as the new world cold war ramps up, is there going to be a new HUAC soon?

Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 17 2022 15:58 utc | 104

Listened a bit to Matt Fry on LBC radio in the UK today, Fry actually said that the war in Ukraine is a war of good against evil, Ukraine being the good.

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Dec 17 2022 16:22 utc | 106

Might there be some sort of peace talks, or is it all just Western/Ukrainian propaganda.
There will come a time when Zelensky realises that the Donbas and Crimea are gone for good, until he acknowledges this, peace talks might not be on the table.
“Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky admitted in an interview to France’s LCI television channel he is being nudged to negotiate with Moscow.
“There are those who are urging me to sit at the negotiating table,” he said. “But I don’t see anything to discuss.”
Zelensky also said he saw no point in French President Emmanuel Macron’s negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I don’t think they can produce any result,” the Ukrainian leader said.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had to backtrack on his earlier claim about the impossibility of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s governent “due to soft nudging by the Biden administration,” the Politico newspaper wrote last month citing own sources. According to the paper, Zelensky made no mention of impossibility of talks with Putin when he listed the five preconditions for talks with Moscow earlier that month. The article said the change in the Kiev government’s position occurred after lengthy talks between Kiev and Washington, including during a visit to Kiev by the US president’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan.”
https://tass.com/world/1551951

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Dec 17 2022 16:45 utc | 108

Question: what may one reasonably expect KSA to do? Which camp will they choose? China and SCO is the up and coming power, the U.S. and the rest of the west, big consumers/customers with lots of guns. Huge implications. Russia, Iran, and Venezuela (huge production potential) already fully in the one camp. I wonder exactly how vulnerable/secure/independent crown prince really is?
Posted by: thecelticwithinme | Dec 16 2022 16:27 utc | 1
This is a misunderstanding. Why KSA, India etc. should “choose a camp”? They want to trade with all, and the West is not the most advantageous customer and/or supplier in all cases. If that requires “non-Western” payment systems and “discouraged” deals, so be it. The situation was very similar during Cold War, although trade in those days was simpler and could be conducted through clearing agreements. Do you think that Brazil, progressive of fascist government, would boycott Soviet Block as a customer of coffee?
Thus Egypt, an American “ally”, hence immune to sanctions, makes a huge contract with Rosatom, and KSA contemplates the same. KSA imports Russian heavy fuels so it can export more “light” oil, a solid dent in sanction schemes. Pakistan, after “pro-Western” change of government, takes the page of India and buys Russian oil and products. Two big differences from the past since the start of war in Ukraine:
big non-Western countries, with India in the lead, decided to be pragmatic and avoid costs associated with sanction compliance. As the volume of sanctioned trade increased, the incentive not to join increased too, and the West does not want to be in acute conflict with India. India complains that it was loosing competitive edge to China, and Pakistan, less loudly, cannot offer her citizens more expensive fuel as across the border with India, etc.
big oil exporters in the Gulf do not want the huge confiscation of Russian assets to be profitable for the West, they could very easily be next, with all the vilification they experience (however insincere).
BRICS and BRICS-like behaviors are simply gain maximization. The government may be progressive or not, a better deal remains a better deal, with gains to be distributes as equitably or non-equitably as the local situation allows.
To recap, it is not natural for countries to belong to “camps” that regulate their behavior. Countries have deals and conflicts, and their want to have choices. Of course, a camp or a block may offer advantages that make a reduction in choices reasonable, but the West has increasing difficulties: too many restrictions, too few rewards.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 17 2022 17:01 utc | 110

b
did you change the font size at moa? i am seeing a much smaller font size… any ideas anyone? thanks..

Posted by: james | Dec 17 2022 17:02 utc | 112

i am seeing a much smaller font size… any ideas anyone? thanks..
Posted by: james | Dec 17 2022 17:02 utc | 111
In MacOS, you click [command]+ (or – if the font is too big). I think that in Windows, it is [alt]+ (or -). [We computer illiterates should help each other 🙂 ]

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 17 2022 17:08 utc | 114

@ Piotr Berman | Dec 17 2022 17:08 utc | 113
thanks piotr… i think for some reason the zoom option was lowered to 90 which made this happen.. i didn’t consciously change it, but i put it back to 100 and it is normal again…
indian punchline from today –
Modi”>https://www.indianpunchline.com/modi-ignores-wests-sanctions-on-russia/”>Modi ignores West’s sanctions on Russia

Posted by: james | Dec 17 2022 17:15 utc | 116

messed up!
here it is…
Modi ignores West’s sanctions on Russia

Posted by: james | Dec 17 2022 17:17 utc | 118

@#108 USS Abu Ghraib was considered unsuitable.

Posted by: dh | Dec 17 2022 17:24 utc | 120

I think this happened because Siemens is f*cking around in Peru. And then there’s the cocaine.
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/canada-revoking-sanctions-exemptions-nord-stream-turbines
https://dialogo-americas.com/articles/bolivia-and-peru-face-narcotrafficking-together/
[From above:] “On October 11, Peru and Bolivia presented the results of the Inti Raymi Binational Operations Plan, carried out August 1-September 15, which aimed to control, detect, and curb all illicit drug trafficking activities in the 1,047 kilometers of border between both countries.
“Our first actions have allowed the seizure of more than 2 tons of drugs, as well as the destruction of four cocaine hydrochloride processing laboratories y 16 cocaine base paste laboratories,” Del Castillo said.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/peru-wants-us-help-stop-cocaine-trafficking-planes-2022-07-13/

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Dec 17 2022 18:56 utc | 122

maybe the dogs in the US are going sterile from the mRNA vaccines?
everybody and his drunk uncle is a virologist these days. i don’t think the salmon or frogs care who or what the smart people blame for all the sterility.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Dec 17 2022 19:28 utc | 124

Surya Mitra Dec 17 2022 6:22
Thought-provoking video, Surya Mitra, thank you
Wonder why the indians are masked unlike the chinese. Are they really ordinary border guards? Or agents provocateurs
Based on these visuals, I personally agree with Jen 9:01 (minus the epithets)

Posted by: glupi | Dec 17 2022 22:33 utc | 126

Interesting times.
It would appear the peons of Peru. Have chosen to block the thousands of tourists visiting Macchu Pichu. Both the only road and the sole train line is blocked.
The native peons of Peru. Are said to be upset about the reinstallation of the usual Amerikan-style Monroe doctrine democracy. The situation in the capital city is very tense. The angry native peons are demanding the immediate release of the President. With all the USSA-backed non-democratic coup plotters to be jailed immediately.
An enterprising helicopter company is offering exit passes from the mountain. The price gouged cost per passenger is AUD$11,000-00. Cash or gold/platinum/black credit card is accepted.
Truth is truly stranger than fiction,

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Dec 17 2022 23:29 utc | 128

@130 Both of which are named after the Nganbra clan who inhabited the Canberra area originally. Little bit of antipodean trivia there for anyone who may be interested.

Posted by: dh | Dec 18 2022 1:01 utc | 130

@ karlof1 | Dec 18 2022 1:07 utc | 132 with the nice quote and comment follow on…thanks
The quote from Hudson about how mixed economies have operated to the benefit of many is one that all barflys need to understand going into the new world.
Each country/nation consists of a mix of resources (human and natural), strategic location, infrastructure, etc. that need to have a custom blend of mixed economy to thrive….and that mix needs to change over time.
One of the take-aways from The Systems View Of Life book by Capra/Luisi is understanding the need to evolve from purely mechanistic approaches to ones that are built to evolve with the society it is architected for.
Change is the only constant…..

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 18 2022 1:46 utc | 132

@ karlof1 | Dec 18 2022 1:07 utc | 132
the translation of hudsons talk was shared by @ Chris | Dec 16 2022 16:50 utc | 11 on the ukraine open thread a day or more ago.. i know everyone doesn’t see all the posts… thanks for sharing, although it was shared already! good article!

Posted by: james | Dec 18 2022 3:27 utc | 134

Posted by: james | Dec 18 2022 3:27 utc | 135

the translation of hudsons talk was shared by @ Chris | Dec 16 2022 16:50 utc | 11 on the ukraine open thread a day or more ago

Michael Hudson gives talks in English. A German translation of the transcript was also published.

Posted by: Pacific Observer | Dec 18 2022 4:48 utc | 136

Posted by: Hermit | Dec 17 2022 17:17 utc | 117
Here’s the full text as I’m able to see it.

I’ve written a bit about the Holodomor — mostly about how it relates to my own family history and how Ukrainian Jews got left out of the Ukrainian famine/genocide story. Why are Jewish victims — as well as other Ukrainian ethnic minorities — not part of the narrative that’s told today? Well, I guess it’s mostly because our inclusion into this tragedy wouldn’t fit the clean line about the famine being a (Judeo) Bolshevik plot designed to wipe out ethnic Ukrainians as a people.
The whole thing is pretty interesting. But when I started trying to find academic literature on the subject, I realized that there’s almost nothing there — nothing other than a a few papers and lectures complaining about how little this part of history has been studied.
If you haven’t already, can read what I wrote about it here and here…and a bit here, where I dig up a WWII-era Nazi propaganda leaflet that I bought in Kiev that blames Ukrainian starvation on collusion between Jews and Stalin.
I’m probably not gonna write about this topic again for a while so I wanted to share a couple of notes and sources I have on this forgotten aspect of the famine in Ukraine — in case you’re interested in reading more about it.
For example, here’s some brief commentary from Anna Shternshis, who is the director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto, during a symposium on Jews and Ukrainian society that briefly mentions that Jews were victims of the Holodomor, too.
“Jews as victims of famine. I interviewed people…for [Jews] living through famine was the largest trauma of their lives. And I have so many stories that I recorded about how Jews suffered through the famine, how they managed to survive, how many did not survive.”
Looking into her work, I realized that Anna did a whole lecture a few years back on the experiences of Soviet Jews who survived the famine, based on a bunch of oral histories she has access to her. Sadly, the lecture is not available online. But the good news is that I got in touch with Anna and she was nice enough to agree to share some of these oral histories with me. So now I’m just waiting to get my hands on them.
Probably the most comprehensive collection that I could find that brings together various sources on Jewish suffering during the Holodomor is a 2020 article by Victoria Khiterer, a historian at the Millersville University of Pennsylvania. It directly addresses the serious lack of academic focus on the topic and, although somewhat superficial, it gives good general overview of where things are at. It also provides a bit of history. Like that fact that starting in the 1920s, the Soviet Union tried to get Jews out of “unproductive” professions like small the merchant and artisan stuff they did and to set them up with “proper” working class-type labor: collective farming was one route open to them to get back into the good graces of the Bolshevik government. So it ended up being a dual disaster — destroying traditional Jewish vocations and then setting them up for failure and famine by the time the 1930s rolled around.
There’s a lot of good stuff that paper. For instance, she writes:
The Soviet government considered the difficult economic situation of the Jewish shtetl population and concluded that it appeared due to the abnormal social structure of Jewry. So, the government decided to transform most Jews into industrial workers and peasants. Soviets authorities created two institutions in the mid-1920s for realization of the policy of the resettlement of Jews on the land: the Committee for the Settling Jews on the Land (Komitet po Zemel’nomu Ustroistvu Evreev, KOMZET) and the All-Union Association for the Agricultural Settlement of Jewish Workers in the USSR (Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo po Zemel’nomu Ustroistvu Trudiashchikhsia Evreev v SSSR, OZET). These institutions, with the support of Western Jewish philanthropic organizations, succeeded in resettling a significant percentage of Jews on the land. Among Jews who resettled on the land were many who had been deprived of their civil rights as a non-laboring element, the so called lishentsy, and their children, who were deprived of the right for higher education. By becoming farmers these people obtained again their civil rights.
That’s how it started. And then this happened:
…During collectivization, Jewish collective farms suffered from famine, as did the other rural areas of Ukraine. The Kharkiv newspaper Der Shtern wrote on February 8, 1932 that the Jewish collective farms of the Kherson region did not have bread even for their own farmers (Naiman 1995, 220). On March 12, 1932, Der Shtern noted that many collective farms of the Jewish Stalindorf district had not fulfilled plans for state grain procurement for the previous years, and these collective farms were not ready for sowing (Naiman 1995, 220).
The report of the Information Sector of the Organization and Instruction Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine pointed out the desperate situation of the Jewish farmers of the Voroshilovskyi Jewish rural council in Stalindorf district. The report stated, “…people stopped asking for aid, they lie down in unheated houses and wait for death. There are 14 cases of death from starvation in the village. In the same village, farmer Braverman’s four children from five to ten years old lie down motionless in the house, swollen with open wounds, which indicate that they are decomposing alive.”
…Jews in the cities and shtetls also suffered from the Holodomor. Many Jewish artisans, who worked for the rural population, lost their customers. The farmers stopped delivering food to the shtetls’ markets. The authorities reported that in the shtetls of the Vinnytsia region, there were many people swollen from starvation and there was high mortality.
I linked to this earlier, but Felix Kandel — in his history of Soviet Jews, available only in Russian — briefly address the fact that Jews were victims of the Holodomor.
During the “Holodomor” of 1932-1933, the biggest victims were in Ukrainian villages. The famine did not bypass their neighbors, Jewish farmers. Many Jewish collective farms were included in the list of the Council of People’s Commissars of Ukraine as the most affected by the famine. Among the areas with the highest mortality was the Kalinindorf Jewish National Region. Outside the collective farms, in the cities and towns of Ukraine, there lived a huge number of Jewish artisans who worked for the rural population — tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths, carpenters and blacksmiths; With the onset of famine, the orders of the surrounding farmers ceased, and the traditional delivery of products to the small-town bazaars also ceased. Now everyone was starving, and official documents of that time confirmed this.
Anyway, that’s it for now.
—Yasha Levine

So clearly written from the Jewish perspective. I don’t think Levine bears any animosity toward the USSR or communism, but I could be incorrect as I don’t really read a lot of his work, at least not until recently.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Dec 18 2022 4:56 utc | 138

Brazil, Lula, BRICS+
Brazil Wire is back online. This article by Steve Ellner gives some history and perspective– Ellner is a retired professor at a Venezuelan university. He hopes/predicts that Lula will push hard for a BRICS currency to challenge the dollar along with offering strong support for more countries to join.
By Steve Ellner for Consortium News
“Lula has insisted, since his Workers’ Party lost power in 2016, that the BRICS’ major shortcoming was its failure to launch a new currency to rival the dollar. In an interview from prison, Lula recalled, “When I discussed a new currency… Obama called me, telling me, ‘Are you trying to create a new currency, a new euro?’ I said, ‘No, I’m just trying to get rid of the U.S. dollar.’”
Prison changed Lula and he knows who put him in there. Obama set in motion Dilma’s demise and worked with CIA groomed judge Sergio Moro to lock Lula up which stressed his wife and triggered her stroke and death. No one in the U.S. thought he would be back in power.
Lula is polite, diplomatic and saavy. Like his Mexican friend AMLO, he’s also very tough and not afraid of a fight. Look for Lula to start off trying to reassure the Brazilian Right while smiling at Washington but at some point he will turn his attention to BRICS.
https://www.brasilwire.com/what-worries-the-us-most-about-lula/

Posted by: migueljose | Dec 18 2022 7:22 utc | 140

No sooner than MOngolian prez came back from his sojourn to China, when anti govn riots erupted in the capital, then morphed into anti Chinese mayhem
must be just another coincidence eh ?
[1]

BHADRAKUMAR

Coincidence or not, the protests in Ulaanbaatar followed the state visit by Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh to Beijing last month. This was the second meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Khurelsukh in two months.

Color rev.
The world’s no 1 shit stirrer has a long and notorious record to prove it…
Mina Hamilton
Dissident Voice
September 15, 2003

What about the brave soldiers from far flung Mongolia? What has been their experience of US “democracy”? Surely the US did not also have its mitts in the electoral till there? Wrong. Again the NED entered the election fray and between 1990-1996 spent $2 million dollars on a country of 2.5 million people to defeat the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. (The US wanted to have free access for such things as electronic listening posts to monitor Chinese army communications.)

Moral of the story…
When in doubt, Apply
Empire watch rule 1,
USAss presumed guilty until proven innocent.
YOu wouldnt be too far off , works like a charm !
https://dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Hamilton_Foreign-Fodder.htm
https://tinyurl.com/2t45vbh3

Posted by: denk | Dec 19 2022 3:26 utc | 142

“European Union approves cap on natural gas prices” (CNBC)
The drunks are telling the pub owner how much they are going to pay for a glass of beer.

Posted by: Passerby | Dec 19 2022 22:57 utc | 144

Thank you, S, for the correction!
i do seem to have a way with numbers
——-
#china’s Monroe doctrine
Antonym, is it realistic to expect a government to put others before its own country’s maximum interests? Does a superpower have a duty of tender loving care towards humanity?
The solution? As the Cold War showed, disorganised states are made less vulnerable by the very existence of multiple power centres they can juggle
——
Ojala, Miguel Jose, toco la madera
I can’t forget an interview of a Chinese statesman, Jiang Zemin, with a US journalist in the aftermath of the yugoslav embassy bombing.
The smile never left his lips while he tried to spell out that actions have consequences.
And it all came to be
(Jiang Zemin: The 60 Minutes interview)

Posted by: glupi | Dec 26 2022 2:03 utc | 146