That onion headline is excellent.

And the sleboda article is a twist aiMd never heard - that the us public is the frog being boiled, not Russia. Makes way more sense since Russian leadership is quite aware of the game.

Posted by: Hickory | Nov 13 2022 13:11 utc | 1

An American-made missile has fallen into the hands of the Russian military – a munition for the HIMARS MLRS, photos published on Russian Telegram channels show.

https://militarymonitoring.com/russia-studies-us-made-missile-for-himars-obtained-via-a-third-country/

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/69999

Posted by: anon2020 | Nov 13 2022 14:28 utc | 2

'US will build small modular nuclear reactor in Ukraine '

With detonator.

Posted by: sam | Nov 13 2022 14:37 utc | 3

Four Dead, 38 Injured After Explosion on walking street in Istanbul.

My guess is US state sponsored terrorism

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 13 2022 15:15 utc | 4

The link in the article to "‘They completely f--ked up’: How the GOP lost its grip on the Senate majority" links to the article itself. It should be:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/11/republicans-senate-majority-00066009

Posted by: Wim | Nov 13 2022 15:34 utc | 5

thanks b! i see you've highlighted the article that bevin shared a few days ago at the top.. nice... lots to read...

@ Norwegian | Nov 13 2022 15:15 utc | 4

that is a tourist street in istanbul, popular with the locals too.. it could have something to do with turkey meddling in syria too - kurdish, or a few different possibilities.. see the articles on the bottom from b on syria..

Posted by: james | Nov 13 2022 15:34 utc | 6

Erdogan calls the attack terrorism and an attempt to "take over Turkey":

"I wish God's mercy on our brothers who died in the bomb attack that took place on Istiklal Street at 16.20 today, and I wish a speedy recovery to our wounded. Efforts to take over Turkey and the Turkish nation through terrorism will not reach its goal today and tomorrow, as it was yesterday. Relevant units of our state continue to work to reveal the perpetrators of this treacherous attack and the gathering place behind it. We have been informed that there have been 6 deaths, four of which were at the scene and two at the hospital. Other than that, different figures may come. Necessary interventions have been made and are being carried out in hospitals, as well. I think these citizens will also be discharged.Let them be sure that the perpetrators of the incident will be punished as they deserve."

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 13 2022 16:09 utc | 7

How to talk with Africa about climate change:

in 1960, in Nigeria there were 45 million people and they were starving, today there are 218 million people there and, guess what, they are still starving.
While green policies are (mostly) a massive fraud and an excuse to sanction and exclude industrializing countries from ever catching up with the old industrial powers, it is not climate change that is causing troubles in third world countries. It is their poor (in Africa: very very poor) social policies: when your economy is growing less (in Africa: much less) than your population, that only means that the number of indigent people is going to soar. Look at China: economic growth bigger than population growth by design, a lot of people out of poverty, an exploding middle class. Just whining can only take them so far.

Posted by: SG | Nov 13 2022 16:28 utc | 8

Re-reading the Valdai speech at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69695

If the Western elites believe they can have their people and their societies embrace what I believe are strange and trendy ideas like dozens of genders or gay pride parades, so be it. Let them do as they please. But they certainly have no right to tell others to follow in their steps.

We see the complicated demographic, political and social processes taking place in Western countries. This is, of course, their own business. Russia does not interfere in such matters and has no intention of doing so. Unlike the West, we mind our own business. But we are hoping that pragmatism will triumph and Russia’s dialogue with the genuine, traditional West, as well as with other coequal development centres, will become a major contribution to the construction of a multipolar world order.

I will add that multipolarity is a real and, actually, the only chance for Europe to restore its political and economic identity. To tell the truth – and this idea is expressed explicitly in Europe today – Europe’s legal capacity is very limited. I tried to put it mildly not to offend anyone.

Of course this is translation (why doesn't RF hire better translators!) but does anyone understand the emboldened sentence, specifically 'legal capacity,' in the past paragraph above. I don't know what is being said there...

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 16:30 utc | 9

is scorpion banned?
Testing...
no posts going through...

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 16:31 utc | 10

In the following section from the valdai speech - which I won't link since it seems to block the post - have emboldened'legal capacity.' Does anyone here understand what it means in the context of the speech?

If the Western elites believe they can have their people and their societies embrace what I believe are strange and trendy ideas like dozens of genders or gay pride parades, so be it. Let them do as they please. But they certainly have no right to tell others to follow in their steps.

We see the complicated demographic, political and social processes taking place in Western countries. This is, of course, their own business. Russia does not interfere in such matters and has no intention of doing so. Unlike the West, we mind our own business. But we are hoping that pragmatism will triumph and Russia’s dialogue with the genuine, traditional West, as well as with other coequal development centres, will become a major contribution to the construction of a multipolar world order.

I will add that multipolarity is a real and, actually, the only chance for Europe to restore its political and economic identity. To tell the truth – and this idea is expressed explicitly in Europe today – Europe’s legal capacity is very limited. I tried to put it mildly not to offend anyone.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 16:34 utc | 11

@ Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 16:31 utc | 9

i can't imagine why you would be banned... bernhard is much more magnanimous then you appear to realize! some of the posters here might not be, but that is another story, lol... regarding your post @ 10 - i suspect it is the bolded part which you are wondering about... i can only guess, but it seems europe has signed off on any legal control over a number of issues, by signing onto nato, the european union and various other legal entities... that is my guess.. europes hands are essentially tied and they are not in command of their situation.. the legal structure of the european union seems especially problematic.. these are not democratically elected people running it and they are subject to influence by all the wrong characters as the saying goes..

Posted by: james | Nov 13 2022 17:03 utc | 12

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 16:34 utc | 10

Odd-sounding translation but it might be standard legalese, implying that Europe’s ability to speak and act legally, on its own behalf and account, is substantially impaired:

https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/rights/ahc8docs/ahc8idc1218ex.doc

Legal Capacity

• Legal capacity is what a human being can do within the framework of the legal system.
• It is a construct which has no objective reality but is a relation every legal system creates between its subjects and itself.
• Legal capacity gives the right to access the civil and juridical system and the legal independence to speak on one’s own behalf.

Posted by: anon2020 | Nov 13 2022 17:07 utc | 13

Why did German Chancellor Scholz go to China recently? We hear that he made the usual politically-correct noises about “human rights” and Ukraine, but he didn’t have to go to China with a cohort of German business people to do that. He could have sent a tweet from home if that was his purpose.

Moving of industry to low wage nations didn’t happen as much in Europe because of the strong unions who have much more influence over their governments than in America. So how to fix that problem for the upper class business elites who want to move industry in Europe to low wage nations?

One theory is:

Make people believe that there is an energy crisis which leaves them no choice but to move their factories to lower wage nations.

How do you create an energy crisis that is so bad that they are able to get away with that?

1. Create the idea in people’s minds that the climate crisis is so dire that the end of the world is nigh — unless we stop using fossil fuels immediately.

2. Create the idea in people’s heads that nuclear power is also very unsafe.

3. Convince the people that “green energy” can easily take the place of fossil fuels and nuclear power.

4. Create in people’s minds the idea that it is very politically-incorrect to keep importing your only source of cheap fossil fuels — that coincidentally is needed for European industry to be economically competitive on the world market.

5. European industry then has no choice but to leave Europe because they can no longer be profitable because green energy is not ready to replace fossil fuels — and reverting to fossil fuels of course is non-negotiable because they are going to destroy the world any day now. Look at all the kids gluing themselves to roads, paintings, etc., with the museums and police letting them. Fear of climate change is being pushed by power at the highest levels.

6. Which just so happens to align with the business elites in America who outsource like mad and are the biggest investors in Europe (Blackrock etc.)

From Estimated Prophets

Posted by: Kali El | Nov 13 2022 17:13 utc | 14

In song form, here is a unique take on the major imminent Trump announcement. This two minute video is a must watch!

https://youtu.be/9jWaqFWcgKg

Posted by: morongobill | Nov 13 2022 17:22 utc | 15

There is a recent lengthy interview with Michael Hudson where diverse people asked questions. The answers are in most cases wide ranging, including historical context, educative.

Here is a list of the topics covered for quick view. I included a few quotes I found interesting and or amusing but recommend the full replies which are loaded with insight, especially for us novices or for those who have not read his books.

*****

https://michael-hudson.com/2022/11/the-rentier-economy-is-a-free-lunch/

The Rentier Economy is a Free Lunch
By Michael Tuesday, November 8, 2022 Interviews

Question and answer transcript summary:

Q Book overview —The Destiny of Civilizations

Q About debt deflation

Q Re Productive debt bs unproductive debt

Q China has opted for industrialization and the U.S. corporate class clearly has not. Why is the U.S. so belligerent if it doesn’t even want an industrial system?

[00:17:35] Michael Hudson: Because it doesn’t want any other country to have an industrial system. Just like the West fought against communism threatening a new social system after the 1917 revolution, America’s terrified that if China can succeed by following the exact same policy that the United States got rich on in the late 19th century, then they might try to make America rich. And, oh my God, if they do that then there’s no more free lunch for the billionaires.

This is life and death for the billionaires. They make their money by exploiting the economy without producing. The Chinese billionaires make their money by producing and exploiting the economy. But they also produce a lot. And then they have to give up much of what they exploit. So the United States doesn’t want there to be any success in any country achieving prosperity in a way that doesn’t siphon off all of the income to the 1%.

Q Aboit the rise and fall of dollar hegemony

MH ...the end of dollar hegemony occurred last year when the United States itself said if any country pursues a policy that we don’t like, we can grab all of the dollar reserves that they hold in the United States.

Q how do you see the interaction between major shareholders of large financial institutions and major shareholders of industrial enterprises..?

Q re Privatized monopolies and public well being

MH ... in the United States the main utility beside money that’s been privatized is government. .. the function of government itself once it’s privatized is to make money for the donor class, which basically is the financial class and the monopoly class that finance creates. Banks have always been the mother of monopolies and the financial sector’s largest business market is in creating monopolies. So, you have basically the privatization of monopolies. the function of government itself once it’s privatized is to make money for the donor class, which basically is the financial class and the monopoly class that finance creates. Banks have always been the mother of monopolies and the financial sector’s largest business market is in creating monopolies. So, you have basically the privatization of monopolies.
And the monopoly rent of these monopolies is used for paying interest to the banks that finance the corporate raiders, or whoever wants to take over and buy these monopoly privileges.

Q About economic rent

Q what would a debt jubilee look like and how could it reverberate through society?

MH You want to make sure that you only cancel the bad debts and you don’t create a new rentier class. The idea is to look at the economy as a system and see what should the government receive as economic rent. And it can decide what is it going to receive for healthcare. The government… if the government took over the healthcare industry, it probably would not charge the prices that healthcare charges today. It would charge less. Same thing for housing. If housing were run like England ran its council housing before Margaret Thatcher, it would be very low. In Germany, Germany pays only 10% of its average family income for rent, not 30 or 40% as in the case of the United States.
That’s what used to make Germany, until last month, so competitive an economy. So, you’d restructure the economy so that it would only have debts that were socially necessary to keep the economy operating. Debts will begin to grow all over again.
Debts will always begin to grow over and over again. If you don’t ban interest, you permit debts to grow, but when they get so problematic that they threaten economic growth, then you have to write them down to a level where they will no longer prevent economic growth from occurring as they’re doing today.

Q that politicians, therefore government, are in the pockets of the rentier class, how do you think we could get rid of such rentier influence in order to implement socially oriented policies?

[00:43:43] Michael Hudson: That has never happened without a revolution. That’s the problem.

Q what are the steps we can take to fix the housing crisis?

Q the price of ... economic liberty from dollar diplomacy

Q. some people have a lot of nostalgia for the post World War II social democracies of Europe....Thatcher’s process of privatizing in England. Could you talk about that?

Q About belief in partisan false dichotomy in USA

Q which of the public banking and monetary reform movements do you support, if any?

Q. Luke Parcher: We have a question here from Rasha...
MH: Oh, my God. I can’t even begin to answer that. The jargon is so misleading. Money has nothing to do with value. Money is debt. That’s the opposite of value. It’s a transfer of debt among people, it’s not a transfer of value.... Anyone who talks about money and value, you want to stop talking to them immediately. Because you know that it’s just going to be patter talk for propaganda.

Q Luke Parcher: So we have one here from Tom
MH: The question is so bizarre, I cannot answer it. It’s just how do you, how do you answer a swamp and straighten out what they’re saying to give them an answer? It’s a swamp. I can’t answer that.

Q [to what] would you [attribute] the price increases that we’ve seen today?

MH Very largely monopoly positions. ... you want to look at the economy as a system. You don’t want to reduce everything to one-dimensional “here’s the price level”. You want to look at the multi-layered economy. What are the cost prices? What are the economic rents? What are the monopoly prices? What’s the tax system? You have to look at the economy as a system, not in a one-dimensional way. So, I can’t untangle all of the jumble any clearer than that.

Q About MMT

Q About IMF’s role in Ukraine
MH The IMF’s job is to make sure that the economy is impoverished and that all the money that it gives is to support the currency – to enable the kleptocrats, Kolomoyskyi and others, to take the Ukrainian currency they have and transfer it into dollars and pound sterling at a high exchange rate.

So they will lend Ukraine the dollars – essentially to support the hryvnia, however you pronounce its currency – and enable the kleptocrats to make money and then pull the rug out from under them if any alternatives to the Nazis take power. They want.to make sure that, once the kleptocrats have emptied out the economy, they can let the economy collapse.
They’re of course backing the new labor law president Zelensky has pushed, abolishing labor unions, abolishing the rights of labor to negotiate, and making basically the most fascist labor law in any country’s history. So the role of the IMF is to support client oligarchy, to get their money out of a country before there is a possibility of a leftwing government coming in, and then to deny all credit and organize a currency raid on the leftwing government, to say, “You see, socialism doesn’t work”.

The IMF is one of the institutions that is the arm of American hegemony, preventing economic growth occurring outside of the United States. Essentially the IMF is a… it’s a small office in the basement of the Pentagon, run by the neocons, to make sure that other countries cannot have any policy that would not let American firms come in and buy their raw materials and their natural resources and their monopolies.
So, think of the IMF as a tool of the military, but much more right wing than any general would dare to be.

Q 01:05:36] Virginia Cotts:...I just want to say, Michael, you wrote an article with the greatest title I’ve ever seen, which was something like the US Defeats Germany for the Third Time in a Century....
[01:06:02] Michael Hudson: Right. It was apparent what was going to happen at the very beginning. And I’m amazed that nobody else was writing about that. I’m not very good on military analysis. I can follow what Andrei Raevsky at the Saker says, and Moon of Alabama, and Andrei Martyanov. The one thing I can tell about military operations is the balance of payments aspects and how it all is spelled out.

[01:06:24] Virginia Cotts: Well… and you talked about how the three main sectors benefited.

[01:06:30] Michael Hudson: Yes. Oil is the key to American diplomacy. And I guess if we’re talking about American hegemony, it comes from America’s control of the oil trade. That was one of the reasons that America wanted to isolate first Venezuela, and then Russia, because if the only source of oil are companies controlled by the American oil majors, then…

Every economy needs energy to grow. And in every economy since the beginning of the industrial revolution, there’s a connection between the growth of GDP and energy use per capita. So I talk about the monopoly rent and the victim economy. If you can control oil then you can control, basically, the world economy.

That has been a key to the American policy. The Americans realized that if Europe cannot buy Russian oil anymore, or Venezuelan oil, then it’ll have to spend 10 times as much buying American liquified natural gas. This means the sanctions against Russia have ended German industrial supremacy. It has ended the German steel industry. It has ended German heavy industry.
They’re now going to be dependent thoroughly on the United States. And the euro is going to become a weakening satellite currency of the US dollar as a result of killing off the German economic and industrial leadership of the European economy, along with that of Italy and France.

Posted by: suzan | Nov 13 2022 17:24 utc | 16

Just to add to #15, james, I think there is another sentence in that transcript which has an inverted meaning from that intended.
Hudson says the banks don’t have to pay the billionaires. Shouldn’t that be the reverse? The billionaires don’t have to pay the bankers because the public pays.

“ But the churchmen said, okay, usury is unproductive debt. Interest is a productive debt. Those two words, those were the original meanings of the distinction between interest and usury. That’s been eradicated today when everything is considered productive and part of the free market. And, if it makes the billionaire class rich, it’s productive. That’s basically the thing today.

And the only debts that are supposed to be canceled are debts that the financial sector owns. The banks don’t have to pay the billionaires. Only people with less than a billion dollars have to pay debt. The poorer you are, the more debt you have to pay. They’ve reversed the whole last thousand years of Christian morality as the church has become privatized and financialized.”

Posted by: suzan | Nov 13 2022 17:33 utc | 17

What amounts to a short but deep dive into some of the philosophical, religious and spiritual currents at play and reflected in some of the elements in Putin's Valdai speech:

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/11/11/does-life-or-death-govern-the-universe-part-5-creative-resistance-to-church-of-entropy/

One area where it relates involves the law of entropy as it interfaces with scientific/philosophical materialism which essentially, by banishing mind from phenomena or experience of phenomena, creates a tyranny of a one-truth ' objective reality,' which is now being mirrored in many structural and functional ways by the unipolar model which insists that it's cultural space is the only valid one and all other nations must be absorbed into it or face hostile consequences.

This relates to how the literalist impulse in Christian churches which banished 'magical' or actually direct ontological gnosis aka true meditation created a similarly monist tyranny. This is also very similar to the dynamic involved with imposing one religion or philosophical view or 'reality' on all nations, as the Empire is currently doing.

Putin mentions that we can now have a harmonious polity including many different spiritual-religious traditions and this is the way forward. He also mentions how the universe, like the individual, is infinitely creative, blossoming and in fact always thus, which is a very different outlook than literalist or entropy-based (ie zero sum) view.

Anyway, I think it's interesting.

[Aside] Although I always love the way Putin lays these things out, always have reserveations as to how it can be effected. Seems to me any political system, be it of an individual nation or a conglomeration in some sort of new world order, has to include clear, open ways of dealing with corruption and hostility within. It is not enough to posit an ideal all-good system based in bedrock goodness and wisdom - which are real qualities and which he expresses so well for a politician - without also including ways to deal with hard truths and thorny obstacles which inevitably arise. If you create something which doesn't include this type of immune system then no matter how well intentioned it will end up turning into the opposite of what it aspired to become.

Exhibit A: The United States of America.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 17:41 utc | 18

@james & @anon2002

Thanks. I got it. And so I guess his 'putting it kindly' aside is that he could have said they are essentially vassal states at this point. I got thrown by the word 'legal' I think.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 17:42 utc | 19

Kali El

You obviously know nothing about Europe. Major relocation of industrial enterprises to China have taken place. Europe depends on China for pharmaceuticals and consumer goods

The only export sector Germany has is now cars having lost optics, consumer electronics, pharmaceuticals, textiles

De-industrialisation in Germany is widespread and not just in East but in areas around Frankfurt and Mainz too
The Opel site in Ruesselsheim is for sale as is Höchst site in Frankfurt - and German auto sector depends on Slovakia and HungRy and Turkey and Ukraine for sub-assemblies

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Nov 13 2022 19:25 utc | 20

@Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 17:41 utc | 17

Perhaps legal refers to treaties and agreements signed with "The Great Satan" and now we have the Devil coming to collect, demanding his due.

Posted by: majoab | Nov 13 2022 19:45 utc | 21

In 600 days you can be whoever or whatever you want to be
https://twitter.com/Vladimi03721352/status/1591876681920565248?cxt=HHwWgMDSgY_avZcsAAAA

Translation of the comment: The American unconsciously showed himself where his country is now going. 689 days of hormone therapy, surgery and horseradish knows what manipulations. In the end, we get this. And some still say we don't need laws to punish LGBT propaganda...

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 13 2022 19:47 utc | 22

suzan #15

Thank you for the Michael Hudson q&a post.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Nov 13 2022 20:46 utc | 23

@ suzan | Nov 13 2022 17:24 utc | 15 / 16

thanks suzan... i hadn't seen that! i read hudsons latest book however which resolves a lot of the questions that i might have had, had i not.. i am not sure about that quote @ 16.. i know bankruptcy works for those trying to get rich.. the banks write it off and then turn around and lend more money to these people. i am thinking trump as an example.. hasn't that happened to him? banks like people borrowing money - lots of it, and then paying it back very slowly so they can collect ongoing interest payments on it.. maybe i have to read hudsons other book - killing the host - to get an even better perspective on all this.. i highly recommend reading hudsons latest book - The Destiny of Civilization – Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism.. he lays it out in this book in layman's terms that most anyone can understand.. the interviews are more disjointed and typos do happen that add to the confusion..

@ Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 17:42 utc | 18

yes - vassal states would be a good way to put it.. i think that is exactly how michael hudson frames much of europe and elsewhere too - vassal states..

Posted by: james | Nov 13 2022 20:52 utc | 24

One thing that stands out is that the sanctions on Russia, as carried out by EU countries, have emptied out the viability of their own industries and societies. (As is well known by most people here). Buy American LNG, transfer industries to US soil, etc.
*
So having found a new "system" that gives all the advantages to the US (as well as that conferred by using the petrodollar), why not repeat it elsewhere? Are China and Taiwan about to see a similar "sanctions from hell regime" being installed, (To protect the "poor" Taiwanese from big, brutal China, of course). The OBJECT of which is the destruction of the industries of those Asiatic countries that trade with China, not China itself.

Nothing would serve the US better than the Chinese being provoked into a "hostile" act against Taiwan. In a similar manner to the NATO/Ukraine threats against the Donbas prior to the 24th Feb. leading to Putin's preventive actions. Massive "sanctions" could-would then be suddenly enacted by quisling leaders of "concerned countries" acting as a concerted group of thugs.

It is not even necessary for the US to do the fighting itself. There are always "partners", who will buy their arms and willingly send their own soldiers to get killed in their place.

Rotten leaders can always be found or installed as necessary. As one billionaire remarked, "Politicians are cheap".
****
**

PS: The US has already tried to create a pseudo NATO, based in the "Indo-Pacific area". As this didn't work, "NATO" itself is now being extended to cover the world's military spectrum.
**
Pacific, Overseas Territories, Atlantic Treaty Organization? (POTATO?)

Posted by: Stonebird | Nov 13 2022 21:15 utc | 25

The Black Agenda Report link is not *wrong* it's just too vapid to matter. It completely confuses two things, for one, the popularity of progressive/social-democratic/socialist policies as revealed by popular votes on the national level yet the Democratic candidates keep not being the President despite winning the vote. The other is the "Republicans" domination of so many state governments. The greatest single cause of the first is the preposterous Electoral College, which mingles nonsense about state governments somehow having more rights than the people with a structural bias against majority rule, favoring low population, i.e., rural, states. Somehow BAR reads this as a Democratic Party conspiracy. I have no use for bourgeois politicians but they are not actually comic book villains playing 17 dimensional chess, that's kind of silly. For the second, the states are the laboratories of corruption. It's easier to rig a small election than a big one. BAR misses this completely. And, as an alleged analysis of the midterms, the well-attested pattern of the presidential party losing seats in midterms isn't even noticed, much less addressed. I suppose the idea is partisan bashing with a left cover?

The Gateway Pundit link is just wrong. A ponzi scheme is where allegedly fabulous returns are paid out to investors *from the funds new investors bring in instead of from, you know, actual returns on investment.* There is no sense in which donations to politicians counts as a ponzi scheme. This is just semi-literate name-calling. Ponzi and his imitators, like Madoff, being owners skim the profits as they distribute just enough to keep up appearances of a successful enterprise making fabulous profits. The politicians are just service charges. Again, Clinton hasn't been president for twenty-two years, something even these morons should have noticed. Also, the Washington Post is not "far-left." People's Daily World or Workers World or World Socialist Website or even (spit) Jacobin can be tagged as far-left. But calling the Washington Post "far-left" is the journalistic equivalent of wearing a swastika armband. Shame on anyone for citing this crap.

Traditional values do not give a society strength. That's BS. Solidarity with the oppressed, empathy for fellow people, a commitment to the dignity of labor, things like that do. But none of these, *especially* the belief in the dignity of labor are in any sense traditional values. Traditional family values include using children for labor and marrying off daughters for gain and beating wives and the husbands using prostitutes. And on occasion it includes killing your sons and daughters for sexual activity of the wrong sort. It's true there aren't many religions that openly advocate such things, but all of them are in practice quite fine with those practices, as history shows. The very notion that religion creates morals is nothing but religious bigotry. When a Putin solemnly claims that all religions blend together to do Good Things, this is an inadvertent confession of total hypocrisy. There are differences in religions, both official and personal. They don't advocate the same thing. The bland assumption they do just means religions don't really do anything but divide people into groups. That's why their different doctrines make no difference. Morally, religion is no more significant than which football team you follow, except that people are more apt to actually know things about their team. Putin isn't the first asshole in office to spout ignorant crap about "religion" and "family values," so no unique offense should be attributed to him personally.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 13 2022 21:15 utc | 26

A link to "the US DoS press release announcing ex-Ukraine SMR pilot" (link goes to a US government website) since it is the source document and has more detail.

I'll assume it is nothing but cover for shenanigans and belligerence enabling whitewashing of dual use technologies and resources and recommend anyone else to also interpret it that way.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Nov 13 2022 21:52 utc | 27

Putin isn't the first asshole in office to spout ignorant crap about "religion" and "family values," so no unique offense should be attributed to him personally.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 13 2022 21:15 utc | 25

You made good arguments however mainly based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of 'traditional values.' Traditional values basically come down to some sense of fundamental decency with discipline, loyalty, good manners, honor, protecting and valuing women, appreciating the mystery and beauty of life and so forth. Just because some societies by custom and tradition value war, theft, rape, slavery and so forth does not make them 'traditional value' societies.

If you believe that traditional European-Western societies are fundamentally corrupt, even evil, as many people posting here often express, then of course any notion of traditional values being basically good is anathema.

Commiserations! It's a hard world view. And unfortunately all too often born out by events albeit contrary to the ideological warfare being conducted most of the evil we are encountering in the West is not from its traditional values but from those trying to deny and suppress them.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 22:01 utc | 28

There must be a total blackout on any coverage of Israeli election meddling. FFS, they're the kings of it. Almost like that fungus that hijacks and ant's brain and causes it to climb a tree and die.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 13 2022 22:12 utc | 29

Tom_Q_Collins @ 28

There has been coverage but it has been muted. And now these events in Turkiye will overtake the results, which is all the more odd given recent developments between the two nations. Even though I share the usual antipathy with my countrymen regarding the Zionist state, I must admit given my orientation I would be more welcome there then amongst my countrymen. To be a gay man in the Arab world is no small feat. Things are changing, but they are not changing that fast.

Posted by: Haassaan | Nov 13 2022 22:29 utc | 30

"...Europe’s legal capacity is very limited..." Scorpion@10
The Eu is itself bound by neo-liberal regulations- a Constitution in everything but name, the proposed Constitutions having been rejected by every electorate that ever considered them- which, as I recall, made spot price contracts for gas mandatory last year. These regulations included the 'illegality' of Labour's proposed re-nationalisation of the Railways and Utilities.
But the EU is itself bound by Court decisions designed to protect the currency from government borrowing beyond mandated levels.
As you see I am by no means expert in these matters. But Wolfgang Strek is. The article b recommends does not deal with the matter but several recent pieces by Streeck have done.
In essence the EU and its constituent states are hogtied. And the elites running both are happy that this is so.

Which is close to the point that Kimberley was making in the BAR article, recommended by B and given the additional accolade of being attacked by the DNC partisan Steven Johnson. Who misses inter alia the point that the Democrats have never lifted a finger to initiate the long overdue Constitutional Amendment removing the Electoral College and instituting direct elections for President. Just as in the coming Congress the power of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will be undiminished. And Biden will be much happier than he would be with a real Democrat majority.

The BAR article is spot on- the authors know very well that socialist policies are popular and very popular with Black voters, both are themes of the weekly publication- but they are also aware that Democrats exercise great ingenuity to ensure that Congress never agrees to the policies promised to the electorate. And this week they put on a clinic in managing, simultaneously, to attract the support of millions of student debtors without losing the donations of the creditors.

As to the news that Bill Clinton has not been President for 22 years, it is equally true that his influence and that of the forces he mustered to control the party has remained strong. He has narrowed the Overton window to the point that the Party, after having fixed the primaries in 2016, claimed in Court that it was a private club and had the right to change its rules at will. The coronation of Biden despite the Primary voters in 2020 was a measure of the domination of the Clinton faction.

Posted by: bevin | Nov 13 2022 22:51 utc | 31

SG | Nov 13 2022 16:28 utc | 8
them blacks is too stoopid to manage they economy. look at China: no blacks. QED.

Melaleuca | Nov 13 2022 19:47 utc | 21
but let the antisemitism roam free, i'm quite sure.

what % of good hardy solid aryan american male stock even have viable sperm? only the ones not wasting their manliness in gay pride rallies!

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Nov 13 2022 23:20 utc | 32

Don't know for sure but the black-jew thing brewing in the U.S. sure looks like it may have some legs, perhaps even actually amounting to something big. I see folks supporting Kanye and Kyrie are not backing down even though it's no longer headline news. Folks foolishly calling out Kyrie (Shack and others) are getting a thrashing on social media. I'm no fan of either of these two celebrities, but Nike and Adidas will not be getting any more of my money.

Posted by: thecelticwithinme | Nov 13 2022 23:49 utc | 33

Interesting times. About the 2022 mid-term fails.

A Forbes article concerning state gerrymandering in the lower house of congress link : https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2021/04/27/heres-why-republicans-won-the-new-census-count-and-democrats-lost/?sh=6cce0c4c55cd

The dumb&dumber red legless donkeys thought they couldn't lose in 2022. Ha Ha! (Nelson)

The red Republican donkeys are sharpening the knives. The age of the MAGA racist tea party mononeuron loons has come to an end. Those lambs will be sent to the slaughter room floor. As the finger-pointing flames of what could have been! Turning into a raging wildfire. Sadly, ignoring the real issue. For now, in the 21st-century female voters outnumber the males by six smart women voters to the usual blinded by polar politics four dumb&dumber male donkey voters!

The times are a changing. Or so the song goes. :O

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Nov 14 2022 0:05 utc | 34

Scorpion@27 may not be a US citizen, or may be one foolish enough to blindly swallow the MSM right-wing edition of history. The antebellum South, stronghold of slavery, prided itself on upholding traditional values, as opposed to the doctrinaire and fanatical Yankees, possessed of new-fangled, man-made ideas and ideals. Fiction sells better than non-fiction.

bevin also makes stuff up. The BAR article is deficient in exactly the ways I described. bevin adds gross stupidity. Neither Manchin nor Sinema are candidates in these midterms, but bevin seems to think candidates are selected by the President. Or maybe bevin thinks they are appointed? The Democratic Party is no more a Leninist programatic party than it is any kind of socialist. As for "lifting a finger" to amend the Constitution, as a Trumper, bevin of course detests the very notion that the president should be popularly elected: His tin God Trump wasn't. Despite this, bevin is advised to actually read the Constitution and how it is amended. There is no "lifting a finger," doing away with the Electoral College is a huge project. Frauds like bevin would be as quick to scream "tyranny!" at any step in an excruciatingly difficult supermajority process easily blocked by the Republicans (bevin thanks God for that!) It would be worse than "packing" the Supreme Court! Of course, bevin made up the claim I support the DNC. Admitting that Biden believes in band-aids for American society, while Republicans and bevins believe in shameless cruelty, is *not* supporting the DNC, it's called being oriented to reality rather than Fox et al. It was by the way Obama who sealed the deal for Biden after South Carolina. bevin's assumption Obama is Clinton in blackface is ridiculous as bevin's claims to be a leftist. No Tony Cliff follower ever really was I suspect, even if they weren't working as an infiltrator.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 14 2022 0:06 utc | 35

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 17:41 utc | 17

"...This relates to how the literalist impulse in Christian churches which banished 'magical' or actually direct ontological gnosis aka true meditation created a similarly monist tyranny..."

I get how your query about the legal difficulty for Europe relates to Putin's Valdai speech advocating multipolarity as I think Russia has always advocated dealing with the separate countries in Europe as individual entities. That was my understanding of the earlier quotation you gave.

The above segment I've posted here contains the term "literalist impulse", which I also ran across in Alistaire Crooke's essay linked by b. I have to say I didn't understand what Crooke claims for the 'hermetic' philosophy mentioned in his essay, and I'd ask if you did. To me, the bits of it that floated into my brain didn't seem to have anything to do with Putin's speech - maybe I'm operating on a lower plane of octogenarian stultification. I'll just ask - what does "literalist impulse" mean with respect to 'Christian churches'?

Posted by: juliania | Nov 14 2022 0:20 utc | 36

I was trying to figure out how the money-hording Jews are responsible for what Albion and her seed did and are doing in Canada, Australia, NZ, Kenya, HK, Yemen, Palestine, Colombia, District of Columbia, etc.

and it makes sense if money causes things to happen.

if you completely mystify money, idolize it, make it a living thing, give it its own life like a golem, you can make anything true. money, something that doesn't exist, makes things happen. sure.

it's not people who do things themselves. it's Jews who cause people to do things. through money.

deep. we are into the real magic now. "if your eye be double, how great is your darkness." some jew, re "Mammon", and the envy, greed and malice that flow from being blinded by money.

fun society, w/ these money worshippers running and ruining and infecting and trashing everything. how does money multiply and grow? like everything else: by faith.

belief in money is also a "traditional value." like lots of other horrible stuff. believing the priesthood. killing all the animals. burning everything down. pretty traditional behavior when people move in. chopping down all the trees. standard stuff. par for the human golf course.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Nov 14 2022 0:23 utc | 37

Traditional family values include using children for labor and marrying off daughters for gain and beating wives and the husbands using prostitutes. And on occasion it includes killing your sons and daughters for sexual activity of the wrong sort. It's true there aren't many religions that openly advocate such things, but all of them are in practice quite fine with those practices, as history shows.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 13 2022 21:15 utc | 25

Ridiculous twaddle!

But you go ahead and enjoy your Yeshiva-like word games. I now cede the field since clearly there is no common ground for iscussion.

All best...

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 0:55 utc | 38

@32 celtic

It's an absolutely incredible moment to witness.

I have thought and written about this before: blacks better hitch their wagon to the right horse, here, because how they choose now will determine whether or not they can hit the ground running when this whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

Like communist subversives of yesteryear, who also happened to be predominately jewish, jewish power today has successfully hoodwinked (read: coaxed the blacks to sleep and conjured its golem) blacks to be their spear in their racially-divisive America that they have wrought.

But this was obviously only a very tenuous arrangement...any black with two brain cells to rub together realize that most whites work hard, love their family and their country, and want to get along with blacks if perhaps only at a distance. Blacks also like to flock together with other blacks. Nothing wrong with this. Never has been.

The blacks who are confident enough to place themselves in white surroundings without drawing attention to their blackness every two seconds, I have a deep respect for.

That being said, if you want to bust a gut and have a good chuckle, check out Chapelle's Monologue on SNL from last night. Utterly brilliant tv, ironically coming from a telecast that has not been anywhere close to brilliant for years, except when Chapelle was on the last time.

I am glad blacks are waking themselves up. I have no qualms with nationalist blacks and I even would think we need to have a discussion about giving them their own territory, administering it for a decade or two, and then handing it over to them so that we can just be done with this whole racial multiculturalism paradigm. The blacks that want to keep living with whites and vice versa should obviously not be discriminated against however.

It will take a lot of generosity and good faith on whites to forgive blacks for being under the Jewish spell and for blacks to crawl out from their victim-mentality existence and start living their own history.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Nov 14 2022 0:59 utc | 39

@17 Scorpion | Nov 13 2022 17:41 utc

I really like the way you are blending Crooke's recent masterful essay on the war of literalism waged against the imaginative experiencing of Hermetic thought, with Ehret's concluding essay that you recommend.

At your nudge, I did just read the Ehret essay, and it was well worth it.

Even before reading Ehret, I had wanted to mention to you the story by Ken Kesey called "Demon Box", in case you hadn't encountered it. I couldn't find an online version so I have to give the ending as a spoiler right up front: Kesey had been severely depressed by the notion of Entropy, the idea that everything was running down. He meets a tripped-out girl in an asylum who, as the punchline of the essay, offers him the way out: "Entropy is only a problem in a closed system!" Kesey's burden immediately evaporates, as does ours, the reader.

I never actually realized that this notion of entropy has had such a profound effect on our thinking, and on our institutions and protocols. Non-scholar and non-scientist that I am, I always assumed everyone knew that the universe is alive and offers a new chance at life with every heartbeat.

~~

Now, re-reading Crooke and his wonderful recounting of what is essentially the fixed and dying versus the alive and becoming, and how this antagonism has played out through the ages and especially through the recent half-millennium in the west, and how it persists today, and how it resonates with Putin at Valdai just last week - reading all this, and blending it with Ehret, gives me another chance to affirm that the universe is alive and so is our DNA, and all manner of change is possible if we imagine it well enough.

Crooke on the implications of the Valdai speech:

It is too, a different way of envisaging sovereignty. It encompasses within it, the idea that sovereignty is acquired, through acting and thinking sovereign. That sovereign power grows out from the confidence of a people having its own distinct and clear history, its intellectual legacy, and its own spiritual storehouse on which to draw, and by which to differentiate itself.

Ehret on great scientists with their rejection of Entropy:

Johannes Kepler, Gottfried Leibniz, Henry C Carey, Viktor Schauberger, Kurt Gödel, Max Planck and Vernadsky all recognized that their own personal creative thoughts which leapt from states of ignorance to knowledge in non-mathematical leaps of eurekas were 1) driven by a love which no computer could express and 2) reflected in the same loving creative energy that shaped the unfolding of “objective” creation in ways that demonstrated the universe to be not a closed dying entropic system but rather a system of living, creative, loving yearning for infinite self-perfectibility.

Those two essays for anyone interested:
De-Conflicting With the West: Will the Valdai Blueprint Work? - Alastair Crooke

Does Life or Death Govern the Universe? Part 5: Creative Resistance to the Church of Entropy - Matthew Ehret

Posted by: Grieved | Nov 14 2022 1:45 utc | 40

@juliana

Thank you for your post and question.

First, an excerpt from the Cooke piece:

It was the legendary venerated Hermetica that had arrived in Florence. It had been transcribed by Greek-speaking people, somewhere between 100–300 CE, but from much earlier Egyptian texts. The discovery of papyri of Hermetic texts in central Egypt in the 1940s has shown them to be adaptions of material deriving from the ‘Intelligence of Re’ – The One – the all-pervading divine Mind, and therefore reflecting an intellectual tradition and science that reaches very far back in time.

What has this to do with Putin’s Valdai speech? Well, quite a lot – both by way of analogy, and by way of a warning too. For then – the 15th century – it too was a time of dark foreboding, as the swirling force of voracious Protestant literalism was barrelling into traditional Christianity – which, until then, had struggled to retain its seat between a literal world and that of inner illumination. Wherever traditional Christianity sought to make its vessels, critical doubt would follow behind, destroying them.

Open warfare between the Christian sects seemed inevitable – with consequences catastrophic for the western word.

Historian Francis Yates has suggested that the Pope quietly encouraged the translation of these Hermetic texts. The Pope hoped their central notion – that the root of reality, inhered in a multiple dimensionality and in the de-literalisation effected by thinking through image – might enable a synthesis to European factions on the brink of war.

Giulio Camillo, one of the most famous thinkers of the sixteenth century, writing on what ‘image’ might mean, says that the Hermetica “takes the image and similitude for the same thing, and the whole for the divine grade”.

This type of symbolic, rather than the literal interpretation of Christianity, created immense excitement and hope, at the time. The latter spread across Europe, including to the Protestant England – to John Dee, the greatest philosopher of his time, and Queen Elizabeth I’s close adviser.

It seemed to offer escape from the darkening clouds of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.

As you know, am neither a Christian nor well versed in the doctrine. But some of the piece seems to make sense to me, although I might be misinterpreting.

Putin's Valdai speech is long but the introductory section is mainly a critique of the unipolar approach assumes and insists that there can be only one way of doing things - our way - and if you don't bend the knee we reserve the right to break your legs or, in the case of Russia and Russian culture, essentially cancel it.

This relates to 'literalism' which insists that there is only one correct way to interpret the scriptures, only one way of describing God etc.

So I think that's the link to the speech which hopefully answers your question. (If not, try again!)

Now there are many other items of interest in the piece - at least for me. Most Buddhist schools accept something which can be described as Mind-Only or 'primacy of mind' viz how our reality is, or rather I should say how the nature of experience is for this tradition generally does not separate 'reality' from 'experience' since we cannot know a reality outside our realm of experience except as an abstraction constructed by word, concept which is not real.

Basically, modern society East and West has become materialist in the sense that we believe in a more or less single and consistent reality which is physical in nature. Anything not physical is not real. That includes mind which is widely regarded as an epiphenomenon of the body. Chemicals and synapses in the brain produce thoughts and images which we experience as something, just like we experience images on a movie screen, but it isn't 'real,' just the produce of chemical reactions in the viscous flesh in our crania, aka brains. Thoughts and images may seem to be non-physical but that's just an illusion, in fact they come from chemical interactions. Or something.

OK. But this gets us back to the One mentioned in the piece above: the ‘Intelligence of Re’ – The One – the all-pervading divine Mind.

The Chinese equivalent of One is Heaven (versus Earth and Man).
The Christian (at least early Christian?) equivalent is God (versus God the Son and God the Holy Ghost).

Why is Mind One? Because, being unphysical, it is not bound by dimensions of time or place. It is all-pervasive, without form but with intelligence/awareness/experience quotient. (Making God not external to ourselves or ourselves separate from God. Not possible. This is similar to how Buddhist sometimes say that the only difference between a confused sentient being and a Buddha is that a Buddha sees clearly the nature of confusion/obscuration.)

On a simple, individual observable level you are always experiencing various things in visual, auditory and other sense fields. These things are both particular and multifarious. Each leaf on each tree moves in a particular way. Each sound they make is particular. Each dog bark in the distance is different, as is each cloud, changing moment by moment. These phenomena are the Many but they all happen within the One which is the awareness-Mind field in which they are experienced. It is always there in the background, it never changes. You have never had any experience without this open, measureless field being there. You can witness scenes of light comedy or dark murder appearing in your gaze and the primordial always-there field of awareness accommodates each in the same way.

So the awareness-experience of the One Mind principle is also the vector through which we all experience the Many (or Earth in the Chinese lingo or perhaps Son in Christianity but there am not so sure since Christian symbology and language I always find a little confusing and in any case there is no need to try to make them all relate except sometimes where they clearly do, so why not).

So there is an irony in these two streams of thought that I found interesting. The One Mind notion allows for multiplicity, creativity, flexibility, variability because the One accommodates and welcomes the Many. But the Hegemon model is insisting that all must bow down to the same one way of doing and perceiving. This is similar to certain periods in the history of the Western Churches (I know less than nothing about the East and every time I have tried to read about it I cannot understand a word so my sense is that it is best to be born into it) when it became extremely dogmatic and tyrannical.

Putin is arguing for a type of international political reality that accommodates differences and variability just like hermetic view welcomes. Just like your garden welcomes no end of flowers, grasses, trees, birds, insects and sounds. Nature is not monistic in the sense of trying to control everything all the time although there does seem to be a bias towards creativity, fecundity, manifestation, growth, celebration even (flowers and butterflies, blue skies, dawn, the songs of birds and insects). It is philosophically ironic that a direct gnosis of the One Mind principle leads to an immediate appreciation of the limitlessly multifarious Many, whereas the political imposition of the materialist-based hegemon whose ultimate destination I believe is always satanic totalitarian tyranny - a perverse type of One principle.

How can materialism be described as a form of satanic One principle? Physicality is actually just a concept slathered onto reality which is always experienced in Mind (or Heart if you prefer, or some say Spirit/Shen). But if you stick only to the abstract designation (that it is physical matter comprised of various subatomic particles and no more etc.) you freeze everything with this label by making Many into One and turn it into no more than a dead mechanical series of movements following genetic code - or whatever.

Strangely it is a greater spiritual awareness of the aliveness of Space-Mind which accomodates all manifestation so it is far less hegemonic. So trying to make matter the One ends up stultifying everything whereas making multifarious manifest matter something which arises within the boundless, measureless, timeless One of Mind is liberating, creative, flowering, delightful. This underlying materialist view I think is the modern secular equivalent of the religious literalism in the article. Remember back then the Church traditions defined reality in ways that most modern people do not experience or understand. So by insisting on only certain interpretations of the teachings or views of God or whatever they were positing an external reality separate from the individual and in so doing banishing the creativity of individual experience from acceptable spiritual experience which in turn became pre-determined, pre-defined, pre-measured by concept. Deadly. Just like the Hegemonic approach. Except I think that approach is rooted in materialism rather than Christian literalism even though both share similar styles of mentality.

At least that's my take on some of the themes in the speech and the article, which caused me to go back to the speech. I still didn't get through it all again yet because of other things today (- I finally got my main car back after going through 5 months of infuriating Mexican surrealist hell! It's still a piece of junk but at least it now drives!) But I found the article really neat in linking such deep-rooted arcane issues which have played important parts in European history with Putin's recent speech.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 1:55 utc | 41

@ Scorpion

One last thing from Crooke that I know you'll enjoy:

Renaissance Neo-Platonists already implicitly understood these neurological concepts from the so-called ‘magical’ Hermetic and Hellenic tradition, which had been always integral to ancient philosophy. They even purposefully and imaginatively ‘inhabited’ the great persons of Antiquity. This literally was the source to the Renaissance outpouring of creative energy.

Petrarch (1304–1374 CE) wrote long letters to his ‘inner familiars’: Livy, Vergil, Seneca, Cicero and to Horace – all of whom of course were long since dead. Erasmus prayed to Socrates, also long since executed. Marcilio Ficino set up an academy in Florence that was modelled on the Athenian Academy, and in which was re-enacted Plato’s ‘Symposium’ on the anniversary day of Plato’s birthday. Philosophy then was a ‘way of living’ that relied heavily on empathic interaction with icons, both visible, and those no longer visible.

This experience of ‘imaginative inhabiting’ is however no longer an experience that is ‘ours’ today.

Ah, not quite gone from the world yet, friend Alastair. As you probably know, Scorpion, in the Tibetan practices at least, and I imagine on many other paths, part of the method of growing and realizing is to become the guru, in one's imaginative experience.

I would guess that juliania - who has her own questions for you @34 - probably has her own equivalents she could speak about too, from her own path.

Posted by: Grieved | Nov 14 2022 1:57 utc | 42

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 14 2022 0:06 utc | 33

Dude if you seriously think bevin, a professed Canadian leftist, is a Trumper then I have a bridge to Crimea to sell you.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 14 2022 2:02 utc | 43

PS Scorpion's out-there speculation of the day:

Why does Putin keep going the extra mile to partner with the West? Some say that he is weak, to legalistic, a 'half-measure man' -or he's a liberal. Etc.

But in writing the above reply to juliana I recalled that video with Hu Jintau being escorted out. All the stiff faces at the table and behind staring forward. And other group videos with Chinese in large numbers sitting formally. And the many artists who have left complaining about the intense control over them exerted by the CPC/CCP. And during that recent scene with part of the business being to enter Xi Thought officially into the constitution, something previously only done after retirement from office. There is a decidedly totalitarian element to Chinese culture these days; it might just be that it is the most gi-normous country in world history and being confucian to boot there is an extremely high conformist quotient in the mix, not to mention huge numbers. But I think they have gone a bit totalitarian at the higher echelons of governance (though not on the street level perhaps) which is perhaps why per capita the Chinese protest more than any other people. But anyway, this is the thought:

Putin is aware of this totalitarian bent, which despite their ancient traditions is very much in the modern, materialist vein, he wants to connect with more quirky, creative, maddeningly multifarious and bedrock Christian European cultures to bring them into the multipolar Eurasian civilization he is trying to build. Otherwise with Russia and China being the Big Dogs, it could get overly totalitarian in tone.

Anyway, that was the thought.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 2:14 utc | 44

Astonishing news from the Wall Street Journal, Saturday, November 12th:

Senior U.S. officials have begun nudging Kyiv to start thinking about peace talks in the event winter stalls its momentum, following Ukraine’s recapture of Kherson in one of its most stunning triumphs of the war.

The imminent onset of winter—coupled with fears of inflation spurred by mounting energy and food prices, the billions of dollars of weaponry already pumped into Ukraine, and the tens of thousands of casualties on both sides—has prompted talk in Washington of a potential inflection point in the war, now in its ninth month.

The U.S. and its allies are pledging to continue supporting Ukraine, but top officials in Washington are beginning to wonder aloud how much more territory can be won by either side, and at what cost. Some European officials, meanwhile, are more bullish on Ukraine’s chances.

(article is paywalled so no point in linking to it here)

Posted by: GoFast | Nov 14 2022 2:17 utc | 45

Posted by: Grieved | Nov 14 2022 1:57 utc | 40

Yes, you guessed right. I very much enjoyed that part. Actually, I suspect that the reason Christianity didn't 'take' for me is precisely because of both too much of the literalism described in the article for too long after which the current Age of Materialism too off as part of the Industrial Revolution making church services somewhat a quaint relic of the past. At least in cosmopolitan milieus such as I grew up in around London.

Most authentic spiritual experience is so alien to materialist preconceptions that people get all weird and wacked out about what are actually extremely ordinary, everyday experiences. Yes, there are heightened states which happen but they are temporary as various habitual tendencies loosen up and things bulge and distort for a little while during the adjustment process, but generally the One Mind business, for example, is something each and every one of us is experiencing each and every moment every day. The One Mind is the field in which all sense perceptions are experienced. We have never had any experience outside this field which has no beginning or end and no dimension of near or far inner or outer. Those concepts sound wacky too, but they aren't meant to. It's just the way it is. Experience, the field of it, the qualities of it, are simply - and literally! - not physical.

Can you say where you mind is, how big it is, how small, what shape and so forth. No you can't for it isn't a physical phenomenon even though it is experienced. The notion of external 'objective' reality is just a concept, something imagined but never actually experienced. This is such a very simple thing but so many accept the proposition of an external objective physical universe which we navigate through with independent, separate, solid bodies that it feels weird to talk about experiences that are unborn, unceasing, without measure etc. In some sense am groping towards learning how to express some of these old, simple things in modern language and context without their being set up as super weird, super arcane, super special. Translating, if you will. Attempting to anyway...

But so it is.

And if we could start to acknowledge the 'reality' of the world of experience, it would allow it to become far more vividly colorful and imaginative, which also means playful. It's amazing how addicted we all are to the bars in our cages. We hold onto them fearfully for they define our confines and with such borders we feel we know who and where we are.

And so it goes...

Back to the Chargers and 49ers. Good game!

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 2:27 utc | 46

"Some European officials, meanwhile, are more bullish on Ukraine’s chances."

Got a chuckle from me. Thanks.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 14 2022 2:29 utc | 47

Back to the Chargers and 49ers. Good game!

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 2:27 utc | 44

I beg to differ, haha. I need Garoppolo and the Niners to wake up and start scoring or I'm going to fall asleep myself!

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 14 2022 2:30 utc | 48

UN official admits to fabricating the ridiculous Russian Viagra rape accusations.

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/11/13/un-envoy-fabricating-viagra-russian/

We shan't hold our breath for any corrections issued by NYT, WaPo, etc.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 14 2022 2:43 utc | 49

@ GoFast | Nov 14 2022 2:17 utc | 43

Senior U.S. officials have begun pretending to nudge Kiev to start faking thinking about peace talks, which are forbidden by Empire and Zelenzky's presidential decrees(See: Hitler, Reichstag Fire Decree & the Enabling Act of 1933), in addition to legal prohibition laws enacted by Zelenzky Ukraine's Rada(Illegitimate Nazi controlled rubber stamp parliament)(See: 3rd Reich, Nazi Germany, Reichstag), in the event winter stalls its non-existent propaganda only momentum, following Ukraine’s timid tentative pyhric partial entry into Kherson City, after meekly watching on, as RF forces executed successful tactical withdrawal over contested river crossings whilst in contact, in one of histories most awful, brutal & futile failed wilful slaughters of the forcibly conscripted manhood of Ukraine in previous serial months long failed assaults, yet remarkably claiming its most stunning triumph of the war.

FIFY. You are most welcome.

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 14 2022 2:44 utc | 50

Just caught up on replies.
Posted by: Grieved | Nov 14 2022 1:45 utc | 38
Thanks for reply.
Interesting times...

I cannot think of a single western politician in my lifetime who has ever had anything interesting to say like Putin does frequently. I assume that not only is this due to his own virtues but also the Russian culture from which he springs. I find it very significant somehow even though at this point I have a huge mistrust of large polities comprising hundreds of millions.

(If I had my druthers 'multipolarity' would comprise thousands of different region-nations none larger than a couple of million. These huge entities with over a billion..... just don't like 'em, sorry! But of coure we don't get ideal realities rather than ones we have right now which features eight billion people so maybe huge polities is what we are headed towards following China's lead... )

Unfortunately, I don't think many find Crooke and Ehret's type of rumination and insight all that interesting let alone understandable. Because our cultures are increasingly deracinated and shallow - something Putin often laments.

It is hard to imagine who we can throw the Uglies out. We might flail hopelessly without them. And of course, maybe we are the uglies. What do we have in common, how could we function in honest, simple societies? Do we have enough collective wisdom and solidarity to engender sane societies? Am not sure. Hopefully, though, we will have a chance to find out. Maybe all it takes is a chance and things could change for the better extremely rapidly, similar to what happens after a disaster.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 2:45 utc | 51

scorpion, I cannot think of a single western politician in my lifetime who has ever had anything interesting to say like Putin does frequently.

he's damn smart, interesting and charismatic. don't know about "in my lifetime" but with regards to any politicians on the western front today, hands down Putin takes the lead.

i agree with everything bevin says @#30 and as always Margaret Kimberley was correct and prescient @BAR. (steven johnson give it a rest)

Posted by: annie | Nov 14 2022 2:55 utc | 52

Grieved | Nov 14 2022 1:45 utc | 38, re: Ehret and Crooke.

Very interesting, thank you, and to others like Scorpion for the réflexions.

Perhaps an addition to soften the - in my view - exacerbated and possibly rhetorical dialectic in Ehret's series (e.g. "the universe to be not a closed dying entropic system but rather a system of living, creative, loving yearning for infinite self-perfectibility.")

Physicists and biologists have been trying to bridge the apparent contradiction between the laws of thermodynamics (increased overall entropy) and evolutionary biology (increased complexity of living structures and webs).

One example from this article - https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1152/htm

The problem is thus stated:

"According to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy grows in the nonequilibrium isolated system; then, in line with the mentioned relation, the disorder should also grow. In contrast, most theories of the origin and development of life on Earth state that all living organisms (see [3]) become more complex and organized with time and, consequently, tend to be more and more distant from chaos (become ordered). This contradiction appeared in the beginning of the XXth century and created a barrier between physics, which then dealt mainly with inanimate matter, and the science of animate, i.e., biology. As a consequence, this period is marked by rebirth and development of the vitalism concept, which states a drastic difference between the phenomena of life and the physical and chemical phenomena. The vitalists believe that the development of living organisms is primarily caused by some nonmaterial supernatural power: “vital force” (“entelechy”) according to the German biologist H. Driesch (1867–1941), “vital impulse” according to the French philosopher H. Bergson (1859–1941), and the like."

The "Maximum Entropy Production Principle" proposed to solve this conundrum is apparently consistent with biology: "...in 1978, H. Odum wrote that the system using the greatest amount of energy and consuming it in the most efficient way survives in the competition with other systems" (reference omitted)

The conclusion follows:

"The humanity is evolving, adopting the mass use of cars, planes, etc. This process led to a jump in the heat production. However, the operations to provide more efficient (saving) fuel-to-heat conversion and to increase of the motor efficiencies began immediately. Obviously, this will not bring the humanity back to the previous level of heat production and is just a small stop of the civilization before a new breakthrough.
The maximum entropy production principle allows us to see the surrounding world from the same perspective without dividing it into the animate and inanimate. There are the simplest and relatively well-studied physical and chemical processes satisfying the principle at the lowest levels of this world. The formation of the higher levels, the construction of which we witness and are a part, also takes place according to this principle of the nonequilibrium thermodynamics. As a result, the simple and the primitive continuously gives rise to the more and more complex and highly organized. This happens again and again. How many floors (levels) the surrounding world will have, and whether its construction will ever end is another, very intriguing question."

Ultimately, I'm not sure Ehret's Manichean dichotomy is sound. Beauty and diversity in life can cohabitate with thermodynamics.

Posted by: htyul | Nov 14 2022 3:22 utc | 53

@ 49 Scorpion - I have always wanted to hear Putin's radio shows when he was a deejay as a young man.

Posted by: lex talionis | Nov 14 2022 3:22 utc | 54

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 1:55 utc | 39

Sorry, Scorpion, and also sorry Grieved - I think that is not entirely what Putin's Valdai speech is saying. He is saying that separate traditions, different paths, are the right of people in separate countries to pursue - he even gives people in the US the right to follow its multiplications of sexes 'culture' if it wants to - just not to insist that other cultures in the country conform to it.

What Putin is not saying is that there is an overriding correct spiritual 'one way' for all of humanity; he is saying we should live and let live, that is all.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 14 2022 4:06 utc | 55

@Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 2:14 utc | 42

No surprise coming from you. Another rambling, superficial, racist hate speech (cough, cough "thought"). I guess in lizard-brain think, there is no differentiation between how one acts in formal and informal settings, as well as allowing for cultural differences in verbal and non-verbal communication. From your typical arrogant Western mindset, everything is dichotomized into democratic vs authoritarian. Yes, go back to your American football game, it perfectly conceptualizes your "draw a line in the sand" worldview.

Posted by: Jun | Nov 14 2022 4:40 utc | 56

Not having to do with anything above, my son gave me a wonderful compilation of Greek plays originally published in 1929 I think, but more 'recently' republished in 1943 so during the war years. This is an excerpt from the introduction written in 1929. It fascinated me:

"...it is a sunbright morning ... and the year, let us say, 429 B.C... Over one hundred years ago (535 B.C.) Thespis took part in the earliest competition of tragic poets that was authorized by the State. Seventy years ago (499)Aeschylus began competing; fifty-five years ago (484) at the age of forty-one, he first won the coveted prize, an honour that fell to him thirteen times, all told, before he died. In 484 Sophocles was thirteen years old, Euripides an infant of one year; when he was a child of four, the Greeks overthrew the Persians in the sea-fight at Salamis. Thirty-nine years ago (468) Aeschylus lost the prize to Sophocles, who then began to compete. Ten years later (458) Aeschylus, on his last appearance, won with the Orestean trilogy; he died in 456, the year before Euripides first had plays accepted for presentation. In the year 429, therefore, Euripides and Sophocles have been rival tragic poets for a quarter of a century...

1929, and a sunbright morning...

Posted by: juliania | Nov 14 2022 4:42 utc | 57

Am I the only one who thinks Alastair Crooke did not write this week's piece or the one before?

The style and content/vocabulary are both totally unlike him. Perhaps a young intern.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Nov 14 2022 4:44 utc | 58

So what is going to happen to the German investment in China reported below at Xinhuanet when the sanctions start?

SHENYANG, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- BMW Group's joint venture in China, BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. (BBA), will invest 10 billion yuan (about 1.4 billion U.S. dollars) into a new battery production project in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

The signing ceremony of the project was held Friday in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning. The signed agreement will see BBA expand battery production capacity at its Shenyang production base.

"The signing of the investment agreement not only demonstrates our confidence in the long-term perspectives of the Chinese market but also underlines our strong belief that business ties will continue to build bridges between China and Germany," said Jochen Goller, president and CEO of BMW China.

Franz Decker, president and CEO of BBA, also noted that the investment is a "crucial next step" in the BMW e-mobility strategy in China.

The new investment follows a phase of extensive upgrading at the BMW production base in Shenyang, including a 15-billion-yuan plant opening in June.

Shenyang is BMW Group's largest production base worldwide. The total number of the group's employees in China has exceeded 28,000.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 14 2022 5:58 utc | 59

Below is a Xinhuanet posting about the meeting between Li from China and Albanese from Australia....any Aussie read between the lines of the meeting reported here and elsewhere?

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese here on Saturday on the sidelines of the leaders' meetings on East Asia cooperation.
Albanese said that next month Australia and China will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, which were forged under a Labor administration led by then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

Noting that he has visited China several times, Albanese said his country is willing to strengthen high-level exchanges with China and jointly promote the healthy development of bilateral relations.

Li said that Chinese and Australian peoples enjoy traditional friendship, however, bilateral relations have gone through a difficult patch.

"Taking office as the prime minister of the new Labor government, you expressed Australia's readiness to work with China to bring the bilateral relationship back on track," Li said.

China is ready to meet Australia half way, and work with Australia to seize the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations to promote sustained, sound and steady growth of China-Australia relations, Li said.

My only note is that mostly Xinhuanet reports China's position first and then visiting or whatever side but not this time...Hmmmm

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 14 2022 6:10 utc | 60

@psychohistorian
Re China Australia sideline meeting.
The real story is Australia’s DFAT (dept foreign affairs and trade) had worked for a “bi-lat” between Xi and PM Albanese. I’m unclear as to how “locked in” it was. Just before Albo headed to Cambodia he gave an interview saying (paraphrasing) Australia would definitely chide China over human rights, climate change and Taiwan.
There’s definitely no bi-lat for Albo in Bali.
Media - who goaded Albo into “being firm with China” ahead of Cambodia is is castigating him because evidently China hasn’t agreed to a top level meet with Australia since 2016/17. About the time we did Trump’s bidding and pranced around with pompoms like a college whore cheerleader, championing Trump’s trade war.
China cut off about $20bil (not sure AUD or USD) in trade…. wine, beef, grain, lobsters…. Market share which the US promptly filled….. (Yep. We’re *that* stupid)
Albo had a bi-lat with Biden. We affirmed our fealty. We re-endorsed AUKUS, agreed to suggestions Japan should join… and doubled down on acquiescence of nuclear capable US bombers in northern Australia.
With upgrades to both surveillance site Pine Gap and military bases in Western Australia to meet US “needs”.
That’s about all I can type before the nausea overwhelms.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 14 2022 6:27 utc | 61

Perhaps it is time for the multipolar bloc of nations to start supporting independence movements inside the DisUnited States of America.

Nations like Hawaii, Lakota Republic, Cascadia, and Aztlan would be a good start.

After all, America specializes in dismembering other nations through the arming and bankrolling of "moderate rebels" and separatist groups in a targeted nation.

The Americans will learn that what they sow around the world, they will reap with interest inside their own illegitimate borders.

Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon, survey finds
https://www.science.org/content/article/half-of-americans-anticipate-a-us-civil-war-soon-survey-finds

Posted by: ak74 | Nov 14 2022 6:37 utc | 62

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 14 2022 6:27 utc | 58

Hear ,Hear !

Posted by: Brother Ma | Nov 14 2022 6:45 utc | 63

We need oil and we need it fast and you'd better fork it over or else:

Exxon has now announced that it has, together with its partners, discovered hydrocarbons in Block 15 off Angola in the Bavuca South prospect.
The discovery marks the first commercial oil find by ExxonMobil in the country since 2003.

Exxon Mobil Makes First Oil Discovery In Angola In 20 Years

Better watch your human rights record, Angola! Better make sure you have no WMD under your sofa.

Or any obscure ethnic minorities whose rights you might be remotely construed to be violating ...

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Nov 14 2022 7:00 utc | 64

@psychohistorian 57

I came across this re Shenyang while perusing Rufus's blog:

Germany is divided, the German media are bribed, the German politicians are threatened by the USA on a daily basis.

The German industry however is fighting for survival. They know very well that the future of the German economy is in cooperation with China. Almost all German big MNC’s are making 60 to 80 % of their turnover in China. Without their China presence, there is no German industry anymore. Kunshan, Shenyang and many other Chinese cities are actually German, very few other foreign investments there. In Suzhou, in the night clubs, the Chinese audience is loudly singing “Über den Wolken” (von Reinhard Mey, 1974) Yes, the Chinese audience is singing in German there !!

And I can assure you, all the German employees of these MNC’s in Germany are very well aware of the importance of the cooperation with China.

Posted by: Jun | Nov 14 2022 7:09 utc | 65

Alastair Crooke - @Opport Knocks | Nov 14 2022 4:44 utc | 56

And what about the plagiarism?

Posted by: SeanAU | Nov 14 2022 2:52 utc | 217
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/ukraine-open-thread-2022-198/comments/page/3/#comments

Posted by: SeanAU | Nov 14 2022 7:23 utc | 66

Posted by: Jun | Nov 14 2022 7:09 utc | 61

Hard to disagree with his assessment.
Greens have 18 directly elected seats in Bundestag - the other 98 or so are 2nd votes on the List. They represent urban centres in W German cities and are not present in former GDR where SPD has also huge credibility problems.

Greens hold balance of power so CDU and SPD kow-tow.

USA uses Greens as puppets and attack dogs against Fossil Fuel States like Russia, Iran, China, India - and the agenda is - like Margaret Thatcher's in 1980s - De-Industrialisation to wipe out Organised Labour. Thatcher deliberately set de-industrialisation in train in favour of City Finance - she destroyed Male Employment a and created Female Service jobs in HR, Call-Centres, Colleges, Quangoes - and insecurity for Males.

The stability of communities and regions was destroyed.

The Greens are on the same Jihad to eliminate manufacturing in Europe

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Nov 14 2022 7:40 utc | 67

Haven't had time to visit MoA much lately (months) except for the occasional drive-by on the Ukraine threads. They tended to induce a dark, sinking feeling in me that MoA had changed permanently for the worse. I also have a difficult time plodding through 400+ post threads (because it's kind of rude not to before commenting) late in the day. Besides, war porn, kill toys and armchair general-ing are becoming seriously tiresome - people are still dying. Maybe I'm just getting too old and cranky.

However... I AM delighted to find that the old whiskey bar I missed has been and is still alive and well here on the not-Ukraine/OT pages. I guess I haven't checked them out in ages. I can only hope for the day on MoA where the war is over and there is once again no more Ukraine thread, just B's regular article of the day and the OT pages... like the good old days.

Nothing to add here except my thanks to B and all of the great contributors here for the intelligent discourse, observations, links, updates, etc. I'm happy that MoA is still my little lurker island of sanity in the intertube madhouse.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Nov 14 2022 8:01 utc | 68

@ Grieved | Nov 14 2022 1:45 utc | 38

imv Crooke is reading way more than exits into what Putin is saying and from where Putin is coming from. imv Crooke is seeing connections everywhere that a) do not exist and b) is more a reflection of where his 'head is at' (all over the place un-tethered to reality?) than anything external to himself.

While the topic of hermeticism and imagination and so on is of value it was not made for playing mind games with geopolitics and empire wars where people are being killed daily. I think a year in a monastery or grounded on a lovely tropical island, no longer writing these kinds of articles would be most helpful to him and his state of mind.

Posted by: SeanAU | Nov 14 2022 8:04 utc | 69

Posted by: suzan |13 november 2022 17:33 UTC | 16
Thank you Suzan!
Michael Hudson is a light in the dark when he teaches us about the differences between the financial capitalism in the US, and the industrial capitalism in China - and Russia, and the latter´s talk about unipolar or multipolar world.
I think a way to capture the youth (who listen to consensus in climate science) really will absorbe his ideas.To solve the climate crisis we need a world that can cooperate peacefully. And the world will never ever become peaceful if USA and its vassals rules. Hopefully it will influence left movements in the west to abandon the identity politics and start studying marxism, and finally understand how important the workingclass is in the political struggle.

Posted by: Northern Eve | Nov 14 2022 8:23 utc | 70

Here's a funny one posted to Twitter by the Republican dominated Officials at Maricopa County

@maricopacounty‬⁩ 11/12/22, 3:26 PM.
Quote

VOTERS: All legal votes will be counted. Your vote will count equally whether it is reported first, last, or somewhere in between. Thank you for participating.

CANDIDATES: All legal votes will be counted, including votes for you. If you have the most votes in the final tally, you will be elected. If you do not have the most votes, you will have lost your election.
‬⁩
DISINFORMATION SUPER SPREADERS: Please read Arizona election law & the elections procedures manual before asking leading questions about how something seems suspicious. There are processes + checks and balances in place to make sure every legal vote is only counted once.

SOCIAL MEDIA BOTS: Your disapproval is duly noted but your upvotes and retweets will not be part of this year’s totals. This is not meant as an affront to your robot overlords, it’s just not allowed for in Arizona law.

Posted by: SeanAU | Nov 14 2022 8:26 utc | 71

UPDATE:
Anthony Albanese to hold landmark talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at G20 summit
November 14, 2022 — 6.15pm
Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a landmark meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday, signalling China may be prepared to begin removing crippling tariffs from $20 billion worth of Australian goods.
The meeting, to be held on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali late in the day, represents a significant diplomatic breakthrough after years of increasing tensions.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/anthony-albanese-to-hold-landmark-talks-with-chinese-president-xi-jinping-at-g20-summit-20221114-p5by7m.html

Treasurer Jim Chalmers emphasised the “extreme pressure” on the global system from the war in Ukraine and its effect on the global economy, while saying Australia wanted to improve relations with China.
“All of our efforts are into making this relationship between Australia and China more stable,” Chalmers told Bloomberg from the B20 gathering in Bali on Monday.
Industry chiefs have been concerned about the damage from Chinese trade restrictions on Australia and welcomed the sign of a thaw in the relationship, with Fortescue Metals chairman Andrew Forrest saying “good back-channel diplomacy” had helped set up the Xi meeting.
“Getting Australia back to a strong bilateral relationship with China is key,” he told this masthead.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 14 2022 9:17 utc | 72

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said Türkiye will not accept the condolence by the United States over Sunday's terror attack that claimed six lives in Istanbul's Istiklal Avenue on Sunday. dailysabah

Posted by: Passerby | Nov 14 2022 9:56 utc | 73

https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/11/14/political-roundup-jacinda-arderns-asia-trip-rekindles-new-zealands-independent-foreign-policy/

Posted by: tucenz | Nov 14 2022 10:19 utc | 74

https://news.am/eng/news/730131.html

Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu refuses to accept US State Department condolences for the death of Turkish civilians in the terrorist attack on Istiklal Street in Istanbul.

Normally I would be very reluctant to accept such a claim at face value, but here is Suleyman Soylu talking to the press at the site of the attack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wyfIGN49Qg

Turn on auto-translate CC and go to the 50 second mark and, holy cow, that's how his words are translated. Whoah!

Are there any Turkish-speaking barflies here who care to have a listen to that video and tell me if that is indeed an accurate translation of what he was telling the press?

I'm dubious but, man, if that's what he really said then the Turks are hoppin' mad.
Sweden and Finland can kiss their NATO membership goodbye if that is the case.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Nov 14 2022 11:22 utc | 75

@68 Melaleuca At least Albo can say to Xi: "Hi! I'm not Scott Morrison! So, no, I'm not a f**kwit. Pleased to meet you!"

He may not get much more out of Xi than a smile and a handshake but, hey, I suppose it's worth a shot.

Albo just has to hope that Xi doesn't counter with "Hello Anthony. Still hosting those B-2 bombers, are you?"

That'll be a curly one 'n' no mistaking it.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Nov 14 2022 11:34 utc | 76

@ Yeah, Right | Nov 14 2022 11:22 utc | 71

Turkey refused to accept condolences from the U.S. after the terrorist attack on Istiklal Street in Istanbul, the republic's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said, RIA Novosti reported.

"We know where the attack was coordinated. We received the message given to us and we know what the message was. We do not accept the condolences of the American embassy. We are not treacherous to anyone, but we no longer have tolerance for these treacherous acts. Istiklal Street is our child. If we had not caught the attacker, he would have fled to Greece today,"

the minister was quoted as saying by CNN Turk.

Best I could find ... the key portions of the above is now excised/censored when I access youtube & use CC with auto-translate ...

The tighter Empire squeezes, the more the Rest of the World(RoW) slips through its fingers ...

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 14 2022 13:01 utc | 77

What Putin is not saying is that there is an overriding correct spiritual 'one way' for all of humanity; he is saying we should live and let live, that is all.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 14 2022 4:06 utc | 53

Neither was I - in fact the opposite - so you are putting words in my mouth (no doubt in well-intentioned fashion!). A way is very different from a situation. One Mind notion is not a Way. It accommodates no end of multiplicity, particulars. Which in the geopolitical context is different peoples, languages and cultures etc., just as Putin points out.

The Hegemon insists that all must follow the same system.

My reservation about the current proposed multipolarity is that if it is knit together by the same systems of digimoney, digi-ID and social credit (which comes from 24/7 monitoring of activity), then that will become a tyranny of materialistic One Principle despite all the high-falutin' aspirations of allowing different peoples and cultures etc. to flourish.

Time will tell, though probably neither you nor I will be around long enough to see where it all ends up!

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 13:03 utc | 78

@ Scorpion | Nov 14 2022 2:14 utc | 42

Usually skip past your posts. Regretfully accidentally read this one.

Clearly you have never visited China. Lived, worked or spent any significant time in China. Your fantasist claptrap drivel regurgitating imaginary western propaganda tropes is, with all due respect, dross beneath contempt.

Unlikely to make that mistake again.

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 14 2022 13:18 utc | 79

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Nov 14 2022 7:40 utc | 63

Yes, indeed ,Thatcher was a nasty piece of work, who wrecked the UK in her forever sucking up to the landed wealthy financial class of Britain. For all the books and films both written and made of her respectively, she enjoyed a pitifully shabby and little attended state funeral. I hope she enjoys herself in Hell with Albright,Meir and hopefully Killary soon.

Posted by: Brother Ma | Nov 14 2022 13:21 utc | 80

I'm dubious but, man, if that's what he really said then the Turks are hoppin' mad. Sweden and Finland can kiss their NATO membership goodbye if that is the case.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Nov 14 2022 11:22 utc | 71

Some of the cretins in the NatSec state feel that no offense can go un-punished and that there is no need to care about innocent bystanders, because WE are IMPORTANT. The main thing is to let everybody know you will lash out. Turkyie/Erdogan has been the recipient of such from time-to-time since Iraq War II.

I don't think Turkyie will leave NATO, too useful. Uncle Sugar has been very rude to them for many years now.

Posted by: Bemildred | Nov 14 2022 13:28 utc | 81

Grieved | Nov 14 2022 1:45 utc | 38
htyul | Nov 14 2022 3:22 utc | 51

The universe is a closed system, and therein entropy reigns supreme. It is inescapable and very much terminal.

However...

The planet Earth is not a closed system. Copious amounts of energy are pumped into the Earth from our friendly neighborhood fusion reactor in the sky. Self-organizing biological systems can grow and increase in complexity, but only so long as generous amounts of energy are supplied from outside that system. A "steady state" is impossible for biological systems. A "steady state" is the same as death for a biological system. Energy consumption must forever increase or the system dies.

Of course, the source for all of that energy driving Earth's biological systems, including human economy, is ultimately the Sun (note: some energy input is available from the "embers" of former stars that have gone supernova and in the process ejected unstable heavy metals). Currently humanity is growing itself and its complexity from solar energy that has been stored in carbon deposits underground that itself originated from biological activity working with solar energy. Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere (originally CO2 rich) came from that process. CO2 + Es --> O2 + Cs, where Es = solar energy and Cs = sequestered carbon. Burning the sequestered carbon will eventually yield an oxygen-depleted, CO2 rich atmosphere again, though of course that will take a little bit of time. The point, though, is that humanity cannot depend upon burning sequestered carbon indefinitely. Fossil carbon should just be considered a convenient temporary energy boost to help humanity bootstrap up to a significantly more efficient use of "fresh" solar energy. They key here to maintaining a viable self-organizing biological system (human society) is that in this bootstrapping process energy capture from the Sun must increase significantly over and above what is available to the system from burning sequestered carbon. This is not possible from terrestrial solar energy capture.

Does this mean the end for human culture? If humanity cannot make the step up from terrestrial solar energy capture then it absolutely will max out energy available to perpetuate itself and die.

"No way! We'll just make our own mini Suns that can fit under the hoods of our cars and will produce unlimited energy from water!"

No you won't. Key construction materials for those mini Suns are unicorn horns and fairy dust. There are not enough such materials to produce mini Suns on an industrial scale and save humanity. Humanity has only one direction to go for survival. We need vastly more energy at our disposal. That energy must come from the Sun. Terrestrial capture of that energy is pitiably inadequate. I'll leave it to the reader to guess what the next step must be for our civilization.

Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 14 2022 13:32 utc | 82

William Gruff | Nov 14 2022 13:32 utc | 78

Thank you, very much agreed.

At a more micro level, I have the feeling that energy return on investment provides a good yardstick to evaluate energy source alternatives. I don't know what the next step might be.

If I had to guess, I'd say the newest nuclear reactor tech from China and Russia could be a way forward - if only for a limited time, and there's still the dream of fusion... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02022-1

I'd be grateful for your thoughts on the next viable energy source in the context you outline.

Posted by: htyul | Nov 14 2022 14:26 utc | 83

Followup to Outraged | Nov 14 2022 13:01 utc | 73

Re events in Turkey, the earlier statements other than rejecting US Embassy condolences ... am finding are explicitly 'omitted' censored throughout Empire's MSM ...

Stumbled across the following (last link) ... an astute reader will be able to parse & extract some interesting background & insights re Turkey/US/NATO relations/interactions mostly since the failed 2016 coup, especially if aware of the broad sweep of related events subsequent, and therefore likely indicates what the future portends re RF/Turkey in the current Great Game for Terra ... though not to the intended objective/benefit NM's master clearly endeavors.

Background primer: Coup Against Wannabe-Sultan Failed - Beware The Aftermath MOA

(Please also read the updated tweets below. There are some very interesting nuggets in there that are not yet reflected in the text.) Yesterdays short coup attempt (real time MoA) by parts of the military against the wannabe-Sultan of Turk. Post by our generous host b, July 16, 2016

Recommend viewing each of these embedded short clips from below linked article, even more remarkable than the earlier Turk CNN, longest is only 90s. Found them fascinating:

Footage from TV interview during which Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu accused the US of being behind terrorism around the world and the 2016 failed coup in Turkey

On September 20, 2022 in Bosnia, the Turkish interior minister accused the US of being behind al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorism

On September 3, 2022 Soylu said Turkey does not need the US or Europe and wants to eliminate the US from Turkey’s neighborhood

Biden called Turkish PM to warn of false accusations against the US, but Turkey remained unmoved 27Oct22

@Norwegian, any knowledge re this 'NGO' op ?

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 14 2022 14:33 utc | 84

@Outraged | Nov 14 2022 14:33 utc | 80

@Norwegian, any knowledge re this 'NGO' op ?

I have never heard of "Nordic Monitor" before, although that does not say much. From browsing the pages it looks like a shady anti Turkish government outfit? It looks like it could be located in Stockholm, Sweden. Maybe these are the guys Erdogan use as leverage to keep Sweden and Finland out of NATO?

I really don't know, just speculating.

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 14 2022 15:19 utc | 85

Tom_Q_Collins@44 "Dude if you seriously think bevin, a professed Canadian leftist, is a Trumper then I have a bridge to Crimea to sell you."

The real moral is, you shouldn't have bought that bridge to Crimea, now you have to pay taxes and upkeep on it.

First of all, bevin is a confessed accomplice of one Tony Cliff, one of those Trotskyites who spent decades putting the -ite in Trotskyite. Cliff was a state-cap, slang for anti-Communists who profess to hate socialist countries for not real socialists. These state-caps are all tiny sects, as being an anti-Communist communist is an oxymoron, unprincipled politics, which has real trouble recruiting normal people.

Second, bevin is a loon. bevin "thinks" it is leftist to support mujaheddin or Taliban in suppressing women because, national rights or multipolarity or something equally lame. And bevin thinks heterosexuality is taught. Perhaps Mommy taught bevin how to get an erection when seeing and touching a naked woman but this really doesn't seem likely to me.

Third, like the cult leader Cliff, the real test of the person's politics is not what they profess when trying to sound high-minded, it's who they are friends with and who they are enemies with. The commentariat at MoA is full of open Trumpers, starting with our host, who shamelessly promote gross MSM propaganda about the stolen election, but bevin has no problem with that. bevin congratulates them on it. Up above, bevin alleged concern with the undemocratic Electoral College but bevin was here *during the Trump presidency* when the Trumpers virulently denied the very idea that the popular vote even mattered, because, "Constitution!" bevin didn't lift a finger to even protest! But bevin does have a problem with someone who is merely unimpressed with a BAR article that ends up claiming the Democrats throw elections to avoid responsibility, which is silly. Like a crooked boxer, there are occasions when they take a dive...but pro-wrestling kayfabe requires all parties to be on the same payroll. The donor base for both parties overlap but they don't have the same boss. In general, bevin has no problem sucking up to ludicrous cryptofascist loons. About the only time bevin gets riled is when they openly praise Hitler. On the other hand, no left-presenting commenter is ever deemed worthy of civil engagement, much less agreement on any point. bevin is a rabid opponent of anyone who disrupts the mutual admiration society of Trumpers. That's bevin's real politics, not idle professions of being a leftist.

Given the number of security service infiltrators into left parties in general, and manipulations of supposedly "dissident" far-left groups like Cliff's gang, the notable commenter here most likely to have a history of contact with actual security service operatives is, bevin. Look up the career of one Jay Lovestone, for example.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 14 2022 15:25 utc | 86

@ Norwegian | Nov 14 2022 15:19 utc | 81

A blatantly obvious covert op sham shopfront, zero credibility, with a solitary objective mission statement, yet if informed & aware of the actual past & current facts/events, one can discern many insights into Empires thoughts/intentions re Turkey since at least 2016, would suggest.

Do not believe the site is intended for the general public, more a false resource/reference to support influence ops against Turkey.

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 14 2022 15:35 utc | 87

@Outraged | Nov 14 2022 15:35 utc | 83

Do not believe the site is intended for the general public, more a false resource/reference to support influence ops against Turkey.

I can believe that, yes. The CIA 2016 coup attempt was a watershed, the Russians tipped Erdogan who was able to turn the table.

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 14 2022 15:42 utc | 88

@ steven t johnson | Nov 14 2022 15:25 utc | 82

Oh no, not the old instigate internal dissent & inspired witch hunt with a dash of defamation trope ... from the COINTELPRO handbook.

Good grief, Charlie Brown.

Grade: F.

Recommendation: Take up a productive hobby, become a hermit monk, a rewarding career as a celebrity Barrista to the 'Stars', or join the Scientologists campaign to defeat Xenu's evil masterplan ...

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 14 2022 15:44 utc | 89

".. Neither Manchin nor Sinema are candidates in these midterms, but bevin seems to think candidates are selected by the President. Or maybe bevin thinks they are appointed?.."
steven t johnson@33

Here's a parting thought, Steve: the importance of Manchin and Sinema is entirely due to the fact that they are critical to the maintenance of Schumer's control. Had the Democrats won more seats their importance would have diminished.
But the Democrats want it that way: it allows them to profess to be interested in introducing mild reforms. And then to throw up their hands and lament that the two DINOs are responsible, have all the power and the rest of the party is therefore impotent.
We saw exactly the same stuff when the Democrats controlled the House in Obama's first term. Until he was able to 'throw' the mid terms in 2010 the Democrats betrayal of millions of Americans evicted from their homes was an embarrassment. After the election however, things became easier: the Republicans could be blamed.

As to 'lifting a finger.' I am well aware that the process of amending the US Constitution is complex and lengthy-if you need I can explain it to you- but it has to begin one day. The Democrats have been whining for years about the unfairness of the Electoral College system. Everyone understands that they are correct- it is archaic and undemocratic. But they do nothing to initiate the process of changing it. It would be a very simple matter for the party to start a movement that would develop great momentum and produce many advantageous side effects for the Democrats.
But they aren't interested. They like the Electoral College. They fear democracy. They are contemptuous of the people.
All of which is so notoriously the case that millions of Democrats, particularly from the old industrial heartlands have stopped voting for the party. And some of them-as Hillary Clinton learned six years ago- are so sick of the Gores, Clintons, Bidens of this world that they will even vote for a clown like Trump to spite them.

I do not suppose for a moment that you do not know better. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the US Constitution, its legislative history and the political parties understands that what Ms Kimberley wrote was neither more nor less than the truth.

The problem is that you are insincere. You indulge in silly debating points. You knowingly deal in half truths and misrepresentation of the crudest sort. And increasing numbers of posters here realise it.

Posted by: bevin | Nov 14 2022 15:50 utc | 90

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 14 2022 13:01 utc | 73

After 1 min mark Google's Youtube translator stopped translating. I checked the comments. The ones with the word America all implied what you give in the translation. Turks publically accuse US of having a hand in this.

US is turning into Soviet Union. In no time it will become a North Korea.

Posted by: Tom_12 | Nov 14 2022 15:56 utc | 91

I see that Johnson has posted again.
It is hard to decide whether his ignorance is greater than his dishonesty so I cannot tell whether he really thinks that I am a follower of the former IS (UK-SWP), or whether he is really unaware that Cliff was one of the original "Third Campers" who argued against both "Washington and Moscow" as equally dangerous to the working class.

As to this libel ".. the number of security service infiltrators into left parties in general, and manipulations of supposedly "dissident" far-left groups like Cliff's gang, the notable commenter here most likely to have a history of contact with actual security service operatives is, bevin."
If Johnson is not employed by the FBI or CIA he is doing them an unpaid service, which, with a bit of polishing and an editor above him, might allow him to swap his High School history teaching job for a post closer to Langley and the folks in Washington that he so clearly admires.

Posted by: bevin | Nov 14 2022 16:02 utc | 92

@ Norwegian | Nov 14 2022 15:42 utc | 84

Indeed.

A significant number of Turkey's military officers (Army/Navy/AirForce) assigned to NATO, who pretty much coincidentally were outside Turkeys sovereign territory/waters, as well as numerous posted Defense Attache's, including a large cohort mysteriously enjoying 'turkish coffee'(?) aboard a NATO task Force just off the coast prior to & during the coup ... for no discernible purpose ... collectively promptly hitched their jackboots & sought & gained political asylum in the EU, dontcha know.

Perhaps some have now obtained gainful employment with the likes of ND ?

Ah, the joys of Freedumb, Democracy(?!) & the "International Rules Based Order". ;)

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 14 2022 16:03 utc | 93

Here at almost 70 degrees north the fresh Arctic air chills to the bone, but Outraged I
have to tell you that you are a breeze of fresh air that warms my heart.

Posted by: waynorinorway | Nov 14 2022 16:12 utc | 94

Posted by: Bemildred | Nov 14 2022 13:28 utc | 77

The price Turkey extracted from USA for Germany to be permitted to join NATO in 1955 - in order to get German Rearmament past French objections - was Gastarbeiter Program.

Germany accepted thousands of Turks from Anatolia to help the Turkish Junta cope with excess male birthrate and generate foreign exchange.........Adenauer was not happy but Uncle Sam told him to bend over and accept...........

Sweden and Finland are hoping for a discount scheme compared to Germany

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Nov 14 2022 16:14 utc | 95

@Tom_12 | Nov 14 2022 15:56 utc | 87

After 1 min mark Google's Youtube translator stopped translating. I checked the comments. The ones with the word America all implied what you give in the translation. Turks publically accuse US of having a hand in this.

Confirmed. I saw the same thing.

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 14 2022 16:18 utc | 96

The witless bevin pretends there really was a "Third Camp." Like bevin the friend of Trumpers and discreet fascist symnpathizers and resolute foe of any leftist, Third Campers were resolute enemies of actually existing socialist countries while comfortably coexisting with their imperialists in daily life. You cannot take people's professions at face value, they must be compared to who they actually befriend and who they actually oppose. I remember Ken MacLeod the SF writer proudly confession to having smuggled counter-revolutionary literature (disguised as anti-Stalinism of course) into, Czechoslovakia I think it was. MacLeod of course has never been of any use to workers' struggles in the West. This is not an accident, no more than it is for bevin. Original Third Campers included James Burnham, later of the National Review coterie and Max Shachtman, later too right-wing for the "socialists" who turned into the DSA/Jacobin! Taking Third Campism seriously earns contempt, not kudos.

bevin boasted of hearing a cynical joke about the impossibility of socialist revolution in the civilized, white countries straight from the lips of Tony cliff himself. bevin of course used Cliff's original Jewish-sounding name, probably to curry favor with the fascists and cryptofascists here. bevin has no problem with the openly antisemitic ravings so common here, ever, so why not toss the antisemites a treat? Not a follower, bevin says. Is bevin boasting of having infiltrated Cliff's camp, rather than being a fool who believed that crap? (Later, Cliffites turned into the so-called Socialist Workers Party of the UK.)

Again, bevin has always loyally accept as good faith the Trumper insistence Trump was the rightful president. So much for the ludicrous pretense bevin actually believes the Electoral College is undemocratic. bevin has always loyally accepted the validity of Trumper claims the election was stolen. bevin even endorses their wisdom and political insight by crowing about how they "see" through me. Uh, no, calling someone CIA for acknowledging simple facts is dishonest. The rancid contempt for humanity---though to be sure especially Jewish and gay and female humanity---never caused bevin any problems before.

One more time, who are your friends and who are your enemies?

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 14 2022 16:33 utc | 97

".., bevin has always loyally accept as good faith the Trumper insistence Trump was the rightful president..." steven t johnson@97

It is difficult to isolate one lie from so many. But this is one that is particularly egregious. My sin has been that, from the first, I pointed out that the entire electoral system in the US is corrupt and all elections liable to falsification of the results.
The surprise is that anyone disagrees. Very few Americans would.

I would be offended if a real person accused me of anti-semitism or fascism. It is clear that I am neither. I am about as anti-semitic as Jeremy Corbyn.
Anyway, no more. It is always tempting to kick sacks of shit like Johnson but the hours spent disinfecting footwear...

Posted by: bevin | Nov 14 2022 16:42 utc | 98

can we just stop engaging with little stevie?? or is this just pure entertainment value folks are going for?

Posted by: james | Nov 14 2022 17:37 utc | 99

james @99--

There're many more besides "stevie" deserving that treatment.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 14 2022 17:50 utc | 100