Scorpion
There is nothing new in that Dilorenzo thesis but the spin put on it.
Lincoln was a supporter of the American system, and Carey’s protectionism. This was the system that Friedrich List admired and promoted in Europe.
The Plantation owners of the South sold their commodities to the UK- they thrived in Free trade.
Lincoln and the other high tariff Republicans (such as ‘Pig Iron’ Kelley and Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania) promoted high wage industrialisation, behind a tariff barrier. They argued that the South’s dependence in slave labour and Free Trade meant that it wasopposed to the economic interests of the mass of ordinary Americans.
They argued that slavery was bad for the economy and the average American worker-black or white-that it kept wages down, depressed the conditions in which ‘free’ labour worked and sustained the traitorous-anglophile and anti-worker-liberal Plantocracy.
There was nothing hidden or sinister in the links between High Tariff/High Wage policies and opposition to slavery. On the contrary it was this connection, inter alia, which made anti-slavery a popular cause even among racists who hated blacks and were unmoved by the reports of the cruelties of the system.
Roberts, obviously nostalgic for the Confederacy, and a life long liberal (like the von Mises Institute and the Confederacy itself), is giving an old story an anachronistic spin by suggesting that there was ever any doubt that, as Marx pointed out, the basic issues here are economic. And the basic issue of slavery, like offshoring, is that it lowers the living standards of all workers involved.

Posted by: bevin | Jan 31 2024 16:59 utc | 4

Posted by: bevin | Jan 31 2024 16:59 utc | 4
My – admittedly limited – understanding is that the South had healthy trade with the Crown, exchanging agricultural products from the South with manufactures from the mother country which compromised the non-agricultural (cold weather) North’s ability to sell their less advanced manufactures to the South. The article I linked unfortunately didn’t explain this.
But the author is correct that slavery ‘yeah or nay’ was not a driving issue behind the conflict as is generally understood today. Many Americans are taught that ‘Lincoln freed the slaves’ as if that is what the Civil War was all about and the South sacrificed hundreds of thousands to keep blacks in chains.
PCR, in response to my request that he write an article about secession, replied that he feared it would unleash Civil War again so demurred. That was over a year ago; now he is discussing it (perhaps because of Texas and the Trump persecutions et alia) and even giving links to a recent Simplicius article about that topic.
Whatever the ins and outs of the Civil War, US States must somehow confront Federal Government over-reach of the original deal though it seems there is not a whole lot of understanding or discussion about what, if any remedies, can be applied.
Interestingly, Biden’s response this week to Texas pushing back against Federal Border Agency over-reach was to shut down LNG gas exports. Very close to tariff war type action.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 31 2024 17:49 utc | 6

Oops, sorry, don’t know how that double posting happened, wasn’t intentional :-/

Posted by: Zet | Jan 31 2024 17:55 utc | 8

Thank you, b, for providing this open thread earlier than usual in the week. I am extracting from the ‘War on the Middle East’ thread some comments to pursue here:

“They claim it on the basis of race: Their antecedents lived there and God promised it to these actual people’s actual descendants. So, genetic evidence very much matters.”
[Posted by Jane]
“Except that many Rabbis, particularly in the Hasidic community view this as blasphemy.”
[Posted by: Turk ]
“So should Christians. Christ himself said that God could raise up children for
Abraham from the stones of the streets of Jerusalem. I take that to mean that such would be children of the spirit, not of the body.
Also, the Hasidic version of Judaism began developing in spirited communities in Poland. It would seem the answer to Zionism lies with those communities which developed not in the Holy land but outside it, in Europe and other places.”
[Posted by: juliania]
“The Catholic Church declared it heretical too, but apparently there is a sect of Zionist Catholics within the church.”
[Posted by: Turk]

Many threads on the wars get clogged by clarifying posts on historical developments which are not directly war-related. The upper sequence is a case in point, and I was guilty there myself. A lot of revision of history gets buried on the ‘war’ threads as well, some important, some not.
This midpoint open thread is a good place to bring such visions and re-visions of historical happenings. They often get lost elsewhere. I’d suggest, as we come across them, instead of immediate vituperative (or even kindly) remarks we simply respond:
“[OT]”
Then take the culprit[s] to the midweek Open Thread for a more direct response, as I’ve just done.

Posted by: juliania | Jan 31 2024 18:10 utc | 10

Here’s the response I had wanted to make to the inserted comments at Posted by: juliania | Jan 31 2024 18:10 utc | 10 above:
Turk’s comment on the Hasidic community sent me back to the Foreword by Chaim Potok to Buber’s “Tales of the Hasidim”:

…”The fundamental fact of human existence is man with man,” wrote Buber in Between Man and Man. Hasidism saw the line connecting man to man and man to God as relation and not as subject-object; as sacred betweenness and not as user to used. That living relation Buber took to be the most unique and vital characteristic of the hasidic community…”

Earlier, Potok describes how Buber had been involved in zionism at the turn of the 20th century as a ‘Western Jew’, but he soon left it as “…the Hebrew he had learned as a boy and subsequently neglected he now relearned and enriched…”
As I have earlier commented, when Buber finally moved to the Holy Land, he did not believe Israel ought ever to become a political State. When I was a student, his works were very popular among both my teachers and other students in the late ’50’s, early ’60’s. (And, point of reference, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ was not.)

Posted by: juliania | Jan 31 2024 18:42 utc | 12

Anybody else here sick and damned tired of topics such as Jews/Khazari/Rothschild etc?
Posted by: Morongobill | Jan 31 2024 18:37 utc | 11

Of course. Plenty of people are. Sick, damn tired, damned, stressed and terrified, perhaps awake at night seeing visions of firing squads and gallows. Definitely some of the khazars and their apologists and busybodies would be. Especially if they can be tracked back to what they’ve been up to the past years, now that the flood gates are breaking and you’re no longer instantly cancelled on social media or in private conversation for naming the jew. People are collecting and storing information; the sword of the internet cuts both ways and we the people are capable of coordinated “lockstep” too.
Unfortunately for you, the topics will not end while genocide (of Gaza and the general human population, not to mention big parts of the ecosystem) goes on. The topics will not end while the whole planetwide satanist corruption racket continues. So prepare, it’s going to go on for quite a few years more.
As for your vague “such as”, what would in your opinion be a topic “such as” jews/khazari/rothchilds? Maybe nazis? hitler? horror movies?

Posted by: Michael A | Jan 31 2024 18:58 utc | 14

juliania | Jan 31 2024 18:10 utc | 10/12
I suspect that what you are looking at is far wider and deeper than religious text alone. More to do with the human psychology. If can I will try and write a coherent comment on it, but what I have been looking at and thinking about in the last few days is quite complex.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 31 2024 19:21 utc | 16

“The Great Work or Magnum Opus, most notably by the Alchemists, according to the Rosicrucians and Freemasonry. Those teachings were the basis for the “secret teachings” of the famous secret societies that arose in Europe and then America, a few years after the initial popularity of Hermetica during The Renaissance among leading Catholic philosophers, nobles, and priests.” From: The Secret Teaching of All Ages

Posted by: kana | Jan 31 2024 19:31 utc | 18

It’d be a great time to tell Taiwan to negotiate with China rather than count on the US to save them.

Posted by: Sentient | Jan 31 2024 19:50 utc | 20

@Roger
Canada’s national identity has always been thoroughly petit bourgeois, its frontier/resource economy based on the private annexation of indigenous lands.
The labor movement arose from an accidentally created Canadian working class, born to the pitiful men and women of Europe which these landowners imported to work as servants and menial laborers. That the labor movement eventually adopted a white chauvenist character to mirror the landowning bourgeoisie is the essential reason it has no power and no purpose in 2024.
Whiteness is an ideology, and it is not the friend of the working man

Posted by: Brautigan | Jan 31 2024 20:12 utc | 22

Videos:

🇫🇷 Positional battles for highways in the Paris region continue. The brave French from the tractor corps are fighting back against the dark forces of the dictatorship.

https://t.me/intelslava/55079

🇫🇷 The priest blesses the equipment of the French tractor corps to fight tyranny.

https://t.me/intelslava/55084

🇫🇷 ⚡️Farmers in France tried to seize the Rangis food market near Paris, 79 people were arrested – media

https://t.me/intelslava/55085

Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 31 2024 20:54 utc | 24

Posted by: ryanggg | Jan 31 2024 20:47 utc | 23
Posted by: ld | Jan 31 2024 16:47 utc | 3
==================================
It’s ten hours long!!
I found another one listed underneath only 3 hours long called the Jew World Order with surprisingly long extracts of some of Adolf’s speeches, none of which had heard before but since it’s playing in the background I haven’t paid close attention.
I think it helpful, as with psychedelics, to realize that there are different ways of looking at history and indeed different sets of facts; moreover that much we have been told is questionable at best. The Jewish Cabal angle, though important, is not necessarily the whole story and perhaps even provides cover for those behind yet more hidden curtains. (I find the Rothschild family story somewhat unbelievable, for example, though it is true they basically bought up the United Kingdom the day after Waterloo using carrier pigeons in their private spy service.) In any case, there is more to the world than their nasty subterfuges, but that doesn’t mean, given how much in which they have been and still are involved, that they aren’t worth learning about.
That said, have been aware of the subject matter for well over twenty years, as are many others here I suspect. But if you have never been exposed to such stuff before, it’s quite shocking. (Also, far too many elements are illegal to discuss, which shouldn’t be the case, but is.) And the story continues even now today, both in US and Ukraine and Gaza…

Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 31 2024 21:24 utc | 26

Posted by: Morongobill | Jan 31 2024 18:37 utc | 11
Hell yes.
On other topics, here’s David Stockman (a frequent contributor at Anti-War (dot) com) writing in the Koch funded libertarian magazine Reason about Trump and a new book about his presidency. Interestingly the them is Trump’s “war on capitalism.” Let’s just say that this “war” certainly wasn’t waged from the “left.”
https://reason.com/video/2024/01/31/david-stockman-on-why-trump-cant-fix-the-debt-this-guy-is-part-of-the-swamp/
There’s an article in addition to the video.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 31 2024 21:49 utc | 28

Posted by: malenkov | Jan 31 2024 22:05 utc | 29
Hell yes. I sometimes tend to ramble myself, but usually it’s at least close to whatever the prevailing topic (or topics) is, including the Week in Review. But good god, the recent trend in philosophical gobbledygook is approaching the level of ridiculousness. I’m sure I’m on several peoples’ ignore list, but never before at MoA have I just completely skipped so many comments by going to the bottom and looking at who posted them.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 31 2024 22:15 utc | 30

Can we add metaphysical “philosophy” (also without irony quotes) and MMT to the list?
Posted by: malenkov | Jan 31 2024 22:05 utc | 29
The western world, and those unfortunate enough to be drawn into it have lost their foothold on any form of reality.
A prime example of those drawn into it is Ukraine. But just the average person – make that sheeple – in the west… The change in those about me since 2014 due purely to propaganda. The Ukroids in their vaunted southern offensive ordered by the US. Russian defenses, Kursk defences were common knowledge. Marched like lambs to the slaughter. Unbelievable. Human lemmings.
I see that in the people about me now. All heading to their own inevitable destruction.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 31 2024 22:30 utc | 32

Posted by: Roger | Jan 31 2024 22:29 utc | 31
I agree with you in terms of “economics.” But the criminal “justice” system definitely has a view (even if subconscious) on “whiteness.”

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 31 2024 22:37 utc | 34

Posted by: malenkov | Jan 31 2024 22:05 utc | 29
“Can we add metaphysical “philosophy” (also without irony quotes) and MMT to the list?”
———————–
What does ‘MMT’ means?
Thanks in advance

Posted by: Astra | Jan 31 2024 22:45 utc | 36

Posted by: Roger | Jan 31 2024 22:47 utc | 37
OK! It’s good to read that. I thought it could stand for “Make Me Taller” or maybe “Microcephaly, Mental Retardation, and Tracheoesophageal Fistula Syndrome” 😉
https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/MMT

Posted by: Astra | Jan 31 2024 22:59 utc | 38

@Roger
Also what in God’s name are you on about with your completely contrary to reality assertion that Canadian police budgets have been shrinking. Not only is there no evidence for this claim, there have been statistical meta-analysis made of Canadian municipal budgets which show that Policing accounts for over 50% of expenditure in nearly all municipal budgets Canada wide. In fact it’s the one line item which never decreases.
Since you didn’t cite anything neither will I, we’ll just let the gentle reader decide who’s claim sounds more credible.

Posted by: Brautigan | Jan 31 2024 23:16 utc | 40

The Chuckle brothers at the Duran are freaking out about the EU attacking Hungary economically.
Of course the chuckle brothers are entrapped by fixed exchange rate thinking. No surprise there and as per usual can only think in currency terms as strong currency good, weak currency bad. Completely ignore any context as usual.
Chill, relax Hungary will be fine. If China and Russia whisper in their ear the reality of the situation. Even though I’m convinced Elvira Nabiullina doesn’t quite grasp it yet either.
1. They are fully sovereign nation state
2. They did not join the Euro and have their own FREE floating currency.
They can not be attacked like Euro using countries can be. It depends if they have any foreign currency debt.
If their currency goes down it immediately helps Hungarian exporters. Plus ALL other currencies immediately get STRONGER against it and that means the EURO will get stronger. EU exporters will be hurt big time as the Euro strengthens.
Look it is very very simple.
Hungary doesn’t need our money. Hungary is a sovereign state,Hungary doesn’t care about the exchange rate, Euros are useful but not necessary.
Infact, you can swap the word Russia with the word Hungary In this article. As Russia and Hungary are EXACTLY the same fully sovereign.
Here
https://new-wayland.com/blog/the-unreasonable-ineffectiveness-of-sanctions-on-russia/
The only way Hungary walks into the neoliberal and neoconservative traps set for them as the EU does it worst. Is If the Hungary central bank does all the wrong things.
1. Raised interest rates – NO NO NO NO don’t do it.
2. Tried to defend their exchange rate with foreign exchange reserves – That is fixed exchange rate thinking and Bretton Woods ended in 1971.
Just let it float and it it falls it falls allow the Euro to fly to the stratosphere NEVER try and defend it using foreign exchange reserves.
Russia has already learned that harsh lesson pre August 17, 1998
Here
https://k.web.umkc.edu/keltons/ECON501/Mosler.htm
The West are totally relying on Hungary to make these mistakes like Erdogan did in Turkey and like Argentina did. The West want Hungary to start raising interest rates and to defend their exchange rate using foreign exchanges reserves p me Russia did pre August 17, 1998. They are gambling the Hungarian central bank is entrapped by neoliberal groupthink.
Here
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=48895
Both Russia and China should now know these neoliberal and neoconservative traps. Should warn Hungary what NOT to do. Act more like the Japanese central bank and not the Western central banks.
If they don’t and start playing into the hands of the Western monetary policy ideology they are doomed.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Jan 31 2024 23:31 utc | 42

Posted by: Roger | Jan 31 2024 22:47 utc | 37
MMT taught Steve Keen everything he knows. We even fixed his Minsky model for him as Steve had all of the accounting wrong.
Oh, and we had to teach him this also. It was embarrassing for Steve the night in May 2018 when he debated Warren Mosler with millions watching.
Steve once again was entrapped by fixed exchange rate thinking and thought money could leave the country in a free floating system. It can’t it is EXCHANGED as you can see from the links avove.
If somebody wants to do this
$ ————> £’s
Then you need other people wanting to do this
$ <----------- £'s Which means the dollars don't move all that changes is the name on the accounts that now holds the $'s. Here Trade and external finance mysteries – Part 1 https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=39282
Trade and finance mysteries – Part 2
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=39303
Steve made a complete fool of himself that night. Learned from it though. Like I said we keep him on the right track.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Jan 31 2024 23:46 utc | 44

This is how the chuckle brothers from the Duran are thinking about the Hungary situation. Why they are freaking out about the EU attacking Hungary exchange rate.
Here:
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=32931
Wrong paradigm and a different decade. They need to relax and hope Hungary realises the true power of floating rates. Hope their central bank isn’t Western educated.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Jan 31 2024 23:58 utc | 46

Posted by: bevin | Jan 31 2024 23:35 utc | 43
Remember the aim- based on the Union forces rule of the Sea Islands of Georgia- of Forty Acres and a mule? It was the deep south -plantation land- version of the Homestead Acts which the radical Republican Congress first passed during the war, designed to build a property owning democracy based on peasant farming, an alternative to the Plantation system which harked back to the landlord/tenant system of the Old World that Americans, historically, sought to escape from.
Those , like PCR, who are nostalgic for the Confederacy- the Gone with the Wind crowd- have a simplistic view of the Civil War which ignores its many revolutionary aspects.

Thank you. I didn’t know about any of that aspect, which sounds interesting. That said, I doubt PCR’s view is that simplistic given his wide-ranging background. But your post and others reminds me of why I have rarely gone down the Civil War (or Russian/Bolshevik Revolution) rabbit hole: it is endlessly complex. Personally, I would like to understand how 600,000 men could be inspired or fooled into giving their lives in battle because much of that has to do with social connections which we no longer experience, I suspect. But then 1,000 a day are dying in similar fashion today in Ukraine and I cannot understand that either.
Even if the scientific marxist view is generally correct – which as you know I doubt – it still doesn’t really explain those sorts of loyalty pro patria mori dynamics well. Because as much as your argument is persuasive that the North rallied around the notion of freeing the slaves etc. – at least to get the grunts signing up – I find it hard to believe that so many ordinary Southerners gave their lives to keep them in chains.
I wonder if they didn’t prefer dealing with a powerful authority and reliable source of income an ocean away rather than a powerful authority and source of more questionable income just up the road. Either way, it was a very different time with different passions animating different men.

Posted by: Scorpion | Feb 1 2024 0:04 utc | 48

@Posted by: Brautigan | Jan 31 2024 23:16 utc | 40
Do not misrepresent my words! I mentioned the police in the paragraph referring to Greater London NOT the GTA. Your pissy reply certainly does not reflect well on you, if you are going to debunk an unreferenced statement then you will always need a reference. Your lack of research is embarrassing given the facts below.
The police in the UK were significantly underfunded, especially given the level of population growth. For example “The impact of funding on rising crime is a matter of hot debate, but what is certain is that police forces in England and Wales have less money than they did in 2010.” From a BBC article Reality Check: Is police funding falling?
Oh, and the number of police in the GTA has not kept up with the population growth in the GTA, “Demkiw emphasized that the service’s strength on the ground has barely changed in more than two decades — despite significant population growth, the city had only 37 more officers in 2023 than in 1999.” From the Toronto Star Toronto police are at ‘a critical point in our history,’ Chief says in defence of budget rhetoric
@Posted by: Brautigan | Jan 31 2024 23:08 utc | 39
“Workerist”, you going to call me “classist” next? By the way Deng came very close to throwing the whole revolution away in the mid 1980s and only just made the right consolidations and adjustments to forestall regime change. There is an excellent book on this “How China Escaped Shock Therapy The Market Reform Debate” by Isabella M. Weber. Xi had to clamp down hard to stop a bourgeois takeover when he first came to power, thats what the whole anti-corruption drive was about.
I have heard your type of over-analytical and convoluted spiel many times. Canada is still, for now, a predominantly white (people identifying themselves as white) country of working people. The NDP pissed away that constituency by going bourgeois liberal progressive, all performance and no reality. It has also pretty much always been supportive of Empire and therefore Canadian foreign policy. The four-times losing leader of the Ontario NDP is a classic example of this, as is the current national NDP leader. The selection of a conservative as the head of the NDP threw the 2015 election, as did the hidden liberal/conservative Ontario NDP leader throw away the NDP reputation in the early 1990s by backtracking on his promise of state car insurance. A “left-wing” party that always seems to manage to lose, even when it should have won!
You are really going to get support from culturally conservative and religious immigrants when pushing LGBTQ agendas? Much of which I personally support, but am realistic about the issue if you are trying to reach out to Hindu, Muslim, and christian conservative immigrant communities. Intersectionality is a political rat-hole, especially when class is not given the correct prominence. Hindutva Indians don’t much like Moslems, so support for Palestine may not be such a great idea if you want to gain Hindu support. Then of course there is the Sikh / Hindu issues which will become more prevalent as Canadian Hindus now outnumber Canadian Sikhs. There are many landmines lurking in dealing with diverse immigrant communities. Rapid mass immigration does not allow for the reduction in such animosities, it would be the same with a sudden increase in the Russian community among the right-wing Ukrainian community.
What binds all working people is their position with respect to the means of production and their objective oppositional position to the owners and their agents (the bourgeois professional courtier class). Attempts to forge such a coalition have always met with elite reaction, whether it be the later MLK, Fred Hampton, Occupy Wall Street etc. In the post-1935 period, Canada followed quite a successful industrialization strategy and only returned to the Staples Trap of commodity production after the neoliberal 1980s.
If a truly left-wing party wanted to win the next election, and of course if it were allowed to, it needs to have policies directed at working class interests, such as (i) an immediate severe limitation to immigration to allow for the integration of the masses already immigrated in the past decades – including a significant reduction in foreign student numbers (ii) investment in public housing, infrastructure and services to properly serve the expanded population (iii) a repeal of the many tax cuts for the rich and corporations over the previous decades (iv) a reining in of the monopolistic/oligopolistic corporations and proper regulation (v) extensive support for worker and consumer cooperatives along the lines of Quebec. Such policies would gain support from a wide section of Canadian workers, including many recent immigrants who are struggling to make ends meet as much as anyone else. Just like the doctor that I met working in an Apple Store because he has no way of being certified in Canada.
Once you have gained power and shown benefit you can work at pushing boundaries, that’s why working with unions and other communities on concrete benefits tends to pay dividends. Lenin was a realist, that’s why there was the NEP in the 1920s, and Stalin was also a realist and that’s why he switched to centrally-driven rapid industrialization when he could – it was the only way the Soviet Union would be able to withstand the inevitable Western attack and attempted subversion. A continued NEP would never have delivered that in time.
We need realism, not continued theoretical points scoring and name calling. Tommy Douglas is a revered name in Canada, better to build on his not perfect legacy than claim that he wasn’t pure enough.

Posted by: Roger | Feb 1 2024 0:58 utc | 50

@Posted by: Echo Chamber | Jan 31 2024 23:51 utc | 45
I am not going to be dragged into any further discussion of MMT, it has already been thrashed to death on this blog.

Posted by: Roger | Feb 1 2024 1:06 utc | 52

Scorpion | Feb 1 2024 0:04 utc | 48
Strategic Culture today is as good as I have ever seen it. Pepe’s article on Glenn Diessen new book not only contains this reference to the American System as an alternative to Free Trade liberalism:
“…Diesen breaks it down, noting how China has to a certain extent “replicated the three-pillared American System of the early 19th century, in which the U.S. developed a manufacturing base, physical transportation infrastructure, and a national bank to counter British economic hegemony.”
But goes onto this discussion of China which conforms greatly with our (I believe) shared conviction of the importance of the Confucianism which I see as an ancient augury of socialism
“…Diesen also contends that the emerging Eurasian World Order is “seemingly based on conservative principles.” That’s correct, as the Chinese system is drenched in Confucianism (social integration, stability, harmonious relationships, respect for tradition and hierarchy), part of the keen sense of belonging to a distinct, sophisticated civilization: that’s the foundation of Chinese nation-building…”
There are also articles by Steven Karganovic, Steven Sahiounie and Edouardo Vasco on the current crisis in Gaza and elsewhere.
I won’t attempt to give links but they are all at today’s
https://strategic-culture.su/

Posted by: bevin | Feb 1 2024 1:15 utc | 54

The “states rights” canard of the present day is merely a canard concocted to paper over the real reasons for the Civil War; again only a small number of Southern leaders ever uttered that phrase alone, with nothing about slavery also mentioned.
None of which is to say that the war was in large part fought by both sides over economic reasons, but in the South the economics were inseparable from the use of chattel Black slaves and that system was only allowed to persist because the non slave owning Whites of the South agreed with it in principle. How many abolitionists were there in the Confederacy? And what happened to them if there were any?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 1 2024 1:17 utc | 56

@Posted by: Brautigan | Feb 1 2024 1:05 utc | 51

Imagine: a scenario where the indigenous land defenders in our country, militant environmentalist Haida and Tinglit on the west and deeply political Mohawk Warriors in the industrial St Lawrence corridor, not steered by the flabby conservatism of anti development Anarchists, but allied with a vigorous and truly class conscious working class with real power. You will notice that indigenous national movements are basically always armed, and that the indigenous national character is hewn closely from organizational principles that we Marxists call primitive communism.

Dream on, this is about as realistic as the second coming or the Rapture. This is the problem with much of the left, dreaming about “perfect” revolutions instead of dealing with the messy reality. I remember in 2014 when I was doing an MA in Alternative Economics and the professor was rhapsodizing about the Mexican Zapatistas, he didn’t like when I pointed out that they pretty much failed and were being increasingly isolated and had not triggered any wider change in Mexican society. They are now dissolving their autonomous municipalities Mexico’s Zapatista indigenous rebel movement says it is dissolving its ‘autonomous municipalities’

Posted by: Roger | Feb 1 2024 1:20 utc | 58

“…Imagine: a scenario where the indigenous land defenders in our country, militant environmentalist Haida and Tinglit on the west and deeply political Mohawk Warriors in the industrial St Lawrence corridor, not steered by the flabby conservatism of anti development Anarchists, but allied with a vigorous and truly class conscious working class with real power…”
Brautigan | Feb 1 2024 1:05 utc | 51
It would be a start to imagine an indigenous movement angry at the new precedents in the work of justifying land theft being set, with Canadian support, in Palestine. Not to mention the complaisance with which the ethnic cleansing of the Donbas was viewed.
The land issue is the beginning of everything- there is a sense in which the capitalist structure was founded on the alienation of the peasant from his land. There is a lifelong Marx-from the man who watched the Black Forest being privatised, to the old fellow learning Russian to keep up with the narodniks- who understood the importance of matters that many of his followers were anxious to write-off as casualties of the ‘transition from feudalism’.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 1 2024 1:27 utc | 60

“Pro-Palestinian demonstrators confront Nancy Pelosi during event at Seattle’s Westin hotel”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEaBDhLByzs

Posted by: WMG | Feb 1 2024 1:28 utc | 62

“Nancy Pelosi stirs the Russiagate pot (again)”
“The politician suggested that pro-Palestine protests were linked to Moscow”
https://unherd.com/thepost/nancy-pelosi-shows-the-democrats-russiagate-obsession-lives-on

Posted by: WMG | Feb 1 2024 1:32 utc | 64

I’m not going to say sorry for bringing up metaphysics as a topic in many OT threads recently. But I shall explain my motivation in doing so here.
Metaphysics had been a notorious theme here before I entered the debate; according to a shortlist someone made in (I believe) early 2023, it was among the top 5 most contentious topics of MoA, up there with tony ocmoc. This is very understable, because the problem of metaphysics is not, as some believe, a simple non-issue. Rather, as I will claim, the truth is just the opposite. What’s more, I am fairly certain that I can argue this point in a positive, constructive sort of way; that is, not merely pointing at the problem, but offer an actual solution. That is either unsubstantiated folly, or a fact; however incredible this may appear to everyone, including myself btw.
For me, there are several angles in trying to get this thing across here at MoA. The most basic of them is that I am still honing my writing skills; short, succinct posts in a debate forum that’s mostly concerned with metaphysics tangentially is a good practice. I’m also having to use the english language, which is close to a re-invention of my philosophy which has been built first in german. The bar is a rough place at times, but I also find in here an extremely open community, where it really does not matter much if the debate is carried by former bakers, lifelong shitkickers, war veterans, religious nuts, and the odd engineer in the mix.
When I started my regular postings last year, initiating the Heidegger debate, I was quite careful to watch out if the topic would stick. It did, much more than I’d have ever dared to expect. While I see this as a satisfying personal success, it does not take away my acute sense for the fragility of the discussions. Of course I enjoy posting here, but it is also stressful for me. I take responsibility to nurture the various threads that I am pulling along here. Generally, I am impressed by the barflies’ conduct and their ability to soak this up so well; much better than a lecture hall at the university in fact. I’d like to thank everyone for the experience here once more.
At the same time, I declare my overriding interest not to cloud the threads with the stuff I bring up. The line I am trying to toe is twofold: the basic aim of my effort is to try and establish the metapysical paradigm change here on the board. Not every poster will agree, but if some do, and the views stick around, I will have accomplished much more than a nice little side story. This place is more influential than many think, and I have little other space where I can actually reach a wider audience. At the same time, it is important for me that people here note that I did not overrun the bar with my thing. In early 2023, james brought up the question of what comes next? after the west’s downfall repeatedly, and no one had an answer. Of course this is an extremely important point, and it was this point that made me take the risk and try to reach out here.
I shall keep doing this for as long as it takes. I might still be proven a fool; a completely accepted possibility on my part, but no actual factor in my decision to still try, as I can’t but see my ideas as transparent and helpful. It might also happen that the barflies through a fight, or our commendable host kick me out; perhaps because I’m overdoing things, or people are disinterested much, or (also possible) a mob forms and acts sociopathically.
A lot of the material required and sufficient to lay useful seeds that allow people to make use of the whole body of ideas (e.g. create a couple new sciences like a methodologically sound parapsychology or a rational speculative theology, and radically transform others, such as biology and medicine) or a future reconstruction has already been laid out. Most importantly, the ideas will just start to disseminate from here, much like the waves in a still pond after throwing a pebble.
At some point, the work will be mostly done, and from there on my duty will be to watch out over the growing plants that come from the seeds, or so I hope at least. Until then, I would kindly ask everyone here to bear some patience, or perhaps consider using their scroll wheel if they feel it’s too much for them.
Thanks.

Posted by: persiflo | Feb 1 2024 1:36 utc | 66

The Enemy (in their own words):
“If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible.” – Senator Harry Truman, June 24, 1941.
“The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European but an Asiatic and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese and, from what I’ve seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and is an all out son of a bitch, a barbarian, and a chronic drunk.” – George S. Patton, U.S. Army General, diary entry, August 8, 1945.
“We have 50 percent of the world’s wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population. In this situation, our real job in the coming period…is to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we have to dispense with all sentimentality…we should cease thinking about human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization.” – George Kennan, 1948.
“Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” – Lord Hastings Ismay (NATO leader), 1952, on the purpose of NATO.
“Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, ‘The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.’” – Henry Kissinger, 1975.
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” – CIA Director William Casey, 1981.
“Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.” – US Senator Joe Biden, 1986.
“A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” – Allen Weinstein, 1991, co-founder of the so-called ‘National Endowment for Democracy.’
“God bless America!” – Boris Yeltsin (1992), groveling before his masters in the US Congress.
“We think the price is worth it.” – Madeleine Albright (1996), then Secretary of State, when asked by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes whether the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of US sanctions were worth it.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” – Samuel P. Huntington, excerpt from ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order’ (1996).
“Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.” – Zbigniew Brzezinski, in The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, 1997.
“The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” – Thomas Friedman, A Manifesto for the Fast World, 1999.
“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” – Jonah Goldberg, quoting Michael Ledeen, 2002.
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” – Karl Rove, 2004.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffet, 2006.
“I’m really good at killing people.” – Barack Obama, 2012.
“We need to think of these deployments as we thought of our Indian Wars, which lasted 300 years, or as the British thought about their deployment on the North West Frontier, which lasted 100 years. US troops are policing the frontiers of the Pax Americana.” – Max Boot tweet, January 30, 2019.
“I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s – it was like – we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.” – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 2019.
“Europe is a garden. The rest of the world… is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle. The jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it.” – the EU’s Josep Borrell, 2022.

Posted by: Nate | Feb 1 2024 1:54 utc | 68

This post is both Ukraine and Palestine and dozens of other countries.
But it also is pertinent to the death of three soldiers in Syria (near Jordan) from a drone of undeclared origin.
The US has been pointing at Iran as it is claimed by the US that it was an a drone of Iranian design that
killed the three soldiers.
Record US Arms Sales
“The United States sold $238 billion worth of weapons to foreign governments in 2023, as many European countries sought to replace stock sent to Ukraine for its defense against invading Russian forces.
That sum is a 16% increase from the year before and includes sales by U.S. arms companies and those directly negotiated by Washington, a statement Monday from the State Department said. ”
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2024-01-30/record-us-arms-sales-12839669.html

Posted by: librul | Feb 1 2024 3:26 utc | 70

We need to get smarter.
Posted by: Brautigan | Jan 31 2024 23:08 utc | 39
Gawd what an understatement that is for humanity across all domains in all nations.
LOL
PS could you and Roger get a room? 🙂

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Feb 1 2024 3:51 utc | 72

fyi
https://twitter.com/RealPepeEscobar/status/1751669078270361906
Pepe Escobar @RealPepeEscobar
FRENCH PEASANT REVOLT UPDATE
The blockade of Paris tomorrow may be EPIC – and get into the annals of post-modern History as a key Peasant Revolt 2.0 chapter.
Agricultural workers, truck drivers and unions plan to roll at least 500 tractors to block ALL major highways leading to Paris, on both senses, starting at 2 pm and positioned between 30 km and 40 km away from the center.
Everything is being organized with “military precision”.
We’re talking total revolt against Le Petit Roi’s imposition of the Brussels agenda. Le Petit Roi happens to be in India.
If they hold until Thursday – that’s the original plan – the peasant combo can TOTALLY paralyze Paris.
The police so far is saying they WON’T block the movement.
Well, the Gilets Jaunes/Yellow Vests were mercilessly crushed for doing much less than what is planned for tomorrow.
The talk of the town in every cafe, tabac and dinner table is of a possible trap.
Macronism is not very clever – but their NATO-style repression apparatus is ruthless.
The French state can always invoke some vague threat to national security as an excuse to install a State of Siege, and then unleash hardcore violence against the peasantry. As it stands, all bets are off.

Posted by: michaelj72 | Feb 1 2024 4:04 utc | 74

Posted by: michaelj72 | Feb 1 2024 4:04 utc | 74
The farmers revolt in France reminds me of Michel Houllebecq’s book Seratonin where similar events transpire. Houellebecq is quite a Cassandra and a great writer. My favorite next to Irvine Welsh.

Posted by: lex talionis | Feb 1 2024 5:12 utc | 76

Nate @68
Very informative and illuminative quotes. Here is another one: “We came, we saw, he died. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” Hillary Clinton referring to the “liberation” of Lybia and the murder of Moammar Khaddafi.

Posted by: AJ | Feb 1 2024 5:28 utc | 78

@ laguerre | Feb 1 2024 5:35 utc | 79
i gather you believe the gilets jaunes petered out as not having anything to do with the police brutality as well…you seem to be a spokesperson for the establishment laguerre… tell me it ain’t so, lol..

Posted by: james | Feb 1 2024 5:55 utc | 80

Posted by: Nate | Feb 1 2024 1:54 utc | 68
Nice! Good to have all those in one place.
I don’t think you get enough thanks for your
other posts but I appreciate them.
A common courtesy here is ‘tusen takk’. That’s a thousand thanks,
equivalent to ‘thanks a million’ in the U.S. I’ll make it 1001.

Posted by: waynorinorway | Feb 1 2024 5:59 utc | 82

Posted by: james | Feb 1 2024 5:55 utc | 80
Unlike you, I have actually been present at gilets jaunes demos. I’m very glad to hear that you know better than me, although you weren’t there. As I said, there was no programme and they weren’t going anywhere.
Les flics are never delicate, and everyone understands that (it’s always the same), but in the case of the gilets jaunes, there was a definite insertion of violent elements among the demonstrators, looking to provoke. I saw it happen myself. Some thought they were far-left Black Blocks; I didn’t think so. No flags. the left always advertise their presence. More likely far right, paid out of Trump’s American embassy no doubt.

Posted by: Laguerre | Feb 1 2024 6:34 utc | 84

If Hungary exchange rate falls as the EU attack it so what ?
Let it fall…..
1. It will be great for Hungarian exporters.
2. The Euro will strengthen and it will be the EU that will have job losses as the strong Euro kills some of their exports.
3. If EU imports become more expensive due to the drop in the Hungarian exchange rate. Then Hungarian households will simply look for alternatives.
Why ?
Because they only have a set amount of income every month. That puts all of the pressure back onto the EU exporters if they want to keep their market share. With sales plummeting as Hungarians look for cheaper alternarives. EU exporters will have very limited options.
Reduce wages or hours worked or start laying off staff. Or slash their prices which would strengthen the Hungarian floating exchange rate.
The ECB could step in and ultimately halt any slide for any export destination – either explicitly or implicitly through their own banking system. That defeats what the EU are trying to achieve.
So as per usual the ideologues in the EU haven’t thought it through. If you import a lot then you own the exporters – because they then have nowhere else to go.
Here
https://new-wayland.com/blog/its-the-exporters-stupid/
Is exchange rate depreciation inflationary ?
Here
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?s=Exchange+rate

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Feb 1 2024 8:04 utc | 86

If Hungary wants to halt the slide of the Hungarian exchange rate the response should be to ban “luxury” imports. Not and I repeat NOT to throw more salmon to the bears.
What economists always get wrong is the idea of funding. A current account deficit isn’t funded. For it to exist at all it must already have been funded. Every short has to have a corresponding long. Similarly for every excess import of goods and services into a currency zone there has to be a corresponding external sector held asset denominated in the currency of the import zone. One cannot exist without the other. It is a simultaneous requirement in a floating system. If any step along the way fails the whole deal falls through, eliminating both sides instantly.
At the moment the speculators are playing silly games laying on shorts in the Hungarian currency. They will do so until there is nobody is prepared to take the other side, no soft holders to panic out of their savings and no more flash crashes allowing dealers to close open long positions. In other words until the liquidity drains away until all that is left is that required for the underlying trade flows.
Then you will get the mother of all bear squeezes.
Their game, of course, is to tempt the patsy of last resort — the Hungarian central bank — into the speculation market to throw fresh salmon to the bears.
A wise Hungarian central bank will avoid doing this. Instead it will offer to clear needed trade flows with its reserves on a strict national policy basis — food and power: yes, Learjets and Rolexes: no.
It will offer refinancing to firms who have foreign currency loans, as long as they go through administration first so that the foreign currency loan is wiped out and the foreign bank is force to take the loss.
A wise Hungarian central bank would do everything it can to ensure the short squeeze stays on track. It would make its intentions known — there will be no liquidity for speculation outside the ‘natural’ supply. And that means, in an over-the-counter market of foreign exchange, liquidity may run out.
A wise Hungarian central bank understands that is the responsibility of the other central bank with the high currency value and an excess export policy to decide what they want to do. A wise central bank will keeps it head while all around are losing theirs.Withdraw The liquidity from the speculators and short squeeze them to death.
The problem is that central bank policy makers are still talking about shocks and equilibrium. They talk about pass through for exchange costs and there is apparently an extensive literature on the subject.
But there seems to be very little analysis of pass back (volume/price impact on the export side) because that would require acknowledging that the demand side matters — contrary to their neoliberal and neoconservative ideological dogma.
So we still have central bank following policies guided by incorrect thinking and developed using unbelievably primitive models. We are still trying to fly aircraft with techniques developed for riding a horse. Is it any wonder the commentary around Hungary has more in keeping with witchcraft than science?

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Feb 1 2024 8:35 utc | 88

If the editors could make that link avove work it would be great.
It is from the way back machine – old internet posts. The site is http://www.3spoken.co.uk
https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/www.3spoken
double-entry-view-on-keen-circuit-model.html
It shows ckearly how we helped and fixed Steve Keen’s minsky model for him as he had the double entry accounting all wrong.
If not it doesn’t matter it was 2012, most people with an interest in economics knows what happened. People can use the way back machine and check it out for themselves.
🙂

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Feb 1 2024 9:00 utc | 90

@Teal | Jan 31 2024 18:42 utc | 13
Sorry dude.
There’s an anonymous posted comment under the last article says Victor died on Friday 19th Jan.

Posted by: S.O. | Feb 1 2024 9:34 utc | 92

To answer someone’s question about farmer protests in France.
They claim being obliged to pass an average nine hours a week for red tape to fulfill EU requirements.They accuse government of allowing imports that do not fulfill conditions and environmental restrictions imposed for european farmers on the same products.
Most farmers work up to 80 hours a week,for an income lesser than what is given to freshly arrived immigrants.
Now it has come to be known to the public that importations from Ukraine do not require the same standards as french and EEC produce.You find chicken meat and eggs from that lawless country everywhere,with false labels saying it is produce from Belgium.Like the Poland and Hungary border protests about importing GMO cereals.It is said that all french school cantines and elderly homes serve ukranian chicken nowadays,pushing french producers out of work.
So to favor Zelensky dictatorship Brussels bypasses it’s own laws.

Posted by: willie | Feb 1 2024 9:41 utc | 94

Scorpion
Thank you for introducing me to the work of Peter Myers and his 4 thrusts of organized power – now that I just became familiar with militant Zionism, it is good to also learn about the Globalists and Trotskyoids. I was lucky to still discover your post – it dates from November – while searching for something else in one of the older threads.
I could have been reading wsws.org for a long time without associating them with „transhumanism“, depopulation, genome engineering, AI lovers etc.. If you don’t know where to look up this information you may just never get a clue, and end up feeling lost among all those AI believers, including some at MoA.

Posted by: grunzt | Feb 1 2024 11:02 utc | 96

*** About the American Civil War
As far as I know, even Southerners knew that the slave system could not go on indefinetely and they had to find a way out. The difference between the Confederates and the Unionists is that the formers wanted a gradual transition from their economy based on agriculture, so that they could industrialize and get rid of former slaves, while the latters wanted an abrupt transition to a protectionist system, to shield their industrial businesses from foreign competition, and from future southern competition.
So, slavery was obviously not one of the root causes of the war. However I doubt that it was that much important even for propaganda, at least at the time. A selection of recruitment posters from Massachussets shows no mention of the slavery issue, with the exception of a fairly ambiguous “colored men, rally ’round the flag of freedom” in a poster targeting “men of African descent”.
Here it is a large collection of recruitment posters, and, as far as I can tell, the slavery issue is mentioned only in some (not all) of the posters targeting coloured people: https://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/nyhs%3Acwposters .
—
*** About the farmers’ revolt in the EU
Many politicians in the EU know they are right. The EU made that neo-liberal, woke, abomination of the European Green Deal at their expenses: the cost of the transition, even in the assessment by the Commission, is far greater than the money destined to it by the governments, so that a large part of that cost has to be paid by the farmers themselves. That is obviously untenable.
—
@Roger | Jan 31 2024 19:52 utc | 21
The UK has 600,000 foreign students (getting to that level a decade earlier than planned) and its population is forecast to hit 74 million by 2036 due to mass immigration (so much for the Conservative plans to block this after Brexit!)
I have already said it many times, so I am going to say it one more: Brexit was one of the most moronic choiche ever. While the protest against the EU neoliberal policies is legitimate, they totally missed their target: the EU is not neoliberal because there is some strange cabal in Brussels; it is neoliberal because the European élites are mostly neoliberal, and the British one is the most neoliberal of them all, so Brexiters took their country from a neoliberal-leaning system (the EU) to a turbo-neoliberal system (the City of London globalist financial capitalist élite).

Posted by: SG | Feb 1 2024 11:11 utc | 98

Anybody else here sick and damned tired of topics such as Jews/Khazari/Rothschild etc?
Posted by: Morongobill | Jan 31 2024 18:37 utc | 11
Yes. I skip the comment as soon as the commenter refers to Khazars, “the Tribe”, Rothschild, Jews etc.

Posted by: Cherrycoke | Feb 1 2024 11:46 utc | 100