Posted by: anon2020 | Aug 26 2023 13:46 utc | 201
It’s no joke. This guy, Gunther Fehlinger is the committee chair for “Nato enlargement”. He is calling for the dismantling of Brazil into several parts. He also earlier is calling for dismantling Russia into several parts.

I call to free the people of Brazil 🇧🇷 by dismantling the Socialist Genocidal BRICS Ally of Russia 🇷🇺 misled by
@LulaOficial
into 5 new better free states who can join
@nato
@OECD
a d
@mercosur
#ExBrazil #FehlingerDoctrine
“>https://twitter.com/GunterFehlinger/status/1695161912361668791

Posted by: unimperator | Aug 26 2023 14:06 utc | 204

@147 bevin
Here is the real bevin for all to see: an absolute power-hungry statist who wants to punish you for being skeptical about an experimental drug-therapy forced onto the population at the threat of their livelihood.
This is how communism worked in Russia: it consolidated and centralized its power in a brutal fashion, steamrolling all initial refuseniks through executions, torture, and starvation.
Once the population is paranoid and conditioned enough to march where the leader tells it to, lest your family be sent to workcamps, like the Soviet order to punish the families of those who surrendered to the Wehrmacht, then it can finally like outward and go after those thought-criminals beyond its borders.
To repeat: at the outset, consolidate, look inward, then, like Pinky and the Brian, try to take over the world.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 26 2023 14:32 utc | 206

Now it is obvious who did the whole leadership of Wagner as soon as they returned from Africa.
It was clearly a ‘decapitation’ of the command and control of Wagner.
Ecowas is going to send in their mercenaries.
Natzos of Europe and US don’t like being told to pack up and go! They insist the resources are theirs by historic tyranny. Bit like the Vikings still laying claim to all of Norman Europe.
The Russians alway had better relations with Africans.
Pushkins great gran daddy was African.
“Abram (Ibrahim) Gannibal was born in Cameroon, was rescued from slavery by the Russians as a child. Subsequently, he was the godson of Tsar Peter the Great and became a Russian military engineer, general-in-chief, had 11 children and was Pushkin’s great-grandfather”
https://t.me/myLordBebo/4949
Unfortunately for our Collective Wastrels – Russia, China, SCO and BRICS+ has already formalised direct contacts and agreements with the independent minded you generation of anti-imperialism is Africa.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see tens of thousands of boots on the ground to Make Peace upon the latest poxy proxies of Ecowas.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 26 2023 15:08 utc | 208

@Roger #185
Mr./ Prof. Boyd
Thank you for your well articulate exposition, although it must be said that it leads us back towards a more conventional and restrictive representation of fascism, as a merely reactionary (“responsive” so to speak) movement against the threat of a socialist rise to hegemony.
To put our focus on the counter-hegemonic purpose of fascism, is obviously consistent with the original Gramscian analysis and it perfectly describes the Italian case.
Mussolini’s movement first rose to prominence by “de facto” substituting state power in the repression of socialist activities in northern and central Italy.
Equally fitting is the case of the Spanish Civil War.
For Germany, we could perhaps write of a political and societal collapse, rather than a mere threat to the dominant class, but still we can produce a good interpretation.
On the contrary, the more we move away from those basic European cases, the more opaque the description becomes.
There is little doubt about the fact that both the original Zionism and modern Israel share traits of fascism, but they respond to different historical issues. Already the counter-hegemonic paradigm starts to appear insufficient.
If we move to Asia in the proper sense, the notion of fascism emerging from a faltering pre-existent bourgeois dominance (fascism as “Plan B”) seems decidedly inadequate.
How to make sense of the steady drift towards fascism by the Chinese KMT? Apart from the internal relations within this composite national movement, it was objectively difficult to envisage any form of effective hegemony, in the devastated cultural scene of early XX century China.
In the Indonesian case, we observe the ferocious anti-communism of Suharto in its “bare” form, applied a largely rural country, apparently devoid of the social components required by the counter-hegemonic description.
Also different is the Japanese case, possibly the most familiar to me. I will not state again here what I wrote elsewhere about the specific (non industrial) character of the pre-Meiji bourgeois establishment.
In the perspective of modern neo-conservative analysis, that regime appears mostly as the target of an incomplete “liberal” revolution and fascistic traits are pretended to be merely instrumental to Western modernisation.
To conclude, the entire point of my first contribution was to (perhaps clumsily) investigate the scenario of a fascist movement which, rather than protecting an established class dominance, sets upon itself the perverse task of a belated bourgeois nation building where, usually because of some kind of post-colonial status, nothing similar existed before.

Posted by: MoaMetal | Aug 26 2023 16:21 utc | 210

Posted by: titmouse | Aug 26 2023 11:48 utc | 195
Hello @titmouse,
Bar Ice Issue, is the best I can do. Because Iris doesn’t make sense 🙂

Posted by: boon | Aug 26 2023 17:20 utc | 212

Posted by: MD | Aug 26 2023 13:59 utc | 203:

…..Beijing works to prevent the formation a market for domestic real estate (“homes are for living, not buying and selling”).
Chinese RE is 7% of GDP, and 80% of homes are owned free and clear, with the average mortgage being $65,000.

MD, thank you for the many posts the past few days on China. Those were informative and gratifying to me personally. There has been a concerted campaign about the nascent economic stagnations in China lately amongst the western press, using exaggerated jargons and implications to feed western readership, whom is hungry to hear about bad news coming out of China mainly due to jealousy. OTOH western politicians are willing accomplices to such malicious propaganda because it might win them some votes. So, for the past couple of months we were fed with the impression that China is primed for implosion any moment. Your postings (with some quotings Godfree Roberts) provided the truer picture for the barflies here at MOA.
Truth of the matter is China has been practicing the real spirite of free enterprise systems since Deng Xiaoping’s open-door policies of 1979. Central government analysed situations and available resources to determine what is best do-able and achieveable, design 5 year plans one after another along these lines, provide executive, financial, and guidances/assistances where and when necessary, insist on state owned enterprise to strictly adhere to state set goals and practices coming hell or high water, then every 5 years review their results, self-critize, and make proper adjustment for the next 5 year plan. Meanwhile, let free enterprises thrive on their own. Let them grow as best could or learn their own hard lessons from reality. There had been mistakes, ups and downs, as well as crimes such as corruptions and treacheries. There have also been enforcements of necessary restrain such as Jack Ma’s “ant financial scheme which might have calamitous consequences to the society at large. But from 1979 to today, China’s achievements have been nothing short of a miracle, by global consensus. That is Socialism Chinese Style. You seem to understand it; Godfree Roberts definitely understands it.
Chinese leadership has been faithful to its commitment of adhering to Law and let the nation’s well being evolve as allowed within the bounds of today’s legal limits, for better or for worse. If realities indicates some law needs reform, a slow but steady process would be followed (democratically, I might add) to amend the law through the annual People’s Congress and Political Consultation Convention meetings. It took years for proper laws regarding prevention of Hong Kong type of foreign instigated color revolution to pass People’s Congress, even if the need for such was desperately urgent. It shows China’s determination to follow proper process and true democracy. Its actually an example that the west should take note and learn from, in the face of what themselves laments that there are industries that cannot be allowed to fail bullshit.
By the way, the western law, Empire’s in particular, weighs about couple of tons in paper form, and would take a van to deliver to anybody in case one wants to learn them and not violate them. How many barflies here know whether they have (or are presently) violating any law? Who knows which law has been sunset, or repealed? Who knows, precisely, what some of the wording of some laws really mean??? Some smart ones here at this bar might answer this question affirmatively, but not your truly nor any of the smart cookies yours truly is acquainted with. How can one be held accountable for violations of law that is impossible to know? Well, here comes the solution of latching dependency onto a profession called “Lawyers”, who don’t really know the laws (that’s why they each have twenty shelves of law libraries in their offices) any better than you or me, but by virtual of their title “councellor” they are entitled to interpret any law as they wish, over yours in case you become an antagonist. These lawyers make 3 times the income of you and me, if not more. By lawyers, I include those sitting at benches they call judges, of course.
Chinese Law, however, is embodied in a volume less thick than the abridged English dictionary

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Aug 26 2023 19:38 utc | 214

bevin | 8
“Argentina is on the brink of deciding, for the umpteenth time, to return to the IMF slaughterhouse and sacrifice its most vulnerable people on the altar of dollar debt and austerity.”
The current Argentine plan seems to be to sacrifice everyone.
Only wealthy countries can really afford welfare states.
To create wealth you have to protect the few who bring the ideas, ambition and imagination to organize labor to produce goods. Those few must be protected, celebrated and encouraged from the depredations and envy of the many who claim to represent “labor”
What is called “Capitalism” today, is actually corporatism – a sub-flavor of socialism.
What is needed is free enterprise mixed with the promotion of classic virtues. It’s the second part that people can applaud but societies hate.

Posted by: danf51 | Aug 26 2023 21:46 utc | 216

For what it’s worth, Gilbert Doctorow issued a very tentative opinion regarding…
Who killed Yevgeny Prigozhin?
…from which this paragraph is fairly representative:

The Roman principle of cui bono to guide investigators is not particularly helpful in the Prigozhin case. The man was a swashbuckling self-promoter who made enemies wherever he operated. He publicly denounced Russia’s army leadership and held it up to ridicule. His mutiny two months ago and march on Moscow was not a parade: it cost the lives of 13 Russian servicemen whose planes and helicopters Prigozhin’s troops shot down. Whatever the disposition of the Russian President, these facts would ensure the emergence of Russian patriots set on eliminating the Wagner chief on their own initiative and to settle their personal scores with him.

Who then? Who knows? No mention of Prigozhin’s pilot, said to have fled to Kamchatka. No scrutiny of the airport in Moscow where a bomb was almost certainly planted on that plane. Doctorow assumes a strikingly uninformative tone, perhaps on purpose.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Aug 26 2023 23:36 utc | 218

“Jeffrey Epstein is just the tip of the iceberg, it gets worse!” – Whitney Webb | Redacted (26 Aug 2023)
https://youtu.be/w3JmSHLgol4?si=fXDqdod1_udl54Qz

Posted by: Toby C | Aug 27 2023 0:59 utc | 220

two weeks ago Navalny posted a pray? confession? of a suprising subject: https://navalny.com/p/6651/
it’s the second time during last years when a public figure uses taboo left rhetoric (the first one was Prigozhin during his rally). and both times it plays a trump card targeting Eltsin’s elites. i interpret it as a sign that the coming elections are going to be intense.

Posted by: dreadwhitegazebo | Aug 27 2023 2:57 utc | 222

It’s telling that he puts the blame for the 90s entirely on Russians rather than ever hinting at the role of Western backers, even though we know Yeltsin was basically hand-held through the coup by the US.

Posted by: Smash Kapital | Aug 27 2023 3:03 utc | 224

“…Ethiopia, one of the world’s ancient states with high cultural development and respectable population size (>100m), will surely be a pole of influence in the multi-polar world. It is a worthy addition to BRICS.”
Posted by: Browser | Aug 26 2023 21:00 utc | 215, echoed by Bemildred @221
My thoughts this week have been on two major feasts in the Orthodox church, an ancient version of which is in Ethiopia. This is because I have kept to the Russian tradition which observes these feasts according to the old Julian calendar. I had always formulated this affinity in spiritual terms, that thereby the sequence of important observances remained in a continuous line from the days of the early church, so that the modern calendar shifts slowly out of line with that, currently being at 13 days separation. That shift, to me, always represented the difference between our scientific realities and the spiritual ones; I felt pressed to maintain it.
I said ‘two important feasts’. Tomorrow is the eve of the second one, the first having been that of the Transfiguration of Christ, his appearance bathed in light on the mountaintop as he spoke with Moses and Elijah in the presence of three of his disciples. I mentioned this feast on the previous Sunday open thread, and have been reading to myself this week the hymns that describe the feast as we sang them in our Santa Fe church.
I would describe these poetic hymns as a celebration of ‘speaking truth to power’, so I am struck that many of the themes here this week are of that nature. And it isn’t difficult to see that multipolarity is in essence a civil rights struggle writ large. A global civil rights struggle. The presence of Moses, the presence of Elijah, on the mountain top – the ancient calendar itself still observed in some places, these are underlying musical threads that harmonize with the beauties of other spiritual traditions held precious to the nations involved.
Tomorrow we come to the second great feast about to begin, which is the final one of the Orthodox liturgical year. It is the feast my little Santa Fe church was named for, a beautiful feast. One that represents the heart of Orthodoxy in all its gentleness, a contrast to the previous feast with which it is so closely aligned. It too speaks truth, not to power but to family and friends.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 27 2023 4:15 utc | 226

Posted by: anon2020 | Aug 26 2023 13:46 utc | 201
Fock that. Feelmyfinger should worry more about the smarter, worldlier East Germans rebelling and splitting off from Germany itself. That would be better for the world at large anyway. It would allow Russia to deal with an appreciative Europe again and likely forestall WW III.

Posted by: Wondrous | Aug 27 2023 6:30 utc | 228

boon at 212, Thank you! I might rearrange the word order into ISSUE BAR ICE because their next goal for international settlements is to issue a non-storable currency, a la Keynes idea (IIRC called ENCOR) as explained in detail by Hudson & Dezai at ‘Geopolitical Economy Report’.
BAR ICE infers a place where people ideally peacaeably gather to drink, like a watering hole in a dry savannah, and you are not expected to carry the ice away for benefit elsewhere. A shared space where the ice cools the drink, whatever it is you drink, and then melts away… And they’d be the issuers of such ephemeral currency, hence ISSUE BAR ICE.
Yes, much better than “Ibis, you scary!” or “Brie is sauce.” 🙂

Posted by: titmouse | Aug 27 2023 9:40 utc | 230

their next goal for international [sic] settlements is to issue a non-storable currency, a la Keynes idea (IIRC called ENCOR) as explained in detail by Hudson & Dezai at ‘Geopolitical Economy Report’
Posted by: titmouse | Aug 27 2023 9:40 utc | 230
yeah? um, no. No to Mssrs. Norton, Hudson, Keynes, and invisible hands of “advanced economies” (AKA 9 heads of the G7) bound by “third-country” supply and value chain “compliance”.
The next big ideer for (public and private) interbank settlements, supervised by principal subscribers of
the BIS (1930): BE, CH, DE, FR, IT, UK;
the IMF (1944 Articles, p 40, USD-denominated paid-in capital); and
the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT 1973): AT, BE, CA, DE, DK, FR, IT, NL, SE, UK, US (dont-say-OPEC-embargo; say “OIL CRISIS”!)
is the post-digital YUAN, post-SMO, pre-NDB “universal monetary unit” created by the G7’s NEW! Digital Currency Monetary Authority (DCMA)

[…]
Universal Monetary Unit (UMU), symbolized as ANSI Character, Ü, is legally a money commodity, can transact in any legal tender settlement currency, and functions like a CBDC to enforce banking regulations and to protect the financial integrity of the international banking system.
Banks can attach SWIFT Codes and bank accounts to a UMU digital currency wallet and transaction SWIFT-like cross-border payments over digital currency rails completely bypassing the correspondent banking system at best-priced wholesale FX rates and with instantaneous real-time settlement.
In an IMF interview with Tobias Adrian, Financial Counsellor at the International Monetary Fund, he states “Cross-border payments can be sooooo slow, sooooo expensive, and sooooo risky. In today’s world of payments, counterparties in different jurisdictions rely on costly trusted relationships to offset the lack of a common settlement asset together with common rules and governance. BUT IMAGINE IF a multilateral [institution] existed that could improve cross-border payments–at the same time transforming foreign exchange transactions, risk sharing, and more generally, financial contracting.”
[…]

The salient feature of this announcement is not “blockchain” adoption or innovation, but prominent aegis of 100-year-old G7 appraisal of IMF infrastructure at Spring Meetings, 20 Mar-15 Apr 2023.

At the heart of the gathering are meetings of the joint Development Committee and the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee, which discuss progress on [loan products] of the World Bank Group and the IMF. Also featured are seminars, regional briefings, press conferences, and many other events focused on the global economy, international development, and the world’s financial markets….

For example, Analytical Corner: Drivers of Capital Flows to Emerging Markets, 11 Apr

…motivated by the recent period of capital outflows amid sharp monetary policy tightening in the US. Capital flow episodes across EMs [perpetual “emerging markets”] are analyzed with a structural dynamic factor model to assess the comparative importance of supply and demand factors in driving capital flows to and from EMs, and of global versus country-specific shocks. Global supply forces are central drivers, shaping the [bond] yields and—to a lesser extent—the volume of flows….

Which reminds me to correct my earlier error,
“* IMF chaperoned “development” groups and “growth” club epic, here,” Posted by: sln2002 | Aug 25 2023 1:56 utc | 111
“here” s/b A Guide to committees, groups, and clubs, organized by the IMF as is convenient.

Posted by: sln2002 | Aug 27 2023 15:54 utc | 232

Has anyone noticed that the Uighur Genocide Arc of western propaganda narrative has died down substantially these days?
Is it just that the din of Ukraine-Russia war has drowned everything else out or are Uighurs still being genocided with as much vim and gusto as before 2022?
Would anyone know what the culmination (if any) of this particular American psyop was?

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Aug 28 2023 5:35 utc | 234

I’ve been reading through To Kill a Nation and Fool’s Crusade recently, thanks to fellow barflies recommendations. I’ve taken extensive notes, reviewed their sources, etc. It absolutely floors me how Serbs got thrown under the bus. To this day people still run around proclaiming that the Kosovo bombings needed to happen in order to stop Serb’s ethnic cleansing campaign of Kosovars.
What is truth when it comes to history? Why is it when Serbian historians, well before the dissolution of Yugoslavia, described in detail the genocidal campaigns of the Ustashe, they were ignored? On Wikipedia, it claims these were greatly exaggerated accounts based to set the pretense for genociding Croatian, Albanians, Muslims, etc.
I have done deep historical dives, written papers with first hand accounts, only to look at Wikipedia articles on the subject and see it greatly distorts reality. I have noticed, especially, a trend of various social media “historians”, to not read a book, or scholarly articles, but to instead regurgitate Wikipedia articles almost verbatim.
When the cries of a Serbian child rang out before execution, could the world not understand their pain? Or is the silence in the aftermath enough for those to obfuscate the murder?
In a world where mass grave sites are found from previous wars, do we listen to the silence of innocents, or the Youtube historian whose only hardship may have been the divorce of their parents?

Posted by: shadowloser | Aug 28 2023 21:53 utc | 236