Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2023-289
News & views (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) ...
Posted by b on November 30, 2023 at 15:48 UTC | Permalink
next page »External war, whether against China, Russia, Iran, or all three, would be horrendous. But winnable. And at the moment, despite all the woke histrionics from the US Defense Department, there is not a nation in the world that wants to test the resolve of the United States Marine Corps.
(From Sovereign Man)
Posted by: Passerby | Nov 30 2023 15:56 utc | 2
Gratitude for b and this space. In Canada Pierre Poutine has a new viral video of him touring a Kelowna orchard and interviewing while munching an apple. Would like to remind all especial Canadian barflies that Pierre is/was part of Canadas bail in regime and not to be trusted w the interest of the commons. Secondly his parties foreign policy is grossly outdated and zenophobic, not unlike all NATO countries. I would also take this space to remind everyone that blue house as well as orange red green and PC houses, without exception support palestinian genocide and gave standing ovations clapping like carnival seals for actual Natzi and neo Natzi. On the same day. All that being said good video w a few out of the box solutions that hopefuly w be implemented or stolen by another party.
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Nov 30 2023 16:06 utc | 3
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Nov 30 2023 16:06 utc | 3
Not difficult to trace back how it all went wrong
https://moneyontheleft.org/2023/04/05/bank-of-the-people-history-for-moneys-future/
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 30 2023 16:13 utc | 4
"External war, whether against China, Russia, Iran, or all three, would be horrendous. But winnable. And at the moment, despite all the woke histrionics from the US Defense Department, there is not a nation in the world that wants to test the resolve of the United States Marine Corps.
(From Sovereign Man)"
Posted by: Passerby | Nov 30 2023 15:56 utc | 2
China et al. need only wait for the US to decline and fall from internal causes.
Posted by: lester | Nov 30 2023 16:14 utc | 5
Ask yourself
If you were a East Asian, African, Arab, or South American Investment Manager how fast would you be pulling assets out of jurisdictions that followed Washington’s sanctions regime against Russian assets ?
Posted by: Exile | Nov 30 2023 16:21 utc | 6
https://pitchfork.com/news/shane-macgowan-pogues-frontman-dies-at-65/
RIP Shane, you brilliant fucker! The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn changed my life.
Posted by: KMRIA | Nov 30 2023 16:26 utc | 7
Posted by: Passerby | Nov 30 2023 15:56 utc | 2
the Marines like every branch of the US military are overrated. The US couldn't beat the Taliban, or the Viet Cong. it isn't a paper tiger, but it is an old slow tiger with tooth decay. it shouldn't want to take on other tigers.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Nov 30 2023 16:27 utc | 8
East Asian, African, Arab, or South American Investment Manager
Posted by: Exile | Nov 30 2023 16:21 utc | 6
---
Do these countries have 401K plans or do their investment managers serve a different class?
Posted by: too scents | Nov 30 2023 16:29 utc | 9
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Nov 30 2023 16:06 utc | 3
Pierre Poilievre is not a Saint but I will take him over WEF's Trudeau and Freeland any day of the month.
What the Argentina CIA mole is going to come up against very quickly and he won't even see it coming.
https://neweconomicperspectives.org/2011/06/what-happens-when-government-tightens.html
As the lunatic new leader tries to peruse a budget surplus. Thinking that he is running a household and it will give him more money to spend. The real world will hit him in the face like Mike Tyson.
Exporters to Argentina want to run a surplus ( save their income ) and Argentina Businesses want to run a surplus ( save their income ) and Argentina households want to run a surplus ( save their income )
Why governments mostly run deficits most of the time. They have to, as everybody around them are looking to net save the currency that is issued by the state.
This ideological madman is about to get a cold hard dose of reality.
https://neweconomicperspectives.org/2011/06/mmp-blog-2-basics-of-macro-accounting.html
Here is my prediction for Argentina. Argentina Households Debt To GDP currently sits at 4% of GDP. By the time this guy finishes it will be in double figures.
If you include businesses it is around 20% of GDP. That will explode upwards.
And they are going to have to run absolutely gigantic trade surpluses to even stand a chance of running budget surpluses.
Then Argentina will be run for a small number of exporters instead of everybody in the country. Neoliberalism 101.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 30 2023 16:50 utc | 11
The Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Exported from the United States
While some proponents of LNG have
argued it has a climate benefit by replacing coal, the analysis presented here disproves this. Across all
scenarios considered, total greenhouse gas emissions from LNG are larger than those from coal, ranging
from 24% to 274% greater.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-smoking-gun-for-bidens-big-climate-decision
Posted by: Winston, journalist | Nov 30 2023 17:02 utc | 12
The Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Exported from the United States
While some proponents of LNG have
argued it has a climate benefit by replacing coal, the analysis presented here disproves this. Across all
scenarios considered, total greenhouse gas emissions from LNG are larger than those from coal, ranging
from 24% to 274% greater.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-smoking-gun-for-bidens-big-climate-decision
Posted by: Winston, journalist | Nov 30 2023 17:04 utc | 13
I've been waiting for an opportunity to post this.
The leader of El Salvador is someone special.
Nayib Bukele - El legado corrector (The right legacy)
The way he puts everyone in the government on notice and does it publicly. ❤️
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Nov 30 2023 17:09 utc | 14
Just a bit of McCarthyism to lighten the mood
The Shift: Actors face consequences for Palestine support
who'da'thunk Tom Cruise would be the guy to stand up against the man?
"Maha Dakhil, 48, who is a popular agent at Creative Artists Agency (CAA). She faced intense criticism over a social media post last month.“What’s more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide?,” she had written. “Witnessing the denial that genocide is happening.”
The backlash to this commonsense observation forced Dakhil to delete the post, make her account private, apologize, and resign from her leadership position with the organization. Now a new report reveals that Tom Cruise (who is one of her clients) stepped into to help protect her job and assist her in navigating the criticism. This from a Variety article by Tatiana Siegel on the situation:
“It didn’t hurt that her most important client, Tom Cruise, made it known to CAA that he was backing her. Cruise met with Dakhil at her CAA office on Nov. 15. A knowledgeable source says he took the rare step of going in person to show support for his embattled agent.”
“But the Dakhil issue didn’t end there. A group of CAA assistants threatened to walk out over the agency’s treatment of her, sources say. They believed she was being railroaded by management but ultimately abandoned their threat. At the same time, some of the agents who complained internally about Dakhil’s posts felt disillusioned, believing she should have been fired. Separately, CAA cut ties with a staffer and two clients over incendiary anti-Israeli social media posts.”
There’s some amazing information in this story beyond the Cruise intervention, as details emerge regarding how the issue is being tackled within Hollywood:
“Insiders say ‘La La Land’ producer Marc Platt texted WME leadership about why Boots Riley was still a client after the ‘Sorry to Bother You’ writer-director urged his followers on X to boycott an industry screening of footage of Hamas atrocities at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. He dubbed the footage “murderous propaganda” and warning that “when IDF and Israeli officials are at The Hague for war crimes, massacres and genocidal actions- you wont want your name or image to have been anywhere near it.”However, Riley remains an agency client. A Platt rep says he merely flagged the posts.”
https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/the-shift-actors-face-consequences-for-palestine-support/
Posted by: ld | Nov 30 2023 17:15 utc | 15
Just a general but interesting observation about the west.
They spent the last 15 years (more or less) hyping and propping up political islam. And anyone who criticized it (even some Muslim immigrants themselves who warned about it) were cancelled etc. Yet now, suddenly with the Palestine conflict (now doubt media under zio influence) are pushing anti-muslim hatred. In Sweden they are even floating dismantling mosques in the media. Something that would have caused a nation wide media/political/justice circus 3 years ago.
Let's think about that for a second. So they allowed political islam to build up all the structures unhindered for a very long time, and now the west is suddenly trying to reverse it. That makes for an interesting situation, which may facilitate societal collapse within the west. Especially in context where Nato weapons from Ukraine have been leaking out of Ukraine for probably 1.5 years now and the buyers are often immigrant gangs.
Posted by: unimperator | Nov 30 2023 17:18 utc | 16
[email protected] are a prime example of the Canadian electorate.....lead around by the nose.....if you had any brains you'd vote for the panty waist that keeps the chief pedominister in power. Try fucking with their brains, otherwise your vote is well coddled.
Cheers M
You have to admit, a native born son running the reservation.....even if he's not ethnicity First Nations....
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Nov 30 2023 17:20 utc | 17
Ask yourself
"If you were a East Asian, African, Arab, or South American Investment Manager how fast would you be pulling assets out of jurisdictions that followed Washington’s sanctions regime against Russian assets ?"
Ask yourself what is the point of investment managers full stop ? Betting on food prices and all the rest of it. Causing mayhem in markets. Pushing asset prices up.
The Ways and Means Account is just an infinite overdraft with the Central Bank, and it grows over time to balance the net-savings of the private sector just as the Treasury stock does now.
That's how it used to work before Thatcher and Reagan and the Mastricht treaty. People saved using National savings certificates.
https://new-wayland.com/blog/the-only-bonds-we-need-are-granny-bonds/
So let's get rid of investment managers. HM Treasury simply doesn't issue any Gilts ( debt) any more. Any funding of private pensions in payment should be done by offering annuities at National Savings, which would also have the neat side effect of 'confiscating' net savings and making the deficit go down.
It's irrelevant what interest BoE charges on the 'Ways and Means' account since any profit the BoE makes from it goes back to HM treasury anyway. So it can 50% if that gives the necessary level of satisfaction to mainstream economists, ideologues and idiots.
What you have is a standard intra-group loan account between a principal entity (HM Treasury) and its wholly-owned subsidiary. Normally those sort of loans are interest free for the fairly obvious reason that interest charging is utterly pointless, and they are perpetual for the same reason. Rolling over is totally pointless.
Any term money can then be issued to the commercial banks directly by the Bank of England - up to three month Sterling bills.
There job done.
If you are a member of a pension scheme then the savings of the current generation, plus the interest on Gilts and any income from the other assets owed pay the pensions of the current generation of pensioners. They are all, in effect, private taxation schemes that circulate money around the system.
You'll note that when there was a threat of people failing to save in pensions, the government introduced compulsory retirement saving - which is of course a privatised hypothecated tax.
So in essence rather than the assets of a pension scheme being used to purchase Gilts, the assets would be used to purchase an annuity from the government dedicated to an individual. The result is that rather than the private pension receiving Gilt income from the state, to then pass onto the pensioner, the state would cut out the middleman (and their cut) and pay the pensioner directly as an addition to the state pension.
There's a whole private pension industry out there literally doing absolutely nothing of any real value. They can't provide a guaranteed income in retirement without state backing in the form of Gilts. So what is exactly the point of having them? They are parasites.
Just in compliance costs alone it would free up so many skills and real resources that could be used doing actual useful things for society.
They complain about the national debt, even when running budget surpluses they scream for more of it and for more debt to be issued. So they can gamble with other people's savings just so they can take their cut. Simply can't manage risk in their portfolios without it.
Get rid, sack the lot of them and go back to the good old days of the ways and means account. Offering annuities at National Savings to individuals. All we ever need are granny bonds.
The solution is the same as within the country. You euthanise the rentier by removing their passive income.
Consider what the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth fund owns - just as an example. Shares, property, bonds. When it receives the coupons, dividends and rent it then buys more assets with them. What does that do? It just forces up asset prices world wide focussing the economy on producing assets, rather than actual stuff.
So the profit outputs go to those who trade assets to those who hoard assets. Investment managers Also known as 'rich people'.
Get rid and stop issuing debt. It is not a funding operation anyway. It is an archaic left over from the gold standard that no longer applies.
Make those who trade assets to those who hoard assets unemployed. Ask them to provide a more useful service to society and humanity in general. Compliance costs alone it is a complete no brainer.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 30 2023 17:28 utc | 18
Russia, Iran, or all three, would be horrendous. But winnable.
The Maericans havent fought against a peer adversary, ever. The people making such judegments also thought Ukraine was winnable. They have no expertise whatsoever, just theory apon fucking theory. They just biovoating blowhards strutting like peacocks. So many useless generals and officers.
Meanwhile Russia has shown us a full innovation loop in Ukraine. I don't believe Maerican could win a conventional war against Russia, let alone Russia+China+Iran. It's delusion.
Posted by: Doctor Eleven | Nov 30 2023 17:44 utc | 19
LoveDonbass@14
If you like Bukele you are going to love the new President of Argentina. As will the US government which put them in power.
Posted by: bevin | Nov 30 2023 17:49 utc | 20
"Would like to remind all especial Canadian barflies that Pierre is/was part of Canadas bail in regime and not to be trusted w the interest of the commons. Secondly his parties foreign policy is grossly outdated and zenophobic, not unlike all NATO countries. I would also take this space to remind everyone that blue house as well as orange red green and PC houses, without exception support palestinian genocide and gave standing ovations clapping like carnival seals for actual Natzi and neo Natzi."
Tannenhouser | Nov 30 2023 16:06 utc | 3
well said
I laughed at the apple munching
nice touch
also your comment underscores the fact that there is no vote out of this.
Every single offering belongs to the WEF.
At this point all voting does is legitimize the coming New Order.
Clearly Canadians are still under the spell of the ingrained divide and conquer tactics used by our zionist press.
As a Canadian and former employee of our illustrious propaganda machine at Newsworld CBC for many years; I am unshocked at my fellow citizens failure to recognize the farce.
What have we become
said the father to his son
we have failed to respond to
the battles they have won
We have turned our heads.
in hopes they do not tread
on what little we have left
as we eat our daily bread
It is hard to comprehend
our willingness to bend
as we shamble toward the end
of all that was
Posted by: ld | Nov 30 2023 17:50 utc | 21
"Lavrov in the Lion's Den--OSCE Skopje" gives testimony most of those present would rather not have heard. Lavrov outclasses the dead one even when he was in his prime.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/11/29/the-15-years-that-destroyed-america/
One of PCR's best. And, like always, mercifully short.
Lavrov’s OSCE spoech at Karofs substack is worth reading - the strong language parallels what the Peking MFA has been saying for the last 20 months.
Moscow anc likely Peking have given up entirely on Washington and its vassals.
Wonder if anyone in Washington fathoms this change.
Posted by: Exile | Nov 30 2023 19:36 utc | 24
(From Sovereign Man)
Posted by: Passerby | Nov 30 2023 15:56 utc | 2
What horse manure. The analysis of the French revolution at the link is superficial and absurd. "Tire of the elite telling them what to do." Yeesh. What about the emergence of the capitalist class amidst the decline of the feudal empire?
The guy is an 'ex intelligence officer.' I doubt there's much 'ex' involved. Maybe after the feds get him cancelled, prosecuted and thrown in jail I'll consider the possibility that he's just a sincere idiot.
Posted by: Honzo | Nov 30 2023 19:46 utc | 25
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Nov 30 2023 16:06 utc | 3
Agree with Tannenhouser and to some degree with Canuck. Anything is better than Trudeau/Freeland/Singh, but Pierre Polievre and the Progressive Conservatives are, and will always be totally onside with adventures like Israel and Ukraine, and would probably double down on support for them. What would Canada be like with Mad-Max Bernier of the Peoples Party of Canada as prime minister and Danielle Smith, the premier or Alberta, as vice-premier ?
Posted by: FLENQ | Nov 30 2023 20:00 utc | 26
What would Canada be like with Mad-Max Bernier of the Peoples Party of Canada as prime minister and Danielle Smith, the premier or Alberta, as vice-premier ?
Posted by: FLENQ | Nov 30 2023 20:00 utc | 26
As the man says, under a proportional representation voting system, the his party PCC would have sent about 17 MPs to Ottawa after the last election. Still, he does not want to change the voting system. Is that not the rarest of commodities called integrity? Too bad he is doing himself no favours by sticking to it.
Posted by: Jonathan W | Nov 30 2023 20:22 utc | 27
This is partly a forum of what the Ukranian current reports may have to go on:
So may listen also here on Dima:
https://rumble.com/v3yqzrp-they-only-need-100-soldiers-to-win-the-war.-military-summary-and-analysis-f.html
But after even after having listened/heared to this above reported linked - or of those reports being actual nowadays available, we have to be aware of a little bit more new "issues", what MSM either in USA or China or Russia or DE/Europe have planned today.
That's my advice how to "listen" anymore ..
Best greetings to Nethan-The-Yahoo, the ever Blinking Ms. Nuland and at least the ever being stupid Ms. Green-BBock (Germany) ..
So , think what you may "think tomorrow", UKR-RF fightings current "results" ome sqm on grounds.
Kiew is still being awaiting - a BIG new strikes against so-called Power stations .. Wait ..
Russia is still being awaiting a new attack on its Krim stations (by NATO operatives) ..
Posted by: spare_truth2 | Nov 30 2023 20:44 utc | 28
So definetly, - why not? - RF would have a "good" actual reasons to send a small far-ranged TEST-missile towards USA/SanFrancisco bridge ..?
That could be a "signal" once to be aproved to the Pentagon/Biden/Nuland/Blinken/Hillary clubs to react accordingly !
Why this did not occur anyway - still up to day?
Posted by: spare_truth2 | Nov 30 2023 20:56 utc | 29
@ Posted by: Passerby | Nov 30 2023 15:56 utc | 2
"Woke histrionics"? Can't wait until 2025 and this class of MAGA ghouls get put in charge of American decision-making. It's just gonna be the hastening of American decline. I guess now it's "woke" to be aware of the fact that we ran out of tinpot dictators to throw through walls. What the Ukraine war should have shown is that American weapons systems are not invincible, that we are now competing with technical peers and not middle eastern dirt farmer militias, and that barnstorming special forces operations are not effective against technical peers (see what happened to the Spetsnaz in Kiev in 2022). It's not about "resolve" anymore (and that's such a dumb word they use when they talk about the muhreens).
Posted by: fnord | Nov 30 2023 21:08 utc | 30
[email protected] are a prime example of the Canadian electorate.....lead around by the nose.....if you had any brains you'd vote for the panty waist that keeps the chief pedominister in power. Try fucking with their brains, otherwise your vote is well coddled.
Cheers M
You have to admit, a native born son running the reservation.....even if he's not ethnicity First Nations....
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Nov 30 2023 17:20 utc | 17
I am a bit mystified whoever's classification of myself (M/) ; however, I am envious of the drugs used to create such a confused exposition.
"Would like to remind all especial Canadian barflies that Pierre is/was part of Canadas bail in regime and not to be trusted w the interest of the commons. Secondly his parties foreign policy is grossly outdated and zenophobic, not unlike all NATO countries. I would also take this space to remind everyone that blue house as well as orange red green and PC houses, without exception support palestinian genocide and gave standing ovations clapping like carnival seals for actual Natzi and neo Natzi."
Tannenhouser | Nov 30 2023 16:06 utc | 3
Chrystia Freeland is a Nazi (he grandfather of Chrystia Freeland, Canada's deputy prime minister, worked for a Nazi newspaper that recruited for the Galicia Division of the Waffen-SS — the same division as Yaroslav Hunka, the Nazi who was recently honored by Canada's Parliament.Sep 30, 2023, her maternal grandfather was Michael Chomniak.
Freeland and Trudeau are disciple of Klaus Schwab of the WEF-Klaus Schwab looks like a bond villian and guess what, his father was a Nazi.
I can go on- your weak defamation of Poilievre -using the word Nazi when you have Trudeau and Freeland and Schwab on your team-clearly illustrates the paucity of your intellect.
@28 - myself.
So it's a very likely truzth that all "counter-female" women will be killed by UAF ground operating commanders, asap.
Any "Counter-female" woman will be killed immediately after having exposed some true suggestions acc.to the the further on-ground chances of UAF-'Infantry - her spech is canncelled in MSM everywhere - and she has died by Head-Shot by the UAF commander of this Brigade.
That's it - Cheers - all women in Ukrania ..!
Posted by: spare_truth2 | Nov 30 2023 21:42 utc | 33
Finland has closed all its border points with Russia on the grounds of random muslim refugees arriving through those points. Even though 1. it's Finland's fault for ceasing their border agreements with Russia that previously had Russian border officials screening those refugees, 2. Finland can turn those refugees back at will but doesn't, and 3. the same refugees are welcomed with open arms (and money, and apartments, and debauched, ugly, fat social workers ready to help them spend their first night in Finland) when they come over the western border with Sweden.
A finnish pensioner living in Russia was denied return to Finland today when he tried to drive there to get his heart medication, and the Finnish border guards threatened him with a prison sentence. Apparently finns can't return home and neither can the russians currently visiting or living in Finland. Finland has also asked for "reinforcements" from the EU to handle the (imagined) border "crisis". Sounds like problem-reaction-solution? Someone astutely commented that the same nazis that occupied Finland, caused the Lapland war and scorched and mined Lapland are now back, and this time without firing a bullet (yet).
Russian border officials let the finnish old man back and told him not to worry, and that he's safe in Russia. I agree. Russians are suggesting that if he doesn't have residency, to give him one.
If Finland against its laws doesn't let Finnish citizens return, will it let them leave when covid 2.0, the wef reset lockdown, the WHO genocide or the nato war begins?
To top it off, while all of this is going on, Finland still takes in all those refugees that it whipped up all this hysteria over from the Russian border. Just not finns and russians.
Posted by: Michael A | Nov 30 2023 22:00 utc | 34
"The very existence of the Irish was felt as an affront by many Elizabethans....
In his famous tract... written in Ireland... but not printed till 1633, [the poet Edmund] Spencer hinted at the elimination of the Irish altogether.... The famous antiquarian William Leland was impatient with the Irish for not allowing themselves to die out." ( "Giovanni Costigan: Ireland in the Sixteenth Century" )
Posted by: Ben Trovata | Nov 30 2023 22:04 utc | 35
Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 30 2023 19:22 utc | 23
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/11/29/the-15-years-that-destroyed-america/
One of PCR's best. And, like always, mercifully short.
------
Thanks for reminding me what a paleocon jackass PCR is when speaking about domestic policy, as opposed to foreign policy.
the direct election of US senators and the expansion of the franchise from male property owners adversely affected the security of private property.
He does not explain the logic behind his conclusion. We directly elect everyone else, what is so special about Senators. Besides, even the oligarchy was for this reform. Why? Because the lobbying and bribing of state legislatures to be nominated Senator was grinding governments to a halt.
President Lincoln’s war for the tariff destroyed states’ rights and led to the supremacy of centralized federal power over the states.
State's rights? That turned out to be sedition and treason as the South fought Lincoln. Central power was needed to prevent the country from being splintered, to the benefit of Great Britain who played footsie with the Confederacy throughout the war. The south wanted to be a resource colony of GB. They were the wannabe neoliberal commpradors of their day.
the creation of the Federal Reserve
That one he got right - not for centralization, but for privatization.
the establishment of an income tax...The income tax resurrected slavery.
Oh, f-ing please. Every government that ever existed has had taxes. At the time of its creation, the tax brackets only hit the very well to do.
The New Deal transferred Congress’ lawmaking power to the new progressive regulatory agencies.
Total mischaracterization. Anachronistically backprojecting today's imperial presidency and bureaucracy to the 1930s when the country was on the verge of falling apart for lack of government action. As for the powerlessness of the legislature, remind me how Taft-Hartley union busting was blocked by the bureaucracy.
---
Let's total up PCRs score:
1. Private property more improtant than democratically electing senators.
2. For states rights and against the tariff walls that allowed American industry to develop without being strangled in the crib by Great Britain.
3. Income tax is slavery, even if only affects the super rich.
4. The New Deal made the legislative branch irrelevant.
What a load of crap this guy barfs up. Paleocon to the max. Linccoln is a bad guy. FDR is a bad guy. The country would have fallen apart several times by following PCR's prescriptions.
Posted by: john brewster | Nov 30 2023 22:05 utc | 36
Posted by: fnord | Nov 30 2023 21:08 utc | 30
Woke and WEF.
2 buzzwords people learned in some blogs or social media channels that "captured" them while massaging their own confirmation biases.
Give it a couple of hours and we might even get the full house and we can play buzzword bingo. "Net zero" will be along shortly.
Repeating buzzwords ad nauseam just shows they can't think for themselves. Their minds have been captured without any critical thought. The easiest people to capture without very little effort are ideologues followed by an idiot. An idiot after all, just follows the crowd.
Buzzword bingo - vote for us.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 30 2023 22:05 utc | 37
Posted by: Michael A | Nov 30 2023 22:00 utc | 34
..To top it off, while all of this is going on, Finland still takes in all those refugees that it whipped up all this hysteria over from the Russian border. Just not finns and russians. ..
That's all of an orders newly declared after joining NATO. All borders closed means:
There won'nt be any further commercial contracts betweeen Finland and Russia, neither any of demestic nor internatinal contracts like.
Finland: You are very very crazy - having cut your left leg already - now have cut Your Right-one also.
I do not come back to Finland - let the Ukranian better life-style people come back to Finland !
Posted by: spare_truth2 | Nov 30 2023 22:12 utc | 38
“Hollywoodism: How the Jews invented Hollywood” — 1998 documentary posted at YouTube. Not only Hollywood — the American mythology. Shattering, ironic history, must-see from start to end.
Posted by: Pundita | Nov 30 2023 22:19 utc | 39
" China et al. need only wait for the US to decline and fall from internal causes.
Posted by: lester | Nov 30 2023 16:14 utc | 5 "
That is the talk of cowards, forever hiding in the corner hoping the bully leaves them alone long enough for them to eventually graduate. Little do the cowards realize that, most times, all it takes is just to punch the bully in the nose one time for them to forever back down.
Posted by: Moonie | Nov 30 2023 23:04 utc | 40
" Here is my prediction for Argentina. Argentina Households Debt To GDP currently sits at 4% of GDP. By the time this guy finishes it will be in double figures.
If you include businesses it is around 20% of GDP. That will explode upwards.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 30 2023 16:50 utc | 11 "
You make it sound like that's an unintended consequences, when in fact, its a built in feature.
Posted by: Moonie | Nov 30 2023 23:10 utc | 41
by Doctor Eleven | Nov 30 2023 17:44 utc | 19
I agree, it is an illusion. Mostly because, the complete US administration is just so bad, evil and unsympathetic and are losing overall control quickly. I understand that one also has many choices to protect its own interest, but the West, altogether, is running out of reasonable options that are currently offered by the RoW.
Some EU weasels are now emerging with some ideas of self-governance, but we will see how long they live, one way or another.
Churchill said one time that Americans will do the right thing, after they tried everything else.
But, those great statesman that tried to do things better are long time gone, with them some visdom too.
The current servants to a MIC are far, far worse and a clean Nazi 2.0, even when compared to some Trumpy thingy.
That is all together is just a snippet of a really bad situation to be in, and warmonger around meanwhile.
Not my words, but those do fulfill the suspicions, that in America, the elections are biggest danger to their democracy. America probably ends like Nazi Germany did, maybe 50:50, militarily vs politically and economically, while being outgunned.
The Wars are not won with tech miracles, but with heavy robust weaponry, motivated military, production power and a general public support. So, nothing of that is nowhere to be seen in the USA.
They should just go home, from wherever they are deployed in the World. That would probably be the right thing to do.
Posted by: whirlX | Nov 30 2023 23:15 utc | 42
@ Moonie | Nov 30 2023 23:04 utc | 40
reChina et al. need only wait . . is the talk of cowards
It's a common fallacy that Chinese are not different from Westerners, who tend to act precipitously. But they are.
Sun Tzu -- “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 30 2023 23:35 utc | 43
China has 700 road traffic deaths per day, 250,000 per year. This means the number of Ukrainian military deaths is similar to the number of Chinese road traffic deaths over the same period.
Posted by: Passerby | Nov 30 2023 23:45 utc | 44
Posted by: canuck | Nov 30 2023 16:43 utc | 10
Canuck you are spot on brother.
Posted by: Madmarc | Nov 30 2023 23:48 utc | 45
" Sun Tzu -- “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 30 2023 23:35 utc | 43 "
We love clichés on this site, dont we ? How's that worked out for the Palestinians ?
Posted by: Moonie | Nov 30 2023 23:53 utc | 46
Mecouris would NEVER had said this in front of Michael Hudson when he was on the show.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LhTGics-lNU
Yet, again shows 100% he thinks taxes fund government spending in the UK. Like they do in the Netherlands.
Hudson would have told him to his face, once and for all taxes do not fund the British government who issue their own currency.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0zEbo8PIPSc
But Mecouris would still spread the myth regardless. He just can't help himself.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 1 2023 0:16 utc | 47
@Passerby - 2
your link send to a commercial site
are you a bot or an AI ?
Posted by: antiadz | Dec 1 2023 0:46 utc | 48
"The very existence of the Irish was felt as an affront by many Elizabethans....
In his famous tract... written in Ireland... but not printed till 1633, [the poet Edmund] Spencer hinted at the elimination of the Irish altogether.... The famous antiquarian William Leland was impatient with the Irish for not allowing themselves to die out." ( "Giovanni Costigan: Ireland in the Sixteenth Century" )
Posted by: Ben Trovata | Nov 30 2023 22:04 utc | 35
Didn’t work out the way the English aristocracy wanted, did it? Fuck them and fuck the Israeli government and its supporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Fh0F41AvO_Q
Posted by: KMRIA | Dec 1 2023 0:56 utc | 49
What about the emergence of the capitalist class amidst the decline of the feudal empire?
Posted by: Honzo | Nov 30 2023 19:46 utc | 25
I had the impression that the emergence of the "capitalist class" in feudal France more or less was shaped by colonial assets and "charter company" licenses awarded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert. True or false?
Posted by: sln2002 | Dec 1 2023 1:19 utc | 50
[email protected] the same way every election and expecting change, well we know what that is a sign of. Madness to expect a change between a liberal and a conservative.....funniest part, you guys live in a fantasy world thinking, in Canada, your vote makes a difference. And Pollypants was WEF long before he pulled it off his web page.
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Dec 1 2023 2:27 utc | 51
Posted by: sln2002 | Dec 1 2023 1:19 utc | 50
Not sure what your point is. Colbert came from a family of merchants, and like other bourgeoises who entered the service of monarchs, he empowered the rise of his class. It was rising anyway due to technological advances that empowered the owners of capital. So, yes, Colbert influenced the particular 'shape' it took, but the same process was going on all over Europe with similar results.
Posted by: Honzo | Dec 1 2023 2:45 utc | 52
Posted by: john brewster | Nov 30 2023 22:05 utc | 36Let's total up PCRs score:
1. Private property more improtant than democratically electing senators.
2. For states rights and against the tariff walls that allowed American industry to develop without being strangled in the crib by Great Britain.
3. Income tax is slavery, even if only affects the super rich.
4. The New Deal made the legislative branch irrelevant.What a load of crap this guy barfs up. Paleocon to the max. Linccoln is a bad guy. FDR is a bad guy. The country would have fallen apart several times by following PCR's prescriptions.
Well, that was a robust response! Thank you.
In his defense I would say that most of what you say is right because most of what he says is right. By that I mean that the original republic of sovereign individuals and States envisaged by most of the founders has been replaced by something far different which you find desirable.
Private property: by ceding power to government a nation of free, independent landowners was increasingly in the rear view mirror - which you regard as a normal thing (as PCR is saying).
Yes, income tax was small but was guaran-dam-teed to become great once you put a private credit cartel in charge. So that objection is very weak.
I don't find your rebuttal of the FDR criticism convincing: did you not witness what happened to Trump who to this day is being continually railroaded by 'the Administrative State' which FDR kick-started?
Maybe the transition into a Big Government quasi socialist polity is an inevitable result of urbanization and population growth. But I for one would prefer stronger, more independent States and much smaller, less dominant Federal government. DC should be shut down and moved to Kansas at one tenth the current size.
One thing for sure: the United States is a dysfunctional shit show. Maybe PCR's paleolithic views are wrong, but they do partly explain why. I wonder how you would explain it? Presumably you believe in big government and cohesive collectivism. So what went wrong since FDR?
AAAND A NEW HORROR SHOW IS REARING ITS UGLY HEAD
this from Simplicius
“Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's four days in exile, several staff researchers sent the board of directors a letter warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
If the leak above is true, it would represent an immediate total compromise of all global security systems, as there is nothing that would be safe from cracking. This includes all cryptocurrency. A system like the above could break the cryptography on the bitcoin network and take any and all amounts of bitcoins from anyone, resulting either in a total collapse of cryptocurrency worldwide—as all faith in it would be lost—or the ability for a bad actor to skim crypto off the top at whim from anyone.
But there is a chance that other ideologically divergent civilization-states like Russia or China could harness these nascent AI powers for a collective good, developing them fast enough to create the global-infrastructural counterweight which would preempt the Western ‘Old Nobility’ elites from seizing control with their systems first. The reason is that total control requires a mob mentality of other lesser countries blindly signing their citizens’ rights away. But if a direct competitor system was introduced first, or at least around the same time, that could give the middle-majority an actual choice, it could prevent the total monopolization by the Cartel.
Just last week, Putin announced a series of initiatives for the development of AI in Russia, after emphasizing how all-important AI development will be not only for the future in general, but for deciding who controls that future:
If Russia or China could offer the world a true alternative, one with the potential for real equitability, and non-extractive, exploitative, rent-seeking techno-corporate depredation by way of transhumanist enslavement built into its very heart and core, then the nefarious globalist powers will fail.
But the race is on, and for now the U.S. and its cutthroat class of transhumanist elite appear in the lead.
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/openai-q-saga-implications?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Posted by: ld | Dec 1 2023 4:03 utc | 54
"...President Lincoln’s war for the tariff destroyed states’ rights and led to the supremacy of centralized federal power over the states. Today what happens in specific states can be determined by votes in other states. Lincoln’s war lasted four years, and that was time enough for Lincoln to destroy the framework devised by the Founders..."
Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 30 2023 19:22 utc | 23
I am going to demonstrate my ignorance, Scorpion, but I have not ever before encountered the comparison of Lincoln to Roosevelt given by Paul Craig Roberts in the short piece you have linked here. It rather stuns me.
john brewster | Nov 30 2023 22:05 utc | 36 has given several arguments against those points he objects to, which you have responded to rather duplicitly it seems to me, in comparing the treatment Trump has received to that of either the Lincoln presidency or that of FDR. We now have a very different government than the one that either Lincoln or FDR were seeking to preserve, and I do mean preserve.
The founders were not seeking to provide a government for sovereign individuals. It was 'WE THE PEOPLE' who in the state being organized would have sovereignty. Not individuals; individuals have rights within the sovereign state, which is what Lincoln meant by 'the union'.
I agree with john brewster. And speaking personally, property rights means what? I don't have that, I live on native land - they own it. That doesn't trouble me one bit. And another thing, I read on another thread Echo Chamber's comment that taxes were one way the government could rein in the exhorbitantly wealthy; if we the people had power we could impose such and redress that imbalance. We would not be ruled by oligarchs! That is what is wrong today, not some tariff problem!!!
And finally, no, it wasn't Lincoln's war - any more than the SMO in Ukraine is Putin's war. These two are similar in that the 'we the people' in each case were having their individual constitutional rights attacked, weakening their united sovereign existence. That's what was going on then, and now. It had, and has, nothing to do with property or with tariffs, except maybe in the eyes of those who would make money off having caused the disruptions.
Sorry to be so outspoken. Put it down to the lateness of the hour- you've posted a good subject here. Others will address it I hope, and make better arguments than I have been able to do. Thanks for raising it.
Posted by: juliania | Dec 1 2023 4:25 utc | 55
Lincoln was very much a tyrant. That’s acindisputable.
It’s fascinating that Brazil and Russia both ended their systems of slavery/serfdom without mass killing. Only Lincoln did.
Posted by: Exile | Dec 1 2023 5:13 utc | 56
Posted by: Scorpion | Dec 1 2023 3:20 utc | 53
I intend to respond, but it is bedtime for me. I will come back in the morning.
Interesting discussion, and yes today's "government" (by plutocrats) is a shitshow. But its the fault of plutocracy, not government. If PCR had his way, we would simply have arrived at plutocracy sooner, since he sees no role for government regulation of banking and private wealth.
More tomorrow.
Posted by: john brewster | Dec 1 2023 5:54 utc | 57
Whitney Webb | AI-Powered Tyranny and all kinds of related things. A long but good discussion.
0:00 - Intro
1:26 - Clown world spirals closer to WWIII
12:13 - Divide and conquer through “pick a side”
19:25 - “Israel’s 9/11"
24:19 - Neocons trying to regain base
28:21 - Financial crisis
33:18 - CBDCs and financial cancelation
38:17 - Luongo’s theory
40:36 - Ending anonymity
43:18 - Big tech vs freedom tech
50:40 - AI
1:07:43 - Christian Zionism
1:21:36 - Keep your mind through the clown world
1:31:04 - AI religion
1:40:43 - Bitcoin is a revolution against the cyber/banking regime
1:46:47 - Wrapping
AI picks up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlfZ91Pot-w&t=3040s
Short extract fyi
@ 59 mins .................. I mean basically what you have
to keep in mind here and a lot of people forget this too Silicon Valley pretty
much all of those main companies uh were made by like intelligence services or
the military or with funding from one or two or if they weren't initially are now
contractors and all intertwined with the National Security State so okay um I mean
that's why we have these things like people now getting upset about Facebook
censoring stuff but Facebook you know was essentially tied up with DARPA and you
know the CIA through Peter Thiel uh from from the very beginning right so is it
really that surprising that they would censor on behalf of the state.No they're an independent private company - No that's like a total lie - like the
whole thing about Silicon Valley being all these like humble entrepreneurs tinkering
around in their garage and look at what we've made with the American entrepreneurial
spirit I mean that's such [ __ ] like if you look into any of these big companies
you always had you know these powerful entities of the state there and so they are
extensions of state power even if you want to think that they weren't necessarily
at the origins you can't deny that now I mean they fused essentially.That's why you have people like Google CEO Eric Schmidt which is why reading this
book (he wrote with Kissinger recently) is really important this is the most
influential guy on AI policy in the US right now he's funding salaries of like all
of the Biden administration's top AI people it's totally illegal for him to do that
but he's doing it and even like mainstream media like politico reporting on it and
nothing's happened - it's crazy.Schmidt is in charge and he ran the National Security Commission on AI uh which
basically laid out all of the policies and that commission was this the CIA uh and
people tied up with the CIA like former heads of (Infotel?) that are very close
friends of Schmidt uh military people that are also tied up with Schmidt because
he used to be involved with the Defense Innovation Board and then you know the big
Silicon Valley companies Amazon Microsoft all of those guys deciding what happens
I mean they're really the same entity at this point because they're all either
Military Intelligence Contractors and you can't really decide where one ends and
the other one ends and you have all of these Silicon Valley billionaires you know
they fund Congress essentially at this point or the DNC or the RNC so yeah um you
know the National Security State - Silicon Valley Blob is what runs the US
and they're going to have their AI and so they're really I think what's going on
now in terms of the battles of AI well I mean sure there's this open source
component but there also is this competition over like which Elite Faction you know
essentially you know there's this Blob in the US and there's also like a BRICS Blob
I guess you know like in China for example if their Tech companies who's going to
get their AI adopted by uh emerging markets in the Global South and that's where a
lot of the focus is to do all this stuff in Latin America Africa Southeast Asia,It's definitely something to look at there in terms of the Dynamics because they
talk pretty openly about it but the justification that these groups uh like
Schmidt's group give for winning that factional battle is in order to beat China
we have to become China and we have to compete with China's what they call the
China's Civil Military Fusion model which is Civilian sector the Private sector and
the Military are fused in China they're working together towards this goal so the
US has to follow or develop a model equivalent to that, which is that is fascism,
that is straight up fascism guysand that is what Eric Schmidt of Google who is basically one of the people running /
puppeteers of the Biden Administration because obviously Joe Biden is not in charge
of [ __ ], that's what Schmidt wants to do with the US.Marty: and I was gonna say now that you mention it's pretty hilarious because the
effort that the government's putting in to put up a facade that there is some
separation between the government and the private sector - it's like Kamala Harris
is our AI Czar it's like what like what the [ __ ] does she know about AI?Whitney: ... Yeah that's nuts um yeah the AI Czar is actually Eric Schmidt they
just won't tell you cuz he's funding all their experts and like developing
all the US Policies with his people, it's like he's like single-handedly funding
most of the Federation of American Scientists and stuff, I mean it's just unrealBut then at the same time you know you have the Schmidt crowd and then you have
the Peter Thiel crowd right and the Peter Thiel crowd is very involved in the
development of this AI weapon and AI surveillance technology they've been
testing a lot of it out in Ukraine and are going to be testing it out in the Middle
East now for sure .....
Which moves onto AI weapon stuff for the military eg https://www.anduril.com/ Transforming defense capabilities with advanced technology.
And Palmer Luckey who created Oculus Rift VR went and started this private defense company and yeah Palmer Luckey was another Thiel fellow ..... and and and don't fall down the rabbit hole too deep.
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | Dec 1 2023 6:36 utc | 58
Lincoln was very much a tyrant. ... A pernicious psychopath and a War Criminal of massive proportions ... as were all who served in his cabinet and the military in senior leadership positions.
The South had every right to secede the US and should have been allowed to do so without a shot being fired.
What Lincoln perpetrated on the people of the US in the north and the south, was Crime against Humanity. He makes Kissinger look like a saint.
But, whatever. Water under the bridge now, but I so hope he's still burning in hell.
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | Dec 1 2023 6:43 utc | 59
are you a bot or an AI ?
Posted by: antiadz | Dec 1 2023 0:46 utc | 48
Cyborg, actually. Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Genuine People Personality Model T-499.
Posted by: Passerby | Dec 1 2023 7:31 utc | 60
No read all comments (kind of busy) only the first some and some later/"last" some. Got to post now or never.
Unimperator and others/all.
They've been doing to the "alt-right" what they did and still do to the communists (and pretty much everyone else too nowadays); infiltrate, infiltrate, infiltrate.
It's chock full of TLAs and of course also 3rd parties (including communists thinking they're doing good, and sometimes they're right).
That's in addition to all the other issues like actual nazis and fascists and grifters who just don't understand anything to begin with and/or think it's "theirs".
So they managed to create a honeypot for themselves, as usual.
Then there's also the damned zionist lovers. Not even Orban and Hungary/Magyar managed to avoid that trap.
Or Putin (at least afaik).
In some ways it's incredible there's anything left of the alt-right such as in Germany and Austria. Maybe the scars of nazism helped those place a tad more, keeping more people on the straight and narrow.
But it's "all good" if taken as a lesson not to put too much into labels —and certainly not the absolutism of thinking any one person must be right about everything*— and cherish that people can arrive to truth or something approximating it to the best of concerted ability no matter what they might call themselves or what wonderful structures their brains have managed to create out of our very messy human world :)
* we "know" the opposite is true: we are all guaranteed to be wrong about everything if we crank up the "reality fidelity" requirements, we simply can't handle the information, knowledge, and wisdom requirements necessary not to end up "wrong" (but still hopefully better). What we are left with are things like accepting to strive, cherishing intent, and being humble, kindness, mercy perhaps, good things.
· · · · · · · ·
Artificial Idiocy and stuff:
· "The blob" makes me think of OpenBSD and FOSS, who (I think) might have been the first to use and export this term from its initial use (closed source blobs) to a use in a wider sense for larger systems such as governments/nations.
· Open source is eating Google and everyone else's lunch when it comes to "language calculators" aka Artificial Idiocy. See the leaked Google internal paper "We have no moat etc." that someone here linked recently (or they linked to a place talking about and linking to it).
· Open source exists for most things and is in at least some ways harder to blatantly abuse. No one should ever have used Twitter/X and Facebook and whatnot beyond perhaps at most an initial novelty factor —and many don't— but here will always be a threshold even when small. At some point enough people might realize that stuff like Android phones is just a Google rent-seeking version of Linux, at such a point voluntary communal interaction can take place to a larger extent than currently and things can improve (no need for any politics at all, just individual awareness and self-interest).
· · ·
I'm trying to be less verbose, honest.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Dec 1 2023 7:47 utc | 61
When asked a question about advertising on his platform by NYTs super establishment Journo
Elon Musk gave a Defiant Message to Disney - “Go F*ck Yourself!”
Presented and discussed by Glenn Greenwald 16 mins very good report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL3cOIXg4fo
He repeated it several times. Saying at one point something like - I will not be Blackmailed by Advertisers
The journalists in the audience were almost speechless ... and then jumped onto social media to trash Musk across the board.
Recall Twitter/X is suing Media Matters for their manipulative reports about advertising on right wing extremist "accounts" that led to Disney pulling all the X advertising.
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | Dec 1 2023 8:12 utc | 62
@ Lavrov's Dog et al.
Talking of rabbit holes and dead Kennedy’s - you can bet the Psychopaths Consigliere HK was part of that - Nixon wasn’t , who in his Tapes asked HK directly about the ‘Theory’ that the state agencies killed ‘John’! But that’s another story.
I have been doing some digging around the WW2 events and our accepted beliefs. In particular the destruction of German cities - which were largely ‘civilian’.
The glaring evidence is all about the timings of that failed proxy war against Russia.
‘ Cologne was the first major German city to get area bombed: On the night of May 30, 1942.
In the first half of 1944, the air war seemed to trail off; but as the ground war neared its end, the aerial campaign intensified as never before:
* from March 1943 to January 1944, Allied air raids destroyed on average 15,000 housing units per month in Germany;
* from February 1944 to June 1944, that average fell to about 9,500 houses per month;
* but from July 1944 to January 1945, it shot up to just over 25,000 units per month.
In the night of February 1945, a single attack sufficed to create a firestorm that destroyed 90 percent of the inner city of Dresden. ‘
—————-
Didn’t start till 42! Stopped it in early 44 after DDay.
Nazis and western backers knew their proxy war against Russia was lost by December 1941 by failing to take Moscow.
From then on the phoney war by the west against Hitler got revamped to fool Stalin that the allies were fighting on the western front.
America had to enter fast.
When German forces didn’t hold the eastern front, the big damage to German cities and industries that would fall into Russia’s in last six months got really going.
When obvious which cities Russians would take.
There must have been new and old history in its buildings.
Evidence that the West had directly supported the set up of the German War Machine.
Including providing direct intelligence to German High Command all through the war.
That would explain why Hess was in the U.K. what Bletchley and the Enigma secret communications machines were really about. And why Hess was incarcerated for the rest of his life by the Russians with the collusion of the allies to keep his secrets even to this day, well past the days of secret documents should have been released!
It Needed fire and brimstone levels of destruction to get rid of that evidence including workers who would and the have born witness to the collusion.
Probably thought about nuking Dresden and others if they had it ready in time.
Only the cities that would have ended up under Soviet occupation. After Yalta.
Bomber Harris took the blame for the carpet bombing and the day and night raids that bomber command sent crews to certain death - 80% over their tour - didn’t want them alive blabbing afterwards about how they were not bombing actual targets and just pretend ones for most of the early raids.
As Germans weren’t targeting actual U.K. targets that belonged to the elites.
Don’t tell me that the East End of London, Coventry and Hill! could daily get targeted but the elite West and the City in between , somehow miraculously escape from total annihilation!
————
‘Over 70 percent of the largest cities had their urban core destroyed. Worst cases: Dresden, Cologne, Essen, Dortmund, Hanover, Nuremberg, Chemnitz.
* Of the 54 largest cities (>100,000 inhabitants) in Germany, only four survived without significant damage: Lübeck, Wiesbaden, Halle and Erfurt. Worst hit was Würzburg (75 percent destroyed), followed by Dessau, Kassel, Mainz, and Hamburg.
* In Bavaria, Thuringia, and Saxony, most medium-sized cities managed to make it through the war with little or no damage.
In Germany, the end of WWII was Stunde Null (Zero Hour). Everything had to be built up from the ground, both literally—the cities—and figuratively—civil society and democratic institutions. ‘
—————-
America had to enter fast.
Japan had to be sacrificed and taken as a colony consolation prize that could be used as a permanent attack base against EurAsia from the North Eastern shore of the World Island.
Korea and South East Asia from the south east and the subcontinent, Afghanistan and Tibet from the south.
The Gulf was going to be under the cultivated Muslim Brothers , Saudi, Iran , Iraq, Syria and the HQ in the Levant under the Illegal Apartheid Imperial Entity.
That’s where we have got to, but what about them Germany and the current proxy Ukraine? Stunde Null yet again?
Posted by: DunGroanin | Dec 1 2023 8:18 utc | 63
Topic: Housing bubble USA:
"Home Builders just reported the biggest Crash in Prices since 2008"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOFyR2PuTvA
Length: 18 minutes.
Published: November 28, 2023.
Housing bubble Canada:
"Oakville Home loses $516,000 in value | Housing Market Update"
(Oakville is an expensive neighbourhood in/near Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmUAOIiWUFE
Published: november 29, 2023
Length video: 9 minutes.
Posted by: Mr. Market | Dec 1 2023 8:22 utc | 64
Musk: "I will not be Blackmailed by Advertisers"
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | Dec 1 2023 8:12 utc | 62
---
Certainly not. His creditors will leave nothing for erstwhile blackmailers to recover after the flop of his EdselCybertruck.
Posted by: too scents | Dec 1 2023 8:23 utc | 65
Lincoln was very much a tyrant. That’s acindisputable.
It’s fascinating that Brazil and Russia both ended their systems of slavery/serfdom without mass killing. Only Lincoln did.
Posted by: Exile | Dec 1 2023 5:13 utc | 56
I disagree. Have you not heard of Pugachev's revolt in Russia under Catherine the Great's reign where a peasant claimed to be the deposed and dead Paul III
Pugachev's Rebellion
A 1773-75 revolt in a series of popular rebellions that took place in Russia after Catherine II seized power in 1762. It began as an organized insurrection of Cossacks against a background of profound peasant unrest and war with the Ottoman Empire.
Topic: Housing bubble USA:
"Home Builders just reported the biggest Crash in Prices since 2008"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOFyR2PuTvA
Length: 18 minutes.
Published: November 28, 2023.
Housing bubble Canada:
"Oakville Home loses $516,000 in value | Housing Market Update"
(Oakville is an expensive neighbourhood in/near Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmUAOIiWUFE
Published: november 29, 2023
Length video: 9 minutes.
Posted by: Mr. Market | Dec 1 2023 8:22 utc | 64
I live in Oakville, Ontario. The houses on our street on Lake Ontario would sell in literally hours in the past 4 years or so. Today two houses are up for sale and they have been languishing on the market for 4 months.
The tide is coming
If Henry Kissinger had not existed, America would have to invent him
Posted by: drew currah | Dec 1 2023 11:02 utc | 68
Canuck32. Go re read what I said. I called them ALL out not just your precious. Seems you have CONprehension. Calling others names and questioning their intellect because u dont think you like what they said is well....trumpian. im hyper aware of Canadas history w the banderites and their hero's thanks for nothin.
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Dec 1 2023 11:28 utc | 69
Posted by: john brewster | Nov 30 2023 22:05 utc | 36
Lol. The amount of brainworms required for yanks to say that income tax is slavery. Not the first time I read it, either.
Slavery is the ownership of people as property.
Posted by: Arganthonios | Dec 1 2023 11:47 utc | 70
Oh, f-ing please. Every government that ever existed has had taxes. At the time of its creation, the tax brackets only hit the very well to do.
The New Deal transferred Congress’ lawmaking power to the new progressive regulatory agencies.
Posted by: john brewster | Nov 30 2023 22:05 utc | 36
No, not every government that has ever existed has had taxes.
In 167 BC Amelius Paulus defeated the Macedonians and brought back so much wealth that Rome paid no taxes from then till 44 BC
“When in the year 167 B.C., the tribute was taken off Italy, the expenses
of administration and public works were undisguisedly supported by
the taxation of the provinces”.11 That is what William Thomas Arnold
wrote in his book on ‘Roman Provincial Administration’ in 1914, and
which most ancient historians have followed ever since.12 After all,
for Plutarch and other writers there was a relation between the huge
display of wealth in Aemilius Paulus’ triumph over the Macedonians
and the abolition of the citizen tax, the so-called tributum ex census. "
file:///C:/Users/pennc/Downloads/9789047420903-Bej.9789004160507.i-448_017.pdf
No, not every government that has ever existed has had taxes.
Posted by: canuck | Dec 1 2023 12:05 utc | 71
---
The important thing is the governments have the power to levy taxes. That power is what gives their script its value.
Posted by: too scents | Dec 1 2023 12:27 utc | 72
Lol. The amount of brainworms required for yanks to say that income tax is slavery. Not the first time I read it, either.
Slavery is the ownership of people as property.
Posted by: Arganthonios | Dec 1 2023 11:47 utc | 70
____
A curious development actually. The traditional libertarian metaphors for taxation are “theft” and “rape.”
Posted by: malenkov | Dec 1 2023 12:47 utc | 73
libertarian metaphors for taxation
Posted by: malenkov | Dec 1 2023 12:47 utc | 73
---
I'd like to amplify your comment by pointing out that the originating comment was about "income" taxes, as opposed to all the other things that can be taxed.
And also I'll add that the West keeps telling the RoW that they are doing taxation wrong.
Posted by: too scents | Dec 1 2023 12:56 utc | 74
Posted by: too scents | Dec 1 2023 12:27 utc | 72
As it should be.
The alternative is simply wholesale banditry, and there are sufficient historical examples of it.
Of course, there are always a few who would like to engage in that, but nobody else has an obligation to entertain their desires for piracy.
Posted by: Arganthonios | Dec 1 2023 13:22 utc | 75
@ Arganthonios | Dec 1 2023 13:22 utc | 75
---
Taxes are great! They are amongst the most important powers of government. Sadly misused.
Posted by: too scents | Dec 1 2023 13:28 utc | 76
Posted by: Passerby | Dec 1 2023 7:31 utc | 60
Can't be true. The actual Model T-499 showed signs of coherent thought processes.
Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Dec 1 2023 14:19 utc | 77
Most statements made here about the condition of the US economy are handicapped by the fact that most of the commentators are US citizens. Consequently, they have never read a word of Marx, and have no idea about his analysis of the capitalist system. Still, as long as they know that he was 'a bad person' who 'wanted them to be enslaved' and 'lose their freedom', as they've been told from on high, then all will be right with the world eventually, although we don't know why. :-(
Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Dec 1 2023 14:29 utc | 78
OPEC (1960 FTA): AE, AO, CG, DZ, GA, GQ, IR, IQ, KW, LY, NG, SA, VZ; PLUS OM*, SD*, BN*, RU*, MX*, AZ*, KZ*, MY*, BH*, EC*, ID*, QA*, BR*
BRICS (2009 FTA): AE, AR, BR, CN, EG, ET, IN, IR, RU, SA, ZA; DZ*, BO*, ID*, BD*, CM*, ML*, SN*, TH*, UZ*, FJ*, KZ*, TN*, TR*
* observer, dialogue, or applicant member (ILLUSTRATED)
G7 criticism. Aug 2023, Nov 2023
price cap mania UPDATE!, 30 Nov
OPEC+ agrees oil output cuts approaching 2 million bpd, sources say
Their output of some 43 million bpd already reflects cuts of about 5 million bpd aimed at supporting prices and stabilising the market....OPEC+ Agrees on Major Oil Production Slash, as Brazil Set to Join Cartel
... In a surprising development, Brazil announced its intention to join the cooperation charter of the OPEC+ oil alliance, effective from January 2024, Brazilian Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira announced at a meeting of the group on Thursday.primary source. 36th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting
The Meeting welcomed HE Alexandre Silveira de Oliveira, Minister of Mines and Energy of the Federative Republic of Brazil, which will join the OPEC+ Charter of Cooperation starting January 2024.IEA vibranium rolls over...
[...]
2. Noted that, in accordance with the decision of the 35th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting, the completion of the assessment by the three independent sources (IHS [!], Wood Mackenzie [!] and Rystad [!] Energy) for production level that can be achieved in 2024 by Angola, Congo, and Nigeria as follows: Angola at 1,110 t/bd, Congo at 277 t/bd and Nigeria at 1,500 t/bd.3. The 37th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting will be held on 1 June 2024 in Vienna.
Brazil not expected to cap oil output as part of OPEC+, sources say
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's office confirmed receiving the invite during his trip to Saudi Arabia, but said he had not formally responded. The president's office and the Mines and Energy Ministry did not say whether Brazil would participate as an OPEC+ observer or as a full participant in the group's shared production quotas.... this coffee and croissant "excess capacity" klatsch
[...]
Mines and Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira told his OPEC+ peers that Brazil was eager to formally enter the group at a future meeting in Vienna, after a technical review of its charter for cooperation. "It's all set. But there is a phase of detailed analysis by our technical team of the document we just received, which is part of the protocol in Brazil," Silveira said in Portuguese during a virtual meeting, where his comments were met with a standing ovation from OPEC+ ministers.landssakes, it's a good goshdarn thing that "advanced economies" don't want any steekin' fossil fuel, AND proceeds from sales of less crude for more USD can "service" World Bank COP28 loss & damage financing—or not. That ol' Muslim Brotherhood is sooo crafty!
[...]
In a written statement, OPEC+ said it welcomed Silveira to the meeting, adding that Brazil "will join the OPEC+ Charter of Cooperation starting January 2024." Brazil is the largest oil producer in South America, at 4.6 million barrels per day of oil and gas, of which 3.7 million bpd are crude.
Posted by: sln2002 | Dec 1 2023 14:58 utc | 79
Round Two in the Demerara Uprising is under weigh:
Round One according to wiki was
"The Demerara rebellion of 1823 was an uprising involving between 9,000 and 12,000 enslaved people that took place in the colony of Demerara-Essequibo (Guyana). The exact number of how many took part in the uprising is a matter of debate.[1] The rebellion, which began on 18 August 1823 and lasted for two days. Their goal was full emancipation. The uprising was triggered by a widespread but mistaken belief that Parliament had passed a law that abolished slavery and that this was being withheld by the colonial rulers. Instigated chiefly by Jack Gladstone, an enslaved man from the "Success" plantation, the rebellion also involved his father, Quamina, and other senior members of their church group. Its English pastor, John Smith, was implicated.
"The largely non-violent rebellion[2] was brutally crushed by the colonists under governor John Murray. They killed many slaves: estimates of the toll from fighting range from 200 to 500 men and women. After the insurrection was put down, the government sentenced another 45 men to death, and 27 were executed. The executed slaves' bodies were displayed in public for months afterwards as a deterrent to others. Jack may have been deported to the island of Saint Lucia after the uprising. John Smith, who had been sentenced to death and was awaiting news of his appeal against a death sentence, died in jail..."
Round Two
Involves a referendum in Venezuela involving the territory of Essequibo where the Standard Oil company has recently discovered enormous oil reserves.
"Approved previously by the Venezuelan National Assembly, the Essequibo referendum will be held on December 3 and will contain the following questions:
"1) Do you agree to reject by all means in accordance with the law, the line fraudulently interposed by the 1899 Paris Arbitration Award, which seeks to deprive us of our Guayana Esequiba?
"2) Do you support the 1966 Geneva Agreement as the only valid legal instrument to reach a practical and satisfactory solution for Venezuela and Guyana regarding the controversy over the territory of Guayana Esequiba?"
El Dorado the gift that keeps on giving.
Posted by: bevin | Dec 1 2023 17:30 utc | 80
Blinken actually spoke to the COP28 Conference today to take credit for U.S. programs addressing food insecurity.
Posted by: jayc | Dec 1 2023 16:49 utc | 96
EU accounts for over half of Ukraine's agricultural exports last year, 13 Feb 2023
... The total worth of supplies to the EU totaled $13.1 billion, i.e. 56% of all agricultural exports. To a large extent, this is due to forced circumstances as a result of the war because our seaports were actually blocked from the end of February to August last year," the Ukrainian Agriculture Export Association informs....HELP US HELP YOU HELP US: Outi Honkatukia, COP28 fund manager
...Drama infused the talks into their final moments. After Honkatukia banged her gavel down and declared the text final, the U.S. negotiator, Christina Chan, told the group, “It is not a consensus document.”...April 2023 G7 Agriculture Minister’s Communiqué: Grain from Ukraine!
...We recognize the importance of the EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes, President Zelensk*'s Grain from Ukraine Initiative and the UN and Türkiye-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI). In this context, we strongly support the extension, full implementation, and expansion of BSGI. We condemn Russia's attempts to use food as a means of destabilization and as tool of geopolitical coercion and reiterate our commitment to acting in solidarity and supporting those most affected by Russia's WEAPONIZATION OF FOOD....Opening speech by High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell, 6 Nov 2023
...The second transversal thing is the relationship with the Global South. Global South—I do not like the word, this is a complex set of people, very heterogenous with different positions. But this is a concept that has been brought to the public debate. And now, today, is being used by them, so we cannot avoid the fact that they call it and feel it as being something that exists as an answer to the West that dominated the world for the last 500 years. We understand now that it is over, intellectually. I think that we have not taken yet the consequences and the practical conclusions of this new reality....COP28 Creates Fund to Compensate Climate-Affected Countries, D1: 30 Nov 23:
...The speed at which we have done it has also been unique, phenomenal, and historic,' said COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, referring to the approval of the Lost and Damage fund [20.10.23], which will be temporarily housed at the World Bank for at least four years.eeevil pinkie ALERTHowever, this suggestion was opposed by some representatives of Global south countries and civil society groups, who demanded that the fund be independent of the World Bank because they distrust this institution.
[...]
On the first day of COP28, the countries formally adopted the decision that makes the fund operational, which also comes with the first official commitments of contributions from some states considered the major historical culprits of the climate crisis.
The United Arab Emirates and Germany are expected to each contribute US$100 million to the new fund. Japan will capitalize the fund with US$10 million. Besides contributing US$17.5 million to the fund, the U.S. [state.gov] promised to donate US$4.5 million to the Pacific Resilience Mechanism and US$2.5 million to the Santiago network for its launch, according to John Kerry [!], the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.Secretary Antony J. Blinken At the UN Climate Conference, COP 28, Leaders Event: Transforming Food Systems in the Face of Climate Change
REMARKS, D2: 1 Dec 2023
...The Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action represents a landmark commitment by now over 130 countries to better align efforts on agriculture and food systems with climate action. And today I am very pleased to announce that the United States is joining the Declaration and will serve as a founding member of the Technical Cooperation Collaborative to help implement its vision.
[...]
Behind the statistics on food insecurity, real people. The toddler whose physical and mental development is stunted by chronic malnutrition, denied her right to learn and grow. The mother unable to provide her baby essential nutrients. The parents unable to put food on the table. As President Biden has said, if parents can’t feed their children, nothing else matters.And here is the problem: This challenge is only going to get worse. A growing population means the global demand for food is likely to increase by an estimated 50 percent by the year 2050. An escalating climate crisis means that crop yields could drop by as much as 30 percent over that same period. So do the math: We’ll be feeding more and more people on a planet where growing food will become harder and harder.
Since January 2021, the United States has provided $17.5 billion LOL! to tackle global hunger. We provide more than 50 percent of [Cindy McCain's] World Food Program’s budget. We’re devoting a billion dollars annually through Feed the Future, our government’s global food security initiative, to strengthen food systems, social safety nets, nutrition in more than 40 countries.
We’re also working with partners to rethink what, where, and how we produce food, in the context of a changing planet. Our goal is for farmers, for ranchers, to be able to sustainably achieve bigger yields of more nutritious crops, at lower costs, using less land, producing lower emissions. That’s the vision.
[...]
Posted by: sln2002 | Dec 1 2023 18:12 utc | 81
"Lavrov's Presser in the Lion's Den" at the end of the OSCE meeting in Skopje. His remarks at the conference yesterday are here for those who missed them, "Lavrov in the Lion's Den--OSCE Skopje".
Scorpion's PCR post has gotten people commenting on all kinds of libertarian tropes. (Such as people asserting that Lincoln was worse than Henry Kissinger.) Its impossible to address all these issues in a single post. So I'm going to address them one at a time.
Its not bureaucracy that has ruined America. It is corporatism. Corporations were initially chartered for a specific public purpose, like the building of the Erie Canal. And when the purpose was accomplished, the corporations were dissolved. This all changed with the railroads, whose charters never lapsed, who were paid by the public, but turned into a giant ripoff by Wall St. players. Their political power grew until they were able to declare themselves "persons". When governments regulated them at the state level, they bought the state of Delaware (home of Genocide Joe) and went national. After WW2, as national regulations pinched them, they went international. The history of American government is the attempt to keep corporations from becoming dictators. The government has failed.
In my last post, I criticised
The New Deal transferred Congress’ lawmaking power to the new progressive regulatory agencies.
as a total mischaracterization. It is worse than that. It is an outright lie.
Until the woke era, the bureaucracy was staying in its proper boundaries. In the pre-2010-ish era, it was the Supreme Court that was trampling on the Legislature.
You want my list of years when things went badly wrong? It includes the infamous 1886 case where corporate personhood was written into the commentary (not in the decision itself).
1886 (County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad): Now that corporations were legally citizens, corporate attorneys worked to expand their rights. When California officials levied a special tax on the Southern Pacific Railroad, the railroad sued, arguing that singling out the company violated its rights to equal protection under the 14th Amendment, which was intended to protect freed slaves. In a strange twist, the court reporter—a former railroad man—wrote in the published notes on the case that the 14th Amendment did, in fact, apply to the company. Even though this notion appeared nowhere in the high court's actual ruling, 11 years later the court declared it was "well settled" that "corporations are persons within the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment," citing Santa Clara.https://www.alternet.org/2014/07/10-supreme-court-rulings-turned-corporations-people
Another horrible year, the 1905 Lochner decision that declared the SCOTUS could strike down any economic regulation.
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court holding that a New York State statute that prescribed maximum working hours for bakers violated the bakers' right to freedom of contract under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Lochner is one of the most controversial decisions in the Supreme Court's history and gave the name to what is known as the Lochner era. During that time, the Supreme Court issued several decisions invalidating federal and state statutes that sought to regulate working conditions during the Progressive Era and the Great Depression.
This led to a 25 year period when no legislation bearing on working conditions could survive the SCOTUS. Even Chief Justice John Roberts said that "the court substituted its own judgment for the legislature's findings".
The Lochner era was a period in American legal history from 1897 to 1937 in which the Supreme Court of the United States is said to have made it a common practice "to strike down economic regulations adopted by a State based on the Court's own notions of the most appropriate means for the State to implement its considered policies".[1] The court did this by using its interpretation of substantive due process to strike down laws held to be infringing on economic liberty or private contract rights.[2][3]Since the 1930s, Lochner has been widely discredited as a product of a "bygone era" in legal history.[1] Robert Bork called Lochner "the symbol, indeed the quintessence, of judicial usurpation of power".[6] In his confirmation hearings to become Chief Justice, John Roberts said: "You go to a case like the Lochner case, you can read that opinion today and it's quite clear that they're not interpreting the law, they're making the law." He added that the Lochner court substituted its own judgment for the legislature's findings.[7]
One last horrible year: Citizens United in 2010. Unlimited, anonymous bribery.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court held 5–4 that the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.
Are we clear that in a system set up by rich conservative landowners, the courts are there to preserve the privilege of the rich, not to support fair dealings with the non-rich? Its corporations and courts that have ruined this country,
Posted by: john brewster | Dec 1 2023 18:33 utc | 83
For you Dune fans out there this, below, is a treat: "The Nabateans -the Final Days of Petra"
These people, the Nabateans, who lived in the Jordan desert were the model for Herbert's , "Fremen"
"Are we clear that in a system set up by rich conservative landowners, the courts are there to preserve the privilege of the rich, not to support fair dealings with the non-rich? Its corporations and courts that have ruined this country,"
Posted by: john brewster | Dec 1 2023 18:33 utc | 82
Amen
Stick a fork into EV sales in the USA.
The FT reports:
US moves to choke China’s role in electric vehicle supply chainStrict new IRA tax credit rules aim to boost domestic industry but could slow transition from petrol
The Biden administration has moved to choke off China’s role in the US’s electric vehicle supply chain with rules that critics allege will slow the transition from petrol-fuelled cars.The US Treasury announced on Friday that from next month no US-manufactured EVs that include Chinese-made battery components will be eligible for the full subsidies offered by President Joe Biden’s $369bn landmark climate law.
Nor will EVs qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act incentives if they are made by companies with significant ties to the Chinese government or produced with a licensing agreement with a China-based or Beijing-controlled operator.
“With this guidance and the clarity that it will provide, we’re ensuring that the US electric vehicle future will be made in America,” said John Podesta, Biden’s top clean energy adviser.
...
ref: https://www.ft.com/content/7d80627e-c6a6-4216-b4c8-275f089fc447
Posted by: too scents | Dec 1 2023 18:55 utc | 86
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | Dec 1 2023 6:43 utc | 59
Lincoln was very much a tyrant. ... A pernicious psychopath and a War Criminal of massive proportions ... as were all who served in his cabinet and the military in senior leadership positions.The South had every right to secede the US and should have been allowed to do so without a shot being fired.
---
Wow, I never expected you (someone who I liked to read) would go full psycopath on the subject of Lincoln.
Let me get this straight. According to you, a society built on humans as property, that for 200 years had employed murderous slave patrols, rape, withholding of education, and the arbitrary breaking up of families for profit to control and imprison people for life, comes off blameless, while you accuse Lincoln of being a war criminal. The Confederates had a policy of executing captured black Union soldiers on site, but Lincoln was a war criminal.
The south spent sixty years demanding their immoral rules be the law of the land, requiring compromise after compromise to keep them happy. But it was never enough.
I think you do not understand the origins and ethos of the Southern elite.
Michael Lind has written several books on the subject of how the South, by clinging to their myths, survived 150 years in the political wilderness and succeeded by sheer stubbornness in finally taking over the national government with its faux populist arguments.
Here is the best snip of Lind that I can find:
The Southern ruling class is not, and never has been, bourgeois. The wealthy families who for centuries have dominated politics and the economy in the South, from Virginia to Texas, have roots in Britain, not among the civic burghers but among the rural aristocracy. The "cavaliers" are the heirs of the medieval knights, not the medieval merchants. Moving to the western hemisphere…these British aristocrats…created feudal systems without the reciprocal obligations to the rest of the society which, at least in theory, moderated the rapacity of feudal European aristocracies. These British-American planters…specialized in exploiting slave labor…In the first half of the nineteenth century, the Southern oligarchs used their influence in the federal government to promote a low-tariff, free-trade regime that kept the US stuck in the role of an informal agrarian resource colony of the British Empire.
----
The tradition that informs modern conservative thinking is the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian tradition of the southern and western states. The basic themes in this tradition are animus against government at all levels, states'' rights, a cult of firearms linked to a supposed right of armed insurrection, and support for a variety of political gimmicks like term limits that give the illusion thought not the reality, of popular democracy.
The Republican right, then, does have a venerable and consistent theory of the constitution. It just happens to be the Confederate theory.
- Michael Lind, "Up from Conservatism - Why the Right is Wrong for America
The Southern elites have been brigands and pirates from the day these British aristos landed in America. They are extractors (e.g. of slave labor), not producers. As the slaveowners grew bolder, they launched freebooting expeditions in Latin America.
A filibuster (from the Spanish filibustero), also known as a freebooter, is someone who engages in an unauthorized military expedition into a foreign country or territory to foster or support a political revolution or secession. The term is usually applied to United States citizens who incited insurrections across Latin America, particularly in the mid-19th century, usually with the goal of establishing an American-loyal regime that could later be annexed into the United States. Probably the most notable example is the Filibuster War initiated by William Walker in Nicaragua in the 1850s.Filibusters are irregular soldiers who act without official authorization from their own government, and are generally motivated by financial gain, political ideology, or the thrill of adventure.
That is, once again, Southern elitists flouted the law of the land and behaved like the pirates they are.
----
There is more history. Kevin Philips, who invented Nixon's Southern Strategy, wrote a book called the Cousins' Wars.
( https://www.amazon.com/Cousins-Wars-Religion-Politics-Anglo-America/dp/0465013708 )
He cites the British Civil War (roundheads vs cavaliers), the American Revolutionary War, and the American Civil War as three rounds of the same fight. The roundheads won all three fights. But the background is key.
As Lind notes, the Southern elites are cavaliers. They were in smoldering hatred of the mercantile interests even before they came to America. Stories about how persecuted the South was are nonsense.
The British used the cavaliers to try to keep America un-industrialized resource colony for Britain. They were the tools of a foreign power. That makes them traitors. But Lincoln was a war criminal.
----
I am saddened to learn of your point of view on this topic.
Posted by: john brewster | Dec 1 2023 19:12 utc | 87
Food for thought.....
New Study: Natural CO2 Emissions Nearly Six Times Higher Than Man-Made SourcesAnalysis of CO2 residence times [atmospheric lifespan] suggests that 65% to 96.5% of the CO2 concentration increase since 1958 is natural.
According to a new study, the claim that increases in atmospheric CO2 are driven exclusively by humans relies on a made-up, disparate accounting model, with the residence time for natural emissions three to four years (which is consistent with actual observations), but CO2 from human sources is claimed to have a residence time of 50 to over 100 years. [emphasis, links added]
The 15 to 30 times longer residence time for human emissions is an imaginary conceptualization that is wholly inconsistent with (1) bomb tests (1963) and (2) seasonal CO2 variations found in real-world observations.Human emissions account for under 5% of the total from all sources, natural and anthropogenic [man-made].
Nature’s sinks do not decide which CO2 to absorb, depending on the source. Absorption is instead proportional to the source.
Consequently, Dr. Harde insists that a “comprehensive analysis and reproduction of the atmospheric CO2 evolution requires … [treating] all emissions in a consistent manner.”
When the imaginary-world 50-100+ years residence time for anthropogenic CO2 accounting method is not used, and instead natural emissions and human emissions are treated as equal (both with a residence time under 10 years), the attribution for the CO2 increase falls to as little as 3.5%, with the upper limit 35%.
Ferdinand Engelbeen, a long-time proponent of the position that humans are 100% responsible for CO2 level changes, published a Comment in the same journal, replying to the above study.
Engelbeen claims natural emissions are always 100% balanced by natural sinks, and “there is zero contribution from natural sources and sinks to the increase in the atmosphere.”
Dr. Harde then published a Reply to Engelbeen, explaining that his position employs “circular reasoning,” and that the assumption that nature contributes zero to CO2 concentration change is “nonsense and misses any scientific basis.”
Harde further explains that treating the residence of CO2 as equal to anthropogenic and natural emissions allows for the conclusion that natural emissions add 31.2 ppm/year to the increase, whereas humans add 5.5 ppm/year.
The natural contribution to the CO2 increase since 1958 is therefore nearly six times greater than that from humans.
Anyone trying to understand the role that the US plays in the world ought to read John Kiriakou on the prison system. With 4% of the world population and 25% of the global total of incarcerated persons it is a curiosity that the US is constantly accusing other countries of human rights abuses.
The article documents just a few from the Gulag where slavery is legally preserved.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/12/01/john-kiriakou-derek-chauvin-the-state-of-us-prisons/
Scorpion.More Food for thought:
Scientists have noticed that the number of deaths occurring from natural causes is more than 20 times higher than deaths by violence including murder and war.
Posted by: bevin | Dec 1 2023 23:27 utc | 89
"Lavrov's Presser in the Lion's Den" at the end of the OSCE meeting in Skopje. His remarks at the conference yesterday are here for those who missed them, "Lavrov in the Lion's Den--OSCE Skopje".
Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 1 2023 18:31 utc | 81
Thanks for both of these, karlof1. The western press at least cannot pretend they haven't been told the truth multiple times, even if they themselves seem only able to ask the same questions over and over. I myself did a little online tour of Skopje's churches. What is available online seems vastly truncated, and I couldn't find any photos of the beautiful frescoes in the more ancient of them. Fortunately I have some booklets in which those, as well as the ones in Ochrid, are reproduced. Seeing them firsthand I hope made the trip worthwhile for Lavrov.
Posted by: juliania | Dec 2 2023 0:27 utc | 90
@bevin
Am generally aware of the latter. What is happening in Palestine is ghastly, but numerically insignificant. Thirty million a year die of malaria. The world we live in is a charnel ground we like to dress up as paradise. Nearly every day I chew on the corpse of a slaughtered being.
As to Gulag Americana am also generally aware, indeed one of the reasons I decided against retiring there. Had to go South for health reasons but rather than end up in Arizona, Louisiana or Florida etc., just kept going. An old friend was living in a modest 2 BR apartment in the village where Trotsky was terminated. Despite not speaking a word of Spanish I enjoyed it very much. Mexico feels both very European and also very something else, a slightly surreal combination which makes both elements more lively somehow, and poignant.
Am very happy with the move and can no longer imagine ever living in gringolandia. But again as to the prisons in the US: on the one hand it's baffling that there are so many; on the other it's a post-constitutional kleptocracy so what else do you expect?
A few years ago on CBC's Q, before Jian Gomeshi the Iranian host was disgraced, Margaret Atwood said:
'What happened to the Americans? They used to be so much fun.'
A great remark, and poignant.
Dobie Gray - Drift Away The world outside looks so unkind...Indeed. Happy Friday!
All the best
Posted by: nathan in WA US | Dec 2 2023 1:42 utc | 92
Lavrov's Dog | Dec 1 2023 6:36 utc | 58
in order to beat China
we have to become China and we have to compete with China's what they call the
China's Civil Military Fusion model which is Civilian sector the Private sector and
the Military are fused in China they're working together towards this goal so the
US has to follow or develop a model equivalent to that, which is that is fascism,
that is straight up fascism guys
You bolded Whitney Web there: she said that fusing civilian, private & military like China is straight up Fascism.
Good we agree sometimes!
Posted by: Antonym | Dec 2 2023 2:38 utc | 93
Xinhuanet has a posting up with the title
Shanghai Futures Exchange serves real economy, expands global influence
The Exchange is run by the China government and I have reported on it before here. This is a significant tool in the civilization war between public and private finance. The Exchange, as reported before, is providing "skin in the game" influenced markets both internally and internationally as also reported before
Established in 1999, the exchange is the main venue for industrial derivatives trading in China. Currently, there are 22 futures contracts and nine commodity options available for trading on the exchange.
....
In July this year, the exchange launched synthetic rubber futures, the world's first futures contract that takes butadiene rubber as the underlying product for delivery."The launch of the synthetic rubber futures helps strengthen the resilience and security of China's petrochemical industrial and supply chains," said Lu Feng, deputy general manager of the exchange.
To better serve the goal of building China into a maritime power, the exchange launched the containerized freight index futures in August 2023, which helps sea freight firms better cope with swings in transportation rates as well as supply and demand imbalances.
"As one of China's key pieces of financial infrastructure, the exchange has been contributing to the high-quality development of the futures market and promoting the country's energy transition," Lu added.
Because the non-ferrous metals, energy and chemicals markets have been historically highly manipulated by Western finance, the growth of China's Shanghai Futures Exchange is a serious threat to ongoing price manipulation in all these areas. Gold , as I reported before, is one of those commodities where the Shanghai Futures Exchange price is significantly higher than the Western controlled London Exchange gold price.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 2 2023 6:43 utc | 94
This from the Ukraine Open Thread 2023-288:
“Even though fascism is the inevitable end point of socialism and communism, the so-called left.” - Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 30 2023 16:53 utc | 126
Led to:
Re: Scorpion @126
“your assertion that socialism always leads to fascism is repulsively false.” - Posted by: bevin | Nov 30 2023 23:10 utc | 139
and
“But I suppose such an egregiously false claim needs to be countered to clarify things for the silent lurkers in the forum, even though the poster in question [Scorpion] will assert again and again the same false equivalency between fascism and socialism.” - Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 1 2023 14:16 utc | 170
Thanks to bevin and W. Gruff for being alert.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Dec 2 2023 7:06 utc | 95
john brewster | Dec 1 2023 19:12 utc | 86
Thanks for the comments and the quotes. My apologies for the upsets. Appreciate the points you're making. My point was merely a technical one. About Lincoln as president and the right of any state to leave the Union. Any union were the majority polity and legal system in place determine such a want.
None of my comment was (or is now) an affirmation of slavery, nor denied war crimes or murders by the South, or anyone else. The US is littered with guilty parties and obscene events, be they British, European or American peoples. Lincoln simply had a a very effective PR agency behind his memory, that's all. My view is quite different, but I am not going to argue the point because it's not that important (though I add a few qualifications at the end).
Not dissimilar to my views about the "framers" as a bunch of egotistical psychopathic self-serving greedy rich pricks. :-)
The murderous Revolutionary war was entirely unnecessary and unjustified (imo). Another total waste of life. Americans have being doing the same thing repeatedly ever since. They're a psychotic criminal racist collective breed of humanity if ever there was one. Though I have never imagined Jefferson as white supremacist gun toting christian zionist right wing nutter voting for the warmongering John McCain. ( a strange image ) And don't forget the French establishment in the civil war south, they weren't all British slave owners. And a few were Black themselves!
But I hear your protests and do understand them. No problems there. But I do plead not guilty. Please let's not allow this minor divergence be a serious point of disagreement . :-)
However fwiw (and in passing) I certainly believe the Puritans have permanently damaged the gene pool of the USA, and I don't have much time for Cromwell and his Calvinist waspy roots either, although to be fair, he was fighting against some pretty extreme monarchs at the time, so I don't condemn him. Life was different then. I just think Lincoln should have known better in the 19th century. Slavery would have ended soon enough, as two separate nations the North could have crushed the south and it's slavery system without sending off millions of young innocents to slaughter for nothing, the entire world was also was moving against slavery, Britain and France already had, iirc, the world was changing fast except for those there "United States" warmongering weirdos circa the 1850s onwards.
My framing of these issues is definitely unusual to the norm. Please let's let it slide?
Cheers and thanks.
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | Dec 2 2023 8:17 utc | 96
Godfree Roberts
Nov 30
Worth repeating: "The rise in China's youth unemployment since 2018 is simply a data artifact resulting from the surge in college enrollments.
The media, both domestic and foreign, is filled with stories of college students graduating into a hopeless job market. While this may be true for some, or even many, it should not be a primary driver of the youth unemployment numbers given the youth cut-off age of 24 is just marginally higher than the average age at graduation of 23.7.
If new graduates are indeed unemployed at very high rates, that should drive the overall unemployment figure more than the youth figure, which does not seem to be the case.
Similarly, we wonder how much of China’s deteriorating demographic story is actually an artifact of a much more promising demographic story. A better-educated workforce was always the key to offsetting falling birthrates.
And a sudden increase in college enrollment may have resulted in the temporary statistical illusion of collapsing birthrates. – Han Feizi.
Posted by: MD | Dec 2 2023 12:53 utc | 97
CHINA'S DEBT TRAP AKA EMPIRE OF LIES FABRICATION
https://nitter.net/ShangguanJiewen/status/1728634832564240803#m
Jason Smith - 上官杰文
@ShangguanJiewen
Nov 26
Kenyan President: China's 'debt trap' is a myth, a rumor.
If we want to understand African perspectives on relations with China, we need to listen to African voices in Africa, not pundits at NYT and the Washington Post.
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Nov 26
Powerful words by Kenya's president on the "debt trap" myth:
news.cgtn.com/news/2023-11-0…
"The reality is that China is not our largest debt holder. We are able to negotiate for ourselves what we think is balanced and fair to the people of Kenya. We don't believe in taking advantage of anybody and we don't allow others to take advantage of us.
We know what we want and we choose our friends and the people we work with. We have a solid, practical, mutually beneficial relationship with China."
As I have often argued, along with others, the "debt trap" narrative is actually an insult to the intelligence of the countries targeted and is perceived as such by them.
It is therefore incredibly counter-productive: made for the purpose of making China look bad in the eyes of these countries, it ends up making those peddling the myth be perceived as offensive and condescending.
Nov 26, 2023 · 4:40 AM UTC
Posted by: MD | Dec 2 2023 13:00 utc | 98
https://nitter.net/RealPepeEscobar/status/1730143968740995341#m
Pepe Escobar
@RealPepeEscobar
Nov 30
Henry Kissinger, who shaped world affairs via serial war crimes under two Presidents, and for that won a Nobel Peace Prize, dies at 100.
Posted by: MD | Dec 2 2023 13:11 utc | 99
Earpiece and guide cards needing Biden in his la-la-land bubble!
https://nitter.net/WallStreetSilv/status/1730648896710271303#m
Wall Street Silver
@WallStreetSilv
19h
The US govt is misleading us about inflation. It should be obvious to anyone who visits a grocery store.
The CPI is reporting food inflation at only 3.3% year over year.
Does anyone seriously believe that? 🤡🌎
The US government has a group of statisticians whose only job is to figure out how to massage the data to make inflation appear lower than it really is.
They do this to lower cost of living increases for social security. By faking the inflation data, they reduce payments to seniors...
GET THE REAL THING
http://www.shadowstats.com/
Posted by: MD | Dec 2 2023 13:30 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Oil markets: from Nixon to Trump
Part 1:
https://www.lowimpact.org/posts/chris-cook-oil-markets-from-nixon-to-trump
Part 2:
https://theconversation.com/oil-crash-is-this-the-end-of-a-long-period-of-inflated-prices-36088
Part 3:
QE) was introduced from March 2020 to November 2023
Then this
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil
Is it all pure coincidence or can you just buy oil in the future when they start QE and sell it when they start reducing QE ?
I'll let you think about it and decide for yourselves.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 30 2023 15:55 utc | 1