Trump supporters support workers
This is a video that gives me hope: actually, this one is a video within a video. A white fringe lefty who works as a bartender in the rust belt went to a Trump rally in Erie Pennsylvania– not far from Palestine Ohio– as he interviews Trump supporters. Turns out, they talk a lot of sense, their views are similar in a number of core issues with leftist Americans.
It goes viral. This particular one is watched by 4 young Black men in Texas. Pay attention to their comments and how they connect their personal issues to what they see in the Erie Pennsylvania Trump rally. At the end these young men talk about how surprised they are at what they heard from White Trump supporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1dPpixk-jU

Posted by: migueljose | Aug 20 2023 13:54 utc | 4

@laguerre | Aug 20 2023 13:55 utc | 5
I do not agree with everything you say, but the following is true.

The militarists on here are blind as to how deeply the EU has penetrated the functioning of society and economy.

And, about the following:

Even the Brits are having trouble in escaping the system; the only replacement they have is generally a straight copy of what the EU did.

Not just a copy, but an ugly copy. The British establishment is more neoliberal (and neocon) than the European establishment. After Brexit, they put in charge the complete neoliberal freak show: from the strong woman to the smart p.o.c.

Posted by: SG | Aug 20 2023 14:19 utc | 6

“…Disunity is inevitable when you have idiots like von der Leyen and Scholz in charge….”laguerre@5
The question is: How do you get rid of them? Given that they are a disaster for most of the EU how do Frenchmen or Spaniards, Italians or Irish people deal with them? There are no democratic controls except for very indirect means, which are designed to be inefficient, of changing course. Which is why the EU and its institutions are invariably run by American nominees- in the cases of Leyen and Lagarde, virtually dual citizens.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 14:44 utc | 8

The WaPo piece:

Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall

IS HILARIOUS. If the US keeps this up, it is going to win itself to death in no time.

Posted by: team10tim | Aug 20 2023 15:05 utc | 10

Laguerre
Horizon 2020?
You bet they want to rejoin; they were making a fortune from EU funding, since all applications and the research output had (and still have!!) to be in English (pace Google translate, Deepl…). Nevermind they have private universities and staff fully-paid to apply for funding while public universities elsewhere in the EU have seen the money go Brussels and never come back. As for EU research, what about the prospect of jobs limited to 2 years, and the slow asphyxia of humanities now rebranded “Culture and
Society”? What of importing more and more of your “citizen data” into it, and why not your med ones, as per Dariah propaganda? Any debate on the FAIR and SMART “principles” that include that all EU funded research has to be “accessible and reusable by machines without human intervention”? And what of the AI Act, which the EU parliament swallowed mid-June? The EU certification that comes with it is supposed to make sure no bloody RU or CH pieces of programmes can be used. No-way open source! Bye bye Linux. No matter that Meta and Google are actually using pieces of op source progs for their bots, what matter is what will be “searched” and who will do the scanning… Apparently it is the Gafam that will get the job, because guess what, they are part
of the grid and the so-safe Amsterdam based “EU” cloud, that actually fits 42 countries.
Bevin
How to get rid of them? Close the brothel in Brussels. Rents are skyrocketing. Bring the tax-exempted fat cats to their own countries in the “ministry of EU affairs” and stop intensive lobbying on them. The EU election is next year, so it is time to open a debate.

Posted by: Minaa | Aug 20 2023 15:18 utc | 12

The EU is illegal because it violates the UN Charter by removing sovereignty from its members: “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.”

Posted by: Don Bacon | Aug 20 2023 15:23 utc | 14

@ laguerre | Aug 20 2023 13:55 utc | 5
i don’t think of myself as a ”militant”… i see the huge flaws in the eu as an outsider… this proxy war in ukraine shows how depraved europe is and how it is led by the nose by usa-uk and nato ideology… win win for the military contractors and etc – but europe losses in all of it.. how about a bit of realism on your part??

Posted by: james | Aug 20 2023 15:36 utc | 16

Frances Moore Lappé on the flag flown from fascist flagpoles, all over the place:
Woke Is the New Red

Today, “woke” is a sweeping, ill-defined insult making it harder to find common ground essential to reforms benefiting most Americans, such as lifting the minimum wage.
For those who lived through the 1950s it rings painful bells. Back then, “communist” was the slur of choice to attack those focused on equity, particularly for people of color.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Aug 20 2023 15:40 utc | 18

i see the huge flaws in the eu as an outsider…
Posted by: james | Aug 20 2023 15:36 utc | 17
excuse me, James, but that’s what I’d expect of a Canadian, ignorance of what goes on in Europe. Ignorance of the massive advantages for Europeans, the lack of which Brits are now suffering from. Nobody wants to go back to waiting two hours at every border while passports and vehicle details are carefully examined.
As I said before and have said numberless times, the problem is the current people in charge not the institution itself.

Posted by: laguerre | Aug 20 2023 15:49 utc | 20

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Aug 20 2023 12:43 utc | 1
In 2021, China and Russia announced they will be building a Moon base together, also formally invited more countries and international organizations to join their International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project being developed by the two nations.
How’s that coming along? Let me help you catch up.

Posted by: sln2002 | Aug 20 2023 15:57 utc | 22

How do…Irish people deal with them? There are no democratic controls except for very indirect means, which are designed to be inefficient, of changing course.
Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 14:44 utc |
Lately?
Irish troops to provide weapons training to Ukraine despite Government’s ‘non-lethal’ assistance pledge

…There has been no reference to weapons training in any Government statements in the Dáil during debates on the matter. Instead, ministers have repeatedly emphasised the humanitarian nature of the training being provided….

Voters want to keep Ireland neutral but increase investment in defence, poll shows

Posted by: sln2002 | Aug 20 2023 16:06 utc | 24

Well said bevin about Germany. Both due to location and manufacturing skillsets she can best pivot to Eurasia and lead the rest of Europe that way too. Italy is already ready.
But how to get rid of ‘them’? First, there are two main layers: the vast public and private sector managerial class comprising an enormous fully embedded Administrative State. Second there are no less embedded Money Power networks.
All of these, though ostensibly grounded in national jurisdictions are para-nation-state linked.
To get rid of them: first extant constitutions and rules of law need to be pursued. Fully and openly and explained to all so that if-when they fail concerted effort to make necessary changes can be openly undertaken.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 20 2023 16:12 utc | 26

BP no. 16
To be fair, collision is another word for crash.

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Aug 20 2023 16:22 utc | 28

exporting themselves to other planets etc.
Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Aug 20 2023 16:25 utc | 30
I agree. HOWEVER, race har har supremacy is a fixture atop the pyramid of professional representative democracy.

Posted by: sln2002 | Aug 20 2023 16:29 utc | 30

@laguerre | Aug 20 2023 16:29 utc | 32
There is no way to exit EU, just ask me. Officially, we never got in and had 2 referendums with the result NO both times. Never mind democracy, the quislings didn’t like that, so here we are.
The EU will collapse along with NATO. It is going to happen, just not quite as fast as I wish.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 20 2023 16:41 utc | 32

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Aug 20 2023 15:35 utc | 16
It ought to be a matter of deep embarrassment when the Russian Space Agency has to make a ludicrously cope filled statement like
It’s not about embarrassment. Crashes happen. I’m sure the scientists and engineers behind Luna-25 can learn from it and work on top of it. The work these researchers do should not be muddled with issues of political conflict. Science should be for the whole human race.

Posted by: Inkan1969 | Aug 20 2023 17:29 utc | 34

Posted by: laguerre | Aug 20 2023 16:29 utc | 32
As bevin notes above, the EU itself is American-dominated, besides being illegal,
Posted by: Don Bacon | Aug 20 2023 15:55 utc | 22
==================================================
Yes, but America and UK are dominated by the same Power Networks dominating Europe. Once can argue about exactly who and where such networks are, but essentially it/they are spread out through many nation states. So it’s not really true to say that the EU is ‘America/US-dominated’. Not to mention these networks are also in Russia and China, though perhaps to a lesser extent.
This is why the ‘private’ US Corporate sector aggressively pushes ‘wokeness’ to undermine traditional family-based cultural homogeneity whilst causing manufacturing to leave their own countries in favor of lower wage nations like China thus harming their own societies. Meanwhile all nations, even supposed adversaries in epoch-shaping geopolitical tectonics, are on board with a digital currency system coming soon just about everywhere.
On one level maybe they truly are rivals, even enemies, but on other levels it seems they are all on the same page. This makes the US just as dominated by the ‘whatever-it-is’ that is also dominating the EU. The US and the EU have both been captured by the same ‘globalist’ hegemon. The RoW is ostensibly resisting such capture even though it seems their respective RCs are all on board with digital currencies, WHO authority superseding national authorities and so forth.
Something is wrong with this picture.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 20 2023 17:33 utc | 36

The EU will collapse along with NATO. It is going to happen, just not quite as fast as I wish.
Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 20 2023 16:41 utc | 33
Typical of those who have no economic/social interest. In the case of Norway, the right decision was made, as the oil wealth was kept for the country in the sovereign wealth fund, whereas Thatcher wasted the equivalent money on destroying British industry. My daughter has a Norwegian friend who was able to benefit with a full scholarship to study Japanese in Oxford. Few can do that. However someone with that degree of detachment is going to complain about the negative aspects, without understanding the fundamental difference that the EU has made to the economy of Europe, taking previously poor areas out of poverty. Mina (with an a added now) complains about how much France has to pay, without saying how much French agriculture has profited from the EU.

Posted by: laguerre | Aug 20 2023 17:50 utc | 38

“…America and UK are dominated by the same Power Networks dominating Europe. Once can argue about exactly who and where such networks are, but essentially it/they are spread out through many nation states. So it’s not really true to say that the EU is ‘America/US-dominated’….” Scorpion@37
Of course it isn’t: by the US I obviously mean the ruling class of the Empire which has been based in the USA since the end of the First World War.
That is the “Power Network” which dominates Europe and most of the world, through its control of capital, typically through the financial power it has.
But you shy away from admitting that these Power Networks are emanations of a particular economic system-capitalism. And that those involved are members of the capitalist class, including professionals managing and securing the system, among whom are both ideologists and politicians.
You prefer to make vague allusions to those involved in the Networks as if they were founded not on shared interests but depraved appetites, satanic heresies and sects degraded, by inbreeding into ethnic groups.
It’s not that economic interests explain everything- they obviously do not-but that the foundations of any system of exploiting the labour of others and securing the power to continue to do so are always economic.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 18:33 utc | 40

Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 14:44 utc | 9
The question is: How do you get rid of them?
==
They are a cancer. When the system dies (civilization) “they’ll” die.
Substack **Caitlin’s newsletters**. Caitlin Johnstone, explains “our entire civilization is fake and stupid.”

Posted by: heavymetal101 | Aug 20 2023 18:55 utc | 42

Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 18:33 utc | 41
But you shy away from admitting that these Power Networks are emanations of a particular economic system-capitalism. And that those involved are members of the capitalist class, including professionals managing and securing the system, among whom are both ideologists and politicians.
=================================================
I do indeed because I find the terminology out-dated. Idealized constructs like socialism, communism, capitalism and fascism never turn out true to their idealized formulations. This is inevitably so because they are built on fallacious, materialist-secular foundations which exclude too many bedrock fundamentals of human life – like how climate science’s fallacy-based models will forever provide inaccurate forecasts.
For example, the current ‘capitalist’ West is far more than merely ‘capitalist’. Paranational private cartels have captured the creation and flow of money and credit blurring the lines between military-private-public-Intelligence-media-academia-corporate-federal-provincial-national-international etc. – capitalism on plutocratic steroids. And the same outcome ensues, with minor variations, in communist, fascist or socialist polities; ergo those -isms are simply variations played in the same key, not substantively different compositions. (Hence Dugin’s ‘Fourth Political Theory’.)
The real fault-lines these days seem more around authentic-honorable-honest-sovereign versus inauthentic-dishonorable-criminals-plutocratic not really around different isms such as socialism versus capitalism, none of which prevent inevitable capture by corrupt plutarchies since all such materialist approaches lack a Heaven principle or therefore any human-level morality, aka ‘heart’, without which they have no internal, societal immune system.
Therefore, the systemic failings we are witnessing are neither caused, nor will be eliminated, by changing the -ism. This is why I don’t use that vocabulary. So it’s not ‘shying away’, rather a deliberate choice.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 20 2023 19:26 utc | 44

oh. wait. There were even MOAR opportunities to deport refugees and prisoners of war during
18th-, 19th-, 20th-centuries before WWI triggered anudder WAVE of European “immigration”.

Posted by: sln2002 | Aug 20 2023 19:36 utc | 46

Posted by: majoab | Aug 20 2023 18:40 utc | 42
“Something is wrong with this picture.”
You reminded me of a quote from a particular film that was released not long after the US Bicentennial presidential election of ’76….
======================================================
That’s the ‘I’m mad as hell’ film, right? Good one!!
Well, that whole quite intelligent narrative – which we still seemingly live under today – is extremely left brain, a conceptual model describing the entire reality we live in and under.
But of course it’s just a fiction, a persuasive spell. So, first off, we must simply refuse to buy into such mental-perceptual tyranny.
None of these erstwhile Masters of Our Universe could design, let alone make, a blade of grass, a shrub, a tree, a flower, a butterfly, sky, earth or stars, let alone a human being with his sense of courage, love, honor and sense of humour.
They are like two-year olds playing with matches in a hay barn; yes, they are powerful, but they have a limited understanding of the nature of reality. Indeed, most of their power is held in our minds; so as we see through their charades, one way or another they shall fade away, like the vanishing spirit of Saruman brought to heel at last, much to his surprise, by the Little People in the Shire.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 20 2023 19:43 utc | 48

Here is the rest of Russell Davies’s comment at Naked Capitalism:
“What always seems to be glossed over when Mackinder’s saying is quoted is the first line: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland.” What’s important about this is that Mackinder’s concept of East Europe is of a landmass east of a line that runs from the Adriatic to the North Sea and west of a line that effectively runs along the Volga and Don rivers to the Black Sea. This means that Berlin and Vienna were the two major capitals to the west, with Moscow and St Petersburg being the major conurbations to the east; Mackinder had it that the vast majority of Russians lived around these latter two cities and, therefore, lived in East Europe.
“It is this East Europe that is the gateway to the Heartland and it was always necessary for West Europe – insular and peninsular – to oppose any power that attempted to dominate East Europe and, thereby, the Heartland. Britain fought “the half-German Russian Czardom because Russia was the dominating, threatening force both in East Europe and the Heartland for half a century”. Equally Britain was “opposed to the wholly German Kaiserdom, because Germany took the lead in East Europe from the Czardom, and would then have crushed the revolting Slavs, and dominated East Europe and the Heartland”.
“This quote from Mackinder receives its echo in the US’s ‘National Security Strategy’ of 1988: the “United States’ most basic national security interests would be endangered if a hostile state or group of states were to dominate the Eurasian landmass – that area of the globe often referred to as the world’s heartland. We fought two world wars to prevent this from occurring. And, since 1945, we have sought to prevent the Soviet Union from capitalizing on its geostrategic advantage to dominate its neighbors in Western Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and thereby fundamentally alter the global balance of power to our disadvantage”.
“George Friedman, a member of the Washington foreign policy establishment, founder and former CEO of Stratfor, and founder and current chairman of Geopolitical Futures, speaking in 2015, brings us almost up to date; the main “interest of the United States over which for centuries we have fought wars, the first, second and cold war has been the relationship between Germany and Russia. Because united they are the only force that could threaten us”. The primordial fear for the US is “German technology and German capital, Russian natural resources and Russian manpower as the only combination that has for centuries scared the hell out of the United States”.
“Of course, Michael Hudson has been writing for over a year now that the US proxy war in Ukraine is just as much a war against Germany. It is another episode of the long-running Anglo – now Anglo-American – series of keeping Russia and Germany apart.”

Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 19:46 utc | 50

“The real fault-lines these days seem more around authentic-honorable-honest-sovereign versus inauthentic-dishonorable-criminals-plutocratic not really around different isms such as socialism versus capitalism, none of which prevent inevitable capture by corrupt plutarchies since all such materialist approaches lack a Heaven principle or therefore any human-level morality, aka ‘heart’, without which they have no internal, societal immune system.”
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 20 2023 19:26 utc | 45
Lol. Anyone here care to try to make sense of that?

Posted by: waynorinorway | Aug 20 2023 20:18 utc | 52

Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 18:33 utc | 41
You prefer to make vague allusions to those involved in the Networks as if they were founded not on shared interests but depraved appetites, satanic heresies and sects degraded, by inbreeding into ethnic groups.
===========================================
Your fantasies, old chap, not mine! Though I have little doubt such things do go on in our world (as evidenced in the recent Sound of Freedom film). They always have in the past and no doubt will never entirely go away.
In other posts, I often try to point out that the world-wide predominance of the materialist mindset – of which capitalism, marxism, socialism and communism are symptoms not causes – is responsible for all this, including our corrupt elites. But I also believe that we all get the elites we deserve.
Collectively we must engender societies which, by valuing individual and collective virtue, automatically therefore repel corruption. Such bedrock, pervasive virtue is the true source of grass roots power, a profound truth to which materialist political theories are entirely blind. When We the People stupidly wallow in complacent immorality then no end of depravity rises in our midst, including at the top. It’s a Law of Societal Dynamics or some such.
So I believe it a mistake to blame only the Ruling Classes their own or widespread societal corruption. Ultimately, it’s all on us.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 20 2023 20:46 utc | 54

Just came across the Channel of Zack Mwekassa an African Voice commenting on Joseph Borell. Who of course is commenting on Putin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDBMpKpDMJ0

Posted by: Fran | Aug 20 2023 21:24 utc | 56

Planner @ 56 re Lunar “Lithobraking”
Believe it or not, people have looked into a ‘scheduled lithobraking’. In Steven Baxter’s alternate history novel Moonseed, a Soyuz is landed on a flat lunar mare using this method while a open cockpit moon lander takes the other 2 crew members to the surface. People do crazy things when alien goo brought back in the Apollo moon rocks gets out and starts eating the earth! Based on a real proposal from the 60s.
It’s a shame about Luna 25 (apparently a programming snafu caused the engines to fire for 1.5x the intended duration, there’s little room for error that close to the moon) but it was much more successful than Russia’s other 2 post-Soviet space probes, both of which failed to depart earth orbit. So at least they’re back to late-Soviet level stuff-ups like Phobos 1 which switched itself off due to a programming error and the Polyus space laser weapon demo that did a Baerbock and turned 360° rather than 180° (its engines were on the top for launch) and deorbited itself.
If that sounds embarrassing ask an American about Mars Climate Orbiter…

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Aug 20 2023 22:00 utc | 58

@Norwegian | Aug 20 2023 19:46 utc | 50
Norway is out of the EU, but in the EEA and the Schengen Area. You have to get out of those.
@bevin | Aug 20 2023 19:59 utc | 52
So a propaganda outlet, spreading propaganda is your main source? Anyway, in 1921 the US dollar was booming as a reserve and trading currency (mainly at the expenses of German Marks and French Francs), but that did not last long. In 1922 the UK was already recovering and able to retain the dominance of the Pound Sterling, then the Great Depression completed the job. After WWII the USA made sure to get rid of the Pound before inflating their own economy.

Posted by: SG | Aug 20 2023 22:06 utc | 60

SG@61
“… In 1922 the UK was already recovering and able to retain the dominance of the Pound Sterling, then the Great Depression completed the job.”
Are you seriously arguing that the Uk was ‘recovering’ during the Depression of the 1930s? It went off the Gold Standard in 1931, two years before the US. The sterling retained its position as a reserve currency largely because the Empire was turned into a Sterling Area with Imperial preference. And then there was the story of India.
Britain did not recover it declined, steadily. The Comintern read it right.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 22:49 utc | 62

AOTP @ 6:
If most of the population having children live in the Hindi-speaking north and they are migrating to other states, then you should ask if Modi’s government has an agenda aimed at making India exclusively for Hindi speakers and Hindu believers, to the exclusion of those who don’t speak Hindi as their first language and/or who don’t follow Hinduism.
There are plenty of Indians (especially Sikhs) here in Australia already but I am not sure they would welcome a “union” with India or its northern parts, otherwise they probably wouldn’t be here in the first place.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Aug 21 2023 0:00 utc | 64

PS post election vote analysis showed that Main-in votes very much favored Biden, and most assume for obvious / known reasons. However such assumptions do not prove the massive increase in pro-Biden Mail-in votes nor the massive increase in Voter Registrations are all legitimate either.
I have posted multiple refs recently that dug into these matters, you may be able to find those in search.

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Aug 21 2023 0:56 utc | 66

psycohistorian: Rejoice! There IS a way to promote ivermectin therapy for COVID in the Western world. Three easy steps:
1. Restore ivermectin’s patent;
2. Award the patent to a major pharma corp, which will
3. Jack the price up into the stratosphere.
Problem solved, yay!

Posted by: malenkov | Aug 21 2023 1:16 utc | 68

Good to see Wang Yi back in the driver’s seat. This time calling out US biowarfare and Covid.
Since this had a huge impact on the world at large, I think this could be a major driver at dedollarization.
https://t.me/rocknrollgeopolitics/7815

Posted by: Suresh | Aug 21 2023 2:43 utc | 70

It seems to me that in MoA bar there is a relative lack of posts on the future of Europe – I say Europe, not EU – after the Ukraine civil war (provoked civil war) will somehow come to an end. There are several factors to consider – the economy, and the ethnic mix. These two are definitely linked.
Thinkers like Refinnejenna, Juliania, karlof1, Scorpion, bevin, Arch Bungle, Don Bacon, laguerre, English Outsider – to name a few – have been silent on this topic, to the best of my knowledge (please correct if I am wrong).
My observation is possibly moot – what one can envision is most likely irrelevant, a waste of time, says my self-critical mind. But still, it is a ‘prurient’ interest what the future holds.
The video which a friend sent me from Germany is disturbing – because it shows the brewing discontent in Germany. Is Germany the powder keg for Europe, again?
I think, Ukraine issue will be considered a relatively unimportant by historians.
Here is the link to the 47 minutes long video about discontent in Germany:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPyCXThwjoU

Posted by: fanto | Aug 21 2023 2:50 utc | 72

Till the US has its own micro chip production it has a vital interest in that island.
Now it turns out that the new TSMC plant in Phoenix has 5 mayor problems, including not enough skilled & fully dedicated American engineers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x88ff-pb5js
On the other hand Xi Jinping’s sees his economy going down and thus wants to take Taiwan sooner rather than later…
A perfect storm.

Posted by: Antonym | Aug 21 2023 3:37 utc | 74

Posted by: fanto | Aug 21 2023 2:50 utc | 73
Others on your list can say more but:
1. Youtube: too much immigration, especially illegal; it’s part of an overall scheme to collapse Western civilization from within – also happening in the US.
2. Europe is discussed here but often viz Germany specifically. Today a few posters cited George Friedman of Stratfor spelling out that Bresinski viewed Germany as a geopolitical schlusselpunkt in that her pivot towards Russia would prove a geopolitical game-changer affecting Europe entire.
The purpose of NATO is ‘to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.’ Likely one of the main reasons the neocons forced RF into military kinetics is to provide narrative cover under fog of war for their sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines, thereby preventing Russian-German integration.
Whither goes Germany, there goes Europe. If Germany were to follow her best interests and join Belt and Road (along with Italy which was already in 2019 planning to develop Trieste as Europe’s main Eurasian port), this would lead to most other European nations joining in, weakening the US’s grip as European nations prosperity from such developments would stiffen their resistance to further meddling. By accident or design (or elaborate charade), the SMO is birthing a financial alternative to BIS, making future European integration that much easier, though this could still take decades as Medvedev warns.
The AfD rise might be the beginning of a significant shift towards long overdue sovereignty in European States.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 21 2023 4:04 utc | 76

This weekend has been an important feast in Orthodoxy – the Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ, which is when he took three of his disciples up a mountain where they beheld him transfigured and speaking with Elijah and Moses.
Okay, I’m the only one here, or even in my neighborhood, that finds this momentous, but many in Russia do. I and they ponder the icon of the feast, wherein the disciples, two of them at least, are falling backward down the mountainside, their sandals disengaging from their feet as they fall.
Peter, John, and James. Why these three only? Well, I’m not a theologian, but I would say we can at least know how they each ultimately reacted – because there are letters from each of them (just as there are letters from Paul) that have been retained in the Biblical texts, so their followers felt they needed to preserve them as they were preserving the gospel writings.
So, yes; I understand and agree with Scorpion’s ‘fault lines’. And I would add, sometimes the Heaven principle knocks you off your feet.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 21 2023 4:28 utc | 78

At the risk of being accused of philistinism.
“Frank saw the rot in American society way before anyone around here, and he didn’t just express it in clever little soundbites. For a period he encouraged and provided for voter registration at his concerts. He was also the protagonist in the now infamous senate hearings(starring Tipper Gore) regarding explicit lyrics in the music world. Yeah, he was already on the anti-censorship bandwagon 35 years ago. He did his part politically.
But, of course, Frank was a composer and a musician, a workaholic, and very prolific.
Talk of his music is accessible on many music forums, but requires some interest by the seeker. As far as the longevity of his music goes, well, it’s endured very well thus far, and to my mind and ears this will only grow, notwithstanding the ignorance of some jaded fuckwits around here.
Posted by: john | Aug 19 2023 9:36 utc | 324
“ john | Aug 19 2023 9:36 utc | 324, who posted a defence of Frank Zappa and finished with the words …notwithstanding the ignorance of some jaded fuckwits around here
I’m usually impresssed by DunGroaning, but like everyone else he can be correct most of the time but not all of the time. We all bring some baggage to the conversation here.
Posted by: Lantern Dude | Aug 19 2023 13:33 utc | 341 “
Thanks for the critical opinion LanternDude and to John who it seems was triggered instantly- dare I say he ‘doth protest too much’?
I said I would provide my reasoning on an open thread so people would at least understand what has brought me to the conclusions and opinions I hold – if asked and they were interested. I’ll take the above replies as that excuse as it seems there is no desire to understand and so no reason to ask – just some classic knee jerk as if Frank was some maiden whose honour has been impugned.
So I won’t detail the arguments much, unless asked, I’ll just pontificate further. Harumph!!
Many of the ‘successful’ cultural icons were manufactured in the US over the C21st right up to this very day. Planned and supported for not just propaganda elements but the deeper Pavlovian purpose of creating a whole new breed of behaviours and ‘mores’ that would help destroy the human commonality that all these migrants from Europe and elsewhere brought to that grand continental theft that is the North America’s.
Btw as wiki explains when I just looked up to check my spelling
‘William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), an early U.S. sociologist, introduced both the terms “mores” (1898)[4] and “folkways” (1906) into modern sociology.’
(See? one learns something new everyday by being open to the suggestions that everything one knows is a lie , as some CIA head once explicitly and proudly stated! I recall he was instantly encouraged into retirement so that his deputy could take over; which is the start of the rest of the story of the last 50 years…)
To keep on track.
Hollywood and the new media was planned before it was implemented.
For a specific purpose.
The investment was massive.
Any genuine independents were bought out or destroyed.
It was the beginning- A Paean to the forming the American Century – the latest newest fresher than fresh more powerful empire that would stand upon the shoulders of the previous ones.
The Final Empire that would finally achieve the conquest of the whole world.
The Birth of a Nation – yup they even gave descriptive names to their products in these days! Now they call it some made up super hero or comic book or a child’s overly sexualised doll even. D W Griffiths may not have been the only one but he was arguably the godfather of cinema and the grand eloquent Narrative director who created the deluded self identity of Exceptionalism of the American State and the population that would believe the new fairy tales of self characterisations.
After all what better chains of control and discipline for these slaves and would be future soldier conquistadors than those which would sit within each persons own mind. The self delusion of some individuality, an absolute belief that they were not just like all the ‘square’ people but were making up their own minds and free and young and not a slave – so when they actually rush to join up, kill and die , it’s fully backed by their personal cultural soundtrack.
Genius? Yes it was.
Are you still Confused? What’s it got to do with Zappa and I’m not just singling him out as unique. He is just one of the ilk.
Did you know for instance that a very few ‘producers’ crafted most of the music stars and genres? Gave the stolen smorgasboard of sounds to a multiplicity of pop and rock personas, invented from a pool of gifted and trained youngsters. Surprisingly a large number of whom came out of military families or these involved with the MIC? Including Zappa.- who was a ‘mad hatter’ subjected to childhood exposure to mercury as a toy brought back by his dad from the MIC complex he used to work for …
He may have come out as a typically new look hippy trend setter and made some Avant-garde music; But he was infamous for being a tea totaller, and disdaining the hippy culture, no ‘drugs’ including marijuana ! Whilst being completely happy with Coffee and Cigarettes, because , hey that was a natural vegetable! Unlike the errr weed. It was as if he knew something about these new drugs and psychedelics suddenly arriving on the scene. Hmm?
Belushi and Ackroyd on SNL even made a skit out of it which Frank didn’t seem to enjoy. He never returned.
Anyway the Svengali’s that have moulded the Cultural Identity of the Fake New Empire of Lies , also included Frank himself , he also was a mentor as much as mentored with any amount of product which was endlessly produced from any amount of genres , to throw against the walls of sound to see what would stick where and with whichever puppet that was a willing recruit.
You still don’t believe it , think I’m making it up? Well it is all about finding ‘dots’ to join into a real picture now the one we been sold.
I give you one Thomas Blanchard Wilson Jr.
A miraculous mastermind from Harvard – He launched Zappa and Dylan’s rock careers in the same year. And many many others.
Who was the real talent and who were the kids dressing up and being the muppets?
Mr Thomas Blanchard Wilson jnr, had a very busy and successful few years in the 60’s in an industry which catered mainly to the young white American generation being moulded.
An AfricanAmerican born in Waco ended up at Harvard and into the Music industry straight out of a hallowed Ivy League Harvard – that obviously had a demographic fully representative of the US it was based in. Ahem! – A Student Republican President btw. In the 50’s and early 60’s!
If you aren’t seeing something skewed in such a history – there are plenty of bridges available that I can sell you as the saying goes.
I like music, I liked all of these youngsters getting hep every generation until they too were mainstream and were replaced again by the next iteration an ever thinner salami sliced litany until we end up with the dross which is our lot today. There is now just a pretence that the new generations emerge with natural talent, obscurely coming through the bedrooms, self taught.
Ffs we have tv shows that select who the next star will be. We have superstars who arrive fully formed.
We buy into them. They sell us the Nudge when it’s needed, because we trust they are genuine. The crooners of post war to the rock and rollers, Crosby to Presley – selling the kids militarism. All the way to the punks. Bono and co went from rebellious disaffected youth to proselytisers of the old lies. The propaganda merchants. And their fans blindly bought into the message.
It’s a factory- it’s always been.
Please look up the career of Thomas Blanchard Wilson Jr. yourselves and marvel at such a strangely unsung hero of music!

Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 21 2023 12:21 utc | 80

waynorinorway@80
You are right, the idea that Zheng He sneaked into Venice is nonsensical. But that just increases its attraction to our Amglo-Canadian-American-German Scorpion is Mexico.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 21 2023 12:57 utc | 82

Posted by: bevin | Aug 21 2023 12:57 utc | 83
waynorinorway@80
You are right, the idea that Zheng He sneaked into Venice is nonsensical. But that just increases its attraction to our Amglo-Canadian-American-German Scorpion is Mexico.
============================
If you didn’t read the book and only reference debunking articles – which always accompany any revisionist piece – the better it is, the more debunking it gets – then you don’t have an informed opinion. It is well written. And definitely interesting.
It is also not at all ‘nonsensical’ as historical accounts in various ports in Croatia and the genetic record on several island along the way – where fleet ships would have stopped for provisioning or repairs – demonstrates. And certainly not nearly as ‘nonsensical’ as much of your own atrocity-denying marxist revisionist history!
As you know, much of our history is BS. Consider that Menzies, before becoming an Admiral, was a long-serving submarine skipper who went all over the world for decades, a master navigator. He then spent years travelling around the world interviewing scholars and museum curators. Even if he was wrong as you project, his level of experience, intelligence and industry deserves far more respect.
As to your scorn for the ‘Amglo-Canadian-American-German Scorpion in Mexico’: none of the points I raised were especially contentious or mean-spirited. However, that they invoke ad hominem in response is nearly always a sign of their having touched a nerve – such as a widespread view of history or a belief – and rather than consider and/or challenge it, one stoops to insult.
It’s not a good look, especially for the poster known as bevin.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 21 2023 15:56 utc | 84

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 21 2023 15:56 utc | 85
Posted by: bevin | Aug 21 2023 12:57 utc | 83
waynorinorway@80
You are right, the idea that Zheng He sneaked into Venice is nonsensical. But that just increases its attraction to our Amglo-Canadian-American-German Scorpion is Mexico.
==============================================
The sneaking-in idea (of a large fleet on a diplomatic mission) is indeed ridiculous. But neither I nor Menzies suggested such a ridiculous notion. That is your fanciful fabulation! (But then materialists believe in abstractions so to be expected…)
What I did say is that both the Vatican and the Mandarin-dominant China at that time scrubbed the records. To this day, the latter deny there was ever a fleet that circumnavigated the world in 1420-22 and also deny that a formal diplomatic mission went to Venice in 1434. (They also now deny election fraud in 2020 and that anyone other than Sirhan Sirhan shot RFK. Some people are persuaded by such denials and reflexively genuflect to authority; some are more open-minded – and perceptive!)
Due to other reading commitments, haven’t yet got to Venice; am still on the approach in the Adriatic sea where Menzies documents linguistic, anecdotal and genetic traces of this passage, plus also stumbled upon a detailed account of a sponsored passage to the Americas around 1440 using He’s maps; so am looking forward to finding out what records remain, if any, of the Mission’s visit in Venice itself.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 21 2023 16:17 utc | 86

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 21 2023 16:27
it’s possible the Chinese know their own history better than you do.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Aug 21 2023 16:56 utc | 88

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 21 2023 16:17 utc | 87
The chronicle of Venice “Vitae dei Dogi”, a diary written at Venice by Marino Sanudo the Younger from 1423 to 1474, does not mention any event of the kind taking place during the year 1434.

Posted by: Alberto | Aug 21 2023 17:17 utc | 90

DunGroanin | Aug 21 2023 12:21 utc | 81
Thanks for all that, and confirming that you are, imho, one jaded fuckwit.
For your edification…
Get Whitey

Posted by: john | Aug 21 2023 18:18 utc | 92

BD | Aug 20 2023 14:53 utc | 10
“There should always be a balance…”
“If people have too many young kids and can not afford to truly educate them, the country will go down the drain for sure.”
It seems to me that the more important issue than that of affordability of education will be, rather, the willingness to differentiate between educating someone and indoctrinating them and properly focusing limited resources accordingly.
Being taught and absorbing the tools of learning is a key to educability; a lifetime skill. ‘Education’ based on repetition of the precepts of programing minds and populations (propaganda) is not about education but control through manipulation of perceptions.
Things change… inevitably… adaptability is critical… Propaganda is a lock not a key…
For the most part, I believe, ‘education’ today, in the West particularly, has little if anything to do with assuring adaptability; A guaranteed road to stagnation at the very least…

Posted by: DoesItReallyMatter | Aug 21 2023 18:21 utc | 94

@ bevin | Aug 21 2023 12:57 utc | 83 & others who question Menzies’ veracity
Forget Venice.
Menzies also claims Zheng He went up the Thames.
This from a 2006 interview with the Not-an-Admiral Menzies his own self:
Junk History

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: There is one final, bizarre twist to this story. One abiding mystery is why, if Zheng He’s mariners encircled the globe, they never popped up in Europe? But now Gavin Menzies has provided us with the answer. He says they did visit Europe and brought with them a set of underclothes for Henry V. Imagine the scene. A massive 400ft junk navigating its way up the Thames behind me, watched, opened-mouthed from the banks by hundreds of the king’s subjects. You would have thought, wouldn’t you, that someone, somewhere, would have recorded this astonishing event?
There aren’t any records of the fleet coming and meeting Henry V.
GAVIN MENZIES, AUTHOR: No, not yet, no, I accept that…yeah.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: You said this – “If I said, ‘Well, the Chinese sailed up the English Channel, went in the Thames,'” which I think they did, “‘and gave Henry V a set of underclothes,'” which I think they did… ”
GAVIN MENZIES, AUTHOR: Yeah.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: “…people would have said, ‘This chap’s completely mad.'”
GAVIN MENZIES, AUTHOR: That is correct.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: So that’s what you think they did?
GAVIN MENZIES, AUTHOR: Yes.
…
FELIPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY: The men in white coats always
seem to be hovering in the margins of Mr Menzies’ book.

You’re looking good, bevin.
What’s not a good look is Henry V in his underwear or any support for the nutty hustler Menzies.

Posted by: waynorinorway | Aug 21 2023 19:41 utc | 96

@bevin | Aug 20 2023 22:49 utc | 63

The sterling retained its position as a reserve currency largely because the Empire was turned into a Sterling Area with Imperial preference.

That is the point of having an empire, you know.

Britain did not recover it declined, steadily.

So did the USA, after the crisis of ’29. In the years 1932-1936 the Dollar was actually the third traded currency behind both the Pound and the Franc. Ah, and the Soviet Union was one of the biggest trader of dollars in the inter-war period.

Posted by: SG | Aug 21 2023 20:15 utc | 98

I discovered today that The Archive has copies of the two Full Spectrum Dominance docs in the public domain and has made them available to download. “Joint Vision 2010” and “Joint Vision 2020”. Despite the current reality, the Full Spectrum Dominance policy continues to be followed without even invoking its name–current reality says it’s failing and will continue to fail.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 21 2023 21:04 utc | 100