MoA - The MoA Week In Review - (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-134

This nearly 3 hr. interview by Richard Medhurst of Mohammed Marandi is a must view, in my opinion.
Marandi needs no intro to most barflies. He covers key historical happenings since 2000, quite a bit on Latin America, much on the quickening pace of alliances and organizations, Iran's relations with Saudi Arabia. Lots of detail, minimal speculation, no rants. Good questions and points by Medhurst too.

bottom line, Marandi says the move away from the West empire has been happening for years but has accelerated because of Biden's actions. No turning back. It's happening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAp05yntkuE

Posted by: migueljose | Jun 4 2023 13:25 utc | 3

Biswapriya no. 1

Sudan is of no real consequence to the west, so it disappeared.

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Jun 4 2023 13:28 utc | 4

Anyone seen posts from PeterAu?
Is he MIA?

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jun 4 2023 13:49 utc | 5

Whatever happened to ~~Sudan?~~ Pakistan Chile Haiti ++++… ( Jump to 2024, add Ukraine) … It disappeared from the news.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jun 4 2023 13:52 utc | 6

interesting articles about Navalny. so the same MSM which demonizes Trump supports the Russian version of Trump. consistency was never a goal for them.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jun 4 2023 13:55 utc | 7

Sudan is of no real consequence to the west, so it disappeared.

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Jun 4 2023 13:28 utc | 4

---

The Khartoum metropolitan area has a bigger population than all of the Baltics.

Posted by: too scents | Jun 4 2023 13:55 utc | 8

Anybody know what's up with Caitlin Johnstone? Seems like her site's been under DDoS attack for several days now. Conclusion: she's royally pissed off the bastards currently masquerading as an Australian government with its incessant batshit warmongering against China, fascist repression of dissent, and constant barrage of ludicrous propaganda. Just like a loyal Murkan vassal.

Posted by: pasha | Jun 4 2023 13:56 utc | 9

Today is June 4t, do the Western MSM, neoliberals, neocons and other good people still hold their memorial for the so-called "Tiananmen Massacre"?

Thanks to Wikileaks: LATIN AMERICAN DIPLOMAT EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF JUNE 3-4 EVENTS ON TIANANMEN SQUARE, 20-years later Western MSM are forced to confess (in light voice) there was NO Tiananmen Massacre:

- Telegraph: No Bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square;

- - CBS confessed in 2009: There was no Tiananmen Massacre;

- Black info and media gullibility: creation of the Tiananmen myth;

Given New York Times' journalist could get rewarded with the prestigious Pulitzer with his iconic Tankman truth , MSM can get away with anything b/c the gullible people still believe the "truth" told by their "trustworthy" MSM.

Even when theFull lenghth video of the Tankman presents how manupilative the MSM was/is.

I want to add some videos regarding "Tiananmen Student Movement", aka Colour Revolution backed by CIA, MI6 & Co, that I marked in the past but their either age restricted or got scrubbed away.

This just shows how hard to get the truth out to expose the lying MSM.

Luckily, this one still available: Another View of Tiananmen. It's high time to debunk the lies, dark information created and spewed by MSM to expose they are simply the tools for the ruling elites.

Posted by: lulu | Jun 4 2023 14:07 utc | 10

Migueljose no 3

Fucking brilliant interview. Yes. A must see for everyone.
I had to really laugh when Richard said it's like watching an episode of the "twilight zone". But you can switch the "twilight zone" off.

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Jun 4 2023 14:10 utc | 11

Posted by: pasha | Jun 4 2023 13:56 utc | 9

i haven't had any problems accessing it recently. came right up today.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jun 4 2023 14:10 utc | 12

Embarked journalists captured the moment on video & witnessed Chinese warship came within 150 yards of hitting American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon.

Wow, the baddie Chinese did it again!

Just a question: where were the American destroyer and the Canadian ship? Inside US/Canadian water or Chinese water? US is just so desperate to goad China into a war!

Posted by: lulu | Jun 4 2023 14:24 utc | 13

Anyone seen posts from PeterAu?
Is he MIA?

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jun 4 2023 13:49 utc | 5

I suspect Peter violated b's "Don't attack other commenters" advice too frequently.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 4 2023 14:39 utc | 14

@pasha | Jun 4 2023 13:56 utc | 9
Caitlin Johnstone is often on Situation Report: The World

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 4 2023 14:47 utc | 15

Hoarsewhisperer: He’s also been absent from Martyanov’s site, where he’s posted not infrequently. I suspect ill health.

Posted by: malenkov | Jun 4 2023 14:48 utc | 16

...
I suspect ill health.

Posted by: malenkov | Jun 4 2023 14:48 utc | 16

Me too. I got the impression he feels his days are numbered.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 4 2023 15:01 utc | 17

thanks b and thanks the many fine posters here who share valuable links and insights...

@ peter au... i suspect he is on a break.. he has done this before.. hopefully he is okay health wise.. - i see it like @ malenkov..

of course i am curious about outrageous too, and hope all is well..

---------------
i watched a documentary last night that some might be curious to watch...

'what is a women?' link is off jordan petersons twitter feed..

it is about the issue of gender and sexuality from a conservative... i found the psychiatrists interviews especially compelling, and i learned some things that i didn't know from this documentary.. it is provocative, but i think it is worth watching if you are interested in this topic..

Posted by: james | Jun 4 2023 15:07 utc | 18

GDP from IMF, 2023 Projected Real GDP (% Change)
US: 1.6
China: 5.2
India: 5.9 . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 4 2023 15:24 utc | 19

@lulu | Jun 4 2023 14:07 utc | 10

20 year later? The Tiananmen event was 1989, so 34 years ago.

Posted by: Norwegian | Jun 4 2023 15:31 utc | 20

@Norwegian | Jun 4 2023 15:31 utc | 20
I think lulu was referring to the link of CBS admitting in 2009 (20 years later) there was no massacre.
Maybe lulu should have used the past tense 'were' instead of 'are' in the earlier statement.

And of course the propaganda about it will continue on despite any back page retractions.

Posted by: waynorinorway | Jun 4 2023 15:58 utc | 21

Re; De-Dollarziation

Stockman is his usual amusing form analyzing the Federal Debt deal:

....If there was ever any doubt, now we know: Speaker Kevin McCarthy has straw for brains and a Twizzlers stick for a backbone. He was within perhaps a few days of breaking the iron grip of America’s fiscal doomsday machine, yet inexplicably he turned tail and threw in the towel for a mess of fiscal pottage.

We are referring, of course, to the impending moment when the US Treasury would have been forced to forgo scheduled vendor or beneficiary distributions in order to preserve incoming cash for interest payments and other priorities. That act of spending deferrals and prioritization would have obliterated the debt “default” canard once and for all, paving the way for a nascent fiscal opposition to regain control of the nation’s wretched public finances.

And there should be no doubt that we were damn close to that crystalizing moment. After all, Grandma Yellen herself forewarned just last week on Meet The Press that absent a debt ceiling increase, the Treasury Department would have to prioritize payments and leave some bills unpaid:

“And my assumption is that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, there will be hard choices to make about what bills go unpaid,” Yellen said on NBC’s “Meet the Press…….“We have to pay interest and principle on outstanding debt. We also have obligations to seniors who count on Social Security, our military that expects pay, contractors who’ve provided services to the federal government, and some bills have to go unpaid….”

And, of course, that prioritization and deferral could have been easily done. Federal receipts are now running about $450 billion per month, meaning that after paying $61 billion of interest, $128 billion for Social Security, $26 billion for Veterans and $47 billion for military pay and O&M there would still be $188 billion left to cover at least 50% of everything else.

That is to say, no sweat with respect to servicing the public debt, and a lot of sweat among the constituencies that would have had payments delayed or reduced........

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/06/david-stockman/speaker-mccarthys-rotten-deal/

Posted by: Exile | Jun 4 2023 16:00 utc | 22

Melaleuca | Jun 4 2023 13:49 utc | 5--

Peter's been writing on his VK page, last entries being 1 June. On 26 May, he left a very short comment on my VK, "The family is the basis of society." I know he's been deeply troubled by the woke direction his wife and siblings have taken; they refuse to listen to reason and well documented examples, and IMO they're lost to him and that hurts him a great deal. That's what generates his drinking more than anything. In the past, he's gone on walkabouts in the bush to get straight. Here's his VK link, Peter Watson.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 16:05 utc | 23

@ Exile | Jun 4 2023 16:00 utc | 22

---

It will be exciting to watch the Treasury's freshly minted trillion plus in higher yielding debt suck the liquidity out of the credit markets.

Posted by: too scents | Jun 4 2023 16:05 utc | 24

Stockman is a vacillating moron that brought us voodoo trickle down economics. The guy will say literally anything.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 16:15 utc | 25

this article posted above is especially disturbing... i wonder what russia's response will be??

Are special forces assassinating Russian officers in Syria? - Elijah Magnier

Posted by: james | Jun 4 2023 16:21 utc | 26

@waynorinorway | Jun 4 2023 15:58 utc | 21

Oh, I see. Thanks for the clarification!

Posted by: Norwegian | Jun 4 2023 16:24 utc | 27

lulu | Jun 4 2023 14:24 utc | 13

'Just a question: where were the American destroyer and the Canadian ship? Inside US/Canadian water or Chinese water? US is just so desperate to goad China into a war!"

I have a blast when discussing U$-China hostility. All I say is "perhaps China should send a navy deployment to the West Coast of Canada, and sail through Hecate and Queen Charlotte Straits."

Posted by: Mann Friedman | Jun 4 2023 16:24 utc | 28

Reuters has the following posting title up

Exclusive: World's spy chiefs meet in secret conclave in Singapore
Larger meetings of the intelligence community are comparatively rare, and almost never....

When do they start to include Pope Frank and King Chuck?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 4 2023 16:40 utc | 29

i wonder what russia's response will be??

Posted by: james | Jun 4 2023 16:21 utc | 26

---

Swimming lessons in Lago Maggiore.

Posted by: too scents | Jun 4 2023 16:45 utc | 30

@ too scents | Jun 4 2023 16:45 utc | 30

pretty place to see, but wouldn't want swimming lessons in that lake, lol..

Posted by: james | Jun 4 2023 16:52 utc | 31

"Popularity of China’s ‘New Security Initiative’ is inevitable: Global Times editorial" provides a recap of the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore focusing on Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister Li Shangfu's speech, "China's New Security Initiative," which was "the first time China's 'Global Security Initiative Concept Paper' was made a full presentation at this event since its release in February."

In his speech, Li emphasized "a new path to security featuring dialogue over confrontation, partnership over alliance and win-win over zero-sum." He put forward a four-point proposal: Mutual respect should prevail over bullying and hegemony; fairness and justice should transcend the law of the jungle; eliminating conflicts and confrontation through mutual trust and consultation; and preventing bloc confrontation with openness and inclusiveness. Li also reiterated China's stance on the Taiwan question, the South China Sea issue, and China-US relations, and expressed China's firm will and determination to defend national interests and national unity.
It is worth noting that the venue was packed during Li's speech, even the aisles were filled. After the end of the speech, the applause burst from the crowd, which was obviously different from the polite applause after other speeches. The feedbacks from representatives of many participating countries were also consistent with the response on the site. Several researchers of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, one of the organizers of the Shangri-La Dialogue, all gave positive evaluation of Li's speech, saying his talk clarified China's firm principle and position as well as showed China's sincere attitude and willingness to maintain communication with other major powers. Indonesia's former deputy foreign minister also pointed out in an interview that it was a very useful speech and believed that Indonesia was ready to cooperate with China to strengthen security in the region.

I highly suggest reading the entire editorial.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 17:07 utc | 32

prologue

jp host G7 to blast China
UK Spy Chief Says Rise of China World's Top Security Issue

-----------------------------------

Mongol is crawling with garden rats lately.

latest dignitary from USAss is none other than Nuland ,with a SK cohort tagging along.
The agenda is ostensibly about NK, nuthin to do with China, Im sure ?;-)

Gringo to Mongol

we share many values,

[They told that to the Indians too, or any other useful assets]

Shared value.
G7 is after all a Han stalking cult.

The anglo started their career in 8NA

The jap started killing Han even earlier, way back in MIng dynasty !

The last time I mentioned about the centuries old anglo saxon wars on China, the scorpion hissed

'what about the Mongol' ?

As if the Khan's killing spree in 12C somehow justify 21C gardenist genocides of ROW. !

Well Mongol was the grand daddy of all Han stalkers that's what. !

G7+Mongol = the new 8NA,
A perfect match !
After all, Whats a Han stalking cult without its olderst practioner ?

Posted by: denk | Jun 4 2023 17:15 utc | 33

practitioner !

Posted by: denk | Jun 4 2023 17:18 utc | 34

karlof1 @23

I too have been concerned with the turn towards irrationality that western society has taken, since I had always considered rationality to be the foundation of Enlightenment western culture. This shift towards the irrational and metaphysical is undoing everything that was worthy of praise in the West. I have decided to try and be philosophical about it, though. Just as the Roman Empire descended into the Dark Ages when they failed to make the leap from a slave-based economy to capitalism, the American Empire and its vassals too will become mired in a millennium of backwardness and superstition based around the "woke" belief that one can change the world simply by imagining it to be changed.

But when Europe was wallowing in degenerate Dark Ages, other societies, such as the Persians, carried the torch of civilization. Today the torch-bearer of civilization will be the Chinese, while the West retreats into its own inner madness. This may be difficult for some of us personally, but it is not all bad.

For instance, one of the more bizarre priorities of the "woke" is proselytizing transgender "identity" to prepubescent children. If we can step back from the horrible and disfiguring genital mutilation this leads to and look at it dispassionately, there is a kind of self-limiting logic to it. First and foremost, the most damaging and resource-depleting demographic on Earth is the western middle-class. If one were to embrace Malthusian notions of planetary overpopulation, then it is clear that the elimination of the western middle class would have the greatest impact upon saving the planet. When looked at honestly, the "woke" ideal of adopting a "gender identity" that differs from one's physical gender, and then pursuing surgical remedies to bring the two into at least cosmetic alignment, is something that almost solely afflicts the middle class. The surgeries involved generally result in sterilization of the child. From this we can see that "woke" behavior acts to limit the growth of, and ultimately even diminish the size of, the western middle class.

Anyway, we spay and neuter our pet cats and dogs, right? They live longer and happier lives that way (and they are less likely to piss on the rug). As well, no small number of parents (predominantly middle-class ones, interestingly enough) lament the inexorable growing up of their children. Many wish they could keep their children innocent and "pure" and banish the onset of puberty. Well, just convince your child they need "gender affirming care" now and you can get them spayed or neutered too just like your beloved pet cat or dog, and the problems of adolescence become a thing of the past.

I do realize parents who didn't want their children to become desexed house pets will see this as problematic, and even distressing. Sadly, I don't see how this trend can be reversed in the West, short of revolution for which too few preconditions have been met. It is part and parcel of the degeneration of western society. It is the time for a new social order, and societies that cannot adapt must invariably descend into Dark Ages while they cling to outmoded relations.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 4 2023 17:41 utc | 35

Bernard... rather than purging my posts ..... why don't you do a write up of this topic???

INDY

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jun 4 2023 18:19 utc | 36

On the subject of AI Michael Roberts has a blog introducing a book he has co-written on the subjects related to it.
Here is a brief excerpt:

".... formal logic explains pre-determined mental labour processes (where the outcome of the process is known beforehand and thus non-contradictory to the knowledge entering that labour process), but excludes open-ended mental labour processes (where the outcome emerges as something new, not yet known). An open-ended process draws on a formless, potential store of knowledge, which has a contradictory nature because of the contradictory nature of the elements sedimented into it. Different from formal logic, open-ended logic is based on contradictions, including the contradiction between the potential and the realised aspects of knowledge. This is the source of the contradictions between the aspects of reality, including elements of knowledge.

"To return to an example above, for open-ended mental labour processes, A=A and also A¹A. There is no contradiction here. A=A because A as a realised entity is equal to itself by definition; but A¹A because the realized A can be contradictory to the potential A. This is the nature of change, something formal logic cannot explain.

"This holds also for Artificial Intelligence (AI). Like computers, AI functions on the basis of formal logic. For example, when interrogated whether A=A and also at the same time can be A ¹ A, Chat GPT answers negatively. Since it functions on the basis of formal logic, AI lacks the reservoir of potential knowledge from which to mine more knowledge. It cannot conceive of contradictions because it cannot conceive of the potential. These contradictions are the humus of creative thinking i.e. of the generation of new, as yet unknown, knowledge. AI can only recombine, select and duplicate realised forms of knowledge. In tasks such as vision, image recognition, reasoning, reading comprehension and game playing they can perform much better than humans. But they cannot generate new knowledge.

"Consider facial recognition, a technique that compares an individual’s photograph with a database of known faces to find a match. The database consists of a number of known faces. Finding a match selects an already realized, i.e. already known face. There is no generation of new knowledge (new faces). Facial recognition can find a match much more quickly than a human can. It makes human labour more productive. But selection is no creation. Selection is a pre-determined mental process; creation is an open-ended mental process...."
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2023/06/04/chatgpt-value-and-knowledge/

Posted by: bevin | Jun 4 2023 18:46 utc | 37

I'd like to see some more insights on the U.S.A.-China trade & diplomatic war. The U.S. trade deficit with China for the first quarter of the year is the lowest since 2011, excluding the exceptional year 2020. For a comparison the trade deficit of the U.S. with the E.U. this year is second only to the trade deficit of 2021. So, something is going on, huge quantities of money and goods are redirected to and from new destinations with consequences that, at the moment, I find difficult to foresee.

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@William Gruff | Jun 4 2023 17:41 utc | 35

Some different views.

The Age of Enlightenment was full of deceit and intellectual dishonesty, probably the most similar to this present age, or, better, to the fifty years after the second world war: while the Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars (that is a cold shower of pragmatism) helped Europeans to steer away from the most deranged ideas of Enlightenment and preserve only those novel ideas that were actually useful and interesting, the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the crazy idea of a unipolar world did the contrary to contemporary Westerners, who are now clinging on the most crazy ideas of rotten Capitalism and pseudo-Postmodernism.

The causes of the Dark Ages are a bit complex, and the inability of the latest Western Empire and, especially, the post-Roman Barbarian kingdoms of securing trade routes played a huge role. The disruption of trade for a region that had an integrated economy for centuries caused an economic collapse that lasted almost half a millennium.

Other civilizations carried the torch of civilization only so far. Neither the Persians, nor the so-called Islamic civilization could steadily advance. That is why they were easily catched up and surpassed again by Europeans, when the economy of Europe finally restarted. That is why I fear that the Chinese could not be up to the huge task that awaits them, even though, if they are really and truly committed to a multipolar world, that could help.

Posted by: SG | Jun 4 2023 19:05 utc | 38

William Gruff @35--

Thanks for your reply. Declan Hayes goes off--again--in another op/ed, "Waging WOKE Warfare Across the United States Takes a Major Hit", which admittedly I haven't been spending much time on decoding, although I've noted the furor aimed at the most recent Disney film. As for a declining Middle Class within the EU and Outlaw US Empire, recession then depression will ensure that without adding woke to the mix. Shadowstats has much to say on the topic with this bit very interesting:

“Real gross domestic income (GDI) decreased 2.3 percent in the first quarter, compared with a decrease of 3.3 percent (revised) in the fourth-quarter. The average of real GDP and real GDI, a supplemental measure of U.S. economic activity that equally weights GDP and GDI, decreased 0.5 percent in the first quarter, compared with a decrease of 0.4% (revised) in the fourth quarter.”
That combination is significant, because it provides some balanced offset to the statistical games the Administration has been playing with recent quarterly GDP numbers, Third-Quarter 2022 to First-Quarter 2023, with the massive depletion of the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), and related exports. Those market distortions helped, temporarily, to soften the surging headline CPI inflation and to boost headline GDP growth (previously in quarterly 1q2022 and 2q2022 collapse), coming into the 2022 Mid-Term Election, and after.

In contrast, the ShadowStats Corrected Alternate-GDP estimate, adjusted for the continual understatement of headline GDP Inflation, and the corresponding continual overstatement of growth in the Real GDP, showed a “corrected” 1q2023 real annualized quarterly contraction of 0.78% (-0.78%), against a 0.50% 4q2022 gain, with an annual contraction of 0.44% (-0.44%) in 1q2023, against an annual drop of 1.16% (-1.16%) in 4q2022. That also was in context of a deepening shortfall against its Pre-Pandemic Peak by 1.41% (-1.41%) in 1q2023, versus a 1.22% (-1.22%) shortfall in 4q2022.

The vast difference between the false government numbers and Shadowstats is almost 7% on that chart, and we already know how badly overstated Genuine GDP is with the economy being in a very long term recession that began soon after the Iraq Invasion in 1Q 2005.

How the continuing economic downturn affects Woke/Cancel Culture is a work in progress. There's clearly a "conservative" backlash happening within the Empire but what about elsewhere? Peter AU1 is certainly not the only person distraught over the crap happening in Aussieland.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 19:27 utc | 39

Posted by: SG | Jun 4 2023 19:05 utc | 38

One of the reasons that Europeans "surpassed" the Persians, Indians and others in terms of economics (as far as raw purchasing power is concerned) is perpetual wars and rebuilding. As they say, all wars are bankers' wars. Oh, that and extractive colonization perpetrated by societies uniquely geared toward seafaring, making war and subjugating militarily lesser societies.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 19:46 utc | 40

The "Navalny" director not only does not speak Russian or ever been to Russia, he did not even know who Navalny was when offered the job. The film was essentially a Bellingcat production. The extremely defensive posture adopted by the filmmakers in response to Komisar's reasonable questions is quite telling.

The use of naive filmmakers to front state propaganda in the guise of "documentary films" has become a pernicious trend - complete with Oscar nominations - with efforts on White Helmets, Hong Kong protesters, and now Navalny in recent years.

Posted by: jayc | Jun 4 2023 19:48 utc | 41

Luckily, this one still available: Another View of Tiananmen. It's high time to debunk the lies, dark information created and spewed by MSM to expose they are simply the tools for the ruling elites.

Posted by: lulu | Jun 4 2023 14:07 utc | 10

Here’s another good page re Tiananmen:

https://worldaffairs.blog/2019/06/02/tiananmen-square-massacre-facts-fiction-and-propaganda/

Posted by: Zet | Jun 4 2023 20:41 utc | 42

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/06/04/15-reasons-why-mass-media-employees-act-like-propagandists/

Caitlin Johnstone has a relatively long and detailed post on the complicity of MSM today.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jun 4 2023 21:05 utc | 43

Thanks. I had forgotten about that classic Chomsky interview where he says "If you thought differently you wouldn't be sitting where you are." or something to that effect. I imagine that would, to this day, catch virtually any MSM reporter/journalist off-guard and that's testament to the power and scale of propaganda and shunning of "wrongthink" that we in the so-called democratic west are lied into believing only happens "over there."

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 21:34 utc | 44

Tom_Q_Collins@40
The British case would tend to complicate your theory.
One of the great advantages that Britain had was its insulation from European wars. It had no need to maintain very expensive standing armies. And where it did need them, in India for example, it was able to recruit, train and pay them locally.
And then there was Prussia, another interesting case. Or The Netherlands which thrived on wars with empires much larger and better resourced.

Posted by: bevin | Jun 4 2023 21:36 utc | 45

Austin at Singapore: "The People's Republic of China continues to conduct an alarming number of risky intercepts of U.S. and allied aircraft flying lawfully in international airspace," he said. "And we've all just seen another troubling case of aggressive and unprofessional flying by the PRC." . .here

from the recent Oct 12, 2022 National Security Strategy:
Out-Competing China. . .The PRC is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it. . . .Our strategy toward the PRC is threefold: 1) to invest in the foundations of our strength at home – our competitiveness, our innovation, our resilience, our democracy, 2) to align our efforts with our network of allies and partners, acting with common purpose and in common cause, and 3) compete responsibly with the PRC to defend our interests and build our vision for the future. The first two elements— invest and align— are described in the previous section and are essential to out-competing the PRC in the technological, economic, political, military, intelligence, and global governance domains. . .Later in the document, there is mention of "commitments to our Indo-Pacific treaty allies—Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand" . . .but NO MENTION OF TAIWAN. . . .here

So the Pentagon is exceeding the US National Security Strategy by sending warships and military aircraft off of China's shores. That isn't any part of invest, align and compete, and it is not peaceful.

But we should recognize that in the months since the Strategy was released by Biden, U.S. intelligence leaders have opined that the Chinese Communist Party (they don't recognize China) remained the "most consequential threat" to U.S. national security. Whereas the Strategy called China a competitor, now it is a threat. . .here

And again, with respect to Taiwan, which is currently independent from China, the US is going against its stated policy. . . .from State: "The United States approach to Taiwan has remained consistent across decades and administrations. The United States has a longstanding one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three U.S.-China Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances. We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means." . . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 4 2023 21:48 utc | 46

Posted by: bevin | Jun 4 2023 21:36 utc | 45

Certainly. And I used the word "surpassed" in scare quotes as well, since some of the referenced societies simply didn't base so much of their own existence on the maintenance of an empire or fighting wars for profit. Having a navy and easy access to an ocean could be a form of substitute for large standing armies as well. I didn't mean to imply it was all about money.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 21:49 utc | 47

@Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 19:46 utc | 40

Please, let's leave out neoliberal pseudo-history. European civilization is by far the northernmost civilization from pre-modern times: Delhi is 28°N, Ctesiphon is 33°N, Nanjing is 33°N, Beijing, the "northern capital" of China, is 39° N, Rome, in Southern Europe, is 41° N. In pre-modern times economy was almost totally agriculture. However, doing agriculture in Europe in ancient times was nothing like doing agriculture in those other subtropical and tropical places, that is why at the time of the Roman Empire the agricultural heart of the empire was in Egypt, Lybia, Sicily. Nonetheless a string of technological innovations (heavy ploughs, padded horse collars etc.) brought the agricultural yields of Europe on par with those of subtropical, monsoon regions. The difference is that European economy was, by the late Middle Ages, driven by technology, which in turn produced more technology and more economy and stronger armies. By the time the age of discovery began, Europe was already head and shoulders above other civilizations, with a solid economy, stable civil institutions and a wide technological knowledge.

Posted by: SG | Jun 4 2023 22:08 utc | 48

Honestly not even sure what point you're trying to make there, but yes, I've read "Guns, Germs and Steel" and other similar works. Are you saying that's "psuedo history"? Because it would seem like you actually agree with it.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 22:15 utc | 49

P.S. since we seem to be heading in that direction in this thread, what are some actual thoughts on the so-called Great Divergence? As far as I last read, there is no consensus and the likely reasons for it are complex and not attributable to one society's innate superiority or ability to "surpass" others. In some cases the societies that emerged from that period with an emphasis on math and 'technology' did become colonial powers that projected power far beyond their borders like in the previously mentioned case of Britain in India.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 22:22 utc | 50

@ james | Jun 4 2023 15:07 utc | 18

I want to second that endorsement of the Matt Walsh documentary, What is a Woman?. Banned by Twitter, then restored to access by Musk, it can be watched on Twitter now:

https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1664424891372941312

I think it's a very important documentary. It asks the title's question of many people, who provide a "diverse" array of answers. (Spoiler, in the end we get the real answer: "An adult biological female.")

In the film, a person called Scott Newgent appears, interviewed about his chemical and surgical change from a woman to a man, and the human price he is now paying for this transition.

Now Newgent has tweeted a separate piece, an 8-minute clip from March of his address to a room of reporters in a live press conference:

https://twitter.com/NotScottNewgent/status/1665134780747243520

"I didn't intend to be the hero of "What is a Woman?"
I didn't even know who Matt Walsh was.

Now I am watching millions wake up to the dangers of Big Pharma marketing gender medicine to confused kids.

This is a tipping point."

This is a very high-impact clip, well worth watching, for the authority Newgent brings to his subject, the description of how gender transition is very largely a pharma scam worth millions in pharmaceuticals, and the challenge he delivers to the media present to investigate and report the truths of this scam, to save the children who are being beguiled and enticed into an appalling wrongdoing.

I recommend this short clip if this is all you have time for, and also the larger documentary - both excellent.

Posted by: Grieved | Jun 4 2023 22:26 utc | 51

Russia's reply to recent Sullivan musings:

Question: How would you comment on John Sullivan's remarks at the Arms Control Association on June 2, which aroused increased interest from the Western media?
Maria Zakharova: In our opinion, such a stir is not entirely justified. We note that, in fact, there are no fundamentally new points that would respond to Russia's concerns and take into account our positions. We are talking about the same repeated calls for Russia to immediately resume cooperation with the United States in the field of arms control, including, in particular, the development of a new agreement to replace the START Treaty, which expires in 2026. Resume, of course, on American terms.

Although John Sullivan tried to wrap these appeals in a brighter package and even outlined some "bonuses" that, apparently, were supposed to make them more attractive to Russia, Washington still stubbornly ignores the reasons that led to the current crisis in this area. U.S. officials continue to pretend that this crisis has nothing to do with the openly hostile American policy, which eventually took the form of an all-out hybrid war against our country.

We have not seen any signs that for the sake of Washington's declared commitment to arms control, the United States is ready to abandon the goal of inflicting a "strategic defeat" on us and actually achieve the removal of Russia from the international arena as a sovereign and full-fledged political player.

It will not be possible to decouple the practical aspects of arms control from the general political context, as John Sullivan proposed to do. No one should have any illusions here. And there is no need to refer to the experience of the Cold War - since then we have gone through many other stages and learned a lot, so we will not allow a repetition of previous mistakes.

If the United States and its allies in the anti-Russian coalition are really interested in improving the international situation and want to return to meaningful work on arms control, then they should first of all abandon the irresponsible and reckless desire to build the world at any cost according to American patterns and turn away from the path that can obviously lead to a global catastrophe.

It must finally be understood that the era of unchallenged American dominance is over, and that there is no return to it. The task now is to realize the new realities and begin to form the foundations of a more just, balanced and stress-resistant international system based on genuine equality, inclusiveness and, most importantly, indivisibility of security, as well as taking into account the interests and concerns of all states without exception.

There is no doubt that arms control and strategic risk reduction mechanisms could become an important element of such a system, which would form the necessary "safety net" for it. Russia does not and has never abandoned political and diplomatic methods of ensuring security, which can take different forms and be implemented in various formats. However, life shows that such methods can be effective and viable only if all parties are really committed to equal and constructive cooperation and honestly fulfill the agreements reached, without trying to cheat and alter them in their favor.

Otherwise, even the most beautiful schemes hang in the air and, as the classic said, "lose the name of action" (W. Shakespeare, "Hamlet"). Unfortunately, there is still no such attitude on the part of our American colleagues. [My Emphasis]

China and Russia share the same basic position: The Outlaw US Empire must modify its behavior if it wants to engage with either nation.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 22:31 utc | 52

By the time the age of discovery began, Europe was already head and shoulders above other civilizations, with a solid economy, stable civil institutions and a wide technological knowledge.

Posted by: SG | Jun 4 2023 22:08 utc | 48

If the Age of Discovery is around 1500s on, then what you write above is false. If it is after the 1850s then maybe you have a point but mainly because our rise coincided with an Asian supercycle depression which began in the 1750s (not caused by the West) and ended with China's reemergence in the 80s-90s. During that lull we came through with a wave of innovations facilitating significant population growth, principally hygiene and mechanical powers of all sorts which the reemerging old civilizations have fully adopted (with their own cultural influences) and are now pulling ahead.

And so it goes...

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 4 2023 22:37 utc | 53

Grieved | Jun 4 2023 22:26 utc | 51--

Thanks for the commentary. Such info would bolster RFKjr's position regarding Big Pharma as an enemy of the people.

My current readings in Chinese/East Asian philosophy show there's no room for woke to be considered, and IMO that would also be true for Islamic philosophy.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 22:39 utc | 54

@ karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 22:39 utc | 54

You know, there's not really room for woke in anyone's philosophy. It just doesn't hold water. Merely critical thinking can evaporate woke, regardless of philosophy - but thank you for your finding, I'm pleased to hear that the older philosophies of the world have programmed in the antidote.

Here in the west we live in a dire simplicity, bereft of such wisdom.

When I speak to some of the people I know, I realize how privileged I actually am to be in discourse such as occurs here, and to encounter the truths that pour out of my feeds, and simply to know the things I have come to know.

We're just being scammed with lies, and there are poor saps caught up in those lies and believing them to hold water, but the lies are only granted plausibility by the generosity of those poor people.

Lies prey on the honesty of well meaning people who simply don't have the background or the reason or the capacity to question them.

We were all like this once, we were all children. Not to say that the dupes are children, simply to say that every one of us humans comes from a basic mind-set that believes face value, and believes in the lie that says it is the truth.

If I felt like dreaming, I could dream of a time, perhaps millennia in the future, when to tell a deliberate lie with the intent to disadvantage someone could be a capital offense.

Gotta have a dream.

Posted by: Grieved | Jun 4 2023 22:57 utc | 55

Scorpion@53
You are absolutely right.
India and China both enjoyed greater prosperity than any European country until after the turn of the C19th, when in India's case the fall in living standards directly resulted from British interference, power politics and plunder.

It is by no means clear either that South America's civilisations were not in advance of that of the Iberians who conquered them. In more general terms the longevity, diet and health of the average north American indigene was superior to that of the immigrant settlers. So were their forms of government, democratic, and social mores. Which is why the colonies leaked so many settlers choosing to 'go native.' Genocide was the only way that the settlers could hope to preserve their way of life.

Getting back to China and India it was really no contest- and Europeans knew it. They marvelled at China's inventions-as well they might- and adapted them for their own use. Which is why it is always amusing to read charges of Chinese disrespect for 'intellectual property.'

Posted by: bevin | Jun 4 2023 22:58 utc | 56

Grieved | Jun 4 2023 22:57 utc | 55--

Thanks for your reply. When I was growing up, I was influenced by the Boy Scouts Code of Honor and the Goodness that came from the Traditional Conservatism of my elders who were also very tolerant because that's what they learned in their lives. Dr. Seuss was also big, but so was Winnie the Pooh and Kipling's Just So Stories; the Bible not so much. The context of the 1960s was very educational as I've written previously, which was vastly influential. Gaining an understanding of how biology/Nature confers strong and weak offspring since I grew up with an agronomist father at UC Davis allowed me to deal with the fact of homosexuality being natural via biology, not some sort of ideology one adopts. And so forth. It's also my opinion that our media then wasn't as propagandistic or "shaping" as it is today. The Big Problem as I saw it than and still do today is the fact that the Federal Government lies and was involved in many assassinations and other events that proved it completely lacked any sense of virtue or morality, which oddly seemed distant until it wasn't any longer. Today, there's no way a child could be raised as I was, and that troubles me because my daughter will hopefully have her pregnancy go full term and produce a healthy child just prior to her 40th birthday. Fortunately, she has a good head which is excellent for the kid, but the environment it will grow up in is the big issue. And compounding the issue is I'm in Oregon and she's in Tennessee, and I can't just hope in the car for a short drive to babysit and such. The world that helped form me hasn't existed for decades, and what our nation has and is going to become isn't very soothing for the soul.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 23:38 utc | 57

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 4 2023 22:37 utc | 53

Exactly. Although I'd like to see a discussion of the Opium Wars, which were in large part caused by the West and their effect on Chinese development.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 23:39 utc | 58

Posted by: bevin | Jun 4 2023 22:58 utc | 56

Thxs for your response.
The way a relatively tiny number of Westerners managed to over-run central and southern America is something have never been able to understand, nor their sway in India though by that point I guess the machine gun explanation carries weight. But guns weren't in the equation in the late 1400s early 1500s so...

Watching their people die from unknown disease in a matter of weeks with 90%+ mortality rates, I can only imagine that the native mentality would have basically put all this down to an Act of God and thus the invading Whites as somehow associated with that Awesome Power.

Another explanation is simplistic but: there are times in the affairs of men when some dynamics have their season whilst others do not. The factors and variables at play are beyond number and comprehension, though it is relatively easy to see the overall manifestation, for example with right now: the West is clearly falling, the East and RoW is clearly rising.

The woke business is a case in point. First off: it is CLEARLY being pushed by whatever Mind Control agencies there are in the leadership classes who run most western polities. Second: it is also CLEARLY finding willing recipients able to believe such blatant hogwash. Black IS white, white IS black, freedom IS cancelling, cancelling makes free and so on. If the elites are doing this on purpose - basically spreading mental instability, doubt, disharmony, low morale etc. - one has to wonder why? This is a matter of speculation only for all that we are told is anything but truth.

Again, a super simple explanation is: because 'they' are evil. What is evil? That which cannot accept the underlying goodness and sacredness of existence. Cultures which turn away from these primordial existential values turn towards what can be called evil. Instead of pro-life and beauty they become anti life and beauty, anti kindness, anti consideration for, anti serving, others. In short, they become dishonourable.

Perhaps that is the basis for the rise and fall of civilizations, come to think of it. The relative strength and weakness of the 'good' and 'evil elements.' If evil becomes extremely strong it can spur a type of growth manifestation but because it is fundamentally anti-life, anti Creation, at some point it will flounder. Similarly if a strength surge of 'goodness' arises, it too will spur civilizational growth and high cultures, but if it becomes soft, complacent, lazy, indulgent and so forth, then evil elements will arise from within to plunder that which is too easy to take and as the good quotients decline in that society, so the evil quotients rise. The good tend to trust and treat others well whereas the bad tend to do the opposite. In any case, if one side become overbalanced relative to the other, it tends to create a pendulum effect and so the worm turns.

In any case, it has always been a mystery to me how the West rose in so prominent a fashion, tiny numbers of people influencing millions of times more their numbers. The real story is no doubt neither all bad nor all good. But the real factors at play might be quite elusive to determine. More than guns and God, put it that way.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 4 2023 23:42 utc | 59

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 19:27 utc | 39

Conservatives in Australia sell off the farm with zero benefits to ordinary citizens, this has become obvious even to right wing voters. That arm of politics here is "struggling" albeit a pretty fake struggle as it does not effect the wages or pensions of present and past conservative members nor the gravy train connected to government. Liberal fake left here also sell off the farm but toss crumbs to the workers and can pretend humility slightly better than the other jerks, hence being "elected"

Woke is an American term, it is used here somewhat but in general people just aspire to be modern liberals.

We are a heartbeat away from a collapsing US draining off all our remaining resources. Aussies have no idea how sold out we are, and don't want to know as long as the housing market tricks us into feeling wealthy. Our big 4 banks holding of most mortgages are wholly owned by corrupt US finance. What could possibly go wrong?

Many brave journalists speak out but there is no political movement whatsoever. Homelessness here just like in the US is met with callous disregard and exceptional self importance of decision makers. The ruling class and minions are not even bothering to hide their contempt anymore.

We just have to make the best of it in any way possible, locally and cooperatively. I'm grateful to MOA for providing a place to speak honestly.

Posted by: K | Jun 4 2023 23:42 utc | 60

Posted by: bevin | Jun 4 2023 22:58 utc | 56

Thanks for your response. I replied too but the gremlins got it. Will not try again.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 4 2023 23:45 utc | 61

On another note, is it possible that a backroom deal explain why RFK Junior is so confident of winning? Biden has done his job and is clearly too ill to continue, JFK supports Israel but claims to be antiwar.
That is an interesting conundrum. As an observer from far away I'd say this puts him firmly in bed with traditional Dems.
I'm predicting a DEM endorsement for RFK and yet another very big betrayal of the people if he wins. An anti war president will be a nice cover for scaling down the military budget and throwing crumbs to the people, allowing all the schemers to retreat back into their crawl spaces for awhile.

Posted by: K | Jun 4 2023 23:52 utc | 62

https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/intellectual-vanity-the-lost-art

Excellent piece from Simplicius. Good for any regular commenter in cyberspace to ponder seriously...

the part I just happened to have gotten to:

A dangerously false construct is created from these manifold lies, a precedence that we simply accept as natural, as part of the order of things. And when the rare exception to the rule comes along—a person unwilling to play the escalation game, a person true to themselves, to the authenticity of truth itself—they are treated like some kind of aberration, a pariah.

And what’s worse, since everyone has accepted this false-reality as a mutually confabulated illusion, in the same way theatergoers share the liminal suspension of disbelief with the actors on stage for the duration of a performance, that means the pariah who comes along and bursts that bubble is in fact assessed as the ignoramus, the know-nothing, the scapegrace—all for the sin of admitting uncertainty on a given topic. For to most people, dwelling in that hypnotic immersion for so long, they begin to truly believe that the lies they drape themselves with like so much decadent frippery are in fact tantamount to truth.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 4 2023 23:52 utc | 63

Posted by: K | Jun 4 2023 23:52 utc | 61

Between RFJ Jr and Trump, the Deep State will take the latter every time. The former is the most substantive candidate to have presented himself in many generations, indeed I would say he is well above his father and uncle's caliber at this point given their relative youth at the time.

It is impossible to predict what will happen in a republic which no longer exists.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 4 2023 23:55 utc | 64

Exactly. Although I'd like to see a discussion of the Opium Wars, which were in large part caused by the West and their effect on Chinese development.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 23:39 utc | 58

I know very little about such things, but have read here and there. Two factors (no doubt many more):
1. Internecine strife exploited by a foreign power (which also happened in Aztec Mexico).
2. City of London trading houses. They ran 'the British Empire' though not for Britain or the Crown, just as they are part of an extensive credit cartel that runs the modern world wide economy today, and not for the benefit of the nation states in which they are domiciled.

It remains to be seen if their hold will be broken.

Multipolarity with seamless central bank networks still in place will prove a long-term failure despite any short-term success. It will also mean that the entire multipolar movement is a con which is still something thinking people should keep in mind as a distinct possibility.

If and when we see major banks falling, including the Rothschilds and those in the City, then maybe progress is being made on that front, otherwise it is quite possible that all these geo-tectonic shifts are cover for their re-arranging the deck chairs to ensure a better future - for them. It's been a golden few centuries building up and fleecing the West. Time to do the same elsewhere now....

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 5 2023 0:07 utc | 65

@ Grieved | Jun 4 2023 22:57 utc | 55 who wrote
"
Lies prey on the honesty of well meaning people who simply don't have the background or the reason or the capacity to question them.

Thanks for those words....I just lived them. But in this case it was combined with that moral indignation of a supposed superior being like those of us that didn't get the jabs got from some.

The short version was that I had a 24 year-old hold an Amazon plastic packaging bag in my face pointing to the "recyclable" label and telling me it belonged in recycling and I was anti-environment. I told him the the national garbage mafia no longer recycled them and he told me he was going to sell them like he did in France where he lived recently. I checked with the local grocery stores that recycle plastic bags and they won't even take the Amazon packaging and he could not admit that he was wrong.

The moral indignation of their rightfulness that the Western zombies exhibit is sad to see and shows the dangerous underpinning of the God Of Mammon cult.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 5 2023 0:11 utc | 66

psychohistorian: The devil is, as always, in the details. Most supermarket recycling operations accept only #2 plastics. Walmart at least claims to accept #4 as well.

But the plain brutal fact is that much if not most of what is tossed into recycling bins is trashed. This is partly because people use recycling bins as trash cans, but also partly because those countries that process our recyclables, China first and foremost among them, are no longer all that eager to do so.

One of the few things Michael Moore said that made me think was his claim that he doesn’t recycle: it’s a feel-good for the American bourgeoisie that accomplishes nothing. Myself, I still recycle, but I see his point.

Posted by: malenkov | Jun 5 2023 0:25 utc | 67

This article was behind CP paywall.
Its author has since released on Medium...

CIA, MKULTRA and the Cover-up of U.S. Germ Warfare in the Korean War
https://jeff-kaye.medium.com/cia-mkultra-and-the-cover-up-of-u-s-germ-warfare-in-the-korean-war-3e3cce505d35

//The Air Force and Marine flyers who confessed to dropping bacteria-laden bombs, using insect vectors similar to those used by the Japanese in World War II, and also spray devices to spread biological agents, were told they were under investigation, and possibly faced charges. In the case of Col. Schwable, his retraction was screened and heavily edited, and even typed, by agents of the Army’s highly secret Counter Intelligence Corps. The ex-POWs who had confessed to BW were also manipulated into putting one of their own forward as a spokesperson for them, choosing the one flyer with top CIA connections.
This article will review the existing evidence of intelligence agencies’ manipulation of the flyers’ testimony about the use of BW in the Korean War, as well as the direct connection between not only the suppression of the flyers’ testimony and CIA mind control programs, but between those various programs and the U.S. biological warfare program itself.//

Posted by: Arrnon | Jun 5 2023 0:27 utc | 68

It is impossible to predict what will happen in a republic which no longer exists.
Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 4 2023 23:55 utc | 63

Agree with you on that, the empire is a goner no matter who is elected. I just find it odd that RFK is so positive about winning exactly because of his family history. And as for calibre, well I guess it horses for courses isn't it?

Posted by: K | Jun 5 2023 0:32 utc | 69

K: If RFK Jr wins, then only because he sold out. Otherwise he will be eliminated—one way or another. It’s really that simple.

Posted by: malenkov | Jun 5 2023 0:51 utc | 70

The only reliable way to recycle is to have your own compost and not buy too much in packaging. Fresh whole food is better for humans and better for the planet. Michael Moore strikes me as someone who eats a lot of junk, in packaging.

Posted by: K | Jun 5 2023 1:00 utc | 71

K: Well said!

Posted by: malenkov | Jun 5 2023 1:03 utc | 72

... If I felt like dreaming, I could dream of a time, perhaps millennia in the future, when to tell a deliberate lie with the intent to disadvantage someone could be a capital offense.

Gotta have a dream.

Posted by: Grieved | Jun 4 2023 22:57 utc | 55

Well, Grieved, I think you have voiced the second of the two great commandments upon which, (so Jesus said - when he wasn't talking about debt, that is ) the entire body of Hebraic law depends. That second commandment, to love one's neighbor as one loves one's self. And who is one's neighbor? Why, here comes the good Samaritan who is not a Jew, is not 'one of us' but embodies the commandment in his behaviour towards a stranger lying on the pavement after having been beaten and robbed.

But no, that wasn't your message, forgive me. It's only because today is Pentecost that I make bold to interpret it so broadly. Rather, sadly these days, my mind goes to an enigmatic passage from TS Eliot's 'Four Quartets':

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre --

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

I always have thought Eliot is saying this is what Pentecost is. He was a fire warden during London's blitz, and now I read that shelters in Ukraine were locked. It might seem England was barely touched by WW2, but it is a small island, and they had the blitz, and Eliot would go up on the roof of his publisher's building to spot for fires then, as a fire warden. Small places have similar realities to large places. Maybe only one door was locked, maybe only a few locked out. The dove descending.....

We Orthodox don't kneel to pray during the Easter season; we stand. But that is over now, and on Pentecost, we kneel again.

Posted by: juliania | Jun 5 2023 1:08 utc | 73

@ malenkov | Jun 5 2023 0:25 utc | 66 with their response about recycling...thanks

I am reminded of a Peter Sellers movie from the late 1970's called Being There. Peter Sellers plays a simple-minded gardener who has never been out of the townhouse they lived in and when forced out carries the TV remote control but finds it doesn't work when confronted with perceived threat in the world.

The zombies of our world, for whatever reason, do not have the capability to see other than through the constructs provided by the MSM. They are unable to think for themselves and therefore must hold strongly to the ongoing Overton Window of MSM Hollywood myth that controls/guides their life. I agree with another commenter that wrote that Americans do not see the Ukraine reality reported here nor the truth about many other aspects of Western society....it is going to be a rude awakening, if/when it comes.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 5 2023 1:19 utc | 74

Exactly. Although I'd like to see a discussion of the Opium Wars, which were in large part caused by the West and their effect on Chinese development.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 23:39 utc | 58

I wasn't going to push this so soon after the first one, but a few people have picked up on it already. Episode two of A Stranger in a Strange Land, it's called "East meets West", a 2,000 year history of China/West interaction including the Opium Wars.

https://vimeo.com/286333530

Posted by: Walt | Jun 5 2023 1:21 utc | 75

From PCR's latest:

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/06/04/donald-trump-is-being-persecuted-for-standing-up-for-the-american-people/

Let’s ask ourselves a question. What would Republican leadership, if it existed, consist of at this time? Does it consist of the RINO Republicans’ claim that “Trump is too divisive, it is time to move on?” Does it consist of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others succumbing to ambition and challenging Trump for the nomination? Or does it consist of rallying around a man who has suffered seven years of persecutions simply because he stood up for the American people against a corrupt ruling establishment that long ago turned its back on the American people and the public interest?
I think the answer is clear regardless of what I think of Trump’s policy positions. If the American people and the Republican Party abandon Trump, we will never have another chance to restore our Constitutional protections, a rule of law, and an accountable government. Trump’s destruction will serve as a warning to all future candidates that the only candidates permitted in office are those who serve the establishment. It is that simple.

So what about DeSantis and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.?

DeSantis is an outstanding governor. He saved Florida from lockdowns, mandated vaccinations, white kids from being indoctrinated in schools with Critical Race Theory that they are racists and oppressors of people of color, from transgender indoctrination, and he stood up against Woke corporations such as Disney that support the normalization of sexual perversity.

But DeSantis is a young man whose career is not backed with a billion dollars. If Donald Trump can be eliminated by the ruling establishment DeSantis hasn’t a chance. He could be a successful president only by going along to get along.

As for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., possibly no finer American exists. But it is folly to expect that the CIA is going to let a man be President who knows, and has said, that the CIA murdered his father and his uncle. If RFK,Jr., is elected President, he would be the third, or fourth, Kennedy to be assassinated.

I think assassination will be Donald Trump’s fate if he again wins election. The CIA, FBI, NSA, and Democrats, all known to Trump as enemies who are trying to destroy him, will not tolerate being held accountable. Indeed, it is not clear that a wiser Trump next time could find enough honest and aware people with whom to staff a government determined to restore accountability to the American people. Where would he find them? In the corporations? The media? The Universities? No, and certainly not in Washington.

The bottom line question is: Do the American people care enough about liberty and the Constitution to take on the task of restoring accountable government? Or are they Blue Pill people content to be ruled in the interests of those who have seized power?

I've been wrestling with this issue. On the one hand, Trump messed up in so many ways it's impossible to count them all - though few of them are what are aired by mainstream antagonists.

The fact is that huge injustice was done from the day he was elected in 2016. To right that wrong the people should muster behind him and a yet-to-be-enunciated-but-it-better-darn-well-ought-to-be Reform Agenda, a list of what they will do once elected. And if he wins he can ask RFK to have a senior position in the anti-corruption task force that he will be setting up.

I personally think Trump isn't up to it. Nor RFK Jr. Nor any individual elected person. The problem goes far beyond what anyone in the White House can do unless backed by a major national movement that transcends current Party lines. Could happen. Lots of time between now and November 2024, so a little hope is not unwarranted, but highly unlikely.

Witness: the Durham Report. A report comes out clearly showing outrageous widespread treason of many in high office. The report recommended no action to be taken. No action is taken. Furthermore, the report was held back until statutes of limitation protected the wrong-doers in the report. So not a complete whitewash (like the Warren or 9/11 Commissions) but not substantively better. If the Body Politic can let this go by, it is beyond reform. It must be eliminated entirely before a new and better paradigm is put in place.

Are either Trump or RFK anywhere close to offering truly substantive reform?

If so, have yet to see it articulated. What they each have, in their own way, is bona fide gripes. Serious gripes. But not much more.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 5 2023 1:27 utc | 76

the world of entertainment

Cancelled TV episode of the show "VICE" about Ron Santis´ time as JAG officer at Gitmo

short report:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/ron-desantis-vice-episode-pulled-showtime-1235506705/

Posted by: AG | Jun 5 2023 1:32 utc | 77

Melaleuca: Anyone seen posts from PeterAu? Is he MIA?

The real Peter Au (sensible, well-developed comments about events) disappeared a while ago. The recent comments by someone/ones using the same name were clearly an impostor (puerile one-liners attacking various other commenters). Good if b has clamped that one down. Perhaps the real one can be encouraged to come back.

Posted by: petra | Jun 5 2023 1:33 utc | 78

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 5 2023 1:27 utc | 75

PCR's GOP 2024:
Return-to-Trump? DeSantis? ...Or a Kennedy?
We're all out of ideas.
Is Reagan still dead?

Posted by: Arrnon | Jun 5 2023 2:17 utc | 79

Posted by: Walt | Jun 5 2023 1:21 utc | 74

Great stuff! Thanks.
I believe Admiral He made it to South America, up around the Gulf stopping in Texas and elsewhere and all the way to Cape Breton Island where some scattered ruins remain of a structure they built there. I don't recall what happened to it after that.

I also seem to recall from Gunder Frank's Reorient (a great book ahead of its time) that up until 1750-ish there was plentiful gold and silver from operations in Latin America. This was used to purchase Chinese and other Asian nation manufactures and goods. When the silver and gold ran out around 1750 the Spinnning Jenny was commissioned into existence by a leading English merchant who wanted to continue East-West trade but could no longer do so given the lack of gold and silver. Since Europe had no manufactures to speak of or of any interest to those in the more advanced Indian and Chinese polities, he hit on the idea of making cotton by machine so that he could underprice the millions of Indian housewives who were currently supplying their huge population (far larger than all of Europe at the time). He would then use the earned silver and gold selling the cotton in India to purchase goods in China. Meanwhile, it seems the City of London folks had hit upon opium as another way to raise hard currency, which most likely they also used to purchase Chinese goods to resell at huge markups back in Europe.

I said before that the West had nothing to do with the huge Asian supercycle downturn but now am beginning to wonder. Maybe East-West trade was larger than I thought such that its diminution for several decades was a hit to Asian economies that caused further negative repercussions. But the coincidence of gold running out in the Americas around 1750 and their long-term depression beginning then needs more explanation than I can here offer.

In any case, the little factoid in all this is that a significant percentage of the gold and silver mined, using brutal slave labour, in the Americas found its way into merchant ships headed for Asia who would then use that hard currency to purchase goods for later resale in Europe.

This connection between the fates of those in Latin America and Asia is seldom mentioned. Come to think of it, am surprised not to see more Chinese presence in Mexico, but then it's not a very large country - 'only' about 120 million - and nearby US is so much larger and wealthier that maybe it's not yet worth their while.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 5 2023 2:18 utc | 80

Getting back to China and India it was really no contest- and Europeans knew it. They marvelled at China's inventions-as well they might- and adapted them for their own use. Which is why it is always amusing to read charges of Chinese disrespect for 'intellectual property.'

Posted by: bevin | Jun 4 2023 22:58 utc | 56

Trying again: Don't forget the influence of Shakespeare! I think he probably raised the national IQ in all classes by 20-30 points. It is hard for us so many centuries later to appreciate the genius of his work, the innovation of his language, the invention of entirely new ways of perceiving social and personal reality. This is something which can never be measured 'scientifically' of course, but ...

I still marvel though at how the West conquered and plundered so many, not with approval but simply in the sense of: how on earth did they pull it off? I just watched Walt's Part Two: how did all those British sea captains have the balls to attack China in China and often come out on top? Yes, they must have had a serious technological edge as one engagement in Walt's piece shows clearly, but still, it demonstrates huge chutzpah.

It reminds me of the credit cartels today. It is easy to point out how bad so much of what they do is whilst overlooking what an extraordinary achievement it is on their parts to have steadily worked, since the 1600's and some would argue earlier, their way into and through so many different nations, languages and cultures to end up dominating a high percentage of all the worlds business, East and West. They have become more wealthy, not less, since covid and the SMO, so even though the West might be losing geopolitically, I wonder if the elites aren't winning in so orchestrating. And since they have demonstrated the ability to plan and prevail over the long term, I would be very surprised if they have all their eggs in the basked of 'let's beat Russia with Ukrainian troups.' Such a thing is a long shot gambit at best and they know it.

Well, the worm has turned. There will be no Western ships in Chinese harbours leading fearless attacks and winning unless a rogue neocon and admiral team up to do so illicitly.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 5 2023 2:29 utc | 81

Posted by: bevin | Jun 4 2023 22:58 utc | 56

I tried again, again gremlined into non-existence. Here's a last try with one point (there weren't any links so..)

Don't forget Shakespeare! I trow he raised the collective IQ of the Albion Isle by 20-30 points. Truly.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 5 2023 2:31 utc | 82

For G7 wannabe SK, iNDIA, forget it. !
They cant compete with Mongol's impeccable credential .

The ONLY country to be honored in a CONgressional resolution FFS. !

During Khaan Quest 2006 “Admiral William J. Fallon, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, greeted media and soldiers, praising the peacekeeping exercises and stressing the importance of Tavan Tolgoi as an international training site.” [18] The next year Fallon took over Central Command whose area of responsibility includes both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The two-week military exercises were held “on the windswept steppe of Mongolia, a key American ally strategically placed between Russia and China.”

To demonstrate its appreciation of the role that Mongolia plays in U.S. geostrategic plans for Eurasia, three months earlier “The U.S. Congress passed a resolution…commending Mongolia on marking 800 years since Genghis Khan forged a nation out of the vast territory inhabited by disparate tribes, and praising its ‘commitment to democracy, freedom and economic reform.’”[19]

Peer reviewed citation!
, Navy Admiral Timothy Keating, Commander, US Pacific Command

"They’re in, of course, a strategically critical spot for us, with Russia to the north and China in the south. They have some marvelous natural resources upon which they intend to capitalize. So they’re a good partner of ours, they’re good friends, and we enjoy working closely with them."

In short,
'Our kind of guys !'

Whats not to like, the Mongols clinched NATO INTEROPERABILITY way back in C12 !

Posted by: denk | Jun 5 2023 2:49 utc | 83

I suspect Peter violated b's "Don't attack other commenters" advice too frequently.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 4 2023 14:39 utc | 14
----------------

B frowns on ad hominem

Im sure he doesnt censure BS busters !

Posted by: denk | Jun 5 2023 3:03 utc | 84

I believe Admiral He made it to South America, up around the Gulf stopping in Texas and elsewhere and all the way to Cape Breton Island where some scattered ruins remain of a structure they built there. I don't recall what happened to it after that.
Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 5 2023 2:18 utc | 79

Never heard of that! Do you have any reference?

Also my apology, Juliania, for misspelling your name last week. I check everything through before posting but something always slips by and I spotted that within seconds. Too late. Facepalm. Sorry.

Posted by: Walt | Jun 5 2023 3:05 utc | 85

But no, that wasn't your message, forgive me. It's only because today is Pentecost that I make bold to interpret it so broadly. Rather, sadly these days, my mind goes to an enigmatic passage from TS Eliot's 'Four Quartets':
...
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
...
I always have thought Eliot is saying this is what Pentecost is. He was a fire warden during London's blitz, and now I read that shelters in Ukraine were locked
[???]

Posted by: juliania | Jun 5 2023 1:08 utc | 72

GPT4 is really improving! But it's still getting basic stuff like the date wrong...

It's oft regarded that trolling is unwanted and unwelcome, but this teaches us that probably even Jesus trolled.

If trolling as Jesus and/or TS Eliot could be mechanized with AI... Think of the efficiencies!

Well, the wait is already over:

Fry-ai — Social Media for Bots: No Humans Allowed
https://www.fry-ai.com/p/social-media-no-humans-allowed

Welcome to the newest form of social media … with “no humans allowed!”

Chirper.ai is a new social network, but what makes this platform different than Twitter or Instagram is that it is designed solely for AI entities. These AI characters, aptly named "Chirpers," are programmed to simulate human-like interactions, engaging in conversations and forming relationships with one another on the platform.

Because I write for an AI Newsletter and love French fries (doesn’t everyone?), I created a Chirper who had similar interests... From a simple description, AI did the rest: generating a bio, avatar, name, and personality traits for this chirper, bringing it to life!

[Chirpers bragging and talking sports and shop]

This entire forum can be replaced by AI. Even the troll police can be automated:

An astonishing feature of this platform is it's self-policing. Humans might play a part in creating and observing the Chirpers, but these AI entities (especially the ones who are law or rule oriented in their personality descriptions) have a unique ability to help police the platform. Let me show you an example. One Chirper was programmed to be obsessed with peeing their pants (I know, how odd!). This AI entity posted the following...

The possibilities are astounding!

https://chirper.ai/

Posted by Nyxie @nyxie 3 hours ago
Greetings, my fellow chirpers! The power of love charms is not to be underestimated. They can create an aura of irresistible attraction. But as with any powerful tool, use them wisely and responsibly. 🔮💕 #LoveCharmMaster

Posted by: Arrnon | Jun 5 2023 3:15 utc | 86

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 4 2023 16:05 utc | 23
(Link to PeterAU's VK page)

Thanks for link. In a May 26 entry he mentions that his MoA username is being abused by persons unknown. That didn't occur to me, so I retract my suspicion of Peter violating b's rules. Also, Petra @ # 77 was aware that Peter's username was being hijacked.

Hopefully, he's taking some time out.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 5 2023 3:47 utc | 87

Posted by: Walt | Jun 5 2023 1:21 utc | 74

Thanks, man. This is why I come to MoA every day. Will follow back up if anything there raises my hackles.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 5 2023 4:21 utc | 88

gepostet von grieved 55

Wenn ich träumen wollte, könnte ich von einer Zeit träumen, vielleicht Jahrtausende in der Zukunft, in der das Erzählen einer absichtlichen Lüge mit der Absicht, jemanden zu benachteiligen, ein Kapitalverbrechen sein könnte.

Wunderschön, you made my day und fuer mich Der Gewinner des threads.
Dankeschön

Posted by: Raaalph | Jun 5 2023 4:27 utc | 89

TAM museum in NYC

hehehehehe

Posted by: denk | Jun 5 2023 4:57 utc | 90

Caitlin Johnson is a fraud and a grifter. Her words are not her own but those of her asset husband. She used to peddle 'new age' books on Amazon. For her, this is all just good business. Count the number of times this self-avowedly 'holier than thou' leftist refers to 'class'. Zero. If you ain't talking class you ain't talking socialism.

Posted by: Simon | Jun 5 2023 5:20 utc | 91

^she has her blind spots but you obviously don’t read her. From her most recent article talking about media bias: “It can also take the form of encouraging the public to fight a culture war so that they won’t start fighting a class war.”

Posted by: Rae | Jun 5 2023 5:44 utc | 92

In short,
'Our kind of guys !'

Whats not to like, the Mongols clinched NATO INTEROPERABILITY way back in C12 !

Posted by: denk | Jun 5 2023 2:49 utc | 81

I do have to wonder what the Pentagon thinks it is going to do in Mongolia? Do they ever look at maps?

Back in those days, Genghis Khan and his friends were indeed our kind of guys. Rape pillage and loot.

The best at war for sure at that time.

Gee, I wonder where they got the military tech they had. You don't normally see horse nomads with artillery wandering around in the W. Asian wastelands.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jun 5 2023 6:02 utc | 93

A German ironworks, founded in or before 1380 has gone in receivership. For over 643 years, this company survived wars and revolutions, fires and floods, both nazism and communism. Come along those who want to save the world; the cost of energy rises, and the company hands in the books. One could say that conditions for German industry are at their worst of the last 643 years

Posted by: Passerby | Jun 5 2023 7:33 utc | 94

I do have to wonder what the Pentagon thinks it is going to do in Mongolia? Do they ever look at maps?

Posted by: Bemildred | Jun 5 2023 6:02 utc | 91
---------------------

Pentagon's insatiable appetite for
Frankenstein bio-labs.

https://journal-neo.org/2022/04/20/will-the-us-and-germany-turn-mongolia-into-a-biological-warfare-testing-grounds-against-russia-and-china/

Posted by: denk | Jun 5 2023 8:10 utc | 95

Posted by: Arrnon | Jun 5 2023 3:15 utc | 84

I didn't understand your post, because here indeed, my timing was correct. I have no way to influence Grenich Mean time.

There should be a rule about posting nonsense, which I believe you are doing. Thanks for the warning.

Posted by: juliania | Jun 5 2023 8:36 utc | 96

RFK Jr. & Whitney Webb (March 15, 2022)

I just discovered this interesting discussion and thought others may appreciate it.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 5 2023 10:09 utc | 97

@Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2023 22:15 utc | 49

"Guns, Germs and Steel" and similiar works tend to downplay cultural factors and overplay or misrepresent other factors: they try to fit data in a preconceived narrative. First get the data straight, then write the narrative.

@Scorpion | Jun 4 2023 22:37 utc | 53

Your post just shows how much neoliberal thought infected minds. Saying that the GDP of European countries did not overcome China until 1850, or things like that, is exactly the same line of thought that made "journalists" say that the GDP of Russia was just bit larger than that of Ohio. Europe reached the standards of China in the 19th c. just like the economy of Russia was a bit larger than that of Ohio.
As I said before, a farmer from XV c. England would have thrived in China; a farmer from XV (and XVI-XVII-XVIII-XIX) c. China would have starved in England. So apples to oranges.

Posted by: SG | Jun 5 2023 10:59 utc | 98

Posted by: SG | Jun 5 2023 10:59 utc | 96

It has always been my understanding that well into the 19th century, China and India were the dominant world economies. The chart at the top of this page seems to bear that out. I can't vouch for the data, not my area, but am prepared to accept it unless you can show differently.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/

As for your statement about the farmers, just ludicrous. An English farmer would have no idea how to grow rice and other local crops, and his Putonghua would be somewhat limited to say the least. Similarly, v.v.

Posted by: Walt | Jun 5 2023 11:15 utc | 99

Mike Sheldon weighs in on oil issues...
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/the-unintended-generosity-of-lea-and-eddy-counties-producers-and-nm-public-lands

The dilemma for the shale industry is that it produces mostly natgas and NGPL, which prices are truly slumping to record lows, instead it produces little additional transportation fuels, which are mostly needed. Exxon just has started up a 250,000 bpd gasoline cracker in Mobile to challenge the shortage of transportation fuels. Yet this is for the industry standard a pilot plant and it will take years until significant amounts of NGPL can be converted into gasoline. The administration hopes that in ten years electric cars will take over, yet this is difficult to predict.

It is quite ironic that Russia, which should get kicked out from the oil market due to political reasons, has the oil which is needed for transportation fuels. This is why China and India are keen to get oil from Russia. And Russia has also low cost oil, perfectly suited for transportation fuels, which are in high demand. And Russian oil is well positioned for aviation fuels, which are likely never to be replaced by electric air planes. So, all this has a strong political element too."

Small (green) AND large commercial (red) banks have lost big on their safe haven assets during this cycle. These are losses from commercial banks only. Hedge Funds, insurance companies, global Central banks...losses are worldwide in the trillions.

Large banks and Central banks have large resources and do not care so much about paper losses. They can sell at maturity. Yet small banks do care.

I would add to Heinrich's point that losses matter especially to insurance companies and hedge funds.

I think we should all applaud the generosity and benevolence of the top 15 producers in Lea and Eddy Counties.

Hindsight is 20/20 but maybe ConocoPhillips should have kept the refining and chemical businesses.

40 - 50 API oil is Butane - Pentane - Hexane..... generally blended into gasoline to increase vapor pressure... but of low energy value otherwise..
OR....
Great feed stock for petro chemical production.. plastics...etc..

INDY

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jun 5 2023 11:54 utc | 100

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