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November 26, 2023
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2023-284

Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:

Ukraine:

Palestine:

Empire:

—
Other issues:

Empire:

The Beezle:

Use as open (not related to Ukraine or Palestine) thread …

Posted by b on November 26, 2023 at 14:18 UTC | Permalink
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Another good read, this by Juan Cole, a well-known ME pundit who also wrote Napoleon’s Egypt, Invading the Middle East. This blog post features a video interview and also a long excerpt by one of Napoleon’s officers during the campaign, a well-written first-hand eyewitness account.

Here is an account of the invasion by eyewitness Pierre François Xavier Boyer, an aide to Bonaparte, translated by the British, who intercepted it and other correspondence between Cairo and Paris.
From: Copies of original letters from the army of General Bonaparte in Egypt, intercepted by the fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson. With an English translation (London, J. Wright, 1798-1800, 3 vols.), vol. 1, pp. 147-162.
TRANSLATION.
Grand Cairo, July 28th.
My dear Parents,
OUR entrance into this city furnishes me with an opportunity of writing to you(1); and as my design is to make you fully acquainted with an expedition no less singular than astonishing, I shall take the liberty of recapitulating our achievements since the day we left Toulon….

A good read….providing insights into differing military tactics – massed formations versus wild cavalry charges – but also much of the rationale behind Western colonialism.
One small aspect I found fascinating is that, although poor slobs at the bottom of the food chain always pay the price, the struggles were mainly at the leadership class level, basically one fighting to supplant the other or defend against being so displaced. In this case, it was with the Mahmout leadership that they had issues. Here is the officer’s description of the Mahmouts/Mameloucs:

To gain possession of Egypt, then, it is necessary to subdue these Mameloucs(5); they are in number about 8000 —
all cavalry — under the command of 24 Beys. It is of consequence to give you some idea of these people, their manner of making war, their arms, defensive and offensive, and their origin.
Every Mamelouc is purchased — they are all from Georgia and Mount Caucasus — there are a great number of Germans and Russians amongst them, and even some French. Their religion is Mahometanism: exercised from their infancy in the military art, they acquire an extraordinary degree of dexterity in the management of their horses, in shooting with the carabine and pistol, in throwing the lance, and in wielding the sabre; there have been instances of their severing, at one blow, a head of wet cotton.
Every Mamelouc has two, three, and sometimes four servants, who follow him on foot wherever he goes; nay, even to the field. The arms of a Mamelouc on horseback, are two carabines, carried by his servants—these are never fired but once—two pair of pistols stuck in his girdle; eight light lances in a kind of quiver, which he flings with admirable dexterity; and an iron headed mace. When all these are discharged, he comes to his last resource—his two sabers: putting, then, the bridle of his horse between his teeth, he takes one of them in each hand, and rushes full speed upon the foe, cutting and slashing to right and left. Woe be to those who cannot parry his blows! For some of them have been known to cleave a man down the middle. Such are the people with whom we are at war! I shall now proceed with my narrative.
Having organized a government at Alexandria, and secured a communication(6) with the read of our army, Bonaparte ordered every man to furnish himself with five day’s provisions, and made preparations for passing a desert of twenty leagues in extent, in order to arrive at the mouth of the Nile, and ascend that celebrated stream to Grand Cairo—the prime object of his expedition……

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 15:06 utc | 1

Ooops, the link: https://www.juancole.com/2023/11/ridley-napoleon-staytunednbc.html

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 15:14 utc | 2

Re the Intercept article, I read into this point and stopped:

“Former president Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are the 21st century’s premier war criminals.”


No point reading any more.

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Nov 26 2023 15:25 utc | 3

Juan Cola exhausted his knowledge of modern Islamic history, “clash of civilizations”, when Bush declared “Mission Accomplished”.
Barker, H. Egyptian and Italian Merchants in the Black Sea Slave Trade, 1260-1500 (2014)

The present study examines the merchant networks which exported slaves from the Black Sea to Genoa, Venice, and Cairo from the late thirteenth to the late fifteenth century on the basis of both Arabic and Latin sources. It begins with an explanation of features distinctive to slavery in the medieval Mediterranean, the most important of which was its ideological basis in religious rather than racial difference, as well as a comparison between the Christian and Islamic laws governing slavery. In subsequent chapters it covers the variety of roles played by slaves in Mediterranean society, how the use of individual slaves was shaped by their gender and origin, and the processes which led to the enslavement of people within the Black Sea region. The heart of the project is the fourth chapter, an analysis of the commercial networks which conveyed slaves from the ports of the Black Sea to those of the Mediterranean. This chapter profiles individual merchants who dealt in slaves, traces the routes and identifies the logistical challenges of the slave trade, and analyzes the relative importance of various groups of merchants in supplying the Mediterranean demand for slaves. The next chapter explains the process of finding, inspecting, and buying a slave in the marketplace and how it differed from the purchase of other commodities. The final chapter addresses the place of the Black Sea slave trade in the political and religious context of the late medieval crusade movement. Proponents of the crusades argued that Christian merchants, especially the Genoese, were strengthening the [Mamluk] sultan of Egypt to the detriment of the crusaders by supplying him with slaves for military service. The validity of these accusations is examined in light of the sources informing the rest of the study.

Or buy the book: That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500 (2019)

Posted by: sln2002 | Nov 26 2023 15:27 utc | 4

oh well.. posting and it ain’t going thru.. wonder if it this does without links?

Posted by: james | Nov 26 2023 16:04 utc | 5

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/ I think Cook should be added to B’s always excellent list of articles and sources.

Posted by: Bakunin17 | Nov 26 2023 16:28 utc | 6

trying again..
thanks b… and thanks bevin and jonku for drawing attention to the article in the doctorow link yesterday… i also recommend that..
does anyone know about this book on churchill – his times, his crimes? i watched a 30 minute video review of it which you can see here if interested..
What Churchill Thought About the Palestinians and Jews

Posted by: james | Nov 26 2023 17:03 utc | 7

This Napoleon guy seems certain to be a good source for many a bewildering story. Some of the anecdotes I’ve learned are frankly bizarre, like his getting into a kind of fever at the height of a battle, whereupon his aides brought him enemy troops so he could hack them to pieces with his saber, and when this wasn’t enough, amidst the battle raging at his height, he was (or so I hear) then brought a naked woman . . . . Big Serge has a nice article on Napoleon’s conception of a battle, it features a clear point of culmination – the event – which gives this whole thing some outward sense, as well as a twist right into the mystic, for it simply goes beyond belief.
But such characters are not even uncommon in the history of warfare – to me they look almost like recurring rebirths of some kind of god of war in their apparently larger than life conduct.
Another one of those, the Luftwaffe StuKa pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel, has written his memoirs of the campaign, a small book I’d highly recommend. It’s also readable as a crazy story of adventure, so it makes for a good gift to a boy of 14 or so (unless you’re truly pacifist, of course).
MoA – do you know more of such histories? I would like to start collecting a list on these figures, in order to perhaps be able to wrap my head around them one day.

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 26 2023 17:11 utc | 8

On social media there has been a lot of discussion in the last year about the political theory of a war between the two rival elite factions of the American establishment isince the 1960s known as “The Yankee and Cowboy War,” and its current version and relationship with the Trump movement.
The following tells the details on the history of the Cowboy and Yankee War between the two main factions of American elites in the 1960s-70s, how it then changed and merged to become the Uniparty, and where we are today with their war against the neo-Cowboy Trump movement. See: The Uniparty and Cowboy War

Posted by: kana | Nov 26 2023 17:39 utc | 9

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 26 2023 17:11 utc | 8
But such characters are not even uncommon in the history of warfare – to me they look almost like recurring rebirths of some kind of god of war in their apparently larger than life conduct.

A great aside. Our contemporary sense of ‘the gods’ are vague, not to mention generally divorced of meaning.
In the Shinto tradition kami (gods) are experienced as sacred presence in particular person, place or thing. Some Tibetans call this ‘drala’ which, interestingly, means ‘above/beyond aggression’. Why so? Because the intensification of ego’s self-versus-other modality involves aggression. Kindness is thus one the most prized virtues and methods because without it one cannot experience the kami-drala of sacred presence.
‘Wargods’ manifest in moments of heightened aggression, which seems contradictory, but when one plunges entirely into a moment – including slaughter in battle – that joining together is a type of samadhi, a union of this and that, which invoke ‘war gods’ perceived in other mind fields as intensely brilliant transcendent fury. It is said that when cowards are in the presence of a fearless warrior they feel afraid and falter. Many traditional cultures elevated this heightened, and immaterial, state of consciousness into spirit-based belief systems valuing immortal honour over a self-centered, cowardly life without it, a view no longer fashionable in modern times.
It’s been years since I read about Napoleon but I got the impression that he understood the psychic dimension of battle on a genius level, therefore also your wargods, a real experiential phenomenon even if somewhat taboo in these lacklustre materialist-marxist times – perhaps in protest against which Yukio Mushima committed his ingloriously glorious seppuko which only those old gods witnessed and valued.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 18:01 utc | 10

Sometimes I wonder: what if moonofalabama is a honeypot?
It doesn’t even have to be known to b. All you need is access to the web server logs.

Posted by: Passerby | Nov 26 2023 18:13 utc | 11

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 15:06 utc | 1
AND

Or buy the book: That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500 (2019)
Posted by: sln2002 | Nov 26 2023 15:27 utc | 4
++++++
One of the more accessible books on the the subject of the Centuries-long Islamic Slave trade, from which Mamaluks originated is
“The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam” by Simon Webb
https://www.abebooks.com/9781526797094/Forgotten-Slave-Trade-White-European-1526797097/plp

Posted by: UpToEleven | Nov 26 2023 18:24 utc | 12

On the AI issue, I highly suggest reading the transcript of the Plenary Session of the just completed Moscow conference, “Journey to the World of Artificial Intelligence” where Putin and others say and discuss some very important points about AI and its regulation.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 26 2023 18:45 utc | 13

@ Scorpion 1
thx for the letter
suggested reading to those who are interested in the history of Egyptian struggle for independence in opposition to Bonaparte and the British:
“Egypt in he reign of Muhammad Ali”, by Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyi Marsot,
published by the Cambridge Middle East Library, 1984, 1st ed.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/egypt-in-the-reign-of-muhammad-ali/B42548B0163B3BB5E8C52F773B76FEC5
The reign of Muhammad Ali is today one of the textbook examples for how Colonialism in fact works. Egypt was subjugated in that Bonaparte mission (in cooperation with GB despite their own in-fight) and later in order to prevent the advent of a possible rival for producing cotton.
In contrast to GB Egypt could grow her own cotton on her own territory. That would have naturally been a major advantage and threatend British world domination of the cotton trade (which was the oil of the 19th century).
Along that Ali laid the foundation for an industrial sector also in military terms for a modern army.
In fact what became known as new Arab nationalism under Nasser and lesser so Sadat began with Ali.

Posted by: AG | Nov 26 2023 19:06 utc | 14

Also, China published a very important document that I republished at my substack, “China Publishes: “Vision and Actions for Unswervingly Promoting the High-quality Development of the Belt and Road Initiative”. It’s a very long read.
One last promotion is the podcast discussion between Hudson and Keen where you’ll want to watch the video so you can view Keen’s important charts. I’ll add that Dr. Hudson also has provided two other interview transcripts that were done a few days prior to his chat with Keen that help fill out a great deal that are also at his website.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 26 2023 19:07 utc | 15

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 26 2023 19:07 utc | 15
This one
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/private-debt-to-gdp
And ideologues and idiots only concentrate on the public debt and government deficits which are people’s savings.
They completely ignore how much the private sector is in debt and then complain the private sector are saving too much. Actually believe that the ” saving too much ” is the problem and not the private sector debt pushed onto the backs of households and businesses as they slash government spending.
The ideologues and the idiots have it backwards. At least Hudson and Keen put it in the correct order.
If MMT’rs hadn’t stepped in to help Keen in 2012, his Minsky model would have been a farce. As you’re can see in the link below. We stepped in and helped him straighten it out.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120117034458/http://www.3spoken.co.uk/

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 26 2023 19:27 utc | 16

@karlof1
appreciated as always!

Posted by: AG | Nov 26 2023 19:34 utc | 17

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 26 2023 19:07 utc | 15
Of course it is the ” fiscal flows ” that really matter.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4651127-private-domestic-sector-prints-10-billion-deficit-pointing-to-worse-markets-in-november
Mike below describing the ideologues and idiots Walt Disney world view. Nails it for me 100%. This Walt Disney world view
of the ideologues and idiots, Is the existential threat to the economy and the human race.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M9ot-iWv1p4

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 26 2023 19:35 utc | 18

@Scorpion – great reply, thank you. I readily believe this topic allows for some kind of deeper understanding, and I keep thinking it is but one topic that would make for an interesting conversation between you and me. Therefore, I shall forward my contact details through your substack now.
As to the question how much of a honeypot this forum is, I tend to believe it is to some degree. A few years back I followed some kind of conference announcement here and ended up at a really spooky gathering in Berlin that showcased numerous high-level whistleblowers, activists and dissidents, including video linked speeches by Julian Assange and Ed Snowden. Upon arrival checking in I was handed a bright orange notepad with the logo of Der Spiegel and the claim “Not afraid to speak the truth”. Ever since I have enjoyed various types of recreational drugs, made sure to party well and then some, and took up a habit of posting unbecoming photos of myself to the internet. I also abstain from active interference in ongoing intelligence operations, and do transparent communication about my stand and my own research – which includes posting here – so everyone who’s interested knows where I am.

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 26 2023 19:41 utc | 19

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 26 2023 19:07 utc | 15
The link doesn’t seem to work as it is from the way back machine. Just enter the details into the way back machine.
The site
http://3spoken.co.uk/
Click on the captures and The capture you want is
Jan 20th 2012

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 26 2023 19:49 utc | 20

The honeypot idea shows lack of imagination. There is no need. And if “they” have hacked the server logs here, then it has happened to countless other “dissident” sites – I have no reason to believe it hasn’t. But a honeypot is the use of a member of the opposite sex to lure and seduce someone who possesses secret knowledge and nothing spoken of here is secret, nor does anyone here represent a threat to the status quo – other than perhaps the breaking down of myths and dispelling of official lies. In any case, are “they” tracking those of us who comment, maybe even visit, MoA? I’m sure “they” are.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 26 2023 19:50 utc | 21

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 26 2023 19:50 utc | 21
In any case, are “they” tracking those of us who comment, maybe even visit, MoA? I’m sure “they” are.

99% of which ‘they’ are disembodied algorithms. About 10 years ago I signed up to Facebook on a whim. I didn’t say anything about myself in the registration. About a day later came a list of ‘friend recommendations’. About 400 names, a large number of which belonged to a Buddhist community I had been active in a decade or more earlier. Somehow ‘they’ knew I was connected to those people, most of whom hadn’t communicated with in over twenty years and didn’t remember until seeing their names on that list. I cancelled the FB account immediately, then found out that just opening it meant they tracked everything forever more (not that I care all that much), learned how to block the site in my browsers and soon also switched to Linux, which I much prefer.
During that time I back-traced for a little while for fun, and noticed that every single message went to first Stanstead (?, Canadian Intelligence), then Langley, then China Telecom – probably data-gathering agreements.
So I believe that anything and everything on the internet is tracked and logged. Every. Single. Thing. So trying to hide is a little pointless, though it can limit trolling, doxing etc.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 20:12 utc | 22

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 26 2023 19:41 utc | 19
Thanks for kind words. Will checkout the substack soon.
As to honeypots, I’m not sure if there is all that much erotic temptation on this site; maybe I’m missing something?
In any case, on the bottom of my emails I have a little signature:
Illegitimi non carborundum!

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 20:14 utc | 23

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 20:12 utc | 22
During that time I back-traced for a little while for fun, and noticed that every single message went to first Stanstead (?, Canadian Intelligence), then Langley, then China Telecom – probably data-gathering agreements.
Yes, far more tracking, logging and archiving than most people understand is happening. It’s ridiculous and blatantly unconstitutional, but for the fact that it’s shrouded behind the bullshit “national security” label (here, in the EU, China, everywhere). That massive “data center” the NSA built out in Utah was in the news for a while and quietly slipped from any coverage. It’s enormous and with the always decreasing physical size of digital memory, I imagine they probably have enough “disk space” for every communication by every American from the years 2001 to eternity.
How did you do the back-tracing? Reading header files or using networking traffic analyzers? I’m interested in trying it myself.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 26 2023 20:37 utc | 24

Passerby @11

Sometimes I wonder: what if moonofalabama is a honeypot?
It doesn’t even have to be known to b. All you need is access to the web server logs.

Dude, XKEYSCORE
The whole internet is a giant honeypot, brought to you by (D)ARPA and inQtel.
Anonymity is not an option, we need one, two, many MoAs!
They only have Five Eyes, looking down:
Shihad – FVEY

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Nov 26 2023 20:39 utc | 25

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 26 2023 20:37 utc | 24
How did you do the back-tracing? Reading header files or using networking traffic analyzers? I’m interested in trying it myself.
………………….
I don’t recall. A programmer neighbour of mine showed me how to do it. I think it was a Windows utility tool that ran a ‘whois’ check on every ping that comes in – or somesuch – and then produced a screen report showing each party that one’s message (or maybe website visit too?) was connected to. It was extremely easy to run. I stopped doing it after a week or two because every single report was basically the same – 3 Intel services. Well, I don’t know about China Telecom but presumably it went to other places in China with tracking functions. Given how much Western investment is involved with the China manufacturing rise, suspect the two polities are far more interwoven than news stories tend to portray. One huge big ‘managerial class’ boondoggle.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 20:45 utc | 26

@james
You’re probably already aware of this as a keen muso, but your references to Tariq Ali’s Churchill bio reminded me that he was the inspiration for the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man”!
I had no idea until I came across this article a couple of years back.

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Nov 26 2023 20:50 utc | 27

Ah, I see where some of the sensible regulars are taking respite, leaving the Palestine threads largely to the decidedly unedifying self-indulgences of our small but vocal collective of unreconstructed nineteenth-century anti-semites, who (laughably and predictably) are emboldened to emerge from their usual whispered innuendo echo-chambers into the full glare of sunlight like a nest of maggots exposed upon the upturning of a water-trough, there to parrot their sound-bite gems of BS while combing each other’s backs, under cover of the valid criticism of the Israeli oppressor and their USA backer. One thing we have to be `thankful’ to the vile Israeli state during their sporadic peaks of barbarism is the loosening of the tongue this emboldenment encourages, and therefore the reminder to those at the bar who may be recent or unwary of the maggotry.

Posted by: petra | Nov 26 2023 22:02 utc | 28

Scorpion @ 1:
In reference to your quotation of parts of the letter by Pierre François Xavier Boyer, who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte on his invasion of Egypt in 1798:

… To gain possession of Egypt, then, it is necessary to subdue these Mameloucs … they are in number about 8000 — all cavalry — under the command of 24 Beys…

After the British drove the French out of Egypt in 1801, the Ottomans in Constantinople reasserted their power by sending a force of Albanian soldiers to Cairo. One of these soldiers, Mohammed Ali Pasha, worked his way to the top and became governor with the approval of Egypt’s top clerics in 1805.
The Mameluke soldiers were still a threat to Mohammed Ali Pasha’s position – they hoped to set up their own government – and in 1811, the governor invited all the Mamelukes to a party at a Cairo palace to see off his son’s expedition against the Wahhabi rebellion in Saudi Arabia. Once all the Mamelukes had gathered at the palace, the gates to the palace were locked and Mohammed Ali Pasha’s soldiers butchered the lot of them.
After the massacre, Mohammed Ali Pasha’s position was secure and he set about changing Egypt’s economy by nationalising all the tax revenue streams on Egyptian land, and taxing charitable endowments. He used the revenues to reform and modernise Egypt’s army away from its domination by Mameluke soldiers. He set up a professional public bureaucracy and brought in European experts to train this new bureaucratic class. Mohammad Ali Pasha also set out to modernise the country’s agriculture and establish an industrial base.
Laura Panza, Jeffrey G. Williamson (The Economic History Review), Did Muhammad Ali foster industrialization in early nineteenth-century Egypt?

Muhammad Ali, who ruled Egypt between 1805 and 1849, intervened in Egyptian markets in an attempt to foster industrialization, especially between 1812 and 1840. Like a modern marketing board, the state purchased agricultural commodities (cotton and wheat) at low prices and sold them on world markets at much higher prices, a policy equivalent to an export tax. Ali also replaced tax farming with his own land taxes. The revenues so derived were used in part to finance manufacturing investment and to build irrigation canals. In addition, Ali supplied flax and cotton at those cheap purchase prices to domestic textile manufacturing, thus subsidizing the industry. He also used non-tariff barriers to exclude foreign competition from domestic markets. Were Ali’s state-led policies successful in fostering industry? The answer is no easier to extract from this phase of Egyptian history than from that of other poor countries at that time. This is because Egypt faced the same terms of trade boom typical of most poor commodity exporters, which was causing de-industrialization everywhere else in the poor periphery. Ali picked a very difficult time to pursue his agenda, but we show that his policies were successful.

Ultimately the Albanian general – who had hoped to set up a hereditary dynasty in Egypt – did not succeed as much he might have wished but he came up against British imperial ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean region. The British did allow his descendants to rule Egypt (they ruled right up to the early 1950s when they were overthrown by military officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser) but as a satrapy subordinate to British political and economic interests.
Mohammed Ali Pasha subdued the Mamelukes all right but his descendants ended up kicked out by army officers. I think you will appreciate the historical irony.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Nov 26 2023 22:12 utc | 29

I have always assumed/suspected that Canada and Israel were involved in domestic electronic spying and disrupting open discussion on behalf of prohibited parties, at least until they could clear those seeming obstacles (thx Obama). total awareness. alienable rights.

Posted by: Not Ewe | Nov 26 2023 22:15 utc | 30

Posted by: petra | Nov 26 2023 22:02 utc | 28
Could someone please translate that textual diarrhea for the rest of us?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 26 2023 23:23 utc | 31

I swear it must be a clause in every writer’s contract at Pierre Omidyar’s The Intercept. I was really enjoying the article until I got to this:
Former president Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are the 21st century’s premier war criminals.
What a load of horse shit. In fact the only wars “Putin” has fought were due to direct CIA and NATO provocations including color revolutions, the shipping in of radical Islamic fighters to RF territory, and years of shelling civilians while breaking multiple signed treaties.
And where is Cheney, Rumsfeld, Obama, and Clinton, since the latter didn’t surrender his place in the Oval Office until the year 2001? Or how about Hillary and Rumsfeld? Or Zelenskyy? Or Colin Powell?
Man fuck The Intercept. They always have to ruin a good time with the Empire’s official lies.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 26 2023 23:34 utc | 32

MoA – do you know more of such histories? I would like to start collecting a list on these figures, in order to perhaps be able to wrap my head around them one day.
Posted by: persiflo | Nov 26 2023 17:11 utc | 8
persiflo, someone here posted Ramin Mazaheri’s new substack. He used to post on The Saker. He has a new article that posts the third chapter from his book you might be interested.
https://raminmazaheri.substack.com/p/the-one-article-to-read-if-youre

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Nov 26 2023 23:47 utc | 33

Posted by: persiflo | Nov 26 2023 19:41 utc | 19
The problem with that strategy, persiflo, is all of us cowards are doing exactly the same thing! Now the spooks must determine who is faking being a coward. Wasn’t it some wit with a noose that said hang them all and the lord sort them out? What if such latter day wits exist today? Alternatively, you can ask an AI assistance, say Microsoft’s, to shepherd you towards building a “I am not a threat, honest to god” profile for the security state. Your post here is helpful but I’d suggest you post a confession of some sort. “GPT is your AI friend.”
@Scorpion
That ping story of yours does not pass the smell test. At all. When navy invented the onion router, they did for this precise reason. “Where is it coming from?” So how did it go? You got pings in sequence from the various quarters of global cabal spooks and you checked and sure enough it was “langley’s” IP address in the trace backs?
Foucault was so spot on, uncanny…

Posted by: robinthehood | Nov 26 2023 23:50 utc | 34

Continuing the honeypot theme, I think what we could have here is more like ‘limited hangout’ or this type of tactic:

Cognitive infiltration: Direct government agents to infiltrate online conspiracy communities and redirect their paranoia toward ends that are both useless and make them appear foolish to the general public. Examples of this include the Sandy Hook shooting where conspiracy theorists argued the dead children didn’t exist, and the flat earth theory. This cognitive infiltration strategy was articulated by Cass Sunstein in 2008 in an article titled “Conspiracy Theories” for the Journal of Political Philosophy, where he made a radical proposal: “Our main policy claim here is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories.”…they defined “cognitive infiltration” as a program “whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups.” Cognitive infiltration on social media is heavily boosted via bots who push arguments about, for example, the glass dome and the firmament (flat earth arguments) to distract people and lead them into harmless political dead ends.

https://neofeudalism.substack.com/p/dissonance-to-informational-control-ab0
I came to this article from the same substack’s author’s homage to brave journalists, specifically Gareth Jones
Now I know some here believe the famine is a Big Lie, which might be the case, but I suspect when journalists challenging the Powers the Be die of suicide or heart attacks when very young (in Garath’s case at 29) that chances are they are probably reporting truth. Am not trying to start a row about the famine event, it’s just that reading the passage pasted in above I thought of the honey trap theme in this thread.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 23:56 utc | 35

Further to comments above about being identified and tracked when participating on sites such as this, I had a curious experience last week.
Returning online to a firm of solicitors in Devon that I have engaged for the past 25 years to update my will, nearing the end of the process I was abruptly asked to perform an identity check. This involved supplying a copy of my passport and a recent bank statement. Shortly afterwards I was asked to participate in a Zoom session, the main objective seemed to be that I should brandish my passport in front of my face.
I thought no more about it until a few days ago I was told that I had failed an AML check. Not knowing what that means I did a search and found that I am suspected of money laundering or giving financial support to terrorism, and I must submit for a check to an outside company which maintains a list of suspected criminals. Having never laundered a penny and supported no terrorism apart from being a U.K. taxpayer I am at a loss to understand the reason. Is it that I support Palestinian charities and posted a link to my video on Palestine here a while ago? Is it simply that I live in China? Or is there some innocent explanation? I should add that the relevant statutes have been on the books for many years, so it seems perhaps that there has been a recent increase in such surveillance?
I refused to cooperate, terminated the relationship and will transfer my dealings to a firm I know in Hong Kong.

Posted by: Walt | Nov 26 2023 23:56 utc | 36

Also as far as honey pots go, I was just reading the lying pages of NYTimes and sure enough there is an article about how Napoleon wasn’t a big deal after all. There is a movie coming out and Hollywood (not CIA, alas) is doing astro turfing for Napoleon Bonaparte, kicking up commentary.
But then again, maybe even spook ops are being monetized.
CIA – we have a few fringe honey pots going. Lots of eye balls.
Hollywood – Oh?
CIA – Yes, how bout we work out a deal? We have eye ball trenches of various sizes, forums ranging from A to Z.
Hollywood – Sure. Our marketing research says geopolitical forums, military buffs?
CIA – We have just the site for you.

Posted by: robinthehood | Nov 26 2023 23:56 utc | 37

Posted by: robinthehood | Nov 26 2023 23:50 utc | 34
@Scorpion
That ping story of yours does not pass the smell test. At all. When navy invented the onion router, they did for this precise reason. “Where is it coming from?” So how did it go? You got pings in sequence from the various quarters of global cabal spooks and you checked and sure enough it was “langley’s” IP address in the trace backs?

If you say so. I threw that in but really don’t remember the process well and in any case the program did all the work and then produced an on-screen report I could save or print etc. I don’t know how it worked at all. It certainly was a very easy thing to run taking only a few seconds. I think there may have been a few more addresses (like my ISP) in the chain but what I do think I remember accurately is that once it got to the Canadian Intelligence town (Stanstead Ontario or somesuch), the next stop was Langley, VA, after that L.A. and the last was always CHINA TELECOM in all caps.
Does this mean that I was being monitored? Possibly. Or was this going on with every single person automatically? More likely. I never felt inspired to find out. I was a nobody living in rural Cape Breton and such machinations were not of any personal interest though when my friend suggested I check out that utility program, I did, mainly out of idle curiosity.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 27 2023 0:02 utc | 38

“You should have no expectation of privacy when you use the internet” – Eric Schmidt.
Let’s see if SCOTUS agrees with the universality of that statement. I always wondered if Eric was making that statement for the legal record.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Privacy
To conclude: Do you use magic boxes with binary blobs and encrypted firmware? Do you traverse a CDN (hi there cloudflare) for (likely) 90% of your virtual sight seeing? Do you carry a little snitch on your person with you as if your life depends on it? Are you one of those people who has to ask Siri to play a song?
Is your boob tube smarter than you?
“I’m not Spartacus!”

Posted by: robinthehood | Nov 27 2023 0:14 utc | 39

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Nov 26 2023 22:12 utc | 29
Thank you, and yes I do appreciate the irony. Indeed, have often felt that the word ‘history’ should include ‘irony’ in it somehow!
Often history like this reveals just how interconnected the world has been for a very long time. I’ve often wondered: how come so many of the Pharaohs were pale-skinned with red hair? And so many artifacts from one end of the world thousands of years ago found in the other end. Irish royal family – some of the oldest in Northern Europe – intermarried with other royals in Egypt and the Mediterranean just as most of the nations in Europe slaughtering each other in WWI trenches were all constitutionally led by the same tightly related royal families.
Sometimes I wonder if things have changed much at all apart from technological tools and tricks. There have always been and will always be elites, or ruling classes, in touch with their peers world wide and there will always be middle classes mainly in cities with delusions of individual and family grandeur, and peasant classes in agricultural rural zones and so on who do not see much further afield than the village down the road. The more things change…
That said, when I read the following passage in your excerpt:

The Mameluke soldiers were still a threat to Mohammed Ali Pasha’s position – they hoped to set up their own government – and in 1811, the governor invited all the Mamelukes to a party at a Cairo palace to see off his son’s expedition against the Wahhabi rebellion in Saudi Arabia. Once all the Mamelukes had gathered at the palace, the gates to the palace were locked and Mohammed Ali Pasha’s soldiers butchered the lot of them.
After the massacre, Mohammed Ali Pasha’s position was secure and he set about changing Egypt’s economy by nationalising all the tax revenue streams on Egyptian land, and taxing charitable endowments.

My first thought, as a good little middle class westerner was: ‘What! No due Process!?’
Then the irony of how, after the massacre, the next ruler went on to reform the economy.
I guess this War-to-Reset idea isn’t all that new after all, eh?

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 27 2023 0:19 utc | 40

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 26 2023 23:23 utc | 31
Posted by: petra | Nov 26 2023 22:02 utc | 28
Could someone please translate that textual diarrhea for the rest of us?

Those who criticize Jews as vermin etc. – an unforgivably despicable thing to do – are themselves vermin – pointing which out is a valuable public service.
Because some pigs are more equal than others, you know….
That said, I thought his prose was admirably emotive and I thoroughly enjoyed every scorn-laden syllable and sentence!

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 27 2023 0:27 utc | 41

re: Former president Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are the 21st century’s premier war criminals.
Bush gets the full blame for Iraq, but actually the Dems share the blame, with Biden right in the middle of it at Senate Foreign Affairs. . . . And President Clinton had signed into law H.R. 4655, the “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.”

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 27 2023 0:36 utc | 42

NaN
‾‾‾
LOL!
No insult or offense intended to anyone but wow.
Of course everything is tracked, not only here but everywhere, to think otherwise is simply funny. You’re tracked and tagged, most of it automatic, some of it not. Not only on the internet and email or phones and banks and shopping but all the way down to energy use.
And of course perhaps the most important of all: all kinds of links and connections. Blame Kevin Bacon 😀
It’s not only tracked and tagged and collated into matrices according to content but on activity, scale and frequency, rates of change/deltas, and anything else applicable.
Everyone gets their own little pretty personal multidimensional graph 🙂
You’re not just a number; you’re a collection of many numbers 😛
Not only in one place but in thousands, and everyone trying to hoover up as much as they can.
Have people even heard of Snowden? That was only a tiny little bit —perhaps as much as a ten thousandth or maybe far less— of what one agency does.
Anyway thanks for making me laugh and best of luck learning about the world in the 21st 🙂

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Nov 27 2023 1:23 utc | 43

Is it all too much? Here’s my approach:
be as kind, righteous, and happy as you can be while not ignoring reality.
If you can learn anything or contribute to (human) society that might be good too, but only maybe and depending on all sorts of stuff. Looking back I think I’ve drawn double blanks on those but I’m still trying to figure it/everything out.
And try not to play the kind of “games” they play, play your own games if any.
Not that I can live anyone’s life for them, struggling with my own has (as a blessing) at least taught me that much 🙂

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Nov 27 2023 1:33 utc | 44

Passerby @11: “Sometimes I wonder: what if moonofalabama is a honeypot?”
I hope you’re not assuming the NSA doesn’t already know who each and every one of us is, or can figure it out in seconds if they choose simply by mining the data they already have.

Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 27 2023 1:54 utc | 45

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Nov 27 2023 1:23 utc | 43
LOL! You probably are one of the few that remember liar clapper bragging about their ability to do a googol like search on individuals using all the data they’ve collected over the years…they had a photo of the fool in what looked like an enterprise ship captain command module of some sort with a giant screen showing the search results.
Carrying around and using a cellphone over the past 20 years? They have every single cellphone conversation, all external recordings automatically recorded…including every single one of your arguments, private meetings, and personal conversations that were within earshot of the phone…They know pretty much what everyone else is saying about you that you don’t know.

Posted by: nathan in WA US | Nov 27 2023 2:04 utc | 46

In 1976 the NSA recorded, digitally analyzed, and cataloged for easy searching every single phone call in and out of the city of Boston for the year as a demonstration of their capabilities at the time.
They’ve gotten better.

Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 27 2023 2:15 utc | 47

Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 27 2023 2:15 utc | 47
Is that for real? Holy crap. And yes, they’ve only gotten better. Data, metadata, computational analysis, real-time updates. And we’re supposed to be worried about China, LOL.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 27 2023 2:26 utc | 48

Related. Concerns digitization, AI etc. as regards ongoing geopolitical developments often discussed here and covered by b. Whether or not one agrees with the author’s thrust, this is a very big open question now playing out. On the one hand we have a proposal to eliminate the Hegemon and accentuate multipolar cooperation between civilization states etc. whilst on the other all are developing CBDC’s, AI, global protocols (such as WHO authority in case of global health emergencies) and so on which will tend to create a one-system-for-the-whole-world type dynamic which will increase global managerialism, thus centralization, thus further oligarchy. All that multipolarity might end up meaning is a global system of oligarchy versus the current nation state based (somewhat) system of oligarchy.
Hard to tell…

In 1918 Spengler believed western civilization had already entered civilizational winter. He predicted that “the 20th century has and will continue to be …a period of imperialism and annihilation wars. Science will stop reaching certainties (although technology continues to accelerate…). The people reject common goals. Art is reduced to fashion, and innovation as a concept is cheapened and trivialized. Between the 21st and 23rd centuries, Caesarism [will rise] again in the continuation of ‘civilizational winter’. The politics of brute force returns to break the stranglehold of money…it seems that tribal strength surges and ‘impersonal’ institutions decay. Weak ties and complex bureaucracies (fueled by “money”) are severed in favor of strong ties and absolutism (fueled by “blood”). Nuance and the essence of the high culture decays gently into the dirt.”
If Spengler is correct and we are in for two more centuries of civilizational winter as part of a broader cycle, we would expect to see the rise of populism, failing institutions, increased chaos, and the rise of strongmen who could battle the entrenched bureaucracy. One can see the start of such trends with Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban, and Putin. A counter to this argument, though, is that these strongmen are losing re-elections (Trump, Bolsonaro), they are weak on the world stage (Orban), and/or continuing massive cooperation with globohomo (Putin; to elaborate, Putin has a World Economic Forum puppet as the head of the Russian Central Bank, he was onboard with implementing globohomo COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, he is hard at work advancing central bank digital currencies, and his initial rise within Russia was due to his support of the West and his willingness to let them pillage Russia). It looks like this system, highly reliant on technology for ever increasing control, is rapidly advancing instead of buckling before populist politicians; if so, it would disprove Spengler’s thesis, although it remains to be seen if these trends continue.
Furthermore, to be explained in depth in Section 4, the transnational elites are rapidly implementing technologies that will give them a historically unprecedented level of control over their citizens, technology that will enable them to micromanage hundreds of millions of people on an individual basis using a combination of programmable CBDC technology and aggressive, woke AI. If this vision is realized, it’s hard to envision this as simply the winter phase of a civilizational cycle — it could look more like the deaths of multiple civilizations all at once.

https://neofeudalism.substack.com/p/dissonance-to-informational-control-397
(I believe the author comments here.)

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 27 2023 2:57 utc | 49

@ S.P. Korolev | Nov 26 2023 20:50 utc | 27
thanks for that! i was not aware of any of this.. i only tripped onto him via an interview on the churchill book.. fascinating! thanks for sharing that.. cheers…

Posted by: james | Nov 27 2023 4:51 utc | 50

@ Walt | Nov 26 2023 23:56 utc | 36
Ever heard of identity theft? The goons and the crims can do anything they want. Randomly caught out or targeted would anyone ever know the difference – or be able to prove it?
“I have no idea how those files got onto my computer officer. No idea at all. It wasn’t me.”
Officer: Oh righto, no problem sir. We’ll just ignore it then and won’t press charges.
“Oh thank you officer. That’s very kind of you.”

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Nov 27 2023 8:03 utc | 51

Carrying around and using a cellphone over the past 20 years? They have every single cellphone conversation, all external recordings automatically recorded…including every single one of your arguments, private meetings, and personal conversations that were within earshot of the phone…They know pretty much what everyone else is saying about you that you don’t know.
@ nathan in WA US | Nov 27 2023 2:04 utc | 46
If that were true then every intel goon in the world has already died of boredom, jumping off the nearest high rise roof. 🙂
The things people believe, hey.

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Nov 27 2023 8:07 utc | 52

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 27 2023 2:57 utc | 49
Excellent Scorpion! Brilliant infact.
Those fake populists we see are exactly that fake. There’s nothing new when you look at their economic policies. Absolutely nothing. The one party nation state narratives never change. The blob stops any real change.
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61407
The problem is fixed exchange rate thinking, which comes from mainstream economics and its everything is a veil over barter myth. There isn’t, and never has been, a universal exchange commodity that you can deny Russia or anybody else that will somehow shrink their output.
In any national economy there is the pile of stuff you can make yourself, then there is the stuff you can get from somewhere else which makes the pile bigger (imports), and after that there is the amount of stuff you have to give to somewhere else which makes your pile smaller (exports).
The only reason to export is because you can’t get imports for promises (currency). If there are no imports on offer, then you may as well keep what you would have exported for yourself – redeploying manpower as needed to other areas.
By refusing Russian exports, the West has freed up production manpower that Russia can redeploy into its Military Industrial Complex. Import substitution industries.
All while making the pile of stuff the West has smaller.
CBDC has little to do with blockchain or any of the fancy crypto nonsense – all of which add nothing. It is, at root, simply a bank account held at the central bank rather than a commercial one: which eliminates the risk of bank runs and the need for deposit insurance.
It already kinda exists within the current banking system. All of it is tracked and traced for money laundering purposes with or without a CBDC.
In the UK Our banking transactions day to day are done via the BoE. That’s what the RTGS at the BoE is for, which all regulated banks operate in or through. Moreover the banks can be directed by the BoE under powers it has within the Bank of England Act 1946, never mind the money laundering regulations. Transactions are reportable to the BoE under the Sterling Framework.
People think our transactions are not tracked in the ‘private sector’ but they are.individual units can be tracked, controlled and retrospectively withdrawn in our current bank accounts. CBDC is nothing more than a bank account at the Bank of England. Which they have denied households up to this point.
Our existing system is already a ‘digital currency’.
Cash does not trade at a premium other than in libertarian fantasy land – because it costs far more to bank and to withdraw for any business. Only those looking to defraud the exchequer prefer cash notes, and those people are tracked and traced by money laundering rules for any significant amounts.
Pretty much all our current money is electronic – under the control of the central bank due to the powers given to then in the Bank of England Act 1946, and yet there is no withdrawal or whimsicalness or outcry like with CBDC’s.
Given the domestic economy ran on twigs for centuries – That Money is a promise. The embodiment of “here’s a pig owe me one”. Gold bugs should get used to that fact.
Banks discount assets into liabilities and by doing so ‘create money’. And they’ve been doing that for centuries.
“Printing bonds” is the same as “printing money”. The only difference is that bonds have a coupon attached that provides free money to the holder.
That’s it.
A CBDC is nothing more than a bank account at the Bank of England in my name, rather than using the Issue department ‘nominee’ account at the Bank of England that bank notes are currently a receipt for.
We already have central bank digital currency. It’s what everybody who isn’t a gold coin loon uses every day in their bank accounts. Demand deposits are saved. Time deposits are withdrawable. There isn’t just one type of money. There are lots of types.
Sterling is a creation of The Crown. People will be obtaining it because that is how they settle their taxes – assuming they don’t want to spend the rest of their days at His Majesty’s pleasure. No amount of shiny beads will get them out of that requirement – not if they want to live in the UK.
The true money story is
a) The government needs to provision itself.
b) So it imposes a tax liability on the population.
c) The tax liability creates unemployment so the government can buy the skills and real resources it needs to provision itself.
d) Then they issue the currency to pay people or buy things.
e) This gives the people the money they need to extinguish the tax liability imposed on them.
Rinse and repeat.
The problem is if they impose too high a tax liability and they get all the skills and resources they need but leave millions unemployed because the tax was too high. They don’t do anything about it. They leave these people to rot in their communities.
When what they should be doing is introducing a job guarentee to get These people back into the private sector as quickly as possible.
Young people get it and understand it, as can be seen here in this link below, because it is so obvious to them. Willing to learn as they are not yet set in their ways. Learn about monopoly price setting and relative value.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1PzQz3_boAM
Obviously there are some risks to us but Rohan Gray shows how to protect us from these risks if a CBDC is born using the law. It’s a good thing if individuals get a central bank account, rather than just being given to the privileged.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 27 2023 8:09 utc | 53

Chas Freeman:
“US Hegemony In The Middle East Is Over | West Asia Will Define Its Own Future”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t_Lw8InEt8
I agree that the influence of the US in Middle East is “waning”.
But Freeman overlooks the overpopulation in the Middle East / West Asia. When the population(s) of the Middle East / West Asia rise up against their governments then the US will be incapable of exerting any “control” in which the Middle East is moving towards and will be forced to watch from the sidelines to events unfolding over there. A good example is the Arab Spring og 2011 which came as a total surprise for the US. The Arab Spring of 2011 started in multiple countries as an uprising of a number of populations against their own governments in the Middle East & North Africa.

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 9:41 utc | 54

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 9:41 utc | 54
The problem isn’t the US being unaware when they light another fuse in the Middle East (and elsewhwere). It’s the fact that the deluded leadership is too far gone to understand that the consequences may actually reach them at this stage.
And all the rich bastards running the show in the background think they can buy a ticket for ANY escape option should things really go South because they’re too rich to fail. But Noah’s Ark only had space for one pair of each. And they’re a whole bunch too many to get onboard and away when this place finally goes down under.

Posted by: NotYourBob | Nov 27 2023 10:02 utc | 55

China, KSA, Russia, currency swaps an de-dollarization. Very much worth the read, linked at ZH, or direct here:
What Are The Saudis Really Preparing For? GOLD GOATS N GUNS Tom Luongo
IMO what Luongo misses is that USA is well passed fun and games or hard hustling, it’ll simply jump up, overturn the card table, throw everyone’s cards, chips, and kitty to the floor, storm out of the room, and return 20 minutes later with a drive-by shooting.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Nov 27 2023 10:34 utc | 56

Mr. Market @ 54

A good example is the Arab Spring og 2011 which came as a total surprise for the US. The Arab Spring of 2011 started in multiple countries as an uprising of a number of populations against their own governments in the Middle East & North Africa.

Dude, MoA Amusement Park has a height requirement to get on the roller coaster, come back when you grow a bit taller.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Nov 27 2023 10:38 utc | 57

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 20:45 utc | 26
each router can change the IP, from IP IN to a another IP OUT ( 1$ router can do it too).
Your router at home always do it too, there is no magic inside.
With taceroute or tracert you can see a list of routers.
Up to the first line, at the top of the list (this is 1th router), is your statement maybe not correct anymore. After there a router may have been changed the IP from IN to a other IP OUT and back again.
see Huawei

Posted by: theo | Nov 27 2023 12:05 utc | 58

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 27 2023 8:09 utc | 53
…………………………
Thanks for your reply. As usual much is over my head. I find banking as impenetrably arcane as most find discussions about non-materialist values…!
That said:
1. Yes, we already have a digitalized system, clearly. Purchase by a CC number over internet every transaction logged etc. I honestly don’t know what CBDC means that is different but if it furthers centralization, then it risks furthering tyranny which in a world with degraded value systems usually leads to mass murder. Call me old-fashioned but that’s something I don’t relish!
2. The privatized central bank model is by design a con. That’s bad enough, but also makes your real world import-export description incomplete. Because of course the interest payments to the credit cartels issuing debt as national currency bakes inflation into the equation meaning We The People lose out whilst the cartels accrue ever-increasing share of the national – now global – pie. They need revolutions and system reboots every so often to change names and such lest too many cotton onto the con. For which the ingoing Reset with Plandemics, SMO and soon religious wars provide cover.
At least that’s my admittedly amateur take.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 27 2023 13:04 utc | 59

Fed chairman Powell admits Fed doesn’t have a plan how to stop bailing out banks.
The new bank bailout fund ($100+ billion) is already being used by several large US banks. FED encouraged private banks to buy low-yielding treasury bonds in recent years, and FED lended to private banks from that facility. Now FED is holding the treasury bonds which have dropped in value, and banks continue to dumping their treasury bonds to the FED.
Meanwhile FED holds low yield bonds, but has to pay 5.25 % for the private banks. As a result, FED profits are plunging, and in a very short time FED has incurred $120 billion in losses with no end in sight.
It’s likely the US is trapped, as it can’t lower interest rates because of decreasing global demand of USD, or it will result in mega-inflation.
https://www.fxhedgers.com/p/powell-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud

Posted by: unimperator | Nov 27 2023 15:13 utc | 60

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 27 2023 13:04 utc | 59
You are correct on both accounts. Why we must reclaim the state and do it properly.
We know how to change the banks or even nationalise them. These articles are well worth a read.
The Ecash act
https://moneyontheleft.org/2022/03/28/the-ecash-act-with-rohan-grey/
And these
https://realprogressives.org/?s=Rohan+gray
Ties in neatly with Michael Hudson’s public banking model.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 27 2023 16:34 utc | 61

Zelenskyy
>>a loss ratio (for KIA) of something more like 10:1, which seems high, but more believable…
Posted by: Marshall | Nov 27 2023 12:27 utc | 8
Easily believable when Ukraine was on the offense, but I doubt ten to one can be sustained by Russia now that they are on offense. The currently available weapon systems favor defense a lot.
——————-
>>Ukraine will not sign a settlement agreement with the Russian Federation without reparations…
Posted by: reparations… | Nov 27 2023 12:09 utc | 3
In the part of the country annexed by Russia, reparations will come in the form of Russia fixing the place up because it will be Russia spending on its own territory. Hey, value added.
If the west follows its common pattern, areas not annexed by Russia will be nominally independent. There will be a little generosity for the sake of appearances. Beyond that, money will come in the form of loans and funds raised by selling off whatever there is of value to western financers. Commonly pennies on the dollar.
—————————-
>>What is true then, is that the US really has no plan (or weapons) for Ukraine going forward…
Posted by: North Patagonia | Nov 27 2023 13:46 utc | 22
What appears to be the current plan is to pressure Zelenskyy into settling with the Russians. Or we claim to think a stalemate can be achieved.
—————————-
There was an article a few months ago about how the west is losing its grip on resources worldwide (albeit bribing and threatening to keep what it can), so that explains in a way why they are so desperate to escalate.
Posted by: Justpassinby | Nov 27 2023 14:22 utc | 32
If we were operating in a more sensible way, our diminished power would produce diminished demands, so as to retain what advantages we have. Instead, as stated, we are lashing out and making things worse for us.
—————————-
There is currently a madness about…
Posted by: Julian | Nov 27 2023 14:39 utc | 37
I suppose the only cure is a big loss that we can not talk our way out of. I’m to the point of hoping that we don’t end up in an exchange of nuclear weapons.
—————————–
@canuck #9
It is certainly possible for a 50+ person to be physically fit…
The way it works is that endurance goes down with age. Thirty year old men can often get more done than twenty year old’s, mainly owing to experience, but that is about it. From there on it is a slow decline.
I believe the endurance problem in war is simply surviving the physically challenging environment. Extreme exertion isn’t that common. And now winter is setting in.
I don’t know how suited women are to combat, but antidotal reporting from Afghanistan is that they are largely just a burden on the men when in field maneuvers. That they can serve in other areas would seem apparent.

Posted by: Jmaas | Nov 27 2023 16:43 utc | 62

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 27 2023 0:36 utc | 42
to say Putin is one of the worst war criminals is laughable. The US and NATO bear far more responsibility for that war. When the international legal system is so rigged in favor of the war criminals in the US and NATO, Putin didn’t have much choice.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Nov 27 2023 16:44 utc | 63

Posted by: unimperator | Nov 27 2023 15:13 utc | 60
1hr 15 mins in…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1PzQz3_boAM&pp=ygUZd2FycmVuIG1vc2xlciBmdW5ueSBtb25yeQ%3D%3D
“FED encouraged private banks to buy low-yielding treasury bonds in recent years.”
They didn’t the bond traders ( you should watch all of the video as it covers a lot of ground regarding bonds) has the whole thing backwards. They weren’t encouraged, they dived in head first on a wrong belief system and are now caught on the wrong side of the trade.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 27 2023 16:49 utc | 64

Southern Europe is slowly drying out to look more like North Africa, which is not good news for the extensive tourist industries in Spain, Italy and Greece. This may be exacerbated by short-term climate cycles, but the baseline keeps changing with climate change. Tourists are already complaining about water restrictions, the locals have it much worse:
Spain – Water scarcity in a vacation paradise
This is what the UN IPCC forecasts mean for Southern Europe in 2050, with those forecasts being much too conservative that may be more like 2040 or earlier
Europe’s farmers look to a future of long-term drought
With the ground dried out into a solid relatively impervious layer, floods can easily follow later as the ground does not absorb much of the rain water. Same kind of stories from around the globe, for example with the Amazon rain forest (exacerbated by illegal clear cutting for farming).
How the Amazon has started to heat the planet
This is like watching a slow build up movie called “the collapse of advanced societies” that comes to a quite sudden and accelerating ending.

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 19:11 utc | 65

@Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 26 2023 23:56 utc | 35

Now I know some here believe the famine is a Big Lie, which might be the case, but I suspect when journalists challenging the Powers the Be die of suicide or heart attacks when very young (in Garath’s case at 29) that chances are they are probably reporting truth. Am not trying to start a row about the famine event, it’s just that reading the passage pasted in above I thought of the honey trap theme in this thread.

Gareth Jones was employed as the foreign affairs advisor by the British ex-PM Lloyd George, and wrote for the Hearst (anti-communist to his core and a “yellow journalism” proprietor) newspapers, even being seen together with Hearst. Hardly an “independent” journalist. If he was a very successful propagandist working for the Western powers that be, it would make sense for the Russians to off him when they had plausible deniability.

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 19:35 utc | 66

being as this is a bar and such, i’m raising my glass in memory of Geordie, guitarist of the majestic killing joke, who left this earth much too soon yesterday

and when you find yourself
upon the untrodden path
remember me with a smile, a drink,
a gesture or a laugh
a toast for the man who loves
every hour of every day
and a feast for the friends and faces
met along the way
gratitude

Posted by: b real | Nov 27 2023 20:23 utc | 67

@LightYearsFromHome:
Dude, MoA Amusement Park has a height requirement to get on the roller coaster, come back when you grow a bit taller.
Then tell me why you have this opinion and what I am missing.

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 20:46 utc | 68

The current El Nino looks to be as strong as in 2015/2016, so comparing the temperature peaks should provide a good insight into the underlying temperature trends. The peak in 2015/2016 was in February and March 2016 at 1.61 degrees centigrade above the 1880 benchmark, we have already hit 1.746 above 1880 in September and have a few months before the peak temperature.
ENSO Evolution
In the whole of 2022, when we were in a mild La Nina, global surface temperatures averaged the same as in 2015, which points to higher than 0.3 degrees per decade rise (0.256 above trend for an El Nino, plus an additional amount for the La Nina below trend in 2022, then times (10/7) to get a decadal number). This is a definite acceleration in the warming trend. Possible causes are the significant increase in the rate of increase in atmospheric methane (due to both human sources and increased natural sources as peat bogs, wetlands, permafrost etc, become warmer) and the reduction in the sulphur content of shipping fuel (the sulphur causes a “global cooling” effect).

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 20:49 utc | 69

@Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 20:46 utc | 68
Try the article below, about how yes the protests were a surprise (driven significantly by large increases in food and fuel prices) but were then steered by the US toward their interests:

When it became clear the dictators were collapsing, the United States changed tactics by siding with the revolutionary forces while working, especially in the Egyptian and Yemeni cases, to maintain the
main power structures which would serve American interests. In Libya, the United States managed to re-orient the revolutionary process from being one of non-violent resistance to an all-out war launched by the local opposition and Western powers, which resulted in the destruction of the main structures of the state and its power. In other Arab countries (mainly Bahrain), the United States assisted the regimes in aborting the uprisings and crushing the nascent democratic movements before they could reach critical mass, thus reinforcing existing political orders.

The US can be quite adept at turning popular struggles into ones benefitting themselves. Same in Syria where they turned protests into a violent attempted revolution. Israel has tried this with the Hamas attack, but its (and the US, Wests in general) propaganda is failing badly so the world is not supporting its attempted genocide.

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 20:59 utc | 70

@Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 20:59 utc | 70
The paper I referred to above: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/arabstudquar.35.3.0255?seq=6

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 21:00 utc | 71

@NotyourBob:
The problem isn’t the US being unaware when they light another fuse in the Middle East (and elsewhwere). It’s the fact that the deluded leadership is too far gone to understand that the consequences may actually reach them at this stage.
Too many people in the US have a FINANCIAL interest to keep those wars going in the Middle East. think: weapons, bribes (from e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.). As long as those wars don’t have a major impact on their neighbourhood they don’t care how many people are dying and how many refugees are fleeing to Europe.

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 21:03 utc | 72

Topic: Housing bubble in the US.
“Investors are selling out of Florida (50% Drop in Jacksonville)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y85VSuvlCG0
The tone of the video is a bit “over the top” but the overall message remains the same. Home prices in several US states (NOT limited to Jacksonville or to the state of Florida) are going down.
Search on YouTube with the words “Housing crash USA” and see what’s popping up. There are A LOT OF such videos available.
There was also a car bubble in the during the COVID pandemic in the US. That bubble is also deflating. See e.g. example these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Q2vPsR0Kc&t=246s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_W7DBESks&t=251s
Or search on YouTube with the words “car market crash” and see what pops up.

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 21:28 utc | 73

@Roger (#69):
When it became clear the dictators were collapsing, the United States changed tactics by siding with the revolutionary forces while working, especially in the Egyptian and Yemeni cases, to maintain the
main power structures which would serve American interests. In Libya, the United States managed to re-orient the revolutionary process from being one of non-violent resistance to an all-out war launched by the local opposition and Western powers, which resulted in the destruction of the main structures of the state and its power. In other Arab countries (mainly Bahrain), the United States assisted the regimes in aborting the uprisings and crushing the nascent democratic movements before they could reach critical mass, thus reinforcing existing political orders.
The US can be quite adept at turning popular struggles into ones benefitting themselves. Same in Syria where they turned protests into a violent attempted revolution. Israel has tried this with the Hamas attack, but its (and the US, Wests in general) propaganda is failing badly so the world is not supporting its attempted genocide.
Weblink ????
Fully agree but did this solve that problem called “overpopulation” in the Middle East ? Or is the US determined to solve that problem by plunging every country in the Middle East in chaos and every population into (more) poverty ? It seems that this is the “Grand Strategy” of the US for the Middle East after all. It may not be the (general) strategy but more of “unintended consequences” of the strategy.
Is there still a strategy beyond 1) “sell as much weapons as possible” and 2) “create more instability” ?
Disagree. Libya and Syria were already on the list of the US (think: Neocons) to be undergo “Regime Change”. The UK & US started their “Regime change in Syria” preparations in the year 2010. One year before the Arab Spring.
In the 1980s the iranian population strategy was “We must produce as much children as possible”. In the early 1990s (1990 ?, 1991 ?, 1992 ?, 1993 ? ……. ?) the government in Iran changed its population strategy to “only 2 children per household/family/married couple”. In that regard I consider Iran to be the most stable country politically in the Middle East and (to a lesser extent) North Africa.

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 22:11 utc | 74

Even in the market of the socalled “AIRBNB rentals” there is a housing bubble in the US. Some 30 to 50% (depending on the source) of AirBnB rentals came onto the market in the timeframe 2019 – 2021/2022. But right now demand for these AirBnB has dropped (massively). A LOT OF these owners of AirBnB rentals bought these houses with borrowed money. Ouch & OMG.
Watch this video (from the 4th quarter of 2022):
“The “Airbnbust” Is Teaching Rich People A Hard Lesson In Capitalism”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpKbBKLThL8
Or these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYWfijtQPcI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFFeOuJzYo
The tone of these videos is a bit too snarky, too condescending but the bottom line remains the same: too much supply of AirBnbs rentals.

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 22:27 utc | 75

@Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 22:11 utc | 74
The Tunisian revolution started in Dec 2010 and Ben Ali was gone by mid-January 2011.
Libya was most definitely a West-created insurrection, with Western intelligence agencies already linked up with senior officials to turn things into a war, after Gaddafi had not taken the bait to create a casus belli and was winning against his opposition, so the Western media and security services fabricated one. It was all over for Gaddafi by October 2011. Libya had to be smashed because Gaddafi was working to keep US bases out of North Africa and to replace the dollar/franc in the region.
The first protests in Syria started in March 2011 in the major cities, it really escalated in 2012-2013 as foreign weapons and fighters flooded the country – including from the armoury of Libya now in NATO hands. The Assad family had become extremely corrupt and were initiating neoliberal policies which angered the population.
There was a certain amount of opportunism with respect to US/NATO actions, they had just been waiting for the right moment. They were surprised by the Tunisia uprising and the speed that it sped across MENA, but then quickly pivoted to take advantage.
The US/NATO/West don’t give a F about MENA demographics, what they care about is controlling the resources which means keeping the MENA nations weak and dependent. Of course, they have achieved much of the opposite in allying Iran and Russia, opening the door for the Iran-Saudi peace deal etc., getting Iran a bigger role in Iraq and Syria.
The Saudi population is the worst, with now 32 million people completely dependent upon oil and gas rents. There were 5 million before the fossil fuel rents. Jordan has a rapidly growing population of 10 million. Egypt growing just as fast with 43 million, relying a lot on Saudi financial support. These countries could rapidly become a shit show if those rents start falling for good. The demographic numbers are now very much against Israel given how many young men that its surrounding countries now have compared to Israel.
Iran seems to have stabilized their population at 87 million, and have a relatively diversified industrial economy with link to China and Russia to help develop and the US no longer in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 22:41 utc | 76

@Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 22:27 utc | 75
Very much like the “buy to let” market in the UK, with interest rates now much higher the owners are now underwater even with higher rents. Same is happening in Canada after a lot of properties were bought by investors. As per usual, the Canadian government is acting after the stable door has been thrown wide open by now clamping down on AirBnB. The wonders of pro-cyclical policies that will just make the price crash even bigger.
In Canada properties need to 60% lower before they reach any sane level versus incomes and real interest rates.

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 22:45 utc | 77

@Roger (#76):
I can agree with what you write for say 90%.
Libya:
The major foreign policy advisors of Obama were all against a war aganst Libya. But it was France’s Sarkozy who wanted to intervene in Lybia. France controlled countries in West Africa through the CFA (???) currency which was based on the french franc (and later the EUR) used in that region. Khadaffi wanted to replace that CFA with the libian dirham. That was a threat for France controlling West Africa and from that point onwards France sought support in the US for “Regime change” in Libya. Obama c.s. were against but one Hillary (“Killary”) Clinton has moved heaven and earth to change Obama’s mind and in the end she succeeded in doing so. Killary Clinton wanted to show that she could be tough as nails because she already had her eyes set on the 2016 elections.
Later Obama admitted that starting a war against Libya was a mistake.
I must rewite one part of a previous post of mine:
“Disagree. Libya and Syria were already on the list of the US (think: Neocons) to be undergo “Regime Change”. The UK & US started their “Regime change in Syria” preparations in the year 2010. One year before the Arab Spring.
Libya and Syria were already placed on that “Regime change” list in the autumn of 2001:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Knt3rKTqCk

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 23:03 utc | 78

@Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 27 2023 23:03 utc | 78
A very good point about Sarkozy, whose election campaign had been funded illegally by Gaddafi in 2007. Perhaps, taking the opportunity to shut up the problematic sources for good? Also, perhaps over-compensated to look hard on Libya. Of course, the CFA Franc was severely threatened by the Golden Dinar.
Explained: What we know about the Gaddafi-Sarkozy funding scandal
And, yes Clinton was the gung-ho one for regime change in Libya. Thank god she didn’t get elected in 2016, the Ukraine war would have probably started in 2016. She also pushed the whole Syria hell with the help of Saudi and Qatar. Obama seems to have gotten manipulated into acting, although he is a very good liar.
I assume that you are talking about the “7 countries in 5 years” quote from Wesley Clarke?

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 23:20 utc | 79

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 19:35 utc | 66
Gareth Jones was employed as the foreign affairs advisor by the British ex-PM Lloyd George, and wrote for the Hearst (anti-communist to his core and a “yellow journalism” proprietor) newspapers, even being seen together with Hearst. Hardly an “independent” journalist. If he was a very successful propagandist working for the Western powers that be, it would make sense for the Russians to off him when they had plausible deniability.

Fair point. But I like his style of reporting dozens of interviews with people on location. I was reading through the first chapter of his book ‘Experiences in Russia, 1931’ and found the views interesting. Of course it could all be made up. Everything in print can all be made up. But I don’t think being anti-communist automatically qualifies one’s entire life work as beneath contempt. He didn’t just lambast it but learned the language and lived among Russian people for years reporting on their attitudes, no doubt why so many of them talked to him for so many years. I always prefer first-hand accounts to opinion and he chose to interview many and simply record their responses with minimal commentary on his side. In other words, in Ukraine he published the words of the people he spoke to on the ground and lets his readers form a judgment one way or another. I don’t care about X or Y being true or false but I very much value reading or listening to voices from the past. (Am personally interested in how world views change in various cultures and time periods much more than hunting down facts per se, which are highly subjective in any case.)
Though again, maybe because he worked for Hearst, the whole thing is a con. Always possible.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 27 2023 23:42 utc | 80

@Roger (79):
No, the libyan dirham was backed by OIL.
Yes, I mean that one quote from Wesley clark.

Posted by: Mr. Market | Nov 28 2023 0:01 utc | 81

Something different to chew on, “Banking, Shipbuilding & Russia’s Economy”. The sanctions monster continues to boost Russia. By now it’s very clear that what geoeconomic dependencies Russia once had on the West were actually holding it back. Hudson recently noted that fact.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 28 2023 0:04 utc | 82

Rogue ‘@ 65 Thank you VERY MUCH for the reports on galloping desertification. A shame that so much distracts from publici discussion of this topic!

Posted by: Pundita | Nov 28 2023 0:10 utc | 83

Roger @ 65 don’t know why the address came out as Rogue

Posted by: Pundita | Nov 28 2023 0:11 utc | 84

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Nov 27 2023 16:34 utc | 61
Thxs for the recommendations. I got through most of the first article before developing a headache (!) but the videos/podcasts I cannot do. I have a family member who started his own highly successful international investment bank somehow, but clearly he and I have very different genes! I like looking at charts and years ago did a little trading (I was short options on Friday before Black Monday and cashed out a minute before the market closed making what I thought was a killing already. If I had not done that I would have made a half a million bucks at the open on Monday. That was my one and only chance to get ahead financially and I blew it. Oh well.)
But banking…. I just can’t follow it!! But thanks again!

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 28 2023 0:23 utc | 85

re: james | Nov 26 2023 17:03 utc | 7
The book Winston Churchill His Times, His Crimes by Tariq Ali, can be found in EPUB form from this link Winston Churchill His Times, His Crimes. I haven’t read it yet so do not know much about it.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Nov 28 2023 1:28 utc | 86

Hollywood was built to sell the Dream – the Birth of A Nation, Ben Hurr, every cowboy myth film etc. The Zion Dream was being installed. Eyeballs every week meant propaganda could be delivered with the entertainment- News and Drama.
TV put the propaganda machine in every home! Social media in every pocket anywhere.
Every Xmas holiday we had to watch anti German war films – the Sound of Music and endless others. We didn’t stop making ww2 movies – just kept reinforcing them with ever more artistic licence – Enigma, Churchill very sodding Dunkirk and DDay movie.
How many dropping atom bombs movies did we have? How many destruction by 1000 bombers of non-military cities?
What’s the difference between propaganda, advertising and film&tv product placement and now any social media trending/viral infotainment???
That’s right NONE.
Bogart and co kept the tobacco industry highly profitable. All the gun use kept the insane gunmakers in the US equally profitable. Endless police procedurals and secret agents keep the public 3 lettered agencies insulated to do what they want.
The internet as the new medium was kept open as the supposed wide open empty unpopulated West, while it was being settled and gaining eyeballs. Now it’s been/being fenced off and controlled, only the Big Ranchers are allowed to exist or should that be X-ist. Elon the first king of Mars ain’t a make believe American Dream Hero for nothing. He is just the latest iteration of control. Underneath his fluffy X-tripe is the the rusty gnarled claw of the Ancients who’s Money he minds.
They are all thugs and gangsters and natzio backers just as GrandPappy Bush and Kennedy were. Just bagmen doing the bidding of the Fucwit Masters, for the reward of a dynasty and a top job for their first born! Elon or his dynasty will get their chance. Even the if it’s in some walled off Collective Waste unipolar Dream Scape.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Nov 27 2023 20:35 utc | 132
I’ll bite, DunGroanin, but I’ve taken the liberty of transferring this part of your rant over onto the WiR so as not to get off-topic where it was. You write in entertaining fashion, but I think there was a slight difference between Bogey with his cigarettes (never got seduced myself) and what is going on sub whatever in every form of entertainment these days. For me today’s propaganda is a turnoff – movies or tv and I’ll try to say how I think those early marketing ploys were different.
It’s because, I think, earlier there was a certain regard for the public taste itself. The stories had to be gripping; the actors had to act. They don’t any more. And sure there was a ‘sell’ going on, because movies had to make money. That, I think, was the main sell – had to be ‘art’ involved.
So, seemed a ‘separate ball games’ sort of scenario: before we had oligarchs (I mean REAL oligarchs who more than dabbled in politics and told politicians where they owed their allegiance rather than vice versa), we had those two fields of operation. One for the marketers and one for the entertainment sellers. Propaganda during wartime, sure, but that was not the sinister market it has become now; movies had to be about something, and a lot of that was also anti-war, because that sold, or anticorporate even, before corporations became gods.
It really was a different time.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 28 2023 1:34 utc | 87

@ Debsisdead | Nov 28 2023 1:28 utc | 86
thanks debs… i have had some excerpts read to me in that ‘blogging theology’ review on youtube that i shared, but that’s it..

Posted by: james | Nov 28 2023 1:51 utc | 88

Roger at 65 — please see Europe’s battle against the deserts. 2017 at YouTube. Goes back and forth between Spain disaster and Iceland’s monumental fight against desertification. Much important info often overlooked.

Posted by: Pundita | Nov 28 2023 2:05 utc | 89

re: james | Nov 28 2023 1:51 utc | 88
No problem, tho to tell you the truth I was rather conflicted about denying Ali & Verso Books their royalties from MoA readers and I trust those who are not strugglin’ through the last 20% of their existence on a fixed income, do buy the book.
Especially right now as Verso Books have an 80% discount on all their e-books. Verso have always been reliable publishers for leftist authors (real not ersatz) and even though I know such a generalisation is begging contradiction, I make it in the knowledge that their are few if any other english language publishers with such a great collection of anti-imperialist titles.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Nov 28 2023 2:31 utc | 90

re #90 at 2.31
there not their, obviously.
I try hard to get their/there/they’re correct most times but I am as prone to slip up on it as anyone.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Nov 28 2023 2:35 utc | 91

Posted by: Roger | Nov 27 2023 20:49 utc | 69
Thanks for the anthropogenic update.
I’ve been watching Paul Beckwith for a number of years now, and reading the science about the subject for several decades, and frankly it is terrifying.
The recent upswing in methane seems to be most highly concentrated in wetland areas, and with a huge surge from Africa which seems to have many surprised. I had been wondering how much of that has to do with Positive Indian Ocean Di-pole effects with increased rainfall in the Eastern and Central parts of the continent. However, there are large plumes coming from South American wetlands and elsewhere.
Methane, from my perspective, appears to be a likely catalyst to a complete step-change in environmental conditions. We can only speculate on the climate we will be faced with when the global average temp goes up by 3-8°C, although it appears that the planet has been there before in it’s history, I’d not want to live through it.
I’m glad I have no children of my own to worry over.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Nov 28 2023 2:45 utc | 92

@Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Nov 28 2023 2:45 utc | 92
It is amazing to me that there is no real panic about the increases in the natural methane cycle, its a feedback that could rapidly accelerate given that methane has a warming potential about 100 times that of CO2 over a 20 year period. And of course, humanity is happily adding to this by increasing natural gas usage. The last thing we need is a spike through 2 degrees caused by methane that then triggers other feedbacks as there is no going back from there.
Have also been watching Beckwith for a while, he is good at identifying new important information.

Posted by: Roger | Nov 28 2023 3:21 utc | 93

Posted by: Roger | Nov 28 2023 3:21 utc | 93
Thanks for your reply.
I’d read somewhere over the past week that the LNG being shipped from the US to Germany has a higher footprint than coal, due to all energy expended in extraction, and fugitive emissions at every stage of the journey.
They’re opening new gas mines here in Australia too, with many wanting to allow fracking nationwide.
It begs the questions, are these people:
a) Ignorant of the science,
b) In denial of the science,
c) Just plain greed-driven and bugger the consequences, or,
d) Milleniarist religious types who are unconcerned as the rapture awaits them?
It’s completely horrifying to me personally. I’m glad there are people like yourself, Beckwith, et al, keeping up the flow of knowledge to the public.
All the best.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Nov 28 2023 3:37 utc | 94

@ Debsisdead | Nov 28 2023 2:31 utc | 90
thanks debs.. i am the kind of person that buys books and can’t read a book online for the life of me.. i can read moa online, but that is about it.. i haven’t decided if i am going to buy the book yet… you are much more informed then i..

Posted by: james | Nov 28 2023 3:58 utc | 95

didn’t they just have an election in new zealand? what can you tell us about it? thanks..

Posted by: james | Nov 28 2023 3:59 utc | 96

re Posted by: james | Nov 28 2023 3:59 utc | 96
I am far too pissed at that exercise in amerikan propaganda to discuss this cogently yet, A weird coalition of war mongering voices has been cobbled together. I had given up on this long before the actual vote as Nania Mahuta was pushed so far down the list that she announced she would only contest for a constituency seat. The timing gave away what happened tho few kiwis were inclined to listen.
I am sure that Blinken’s visit here so close to an election was involved in the decision to gety rid of her, cos as foreign minister she was obdurately opposed to upsetting relations with China, they prolly made the usual deceits to Labour as in, “get rid of her and we will ease up on promoting the opposition”‘ or some such. Of course there was no easing up. The warmongers ran on the old lawn order trick, highlighting any crime, blaming the current administration while the opposition parties promised to throw away the key on recalcitrants, Right now the new govt is whining publically on legal aid, saying it is aiding and abetting crime. Can’t be giving the poor fair trials now can we?
All the usual lies even though blind Freddy can see the only way to ‘fix crime’ is to alleviate poverty. That isn’t gonna happen under any current pols who want to give even more to the wealthy.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Nov 28 2023 4:22 utc | 97

@ Debsisdead | Nov 28 2023 4:22 utc | 97
thanks.. i am sorry to hear that.. same story pretty well everywhere it seems.. blinken visiting so close to the election is very telling..

Posted by: james | Nov 28 2023 4:46 utc | 98

A very good charity helping out victims all over the world via local churches is International Orthodoc Christian Charities (IOCC) https://iocc.org/

Posted by: Exile | Nov 28 2023 8:16 utc | 99

Posted by: petra | Nov 26 2023 22:02 utc | 28
Could someone please translate that textual diarrhea for the rest of us?
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 26 2023 23:23 utc | 31
I guess, sense preserving translation is “I am a genius and I hate those who are not”.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 28 2023 13:59 utc | 100

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