utc | 34

Bloomberg – just a week ago.
By Lu Wang and Elena Popina
October 5, 2022 at 2:31 PM CDT
One giant options transaction may have sparked the S&P 500’s bounce on Wednesday, according to
Wells Fargo & Co.
The trade, which involved buying and selling call options tied to the index at a cost of around $31
million, probably helped fuel a recovery that saw the benchmark gauge erase a 1.8% decline, says
Chris Harvey, the firm’s head of equity strategy.
Theories that derivatives trading has potentially driven movement in an underlying asset have been
relatively common in this year’s topsy-turvy markets, though are also often disputed. Generally, the
view is that a market maker on the other side of an options transaction will have to buy or sell stocks
to balance positioning.
Depending on the exposure, a concept referred to by the Greek word delta, the dealer may exert
outsized influence on the market. This time, in the eyes of Harvey, the impact was positive.
“The Greeks of the trade are likely what gave a mid-day pop to the S&P 500,” Harvey wrote in a note to
clients.
The trade included buying 20,000 S&P 500 calls expiring in October with a strike price of 4,500 and
14,000 bullish contracts expiring in March at a strike of 4,300, while selling 48,000 calls maturing in
January with an exercise price at 4,500 — a bet that essentially says stocks would rally in coming
months.
“The dealers who took the other side of this had a huge amount of risk to offset,” said Gareth Ryan,
managing director at IUR Capital, adding that they could have bought equity futures to keep their
books neutral. “It certainly could’ve impacted the cash market. This is one of the largest trades by size
that I have seen in a long time.”

Posted by: daffyDuct | Oct 13 2022 23:03 utc | 36

It is a class war.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 13 2022 22:31 utc | 32
No argument from me there. I was a little too caught up with my graduate program during Clinton’s presidency to pay a lot of attention at the time. What I know now is obviously due to reading the history, which says that the populist (and mostly segregationist) southern Democrats and some from the north, were the main voices for the bottom half of the class war from the 30s through the 70s (I don’t know a lot about politics before that period). Wright Patman of Texas comes to mind; it so happens he was drummed out of the party during the Watergate years as a younger group came in.
As far as Bill Clinton goes, I don’t have much of a deep handle on his *actual* politics regarding the economy. I do know the man was an early technocrat and as was – and is – typical of such politicians, surrounded himself with “experts” from their respective sectors, not just business. I’ve never taken much time to read about Rubin’s influence on his economic or trade policies, but I do know – as I’m sure you do too – that Glass Steagall had been whittled away to a point that it was in many ways not even useful anymore by the time it was repealed/replaced.
There has been a class war in the US since the first unions formed, but it really heated up after the Powell Memo began to circulate among the business elite class in the late 60s and early 70s. From that point on it has been a war on the working class framed as though it’s the workers or the poor who are the ones waging and winning it. That started off and carried through the 90s as a Republican fronted initiative. However, President Carter also laid some of the underpinnings for the rising technocracy that has now subsumed the Democrat party, and which has ultimately the same economic goals as the Chamber of Commerce, etc.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 14 2022 0:32 utc | 38

There was a time, in a previous century, when Australia had politicians who were interesting people, and some were even courageous. They had convictions and a vision of Australia as an independent nation with a unique history. All that is gone. The revolutionary international revisionist project aims to bury these Australian qualities and ideologically customise this nation.
Occasionally a discordant voice can be heard above the drone in the wilderness.
The voice I’m reproducing in print here is of our irreverent former P.M. Paul Keating. He is still in top form verbally, and I like the message. It’s from the Guardian:
One of Australia’s former prime ministers, Paul Keating, has speculated that King Charles could renounce the UK monarch’s claim on Australia because the royal family hoped that Australia would become a republic after the referendum in 1999.
The former Labor leader says he discussed his ambition for Australia to become a republic with Queen Elizabeth during a private exchange at Balmoral in 1993. He says he told the Queen he would “not involve her family” in his campaigning for an Australian head of state.
“I think the royal family would have been so glad for the referendum to have passed, to be honest,” Keating told Prof James Curran, a University of Sydney historian, during an online event on Wednesday evening.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if King Charles the Third, the king of Australia, doesn’t volunteer … to renounce his claim on Australia.
“Look at the French. The French had a revolution for their republic. The Americans had a revolution for their republic. We couldn’t even pinch ours off Queen Elizabeth the Second – who didn’t want it. We couldn’t take the title, even if the monarch was happy to give it.”
Keating, Australia’s prime minister from 1991 to 1996, said the Australian Republican Movement wanted him to re-enter the fray after the death of Queen Elizabeth in early September but he wasn’t motivated to resume his public advocacy.
“Why would you? We fluffed it,” Keating said on Wednesday. “If Australians have so little pride in themselves, so little pride that they are happy to be represented by the monarch of Great Britain, why would somebody like me want to shift their miserable view of themselves?”
Keating said the case for Australia to become a republic was so obvious it made itself.
“Who in their right mind could believe that the monarch of Great Britain could represent our aspirations here?
“We occupy one of the oldest land masses, the oldest continents on Earth, perhaps the oldest societies on Earth – it’s so pathetic. [Becoming a republic] barely [needs] an argument … and there was [Scott] Morrison running off to Cornwall with that other fruitcake, what’s his name … Boris Johnson.”
Keating concluded his observations by stating: “Charles the Third, king of Australia, is a constitutional aberration. That’s what it is.
Wednesday night’s conversation between the historian and the former Australian prime minister was hosted by La Trobe University. The dialogue was wide-ranging, covering Australia’s relationships with the US and China, the Aukus submarine deal, Australia’s contemporary sense of identity, and what actions Australia should contemplate in the event of military confrontation over Taiwan.
Keating doubled down on his previous strident criticism of Australia’s decision to enter the Aukus partnership with the US and the UK, and he said it was not too late for the Albanese government to back out of the agreement to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
Curran asked Keating whether Labor withdrawing from Aukus would hand the Coalition a potent national security wedge. Keating countered: “Governments in office should make their own stories.”
Keating contended it was against Australia’s national interest to tie itself to the US in Asia when the US had “no idea what to do with itself in Asia”.
“Australia has a very poor idea of itself now,” Keating said. “Its head of state is the monarch of another country, its strategic sovereignty is being outsourced to another state, a North Atlantic state, the United States. It doesn’t know what it is or what it should be.”
Keating said the US was “not interested in thinking allies”, they wanted “dummies as allies”. He characterised the Quad – a security partnership between the US, Japan, India and Australia to counter China’s rising aggression in the region – as “a piece of strategic nonsense”.
He said if persistent tensions over Taiwan escalated to a full military confrontation, Australia should stay out of it. “Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest,” Keating said. “We should be no more interested in the political system of Taiwan that the political system of Vietnam, or Kazakhstan.”
Keating suggested the US would lose if it chose to defend Taiwan militarily against a forced reunification by China. “The chances of the Americans having a victory over Taiwan are nil in my opinion, and why would we want to be part of that defeat?”
“If, finally, the Americans walk away from east Asia, we are left behind … we can’t put an outboard motor on Australia at Broome, start the motor and move the continent off to San Diego, we are stuck here as the Americans take off back to the continent across the other side of the Pacific. We live in a Chinese world. That’s the truth of it.”

Posted by: Australian lady | Oct 14 2022 0:54 utc | 40

@32 c1ue, who said:
===> It is a class war. <=== Short, accurate, consequential. In those few instances where the little people prevailed against the big people, what behaviors/traits/strategies did they exhibit?

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 1:29 utc | 42

@43 Uncle Tungsten:
I think you’ve identified the root problem: we don’t control the message, or the series of messages (the “narrative”), or the message-delivery channel (the medium).
The smartest thing the oligarchs / rulers do is to control the “fourth estate”. It enables all the rest of the manipulations. I say it’s the strategic capability, trumps all.
Blogs and the Internet help; they enable the curious and the rebellious / non-conformists. We number less than 1% of the population.
The Blob controls the rest.
To level the playing field, I think we’re gonna need some better tools. We need a way to reach people we’re not already talking to.
To the Bar at large: How do we do that? Got any ideas?

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 1:54 utc | 44

@ by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 1:54 utc | 44
My view is that people are neural networks in the interpretation that our capabilities depend on our training and most people are trained to care for the basic short term needs of life: food, sex and whatever they like. Some have additionnal training on cognitive tasks. Some classes of people have longer term interests and some of them cooperate to control our institutions. They are obviously bright and they work for their own interests, Being bright and well connected, they can only be checked by equally bright and connected people who are less narcissic.
So my answer to your question is very good schools. The purpose of schools is more than teaching basic tasks; the main purpose of schools is to train the mind on cognitive tasks: learning to learn. The Internet is a tool for communications, but there is also a need for discipline and for the development of human relations.

Posted by: Richard L | Oct 14 2022 2:36 utc | 46

Posted by: Australian lady | Oct 14 2022 0:54 utc | 40
Thanks for your post. You have to admire Keating, at the very least for not being too afraid to speak his mind.
Funny side story. My mum and aunt grew up in Bankstown, and Keating used to catch the train back from the cbd with my aunt and two of her friends after work each day, and would go out of his way to walk them all home via a circuitous route. He never acted inappropriately and was always a gentleman, according to my aunt, and I take her word as truth.
He also once called the conservative opposition “a conga-line of suck-holes” on the floor of parliament, which always brings a smile to my face.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Oct 14 2022 3:43 utc | 48

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Oct 14 2022 3:35 utc | 47
Can anyone provide any objective information on the myocarditis thing and the oft stated “fact” that hundreds of thousands to a million people have died due to side effects of the mRNA vaccines?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 14 2022 4:47 utc | 50

#Economics
❗️ All over the Western world, the data on inflation in the United States was received with shock. The White House and the Fed have been trying to bring down the price increase for many months – but it still continues. In September, dollar inflation was 8.2% – in particular, it continues to disperse the rise in food prices and rent.
For Biden, this is very bad news, because today’s inflation report is the last before the November congressional elections. And it is inflation, according to polls, that is the key problem for Americans. In second place is crime. Both of these agendas work against the Democratic Party.
It is obvious that the Fed will have to further sharply tighten the screws in the monetary sphere – by raising the rate to a record high level in 15-20 years. In the US, this has already led to turmoil in the financial markets. And the real estate market is in danger of crumbling due to the rise in mortgage rates.
Unfortunately, America knows how to solve its economic problems in only one way – to kindle a war in Europe. What we are now seeing.

https://t.me/Slavyangrad/14100

Posted by: Down South | Oct 14 2022 5:08 utc | 52

Regarding anti-vaxxers from a clue free Playboy ‘Autism’ Bunny and upwards.
Alas, their sole mononeuron is permanently locked into an unstoppable self-lying loop to the bitter end. To put it politely in the terms of Forrest Gump language “Stupid is as stupid does”.
Even a subreddit treats all “Anti-Vaxxers as ignorant trash. Ones that should be locked up in public mental care health homes. To prevent self-harm. To both themselves and the public at large. Their replies are in the epithet of every known insult in every language used by man. Wowser is a very polite term when compared to the long list of verbal insults used in that subreddit!
Then of course there is a very sad tale of one rather unfortunate 19-year-old female “fall” person down under in Oz. Left with an Oz High Court bill of AUD$214K dollars. The Oz High court in an unusually unanimous decision has given the ‘Anti-Vaxxer Movement” down under in OZ the great Oz well-known F-O two-finger salute! Smart High Court Judges!
Google/Duck Duck Go/Yahoo one “19-year-old woman must pay $214,000”. Not one of the claimants has one brass razoo to spare. Between the lot of them put together.
The real problem with the entire gullible herd of anti-vaxxers on this planet. Can be written in the basic Arabic numeral “0”! Called absolute zero knowledge on the very subject they preach.(sigh)
Meanwhile back in China, such idiot is as idiot anti-vaxxer thinking is automatically erased by computer censors. Lucky them.
I can only conclude that the very tragic American Influenza Pandemic of 1917-1921 is an Anti-Vaxxer’s wet dream.
Finally, wait for it there exists a new complete fantasy claim. A lie that is so big. It dwarfs the ones as told by DJT. lol
Supposedly down under in Oz. The New South Wales State government has ordered a mandatory injection for all cloven beasts in the state. A non-existent brand-new mRNA vaccine. To treat the deadly FMD virus. The lie goes thus “a cattleman injected an entire herd of cattle(What no Animal vet?). Thirty-five cattle expired/died on the spot, quite literally”.
That which is too good to be true usually is!
Anti-vaxxers on the other hand believe they are literally gods chosen few to lead us with lies directly to the valley of death. On the fastest direct route known to man.
Given the actual constraints imposed by all laws on the freedom of speech limits.
All one can legally say to every existing anti-vaxxer on this planet is the following words. “Please tell me no lies, thank you! Cease and desists from telling lies to oneself. End of story”! sigh……
Lest we forget! In the age before mass vaccination programs became commonplace. The median average human age was fifty years old. In the Roman Empire era, it was a mere thirty-five years. The children they cherish so well had a very high mortality rate.

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Oct 14 2022 5:32 utc | 54

@ Otter | Oct 14 2022 5:26 utc | 53 who evidently just stumbled into the bar
WTF are you mumbling about deferring to teacher’s authority here?
I worked on PUBLIC policy research in the 1970’s before it was shut down by the money mafia and that is the sort of bottom up authority I want to see re-birthed in the US/West.
And what is this dictatorship of the elite shit? Lurk here for long? Yes, we have dictatorship of the elite currently and I call it he God of Mammon cult that can be traced back at least 300 years. With that dictatorship of the elite comes totalitarian control of what profess to be sovereign nations of the West….you know, freedumb and dumbocracy
Yes, I am in favor of eliminating all of global private finance tools and replacing them with an agreed upon and managed set of public finance utilities provided by truly sovereign nations of our world…..and that is what China/Russia axis is about.
I have a sign in my front yard that says I SUPPORT PUBLIC BANKING and links to http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org…and am communicating with my neighbors regularly.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 14 2022 5:42 utc | 56

Jon_in_AU @ 48:
“… [Paul Keating] also once called the conservative opposition “a conga-line of suck-holes” on the floor of parliament, which always brings a smile to my face.”
No, that “conga line” description came from one-time fellow Labour Party politician Mark Latham, not from Paul Keating.
Keating could be quite witty if cutting. Of one politician, Andrew Peacock, known as a glamour boy (once rumoured to be best buddies with Hollywood actress Shirley Maclaine) and at the time tilting at a second go as Leader of the Opposition, Keating queried: “Can a soufflé rise twice?” Of another opposition politician Peter Costello, Keating said “… he’s all tip and no iceberg …”
His utterances have been collected and can be viewed on various websites like this one.

Posted by: Jen | Oct 14 2022 6:06 utc | 58

To vaxed boy.. dude you ate the cake. Now you are on a path to die soon. You should put your affairs in order. If you are on anything from any pharma company you are on the wrong path and you are choosing the easy way. The way is not easy. Pharma only masks the problem. You need to go deeper and address and confront the root of the problem. If you can do that you could extend your existence.
Everyone is dying and brutally incapacitated because they were vaccinated. That’s the truth. They want you dead. And they want to take everything from you. Wake up!

Posted by: Dotar Sojat | Oct 14 2022 6:12 utc | 60

Bad Deal Motors On | Oct 14 2022 5:32 utc | 54
Foot n Mouth Disease in OZ:

Foot-and-mouth disease, FMD, is a highly contagious viral disease of cattle, pigs, sheep and goats. The virus has not been detected in Australia for more than 100 years.
But we should be aware of the risks of FMD arriving on our shores. FMD can be transmitted in air particles between animals housed closely together.
https://www.agriculture.gov.au › biosecurity-trade › pests-diseases-weeds › animal › fmd.
Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease that affects pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, deer, camelids (includes alpacas, llamas and camels) and buffalo. FMD does not affect horses, or companion animals such as dogs and cats. Australia remains free of FMD.
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au › animals-and-livestock › beef-cattle › health-and-disease › viral-diseases › fmd

So preventative measures have worked for a century….
The (to be developed) mRNA vaccine looks like a solution in search of a problem.
https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/nsw-fast-tracks-fmd-vaccine

“It is critical that we develop mRNA vaccines for FMD and Lumpy Skin as quickly as possible to protect our State’s livestock sector,” Mr Saunders said.
“The threat of FMD is ongoing and there are concerns Lumpy Skin Disease could enter northern Australia this coming wet season, so it’s critical we continue to do what we can as quickly as we can.
And
Last par, the money shot:
The pilot program is part of a $65 million investment from the NSW Government to prepare for and prevent exotic animal diseases, which brings the total investment in biosecurity this year alone to $229 million – the biggest biosecurity investment by a single jurisdiction on exotic pest and disease control.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Oct 14 2022 6:52 utc | 62

I was going to post this earlier but forgot. There is a world of international relations outside of the west other than adolescent postage stamp trolling, bullying, sanctions, strife and chaos.
Kim Jong Un sent Birthday Message to Putin

Posted by: Jun | Oct 14 2022 8:16 utc | 64

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 1:54 utc | 44

To the Bar at large: How do we do that? Got any ideas?

I’d love to see this whole blog moved to Second Life. The bar fights will be a scream …

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Oct 14 2022 9:10 utc | 66

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 14 2022 4:47 utc | 50
For a start:
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/

Posted by: Goingo | Oct 14 2022 9:21 utc | 68

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 1:54 utc | 44

To the Bar at large: How do we do that? Got any ideas?

Crowdfund an ml specialist and a software developer to convert the entire archive of MoA into hundreds of a.i conversational bots.
Embed the bots in a computer virus and unleash them upon the internet where they will pop up on user’s computers and engage in endless dialogue …

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Oct 14 2022 9:25 utc | 70

@ psychohistorian | Oct 14 2022 5:42 utc | 56
“@ Otter | Oct 14 2022 5:26 utc | 53 who evidently just stumbled into the bar”
I admit that I visited several other estemed establishments, before coming here. Some of them serve actual German beer, DaB. It is only due to 60 years of practice, that I did not stumble over the shadow cast by the bouncer at the entrance.
“WTF are you mumbling about deferring to teacher’s authority here?”
Perhaps you should read my post again. Or not, as you choose. Or sit on your doorstoop, waiting for the cold corpse of capitalism to be carried past.
“Lurk here for long?”
About 17 years, I think, since the Orange Revolution. (I still have an orange toque;
and I ocassionally listen to Ruslana’s ‘Дикі танці’ and ‘Рахманінов’. Too bad she wasted her talents on football hooligans and PaperClip Ukrainians.) Although I may be remembering another site.
“I have a sign in my front yard that says I SUPPORT PUBLIC BANKING …”
I used to have a sign saying “Vote Alexa”.
“…and am communicating with my neighbors regularly.”
Why then must you wait for “when the collapse happens “?
Perhaps you should read my post again. After a good night’s sleep and 2 cups of coffee.

Posted by: Otter | Oct 14 2022 9:46 utc | 72

As you read, I’m not the only one who sees energy at the core of our conflict.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 13 2022 17:40 utc | 14
Macron is not in danger; he is one of the more rational Western leaders, even if far from perfect. I suspect he’s not all that keen on the hate-Russia policy, but he’s always had a policy of solidarity with the EU allies, and Germany can’t simply be dumped, in spite of the naivety of Scholz and Von der Leyen.
The oil strikers in France are not striking because of poverty; they’re well paid. They just want to be paid better, if the oil companies have a windfall.
There is only an energy crisis because of Ukraine. We’re all interdependent these days, and getting huffy over Russian policy is pure idiocy, as I’m sure you agree. Live and let live should be the policy of Western powers, but that’s hard for the nutters in Washington.

Posted by: laguerre | Oct 14 2022 10:33 utc | 74

@ jon | 69 and @Sunny Runny Burger | 73
Yeah it is scary.
And they might be in a panic because they are not winning, which is a good thing (@sunny). But their insanity and selfrighteousness has risen to a point where I could imagine them doing a false flag with some dirty nuclear bomb or blowing up one of their own nuclear power plants and claiming it was ye olde evil ruskies. Then we would be just one step away from nuclear annihilation of the planet (or WW3, which might just be the same thing).

Posted by: Roland | Oct 14 2022 11:19 utc | 76

Posted by: Roland | Oct 14 2022 11:19 utc | 76
It is very much a dystopia at this point, although in many regards it has been for at least 2500 years.
Could it even come to the point where the public of the ‘collective west’ have to actively protest in favour of intranational military coups, just in order to rout the insane cabal lording over us?
That’s disturbing just in contemplation.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Oct 14 2022 12:16 utc | 78

Read on Revolver News that the “Jan 6 commission” is calling Trump, conveniently right before the midterms.
The socialists forget the fact that people get tired of endless “investigations” like this one. No one will believe that “Trump directed people to overthrow the government” – if he had, it would have been revealed in the first week or month.
There have been investigations in Europe of how the former government handled a crisis of one sort or another. If this goes on for a year, or two years, it just becomes ridiculous. If you didn’t find something right away, people won’t believe you.

Posted by: Tenet | Oct 14 2022 13:15 utc | 80

The smartest thing the oligarchs / rulers do is to control the “fourth estate”.
How do we do (defeat) that? Got any ideas?
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 1:54 utc | 44
—
The situation that exists today is the same dynamic present in any previous empire: cunning predators are both smarter and more goal oriented than “normal” people.
Why are priests included in the highest castes? Because whether secular or ecclesiastical, they frame the narrative, control its transmission and manage the retail end of faith distribution.
I realize the types of highly intelligent people who frequent this space bore easily, so there’s a tendency to become distracted and lose focus with peripheral topics.
To those I would say, study vpp’s 9/30 speech; it really is all anyone needs to know. We will either all end up prematurely dead, or the globe will birth a new multi polar world order.
Since I find no need to worry about nuclear war – seeing as I would be dead – a much more interesting prospect is whether we might successfully navigate through this particular historical moment.
In that regard, the sky literally is the limit. Every rule, every assumption, every institution, every power channel will be revised and/or destroyed.
One need not question how to fight the entrenched old order – it will no longer be extant. Rather, each will be free to satisfy whatever ambition they may possess with whatever degree of energy they may wish to devote in the mad rush to fill the vacuum.

Posted by: B9k9 | Oct 14 2022 14:15 utc | 82

Following posts on Martyanov’s site on the Cuban missile crisis I got myself into a substantial diversion today.
First off, I had no idea that there was actual shooting involved! The US was dropping vast quantities of depth charges on four nuclear-armed Soviet submarines. Whilst the US viewed them as ‘signals’ ordering them to surface – in international waters! – the information the US transmitted to the Soviet Union was too late to reach the submarines, as the US was already hotly pursuing them aggressively trying to force them to surface, as a result of whoch they were out of radio contact with Moscow. Diabolical! One of the subs virtually launched a nuclear torpedo at the US aircraft carrier, but one of the three officers required to assent the launch refused.
Next I followed a link to the closely averted risk of launch of nuclear missiles in September 1983 averted by Stanislav Petrov’s suspicions of a false positive identification of US missile launches, just 3 weeks after the Soviets shot down Korean Airlines flight 007. Then a list of all the nuclear weapons near-misses. Diabolical.
Finally I followed a link to a description of the circumstances of the Flight KAL 007 shoot-down. Diabolical. Based on known actions and proclivities of the US over multiple decades, I am willing to bet my arse that the following happened:
1) It is known (including court testimony) that the US/Boeing have the capability to remotely take complete control of any Boeing aircraft in the air, anywhere in the world, with absolutely zero knowledge of the pilots, and completely overriding all actions of the pilots. I would assume that this is likely to include falsifying the instrument indicators, but I don’t know that for a fact. This information came out subsequent to 9/11, and was later confirmed and elaborated in the course of other accident investigations. From memory, I think one key investigation in which this came out in court was in connection with an alleged “pilot suicide” involving an Air Germania flight which suddenly took a nose-dive into a mountain, rather like the Boeing Max. (There have been many such alleged “pilot-suicides”, and Boeing has a massive financial interest in asserting that it is pilot-suicide, but in one such Indonesian case it was proved – civil case – that a defective elevator actuator was responsible).
2) It is known that the 007 flight set out on a massively wrong bearing (25 degrees) for over 5 hours, made no effort to correct it, appeared to be totally oblivious of their position, and totally oblivious of the wrong course. It is seriously incomprehensible that the crew were unaware of this for over 5 hours and were hundreds of kilometers from their intended course.
3) It is known that the flight was tracked at multiple points by US military radar, in some cases hundreds of km from its proper course.
4) It is known that it passed directly into a US air defence zone that it is prohibited to civilian aircraft, yet the US military to no corrective action.
5) It is known that the US military destroyed their radar records of the flight (or at least alleged they had done so) within 30 hours after the flight.
6) It is known that the US illegally diverted responsibility for the flight to the ICAO which has no ability to subpoena evidence, and that the US military withheld most of the evidence they had.
7) It is known that KAL007 flew hundreds of km into Soviet airspace, and that it flew directly into a Soviet military prohibited airspace zone on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
8) It is known that the US had a Boeing RC-135 spy plane was operating close by, that the path of the RC-135 CROSSED that of KAL007, and that the US withheld news of the RC-135 presence from investigations, until revealed by the Soviets.
9) It is known that the US, after the shoot-down, aggressively inflated the propaganda against the Soviet actions, much as they are doing today concerning Ukraine, and in direct contrast to their response to the shoot-down of Iran Air 655.
10) It is known that the Soviets were convinced the aircraft was a US spy plane.
11) In my opinion the entire sequence of events was planned and executed by the US to force the Soviets to shoot down the Korean flight KAL 007, by setting up the RC-135 flight path, taking control of the KAL007 aircraft from after takeoff from Anchorage – including instrument displays, and forcing the large deviation from its planned flight path for over 5 hours, causing the crew to have no worries by falsifying the instrument readings.
If this is true, then it is probably also true that the missile damage to the plane was not as serious as adduced by the ICAO report; in particular the 3 hydraulic systems alleged to habe been destroyed were not in fact necessarily destroyed, because they could have been under the sole remote controle of Boeing. Thus is is probable that the rather strange pattern of the flight path after being hit was also controlled by the US, right up to and including the final spin into the sea. Whereby it can be assumed that the US would try to ensure that the final crash was in international waters; nevertheless there is some reason to believe the Soviets may have used trawlers to quickly pull the wreckage inside their territorial waters.

Posted by: BM | Oct 14 2022 14:37 utc | 84

@Tom Pfotzer #44
You’re going to see a lot of techno-utopian responses – they are all garbage.
Mainstream media is a bullhorn to the blogs’ kazoo. This isn’t going to be changed by tweaking features of the kazoo.
What we are seeing now is much more insidious than mere incompetence and sycophancy; mainstream media has been captured by the oligarch class. Oligarchs own the companies, they populate the workers and managers, and the oligarch class social dynamic regulates their behavior.
Any rising blog or alternate media platform has to navigate a minefield of diversionary paths:
the first is pure class tunnel vision. No sharing of tunnel vision, no “viral” outreach growth either by algorithmic tech company or “influencer” class repeat.
The second is social pressure. Few people, especially in the chattering classes, are able to withstand heavy social pressure by their very nature. Now embed them in a roiling soup of oligarch class peers – it becomes practically impossible. There’s a reason why you pretty much only see old people saying the unsayable – the younger have too much to lose.
The third is economic co-option. Look at The Intercept as an example of how money and staffing can be used to turn a literally revolutionary outfit into just another brick in the wall.
The fourth is social condemnation: racist, homophobic, anti-semite, etc etc.
The fifth is literal outlawing – we have seen this with RT; we will see this with purely American outfits that don’t even have a funding or theoretical link to foreigners. Alex Jones is leading the way: as nutty as a lot of his shit has been, it has by no means been entirely false – and the kangaroo judgements being laid on him are blazing a trail.
This changes if and only when revolution occurs – which is when the oligarch actions have so utterly discredited themselves that anything they say – good or bad, true or untrue, becomes automatically odious.
This is a time solution, not a feature solution.
Fortunately we have made incredible progress just in the past 2+ years.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 14 2022 14:51 utc | 86

Posted by: BM | Oct 14 2022 14:37 utc | 84
Let’s take a poll. How many think they’ve seen various elements of my 11 points above before in various different historical actions of the US over the last 7 decades? Taken together, does it typically reflect US behaviour?

Posted by: BM | Oct 14 2022 15:07 utc | 88

@Scorpion | Oct 14 2022 5:37 utc | 55

months and years of quiet contemplation therein of an ancient Olmec valley

Oh, I would like to see the Olmec stone heads in real life…

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 14 2022 15:16 utc | 90

Indonesian dedollarization
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
Might interest some here.
The world’s largest muslim nation starts to move away from the USD according to “Bank Indonesia Calls on Importers, Exporters to Stop Payments in US Dollar, Reports Say” (Sputniknews):

“Bank Indonesia has called on importers and exporters to use national currencies in international payments to reduce the dependence of Indonesian financial markets on the US dollar, Indonesian news portal Tempo.co reported on Friday, citing the regulator’s senior economist.”

Which should be easy:

“About 90% of export-import payments are conducted in US dollars, while the share of Indonesian direct exports to the US is estimated at only 10%, and US imports account for 5%,” Head of the Solo Bank Indonesia Representative Office, Nugroho Joko Prastowo, told reporters, according to the report.”

And cheaper:

“[…] saying that a conversion fee applies to the settlements in international currency, and that in dollar payments the charge doubles.”

There’s a little bit more information if one follows the link, if I’m reading it right then several large and important Asian countries have already agreed to do this in trade with Indonesia.
· · ·
[Dedollarization is a funny mouthful but Wiktionary accepts it both hyphenated and …dehyphenated… but there are no entries for either dehyphenated or de-hyphenated (lol meta-ironic)]

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 14 2022 15:17 utc | 92

Tom Pfotzer. Subject: How Little People Become More Effective, part II.
(b, I apologize in adv. for length. Last one (from me) on this thread).
@86 c1ue:
That was a sledge-hammer response, c1ue. Earned your pay today. Every word is true, read it twice, folks.
You and I have covered this (less-well) earlier. I re-assert: the time to prep the next-gen people and ideas is now, when the gettin’ is good. When the oligarchs crash, it’s not going to be a felicitous scene, c1ue. There’s going to be a lot of collateral damage. Certainly a very fractured society, and quite possibly one that’s very under-resourced.
Consider revolutions. They generally don’t work out all that well. Need I cite examples? The aftermath takes a heck of long time to evolve into something better, and it often evolves way worse.
Do we want to seed the “compost pile” now with lots of beneficials, or take our chances on the flood of noxious weed-seeds that inevitably populate crash-scenes?
On the subject of top-down repression: right now, the oligarchs are waaaaayyy overloaded. Asia got out of the cage, and it’s bigger than they are now. They have big problems, and aren’t going to be spending a lot of time and effort stepping on us ants right now.
Ants, get thee moving! What are you going to need in order to function in tomorrow’s world (less resources, many existing provisioning systems (ag, energy, transport, health-care, materials sourcing) trashed and/or too expensive. Are you going to try to re-build your house under those conditions? Gonna be tough.
I say we don’t hang around waiting for the roof to cave in on us. Let’s GTFO of Dodge, and gradually move into more viable surrounds.
My thesis “techno-solution” is dirt-simple: get really good at evolving _technique_, and even better at sharing it.
What if we learn how to build teams of capable, conversing, collaboration-enabled people. Learn how to make deals. Make processes-leading-to-products that put production-of and ownership-of the necessities of life directly into the hands of the little people.
Let’s transition from chronicling our own demise and begin navigating to “Western Economy 2.0: What Comes After”
The “techno-solution incrementalism” I’m advocating is to get out of first-gear (bunch of posts that fall down the memory-hole 1 day after they’re written) and get focused on and provisioned to create viable solutions implementable at the household level (where they’re off the radar, and where we have control / volition).
That takes “different tools”. No incrementalism about it, c1ue, what I’m envisioning is a structural shift.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 15:35 utc | 94

@Tom Pfotzer #94
I respect your goals, but I don’t agree that your strategy will achieve them.
I am extremely dubious of “seeding”.
Revolution is chaos – the destruction of the existing social/economic order. You can’t control chaos nor is there any relationship between pre-revolutionary sentiment and post-revolutionary government that lasts (revolutionary governments vastly predominantly don’t last).
On the too little side: you have the incrementalists who will try to pass little fixes in the face of a tide of anger, but end up getting overwhelmed.
On the too much side: the Levellers, the Robespierres etc.
The ability to thread the needle between the “too little, too late” and the “kill them all (the oligarchs and any other “bad” people) and let (insert magical authority here) sort them out” is naive to the extreme.
A revolution is a primordial broth from which strong personalities, luck and societal “character” brings forth something new.
The best survival strategy is to simply not be in it, but it is equally true that a revolution is the best chance for the nobody to become king.
It all depends on what your personal risk/reward ratio is.
But it is 100% true that the idealists die first. FWIW.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 14 2022 16:07 utc | 96

@ Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 15:35 utc | 94 who wants to build a new world instead of beating on the old one.
I agree and have tried that here a few times over the years to no avail. I think that for most people to consider doing such is a step too far for comfort.
I keep beating on the public/private finance narrative because of the effects that it has on the social incentives and control issues. The West needs bottom up public policy planning like China but that won’t happen with any effect until the levers of finance are under public control.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 14 2022 16:27 utc | 98

As Jim Morrison of the Doors wrote and sang in “Wild Child”:
With hunger at her heels
And freedom in her eyes
She dances on her knees
Pirate prince at her side
Staring into
The hollow idol’s eye
The “she” is the world. Hunger represents the poverty of most of the people, freedom their recently-inculcated aspiration for liberation. But she dances on her knees in thrall to imperialism, the pirate prince being the dominance and rapacity of the colonial masters, while the world stares into the hollow idol of materialism and material betterment. The staring symbolizes the blind belief in materialism’s salvific quality, which is illusory and can never offer any kind of ultimate salvation or satisfaction.

Posted by: Cabe | Oct 14 2022 17:02 utc | 100