The MoA Week In Review - OT 2024-080
Last weeks posts on Moon of Alabama:
- March 11 - Why Non-White Voters Are Moving Away From Democrats
Related:
- Young and non-White voters have shifted right since 2020 - Washington Post, Feb 7 2024
- March 12 - A Gaza Sea Port Theater
Related:
- Israeli human rights groups accuse country of failing to abide by ICJ’s Gaza aid ruling - Guardian, Mar 16 2024
- U.N. Documents More Than Two Dozen Attacks on Gazans Waiting for Aid Since January - New York Times, Mar 16 2024
- War on Gaza: Torture, executions, babies left to die, sexual abuse… These are Israel’s crimes - Jonathan Cook / MEE, Mar 15 2024
- They're Really Going To Try To Lay All The Blame For Gaza On Netanyahu - Caitlin Johnstone, Mar 17 2024
- Governing post-war Gaza - Abdel Bari Atwan, Mar 13 2024
- March 12 - French Defense Reports Acknowledge Ukraine Is Done With
- March 15 - Ukraine - France Already Lost In Odessa
Related:
- France all dressed up and nowhere to go - Indian punchline, Mar 14 2024
- U.S. anticipates grim course for Ukraine if aid bill dies in Congress - Washington Post, Mar 15 2024
- Ukraine faces ammunition crisis as air defence missiles dwindle - Telegraph/MSN, Mar 16 2024
- In this Ukrainian village, almost no men are left - Washington Post, Mar 15 2024
- Due to mobilization, livestock is being slaughtered in Ukrainian villages. (in Russian) - Strana, Feb 1 2024
- Ukraine needs 500,000 military recruits. Can it raise them? (archived) - FT, Mar 15 2024
- March 14 - Transgender - The Inability To Distinguish Facts From Wishes
Related:
- Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ at much higher rates than older Americans, report shows - CNN, Jan 25 2024
---
Other issues:
Europe:
- Collapse on the EU Home Front - Conor Gallagher / Naked Capitalism, Mar 17 2024
- Attal and Macron's popularity on the decline, according to surveys (in French) - Le Figaro, Mar 16 2024
Africa:
- U.S. Steps Up Intervention in Somalia - Covert Action Magazine, Mar 15 2024
- Niger junta announces end to military relationship with United States - Washington Post, Mar 16 2024
- The Central African Republic – the end of Françafrique and the return of imperialist competition - Review of African Political Economy, Mar 14 2024
Assange:
- Assange Truth and UN Shenanigans - Craig Murray
- The Fabric of Reality - Alastair Crooke / Al Mayadeen
Soon we become a people without memory of its past; a space ghosting shapes long broken or forgotten.
China:
- US Will ‘Do Whatever It Takes’ to Curb China Tech, Raimondo Says - Bloomberg, Mar 11 2024
- Exclusive: Trump launched CIA covert influence operation against China - Reuters, Mar 14 2024
- A 500-million-dollar business! America's state-sponsored anti-China propaganda - Helsinki Times, Feb 28, 2022
- China: the invention of the roadmap to global power - Monde Diplomatique, Mar 2 2024
It’s well known that everything in China is determined at the centre by the autocratic head of the CCP in Beijing, who dreams of global power. The only problem is it’s not true.
Miscellaneous:
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX building spy satellite network for US intelligence agency, insiders say - SCMP, Mar 16 2024
- “A Continuous Series of Insults to Our Understanding” - Rashid Khalidi discusses The New York Times as state media - New York War Crimes
Use as open (not related to Ukraine or Palestine) thread ...
Posted by b on March 17, 2024 at 13:59 UTC | Permalink
next page »Just had to post the latest absurdity flying around X
The lineups to vote abroad in Russia's election being framed as protests against Putin.
lol
in every country peaceful folks protesting in a lineup
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769342935802253794
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769262417123434699
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769366044538179591
hundreds of countries lol
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769262417123434699
Posted by: ld | Mar 17 2024 14:23 utc | 2
Another week gone by and we are still here to bear witness to our changing world.
Thanks for all your efforts b
The focus on China and the humorous assumption that is is controlled by one person goes beyond the pale.....maybe we should say that Pope Frank or King Chuck run the Western world, eh?
I keep waiting for the curtain in front of the God Of Mammon cult in the West to be dissolved so all can see the human perversion behind it.....we need to face the ugly to be motivated to actively chose another direction......socialism of finance.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 17 2024 14:30 utc | 3
Another wonderful study by the Atlantic Council about nuclear war and they are delighted to bring it to the world. Such delightes. It is like a fryed donut in the morning.
Deliberate nuclear use in a war over Taiwan: Scenarios and considerations for the United States
Let the reader make their conclusions. Maybe the Altlantic Council needs a bit of updating. Something like The Global Council, The Death Council, The Crispy Critters Council, or something along those lines.
I an so delighted to see that we are being so well managed.
Posted by: circumspect | Mar 17 2024 14:53 utc | 4
Does "whatever it takes"include releasing a biowarfare agent from a lab in China?
After Sachs' work in Lancet... havent heard much analysis or speculation pointing to a diliberate AMERICAN ditected leak from within Wuhan lab. Has anyone pursued this line of thought systematically?
Posted by: ZT | Mar 17 2024 14:56 utc | 5
I have to retract one of my statements from the last week here, sorry for that.
It's important for several reasons, but only concerns those with an interest in Mani and the history of Manicheaism. I wrote a short article for the philosopher's corner, to answer a barfly's question, and I now also post my newfound concerns over there. FIY, Mani is a figure whose legacy can serve as highlight example on how profound our present version of history is messed up; in his case, it's not just about "old Europe" (Donald Rumsfeld) / Jean Todd's Occident / the holy (western) roman empire / the Abendland during the middle ages, which I by virtue of a sudden intuition from right now propose to extend from the crowning of Charlemagne as Kaiser/Caesar/Emperor AD800 and the Westphalian Peace of 1648, which gave rise to the non-interference principle now upheld by China and Russia in the current civilization war (as psychohistorian likes to say). The intuition is about the Menschenbild during this stretch of time, basically full-on fascist papism with minor sidenotes of subduing the north of continental Europe that left not much trace today (but is apparently in living memory up there in Norway?! is that true, or is this [CAUTION! extremely harsh music by Mayhem] just a random fancy of fashion?).
Even ancient knowledge about using plants and herbs for the healing of spirit and stuff is absolutely gone, all that's left is a huge gaping hole from whence the occassional witches may spring about to scare the bejeesus from all good christian men, by giggeling morbidly under a bright moon as they sweep the yard with a broomstick they brought. Or so I guess.
If anyone with some actual knowledge likes to pick up from here, I'd like to ask MoA a question: what, exactly, happened in Anglia? I know that Calvin is rather absurdely confounded with Martin Luther as The Reformation, though those two ideologies/theologies could hardly be more different in my view. Calvin presents a notion of God that resembles our old chap Jehova, rather uncanningly so for my taste btw; while Luther breaks up the fascist totalitarian entity of roman papism by (indeed) reforming theology: what was once the question of "what is god?" he turned into the question of how man relates to god; thus refuting the catholic moral exo-skeleton and putting the individual's conscience at its place.
The history of Mani's teachings, however, is a wholly different affair. Even the chinese joined the effort to erase all memory of it; and apparently the little that we know of him today is not just suffering from the faintness of our thinly sourced efforts towards reconstruction, but as seems likely from deliberately inserted falsehoods as well. My now to be retracted statement is just such a case.
Posted by: persiflo | Mar 17 2024 15:00 utc | 7
LOL
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 17 2024 15:33 utc | 8
At a time when the leader of the most democratic country in the Middle East is committing genocide under the aegis of the leader of the most democratic country in the world, what does it matter whether the Chinese leader is a dictator or not?
Posted by: CIROC | Mar 17 2024 15:35 utc | 9
Good article last week on Gaza Port:
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/the-real-reason-behind-the-us--port--in-gaza
Good overview of history and connection/importance of zone stretching along North Africa, Middle East and Ukraine:
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/russia-s-victory-in-struggle-with-collective-west-will-be-ac (from 10 days ago, but very good)
Posted by: persiflo | Mar 17 2024 15:00 utc | 7
Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.
Posted by: sln2002 | Mar 17 2024 15:42 utc | 11
In response to
"
Posted by: persiflo | Mar 17 2024 15:00 utc | 7
Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.
Posted by: sln2002 | Mar 17 2024 15:42 utc | 10
"
There is still 15 hours of the 17th left where I live.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 17 2024 15:53 utc | 12
"
China:
US Will ‘Do Whatever It Takes’ to Curb China Tech, Raimondo Says - Bloomberg, Mar 11 2024
Exclusive: Trump launched CIA covert influence operation against China - Reuters, Mar 14 2024
A 500-million-dollar business! America's state-sponsored anti-China propaganda - Helsinki Times, Feb 28, 2022
China: the invention of the roadmap to global power - Monde Diplomatique, Mar 2 2024
It’s well known that everything in China is determined at the centre by the autocratic head of the CCP in Beijing, who dreams of global power. The only problem is it’s not true."
China offends the US 3 ways:
1) Existing
2) Not being submissive to the US government
3) Not being poor and backward!
Really, Uncle Sam wants China to be like the Philippines.
Posted by: lester | Mar 17 2024 16:32 utc | 13
"US Will ‘Do Whatever It Takes’ to Curb China Tech, Raimondo Says ..."
That is the kind of nonsensical statement that imperial class managers love to utter. It is completely meaningless in that it is simply impossible for the US to curb Chinese tech growth and indeed future dominance. China already has more cutting edge scientists and engineers working in tech than any combination of western countries and the difference widens every year.
But these statements, that China will not advance, that Russia will not win, that the Syrian dictator must go, etc. etc. are just silly nonsense to build western dominance normality narratives around as the world unstoppably changes and moves towards multi-polarity. Raimondo is just the kind of B-level bureaucrat that empire promotes ... someone to reassure and put a nice face on things as illusions of dominance fail to collapse ... all the way until real collapse is unavoidable.
Posted by: Caliman | Mar 17 2024 16:51 utc | 14
A new open thread ! Good reading.
I guess a quick brimstone and fire rant is in order as I recover from yesterday’s 3 game finale of the six nations rugby. Well done the players. Shame about the continued martial connotations of that game.
Ok so this is a left over from some previous thread on the importance of knowing history and Money and the reason for the existential last ditch kitchen sink throwing to the last Ukrainian and Gazan babies…. Be seated.
It is only by understanding the scope of human civilisation and history that you will ever understand that we are the Fascists and have always been’ and lay claim to the whole world.
It is only the ancient civilisations that resist - because they were around before the Slave, Silk and Spice Road merchants took over the world and the seas but not their ancient lands and peoples and its cultures - well not quite.
That year Zero fantasy future has run its course - it is desperately bandaged. Ever more petty Caesars are unleashed; the modern Romes burn!
Newer ‘gods’ are invented to keep us cowered. Climate, Carbon, Disease, Aliens!
The only ones they haven’t actually managed to own completely have been the EurAsian Peoples - that include the RF and China , they long ago took the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia and most of Africa - but all have begun to turn. Or seemingly so. There are obvious charlatans and wolves in disguise states and leaders who are the shapeshifted agents of the Money .
India has always been the prime one - the subcontinent parcelled up in ‘independence’; an unholy mess that was created by the departing imperium to keep it subdued and useful. The Nehru dynasty and its Anglophile raised Raj wallahs who to this day strut their way around the globe as the never gone away Princelings of Empire.
Then there are the wholly populated by ‘white European peoples and some slaves they brought with them ‘ such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the largest cuckoo of all , USA - every single one a ‘country of their own’. Not.
It is owned and run by the Oldest families , all wealth under their control, all politics of every shade , academia, technology , industry and all mass media and culture.
It is illusion that ‘they’ are separate from ‘us’ and our history - we are not some otherwise unsullied , innocent Other that are poisoned by ‘them’ - we are ‘THEM’
We always have been , they’re slaves, servants,soldiers, farmers, settlers, managers, ceos, kings and queens …back to the Caesars and before.
Human Civilisation is nearly restored to its ancient path of development , after centuries of being sidetracked . From the mercenary Alexander cheating by cutting the ‘Knot’ through all the Caesars , Norman’s , Anglo Saxons , their generals and kings at the behest of the inventors of Money, who have moulded the ‘western world’ since these days.
Fortunately for us the World survived - it’s ‘Us’ that need to see its ‘Us’ that are the fascist xenophobic mass murderers - not just a few million people - it is every single fucking politician running around telling us it is ‘Us’ and that the Ukraine and ancient Khazaria must not be allowed to lose and the Illegal Apartheid Entity must live like the monster of Frankenstein!
If anyone is deluded that ‘our country’ is ours or we ever had any sovereignty, well that is pure fairy tale and fantasy - like Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy - it is purely a childish belief and if you still hold to that , it makes you a frozen child a deluded mentally retarded adult that should be pitied and looked after but never allowed to spread that nonsense to future generations.
Fuck them and fuck anyone here who insists on selling that fake history for their masters and their useless Money.
That’ll do - amen and enjoy whatever Irish poison at the bar, I’m in the seat!
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 17 2024 16:52 utc | 15
Great compilation of photographs showing Russians turning up at embassies and consulates in order to vote from afar: https://t.me/s/Lunay14
Posted by: anon2020 | Mar 17 2024 16:53 utc | 16
The "collapse of the home front" piece is a very good take on the present and future problems of the German economy:
Germany’s economic slump is now widely seen as structural rather than temporary, as the country is struggling with higher energy prices following the loss of cheap and reliable Russian energy. Habeck and the Greens were some of the staunchest supporters of the conflict with Russia and getting rid of Russian fossil fuels, as well as Germany’s nuclear power, so they must be ramping up clean energy, right?Not exactly. According to a report released March 7 by the German Federal Court of Auditors. It found that the expansion of renewable energies and the electricity grid is way behind schedule, and that there isn’t enough generation capacity to meet demand.
From 2000 onwards the German government put in place policies to keep German wages down to maintain competitiveness. But even with these German manufacturing needs cheap energy, and that cheap energy came from Russia. So now it doesn't, just at the time that the Chinese are challenging German manufacturers across the board. So how does the German government respond, perhaps make peace with the Russians? No, of course not:
What does all this mean for Germans? For one, this year’s budget, which includes the highest military expenditure since the end of WWII (much of it for Ukraine) and massive cuts in the areas of healthcare, education, and social welfare, could be just a preview of what’s to come.And it’s a model that is being forced on the rest of Europe.
More aggression toward Russia and China, and more austerity for the general population while the ruling class plunders the state. More guns means less butter, while the industrial strength of Europe dwindles away.
While there is ongoing escalation against Russia and China abroad, so too we’re seeing escalation at home. While the likes of von der Leyen lecture countries on the dangers of electing anyone they consider a threat to what they call the “liberal consensus,” they increasingly use warnings of “tools,” threats to ban parties, crackdowns on speech to arrive at that consensus ... Or to put it another way: As capital continues to gobble up the European welfare states and living standards decline, citizens are asked to sacrifice even more for the wealthy’s economic wars, which they are told are fights over democratic values. Meanwhile, those values are increasingly trampled at home in order to silence opposition to said economic wars. That does not seem like a sustainable model.
Europe is simply following the lead from the US and UK, where the elite have been looting the state and forming cartels and monopolies to plunder the consumer for decades now. I call this Peak Western Extractive Capitalism in my latest piece, as it destroys the foundations of Western power in a doomed attempt to maintain profits and reject the reality of the changing balance of power in the world.
The problem of how to manage the populations while their living standards are being reduced to fund more war and maintain profits was answered in the 1930s with Fascism, that is the road that all of the Western states are now travelling down. That route may be obfuscated with "liberal" propaganda but it is the route that the West is now taking.
[email protected]'s always been about the money. Long before the tables were flipped metaphorically or physically....and really anyone, sovereign or not, gets the Coventry treatment should they fail to play along....or, well modern history has now shortage of corpses that refused to play along, huge piles truth be told....what deviants hide in the shadows....Happy St Patrick's Day, nice Sunday morning sermon.
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Mar 17 2024 17:08 utc | 18
DunGroanin | Mar 17 2024 16:52 utc | 14
I would agree with most of that apart from this "Human Civilisation is nearly restored to its ancient path of development"
This allusion of term 'civilization' equated to peace. The civilized peoples... A history of wars and the rise and fall of empires and civilizations.
But who knows, perhaps Biden will be the last emperor, perhaps Trump. The age of empires which is the entire history of so called civilization should have ended with the advent of nuclear weapons. Perhaps the now fading anglo American empire will be the last.
China and Russia seem to have different vision for the nuclear future that is quite different from the age of Empires.
When what is termed modern human first came on the archaeological scene, they had the same basic toolkit as the neanderthals and others. Knapped stone points and cutting edges, grindstones for seed, cordage and so forth. Up until less than a couple of centuries ago, still had that same basic tool kit. What they did not have, along with Eurasian technology, is a history of wars.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 18:22 utc | 19
My 18 should have read ...
Up until less than a couple of centuries ago, Australian Aboriginal people still had that same basic tool kit. What they did not have, along with Eurasian technology, is a history of wars.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 18:36 utc | 20
Peter AU1 @19
How does one know that the Aboriginals "did not have a history of warfare"? They were not exactly into record-keeping. Is it beacause they were spread out in small groups? I am not all that familiar with them, but I know that in Papua New Guinea warfare among neighbouring tribes and villages were quite common, persisting into modern times.
Posted by: AJ | Mar 17 2024 19:45 utc | 21
Posted by: AJ | Mar 17 2024 19:45 utc | 20
The abos in Australia killed and ate an entire pygmy population that was on the continent with them, this is common knowledge.
Tons of races of people completely vanquish their enemies & rivals. Native Americans were especially fond of torture, their women even more so.
Literally the only race of people that let their rivals live on are White Europeans.
This evidence is obvious in Canada, NZ, Australia and in the USA.
All of the rhetoric pitting native peoples against White Europeans in the new world comes from jews as only a way to harm Whites.
Once again, our mercy is used against us.
Posted by: ryanggg | Mar 17 2024 19:55 utc | 22
The US and its NATO vassals are (of course) doing everything they can to sabotage Russian democratic elections.
As soon as I saw CBS posting an image of voters lined up around RU embassies to vote and captioned it "Russians protest Navalny's death on election day" I knew something big was afoot.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 17 2024 19:59 utc | 23
More escalation in the Middle East:
"Iraqi Resistance targets Ben Gurion Airport using UAVs"
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iraqi-resistance-targets-ben-gurion-airport-using-uavs
The use of drones is getting so popular. Who needs tanks anymore when a surprsingly cheap drone can "take out" a very expensive tank (Merkava ???).
Posted by: WMG | Mar 17 2024 19:59 utc | 24
Looks like the Italian-American Raimondo went on a berserk rank fueled by anti-Asian hatred. By next week she'll be calling for the global extermination of all those of Asian genetic stock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, they're all the same, right, Gina?). Time to consign her to the bouncy-walled lunatic asylum, comfortably bound in a straitjacket. By all rights she should be joined in the asylum by the unhinged and very angry homosexual Macron, whose fevered imperial dreams are being snuffed out in an inexorable sequence of modern history.
The West has become tragicomedy. Goofballs making idiotic statements everywhere. Idiocracy, the movie, has nothing on what's happening in real time.
Posted by: Matthew | Mar 17 2024 20:14 utc | 25
[email protected] those areas and actually throughout human history, raiding parties for females was common, it ran out of favor in medieval European Royal Houses, where
they chose to inbreed instead. And that's where the world is today. Ruled by the inbred offspring of bastards.
Cheers M
.
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Mar 17 2024 20:18 utc | 26
Yanis Varoufakis spoke at the National Press Club about Technofeudalism and Australia's place in the New Cold War. I went and saw him speak on the same topic in Sydney on Monday.
The short version is that China's chief threat lies in its challenge to dollar dominance by allowing free currency transfers and other electronic financial alternatives that bypass the dollar. The TikTok ban is perhaps cover for the wider war on Chinese tech (as b noted above).
The problem with YV is that he won't let go of the underlying liberal infrastructure of global politics. As a successful entertainer and pop-left author he has a vested interest in the system. He also buys into the Xinjiang human rights story and supports democracy protesters in HK. So he's basically a non-Atlanticist Green whom I wouldn't trust to become a parliamentary pragmatist overnight. He's mates with Clare Daly but I wonder if he knows Galloway or supports him. His histories of capitalism since 1945 are not to be preferred over Michael Hudson's which to my historical sensibilities have far greater depth and insight. That said, he's worth a listen and knows his economics (he was at Sydney University for 12 years and is an Australian citizen).
Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 17 2024 20:25 utc | 27
Posted by: circumspect | Mar 17 2024 14:53 utc | 4:
Thanks for the link. The idea of using nuke against China has been around a long time. The Korean War, in 1950, was the first time the idea was floated, by highest officials in the U.S no less. That was when the U. S. had what was perceived as indisputable conventional military advantage over China already, yet the idea of nuking China to smithereens was still a ponderable option. It wasn't just the U. S.; USSR entertained the same idea seriously so, under Brezhnev in late 60's.
The idea had appeal because this was one area in which USA/USSR thought they have absolute superiority over China, in numbers as well in technology. It would be a clean and fast means of wiping out a race of human whom they despise on. It was, and likely still is, a racially based philosophy. Only thing that kept that from coming to pass was the fact China had kept its nuke capability close to its chest, casting doubt in the minds of their adversaries whether it was worth the prices of reprisals. The very idea of nuking China has nothing to do with saving Taiwan, or ASEAN in the South China Sea, or to stop the spread of Communism/autocracy/LostFreedom/DebtBurdens/... etc. Those are/were excuses narratives. Gringos hate Taiwanese/Southeasterners as much as the Mainland Chinaman since they all have the same color skin and slanty eyes. It's racially based, pure and simple; and the hate is intense only because the yellow-skin/slanty-eye beings are doing so well such that further advances must be stopped.
Use nuke if China invade Taiwan??? Oh give me a break! If Gringos recognize Taiwan as part of China, how would that be an invasion??? If China don't invade Taiwan, Gringos will find another rationale to make the same move. Like, e.g. TikTok's popularity would threaten Western Security, Chinese EVs are ladened with eavesdropping devices, Chinese ships docking anywhere outside of Chinese domain are posing as military threat to the West, etc. etc. Excuses, excuses. Just narratives for justification to using extreme military measures. These days, conventional weaponries are seen as being inferior to Chinese stuff so nuke is the only option left. But just as they misjudged Russia's resilience in Ukraine, they are misjudging their nuke superiority over China also. If nukes fly, Chinese retaliation will be so vast that the collective West would never recover from mushroom booms as they currently figure they would.
Even Israel has goaded that if the nation of Israel is faced with existential survival, they have enough nukes to drag the rest of the world with it. Do the Western strategists assess China as being weaker than Israel??? Give me another break! It won't be long before Western nuke subs will not be allowed to fish in oceanic waters close enough to pose threat to Chinese security. ICBMs can be intercepted. We will find out who sees more mushrooms over their skies--China or the West.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Mar 17 2024 20:25 utc | 28
Posted by: persiflo | Mar 17 2024 15:00 utc | 7
If you're serious (?) about Manicheanism the main sources are collected in the series Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum which can be found here: https://www.brepols.net/series/CFM.
I was the research assistant for one of the editors for a few years in the 90s, but it's been a while and I was mostly involved in lexical studies for the late antique anti-Manichean Greek texts (Titus of Bostra and Alexander of Lycopolis) volume. Can't really comment on the esoterica you raise...
Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 17 2024 20:36 utc | 29
They were not exactly into record-keeping.
Posted by: AJ | Mar 17 2024 19:45 utc | 20
What exactly is your history going back 10 or 11 thousand years? Likely you wouldn't know as it has been so chopped and changed by wars.
Apart from their oral history is the archaeology.
As for the proudly displayed utter ignorance of that other clown...
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 20:44 utc | 30
US engaging in election interference and PR stunts in Russia and at her embassies.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 17 2024 20:44 utc | 31
"Tons of races of people completely vanquish their enemies & rivals. Native Americans were especially fond of torture, their women even more so."
Any infrequent torture endured by violent White settlers land thieves and rapists with their supporting posses and the US Army would be richly deserved.
You're absolutely FOS when you say that "only" western Whites allowed their opponents victims of genocide to live alongside them. I have two relatives who were kidnapped by Natives and lived with them for many years. They eventually were allowed to leave on their own wishes and one of them decided that White "society" was garbage, so he went back to the Natives.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 17 2024 20:49 utc | 32
The CNN report on LGBTQ+ identification more or less confirms that the phenomenon is a consumer lifestyle. In the 80s you'd ask "are you a punk, trendy or a headbanger?", again replete with essentialist definitions of genre uncannily similar to these categories.
So, what was once a vice (sexual desire) or a preference (musical taste) was co-opted by marketing to create totalising and consumable 'selfhoods'. Once upon a time you got your kicks on the side, but it didn't 'define' you. What defined you was class. After the war there was a huge effort to remove class altogether as a vector of social solidarity. It was replaced by the consumable identity. You got the identity for free but the add-ons cost you, a standard sales model now ('in-app purchases'). A post-war development, it reached its first fully-fledged iteration with the invention of the 'teenager' in the 50s (Rebel without a Cause is a seminal text here). Of course, there are other reasons why these identities gathered traction (the gay movement concealed new economic relationships, etc), but the origin of the 'consumer-identity' is to be sought back then. None of this is new, just thought I'd raise it.
In my viiew, one of the best commentators on this is Philip K. Dick. His fiction nails our vapid 'non-society'.
Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 17 2024 21:12 utc | 33
Patroklos | Mar 17 2024 21:12 utc | 30
I saw something 30 years ago or more on tv. Might have been 60 minutes or one of those type shows. They were interviewing people who identified as 'individuals'. To do this they covered themselves in tattoos and body piercings and all looked the same.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 21:41 utc | 34
AJ | Mar 17 2024 19:45 utc | 20
New Guinea. Melanesian arrived there at a much later date and are a different people with some Eurasian technologies. I did read something on the Melanesian's some time back - I think they arrived there sometime in the holocene maybe around 6000 years ago and it seems after NG was cut off from Australia. Quite a bit of Australian aboriginal DNA there apparently. Polynesians started populating the pacific about 3500 years ago and the Melanesians seem far closer to the Polynesians than to the aboriginals.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 21:51 utc | 35
Peter AU1@32
The Papuas are pure Negroid people, like the abos in Australia, as opposed to to Melanesians and Polynesians, who, indeed, are much later arrivals. As I recall, as late as 1957 an Australian policeman patrolling the region was "invited for dinner" in a Papua village. Had a Hungarian family name, which I do not remember at the moment.
Posted by: AJ | Mar 17 2024 22:36 utc | 36
AJ | Mar 17 2024 22:36 utc | 33
Another clown. I was wasting my time.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 22:52 utc | 37
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 22:52 utc | 34
Mate, the calibre of comments really fluctuates these days. At the same time there seem to be fewer of the old barflies posting, and more on the lunar right.
Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 17 2024 22:58 utc | 38
Peter AU1 @34
"Another clown".
Such reasoned refutation of my post. Your intellect is shining through.
Posted by: AJ | Mar 17 2024 23:05 utc | 39
Patroklos | Mar 17 2024 22:58 utc | 35
For sure. SMO refugees...
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 23:08 utc | 40
Thoughts on Mr. Crooke's Fabric of Reality, in Al Mayadeen, mentioned by B.
Stating what is obvious to some: All those standing for justice, peace, diplomacy in opposition to the barbaric neocon drive for endless: wars, big lies, dirty tricks & chaos, form "the Resistance" --- and have much in common with the Resistance movement that opposed Hitler & his associates over 80 years ago. The same sort of malevolent energy that fueled Hitler's madmen are fueling the madmen of Israel/US/UK/NATO/Ukraine now. They're on the wrong side of history, as are all groups who disregard the rule of law and fear truth.
The following last four sentences from Crooke's pieces seem well worth repeating:
Each time that society just says ‘No’ [to the Ruling Strata], enforcement by the Ruling Strata will become more problematic, more stupidly heavy-handed. And the Élites will duly undercut themselves. [Because they are going in the wrong/involutionary direction]
Julian Assange is a soldier seized by enemy forces -- an undeserving victim in this ‘war’. I mourn also Daryia Dugina who was burnt to death in a fireball, as her father watched on, helplessly -- another battlefront to this war. I salute them both. Let us continue saying, ‘No’; ‘Just go’.
===
===
Re the 'Ruling Elite' -- described accurately 75 years ago by AAB & still true.
"It is essential that all thinking people should give time and thought to the consideration of the major world problems with which we are now faced... It must be recognized that the cause of all world unrest, of the world wars which have wrecked humanity, and the widespread misery upon our planet, can largely be attributed to a selfish group with materialistic purposes, who have for centuries exploited the masses and used the labour of mankind for their selfish ends... This group of capitalists has cornered and exploited the world's resources and the staples required for civilised living; they have been able to do this because they have owned and controlled the world's wealth through their interlocking directorates, and have retained it in their hands. They have made possible the vast differences existing between the very rich and the very poor; they love money and the power which money gives; they have stood behind governments and politicians; they have controlled the electorate; they have made possible the narrow nationalistic aims of selfish politics; they have financed the world businesses and controlled oil, coal, power, light and transportation; they control publicly or sub rosa the world's banking accounts. The responsibility for the widespread misery to be found today in every country in the world, lies predominantly at the door of certain major interrelated groups of businessmen, bankers, executives of international cartels, monopolies, trusts and organisations, and directors of huge corporations, who work for corporate or personal gain. p. 70/1 -Alice Bailey, The Problems Of Humanity (1944) Full text: https://www.lucistrust.org/online_books/problems_humanityReality
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -Philip K. Dick,Happy St. Pat's day to B & everyone!"Glamour is taking the unreal for the real; the vision for the reality. Of course you have to have the vision. If you don't have the vision, you can't create the reality. But you have to make the vision real on the physical plane. Otherwise it is glamour." -Benjamin Creme
Every citizen... could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police... The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time... They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they... were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. -George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
"We say in Ireland, if we fight we might win. If we don't fight, we've lost already." -Clare Daly
###
Posted by: Toby C | Mar 17 2024 23:14 utc | 41
AJ | Mar 17 2024 23:05 utc | 36
Abo's, negroids. Abo is a derogatory term and has always been used as such. Aboriginal people of Australia are not Africans.
Reasoned refutation of a racist clown who knows nothing. Well you got that. Intellect...
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 23:19 utc | 42
Peter AU1 @38
By resorting to name-calling, you are debasing your argument.
Posted by: AJ | Mar 17 2024 23:24 utc | 43
"US Will ‘Do Whatever It Takes’ to Curb China Tech, Raimondo Says - Bloomberg, Mar 11 2024"
Given the low, low, quality of US science and math education, US politicians are NOT going to succeed in keepking Chinese tech backward.
The US has relied on immigrant scientists and engineers for hundreds of years. We do NOT train our own Einstein and Tesla'sl Instead, we turn out flat-earthers, creation scientists, etc. They will not keep our tech high or even medium.
Posted by: lester | Mar 17 2024 23:25 utc | 44
All of us who are standing for justice, peace, diplomacy in opposition to the barbaric neocon drive for endless: wars, big lies, dirty tricks & chaos, form "the Resistance" --- and have much in common with the Resistance movement that opposed Hitler & his associates over 80 years ago.
The same sort of malevolent energy that fueled Hitler's madmen are fueling the madmen of Israel/US/UK/NATO/Ukraine now. They're on the wrong side of history, as are all groups who disregard the rule of law and fear truth.
The Last four sentences from The Fabric of Reality - Alastair Crooke / Al Mayadeen seems well worth repeating:
Each time that society just says ‘No’ [to the Ruling Strata], enforcement by the Ruling Strata will become more problematic, more stupidly heavy-handed. And the Élites will duly undercut themselves.["more stupidly" because they are going in the wrong/involutionary direction, are lost & don't know what they're doing]
Julian Assange is a soldier seized by enemy forces -- an undeserving victim in this ‘war’. I mourn also Daryia Dugina who was burnt to death in a fireball, as her father watched on, helplessly -- another battlefront to this war. I salute them both. Let us continue saying, ‘No’; ‘Just go’.
end excerpt....
"It is essential that all thinking people should give time and thought to the consideration of the major world problems with which we are now faced... It must be recognized that the cause of all world unrest, of the world wars which have wrecked humanity, and the widespread misery upon our planet, can largely be attributed to a selfish group with materialistic purposes, who have for centuries exploited the masses and used the labour of mankind for their selfish ends... This group of capitalists has cornered and exploited the world's resources and the staples required for civilised living; they have been able to do this because they have owned and controlled the world's wealth through their interlocking directorates, and have retained it in their hands. They have made possible the vast differences existing between the very rich and the very poor; they love money and the power which money gives; they have stood behind governments and politicians; they have controlled the electorate; they have made possible the narrow nationalistic aims of selfish politics; they have financed the world businesses and controlled oil, coal, power, light and transportation; they control publicly or sub rosa the world's banking accounts.
Alice Bailey, The Problems Of Humanity (1944)
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -Philip K. Dick,
"Glamour is taking the unreal for the real; the vision for the reality. Of course you have to have the vision. If you don't have the vision, you can't create the reality. But you have to make the vision real on the physical plane. Otherwise it is glamour." -Benjamin Creme
"Every citizen... could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police... The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time... They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they... were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening." -George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)Happy St. Pat's day to B & everyone!
"We say in Ireland, if we fight we might win. If we don't fight, we've lost already." -Clare Daly
Posted by: Toby C | Mar 17 2024 23:37 utc | 45
Posted by: AJ | Mar 17 2024 22:36 utc | 33
You spout a lot of very out dated and racist rubbish. In fact neither Papuans nor Australian Aboriginals are in any sense negroid, having split from the African branch of humanity probably 1 mill years ago (yes disputed by some scientists but I think I will eventually be proven right).
Genetic studies show that of all human races the Highland tribes of PNG are the MOST distant from those of Africans - eg Mbuti pygmies (Cavalli-Sforza). The recent discovery of Denisovan ancestry and Neanderthal ancestry shows that Africans split from ALL other human races BEFORE inter-racial breeding with Denisovans and Neanderthals. The time line is not yet firmly established but the lack of Neanderthal or Denisovan ancestry in Africa is.
Also you are idiotically and rather offensively mixing up Polynesians, Melanesians and Micronesians. Basically there is a clear genetic evidence of migration from Taiwan region of a group of people into the pacific. These people interbred with the local Melanesians but those who stayed further north and went furthest East have the less admixture from Melanesia.
There are probably admixtures of even earlier ie Pre-Melanesian people too eg Negrito peoples (NOT African)
You show your appalling racism by use of the term Abo which is NOT acceptable at all in Australian society, other than by murderous racist red-necks.
Posted by: watcher | Mar 17 2024 23:37 utc | 46
"In my view, one of the best commentators on this is Philip K. Dick. His fiction nails our vapid 'non-society'."
Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 17 2024 21:12 utc | 30
Phillip K. Dick's finest novel ,"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich", 1964: as Can D versus Chew Z illuminates the point you are making on 'consumer identity'.
Let the reader make their conclusions. Maybe the Altlantic Council needs a bit of updating. Something like The Global Council, The Death Council, The Crispy Critters Council, or something along those lines.
I an so delighted to see that we are being so well managed.
Posted by: circumspect | Mar 17 2024 14:53 utc | 4
Seriously, an insult to Crispy Critters everywhere, who proudly provide to all who are interested delicious snacks WITH NO FECAL MATTER WHATSOVER, while you know what Atlantic Council is full of.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Mar 17 2024 23:46 utc | 48
Posted by: canuck | Mar 17 2024 23:42 utc | 43
Holy crap—we agree!
Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 18 2024 0:21 utc | 49
Pleased to see that most have ignored the inflammatory tosh in one post when discussing indigenous peoples in pre colonial times. In my experience of posters here those who refer to zionists as 'the jews' are almost always zionists seeking to discredit this site, an infantile hasbara ploy & when the post also reveals some type of racial suprematism, as that stinking turd did, it most accurately reflects an inherent zionist ethos.
Like PeterAU has said indigenous Australians didn't involve themselves in tribal conflict. I know this from having lived and worked with remote area so called 'traditional aboriginals' for a few decades and have listened to their oral histories being told. Most of this was largely unintelligible at first but later on as australian english was also used so that 'youngfellas' could follow what was being said I understood more & more of it.
The conflicts were limited to payback for domestic disputes that had gotten out of hand & involved inter-clan relationships. They ended much sooner than the mourning periods both clans lived in memory of the former relative/s.
As for Aotearoa, there were territorial disputes which were general for longer periods but involved little killing, some 'slave' taking of captured prisoners but not slaves as whitefellas know it. People would start off as servants before being integrated (usually by marriage) into the iwi.
There is a large pakeha (white colonists) claimed genocide where alleged historians attribute the sudden vast decline in South Island tangata whenua to a conflict between two according to pakeha, disparate groups, the Maori, those who arrived about 1300 AD from Hawai'iki and once again according to pakeha, the Moriori or 'moa-hunters' who had settled earlier and were arrivals from the Chatham Islands .
It is a common enough story that some huge tribal warfare which killed off a vast percentage of the indigenous population right at the time an indigenous society has begun to be colonised. Like the tales of human sacrifices in Mexico City right at the time of Spanish colonisation , apart from the cui bono (who benefits) angle of these convenient genocides, the numbers are simply too large. In the case of the Maori/Moriori conflict we are told that about 200 warriors with less than 80 muzzle loading single shot muskets wiped out more than two hundred thousand fellow humans.
I do not even attribute the vast numbers which led to the population collapse to colonist aggression; it is far more likely that disease and the starvation which always effects those at the wrong end of a conflict whose young men are fighting rather than food collection, whose clans are constantly fleeing from the invaders as the most probable cause of the copious deaths. As we are about to see in Gaza, more people are probably going to die from disease and hunger than bombs.
Warfare amongst indigenous groups is frequently claimed by a coloniser to be the problem even though there is little evidence of such issues ever before.
If someone genuinely wants to learn the truth it is smart to study these groups up close and personal. As in many cases even the descendants of those affected by this horror come to believe the propaganda, if one does decide to study this, history & anthropology texts simply cannot be relied upon to remain impervious to the concerted indoctrination which follows colonisation.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Mar 18 2024 0:55 utc | 50
re SpaceX 'Starshield' constellations
This is quite a dangerous development. The main US network of surveillance satellites traditionally consisted of Hubble Space Telescope-sized KH-11 optical spy satellites and their similarly huge LACROSSE Radar satellites. The SBIRS infrared satellites to detect missile launches are a little smaller, as are the communication (MILSTAR/DCSC) and navigation (GPS) satellites. All however rely on a relatively small number of very expensive satellites. These constellations are perfectly suited to supporting Bungalow Bill when he goes tiger hunting in the Middle East and Africa, but almost useless against a peer-level opponent with sophisticated anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities.
Satellites in low/medium earth orbit (LEO/MEO), such as the optical/radar surveillance sats, are vulnerable to direct ascent ASATs. These are usually converted ballistic or long-range air defense missiles launched from the ground or air on a trajectory to intercept the satellite. Most major space powers have this capability, with the US and China carrying out test interceptions in the 2000s, and Russia and India following suit in 2021 and 2019 respectively.
Satellites in higher orbits such as Geostationary Orbit (GEO) are often targeted with co-orbital ASATs, 'killer satellites' that can be pre-positioned in orbit and then maneuver to match the target satellite's orbit in order to disable it. This can be achieved kinetically by crashing into it or firing a projectile, non-kinectically by electronic warfare or blinding optical systems, or by grappling the satellite with a robot arm. Russia, China and the US all have these capabilities, in the Russian case since the 1960s.
Russia and/or China could neutralize the legacy US satellite network within hours or minutes of a conflict breaking out. No satellite pictures, no radar tracking of surface fleets, no infrared warning of missile launches, no satellite coms to control drones, no GPS to guide PGMs. Russia's difficulties with Himars largely stem from the preconception that they would not face this system with the US GPS and communications networks intact.
The proliferation of massive constellations of low-orbit satellites, such as the Starlink communications network and the multiple private optical/radar satellite constellations, have fundamentally changed the game. While they cannot match the bandwidth or resolution of their military counterparts, they exist in their thousands and would require an even greater number of direct ascent or co-orbital ASATs to disable them. A super-heavy rocket like SpaceX's Starship could replenish these constellations in one launch. An ASAT could target the launcher or the satellites themselves before they're dispersed into their orbital slots, but if your own space assets have been destroyed intercepting such a launch may be difficult.
China is moving to establish its own mega-constellations, and already operates a large fleet of small optical and radar sats. Russia's space infrastructure quickly decayed after the dissolution of the USSR and it is still a struggle to maintain a bare-bones space infrastructure, but Russia is working toward deploying more small optical sats and launched its first radar sat of post-Soviet design in recently. While Russia is well behind China and the US in developing its space infrastructure, it is still at the cutting edge of ASAT development. The MIC reps in the US Congress recently recently created a media panic over Russian 'nuclear ASATs'. This issue was covered very well in a recent Simplicius post. Nuclear explosions in space can disable large numbers of satellites much more effectively than conventional ASATs, but at the cost of disabling your own satellites and those of your allies. While Russia is almost certainly developing such a technology, nuclear power may offer a more surgical approach.
The Soviet Union orbited many radar sats powered by nuclear reactors, and Russia has resurrected this technology recently under project Ekipazh. As described in the Simplicius article, a nuclear powered electronic warfare satellite provides ample power to blanket an entire front, preventing satellites from communicating with the ground. This may be the most promising antidote to the proliferation of western satellites.
Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Mar 18 2024 1:12 utc | 51
Debsisdead | Mar 18 2024 0:55 utc | 46
At the time, I couldn't make heads nor tails of a lot of the oral histories I was told, but I realize now that is because of the way they were told. What has really struck me though was one story on a geographical feature, they were there and and it must have been a relatively fast event. I would like to go back now and listen to a lot more of those stories.
On colonization, I think it was old mick remembered his father saying he had seen a man on a horse.
Wallace came over to tell a story one afternoon and it started off in similar vein to other stories he had told me. But then things I recognized started coming in - donkeys and the eradication of the feral donkeys. It was about the people of the Wood River catchment. They had been mustered into a gorge and shot. I have a good idea where that was as I flew all that country. Wallace pointed to a boy and said he was that age when it happened
Old Rosie. Told me about when she was a kid. Her her father and her aunt on the run from the whites. Her father knocked her aunt on the head rather leaving her to die alone and they kept going. Living memory at that time.
From some of your past posts I think you were in the top end of the territory. I was half way out the Gibb river road and south of it in WA. In the area south of Gibb River station.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 18 2024 1:39 utc | 52
I don't read a lot now, just a couple of blogs, couple of twitter accounts, scroll the headlines of the oz government tabloid and Reuters.
The oz government tabloid headlines are starting to show a delayed reaction to the sanctions from hell combined with our hostility to China. Along with that there is the headline that the Australian tax office is now going back through all its records and hitting small businesses for taxes for up to a decade ago if now decides it did not pay enough tax.
Desperation for revenue. F-35's I've no idea how much but bloody expensive scrap metal, 380 billion for US to put a submarine base on the Indian ocean, intermediate range missiles to buy now from the US. Missile ships to buy from the US. Stock market and real estate bubbles needed I guess to keep the GDP facade looking good.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 18 2024 2:07 utc | 53
One of the gems in The Dawn Of Everything by Graeber/Wengrow is the current archeological description of the Teotihuacan who built a city by that name in about 100 BC and that culture declined by 600 AD. During that time it was a city that could easily be put on par with Rome with an estimated population of 100K and a regional zenith of about a million people.
All the evidence suggests that Teotihuacan had, at the height of its power, found a way to govern itself without overlords - as did much earlier cities of prehistoric Ukraine, Uruk-period Mesopotamia and Bronze Age Pakistan.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 18 2024 2:24 utc | 54
For those who may have missed the Alistair Crooke essay on the Ukraine-France thread last week, I'm reposting his short linkage in karlof1's comment 422 therein:
Perimetr | Mar 16 2024 20:48 utc | 407--What was published from that interview can be read here, "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov & Lavrov". I placed Medvedev's complete "Formula" in the comments to that thread.
And here's my latest, "The Fabric of Reality", that is my comments on Crooke's outstanding essay that to my amazement no barfly has noticed.
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 16 2024 21:55 utc | 422
It is well worth while for those who haven't read them to go to b's link to the thread here and locate karlof1's post. The comparison with Karl Rove's 'create reality' is discussed in comments, as is Plato's Cave.
The essay interested me enough to go to the dialogue Laws [Plato's final dialogue], which is a long discussion between an Athenian, a Spartan, and a Cretan, which opens with the Athenian asking about the creator of the laws in each region, is it a god or a man? To which each of the other two answers that person to be a god.
I suggest this dialogue has the makings of multipolarity at its very beginning. So far, I am seeing it as something of a continuation of Republic, which took readers on a journey to discover the soul in terms of the city in speech. Here we have representatives of several cities or states, and I am guessing the journey is that of an Athenian wouldbe philosopher king out of the cave onto the island of Crete as three (not two only) journey upwards towards the cave and shrine of Zeus. My question: why are they going there?
I will try to keep up with them. Thank you again, karlof1; the Crooke article is exceptional.
Posted by: juliania | Mar 18 2024 3:02 utc | 55
Claims that mainstream economics is changing radically are far-fetched.
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61636
Absolutely brilliant !
Bill is never afraid to challenge the GROUPTHINK.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 18 2024 7:42 utc | 56
thanks b!
thanks patroklos.. i learn from your commentary..
@ juliania.. i am almost finished reading doestovskys ‘the idiot’.. it’s such a great book! thanks for your encouragement on this…cheers from france..
Posted by: james | Mar 18 2024 7:43 utc | 57
There was NEVER a genius of Thatcher or Reagan.
Mainstream economics was designed by the Chicago School to reflect NATO by the conservatives. It was there greatest coup d'état,
That's why it will never change. Universities have no power to change as the advisory boards have them captured. They are so deprived of government funds by the money scarcity crowd that private sector funding is needed for them to survive. Thus, the private sector decides what is studied.
These ideologues ( the Heritage Foundation) are going to be back in charge soon and they are completely bonkers and will impose gold standard, fixed exchange rate thinking on top of our modern money.
https://www.heritage.org/regulations-spending-and-inflation
Will voters fall for their myths again ?
Of course, they are dumb.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 18 2024 8:09 utc | 58
The Heritage Foundation Trumps main backer are so desperate to return everybody back to the 18th Century.
Here:
https://michael-hudson.com/2017/03/why-deficits-hurt-banking-profits/
Put the unelected banks back in charge of the economy. The banks will decide who gets what.
They absolutely hate the idea that if you create $100 from thin air and give it to somebody they spend it which is taxed at 20%, leaving the next person with $80 as income. They then spend that $80 which is taxed at 20%, leaving the next person with $64 as income. And so on until the entire $100 disappears and creates $100 of extra tax. All without changing the tax rate one single percent.
They want to create $2O from thin air which is taxed at 10% leaving the next person $18 of income.They then spend that $18 which is taxed at 10%, leaving the next person with $16.20 as income. And so on until the entire $20 disappears and creates $20 of extra tax.
That's what the low tax money scarcity crowd always want.
1. They want households to save less and they do that by giving everybody in the spending chain less income. Instead of getting $80 of income they get $18. Instead of the next person in the spending chain getting $64 they get $16.20 as income and so on and so on.
2. That's their plan for reducing the deficit ( What house holds save as cash). How they plan to reduce the National debt ( What households save as US treasuries)
3. Create a debt consumption economy. With everybody's savings now trashed as the money scarcity crowd has taken the money away. Instead of goods and services being bought out of everybody's savings. Households will need to turn to the banks and get loans in order to consume.
Conservatives are nothing more than one big banking cartel.
Of course it has all been tried before many times over and a deliberate strategy to generate monopolies. Who sweep in a buy up assets on the cheap as House holds get further and further into private sector debt.
From which the banking cartel and their buddies use to extract rent from households in the future. With a big 2 or 3 formed in each sector hiding behind the mirage of competition.
Will the voters fall for it again for the 16th time in a few hundred years ?
Of course, they are dumb, been brainwashed in education camps from the age of 5 to think governments are just like households. They'll wrap themselves in American flags, call themselves patriots and stand in line for hours to vote for it ( again ).
John Stewart described it brilliantly the other night. Said they shouldn't be wearing American flags, they should be dressed in British army red coats.
Here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LJUl77rsFEw&pp=ygUXam9uIHN0ZXdhcnQgZGFpbHkgc2hvdyA%3D
Hilarious !
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 18 2024 8:52 utc | 59
As you have seen first hand, many, many times on moon of Alabama, for many years now.
If you push the money scarcity crowd into a corner and debate with them head on. They haven't the first clue how money works. It is a complete fantasy world they all live in.
A fantasy world Created by some ideologue who gave them a brain transplant and captured them in ideological GROUPTHINK.
They are the real danger to America and yes should be wearing British red coats.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 18 2024 9:04 utc | 60
"DunGroanin | Mar 17 2024 16:52 utc | 14
I would agree with most of that apart from this "Human Civilisation is nearly restored to its ancient path of development"
This allusion of term 'civilization' equated to peace. The civilized peoples... A history of wars and the rise and fall of empires and civilizations.
But who knows, perhaps Biden will be the last emperor, perhaps Trump. The age of empires which is the entire history of so called civilization should have ended with the advent of nuclear weapons. Perhaps the now fading anglo American empire will be the last.
China and Russia seem to have different vision for the nuclear future that is quite different from the age of Empires.
When what is termed modern human first came on the archaeological scene, they had the same basic toolkit as the neanderthals and others. Knapped stone points and cutting edges, grindstones for seed, cordage and so forth. Up until less than a couple of centuries ago, still had that same basic tool kit. What they did not have, along with Eurasian technology, is a history of wars."
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 18:22 utc | 18
Peter have you ever read Frank Herbert's "Dune" series?
I believe he answered your questions in his tomes; history is cyclical, Empires will end, a new dawn will apprear only to have Empires come once again and on and on.
There is no real progress, just another trun in the never ending cycle of humanity.
Posted by: canuck | Mar 17 2024 23:42 utc | 43
"Holy crap—we agree!"
Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 18 2024 0:21 utc | 45
Great minds and all that....
Interesting- before I was as engaged with geopolitics back when Medvedev was President! Lavrov Foreign Minister and Munich had already declared expansion of natzio against all promises to RF! This via the Badrakumar article on Micron all dressed up ,nowhere to go:
‘Speaking after the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (also held in Corfu, June 27, 2009), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that Russian considerations of the initiative of Russian President Medvedev to craft a new European Security Treaty, were heard. A number of delegations reiterated the interest in engaging in their substantive consideration also in the RNC (Russia-NATO Council) format along with the discussions that have already begun in the OSCE, in our relations with the EU and in the political science community.
This implies that Moscow will continue, and most probably intensify, its efforts to establish ‘new security architecture in Europe' instead of working to maintain the current system based on NATO and, in a wider context, on transatlantic cooperation.’
https://cejiss.org/medvedev-s-initiative-a-trap-for-europe
Now of course that is all spilt milk - only worth crying over ; have the Natzios learnt their limits are reached and to gracefully lay down! Not a chance - they have no reverse gear. Have it -Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev!
‘❗️The largest NATO base in Europe is being built in Romania.
It will be able to permanently house 10,000 military personnel and their families. The base will cover an area of almost 3,000 hectares in the Constanta district on the Black Sea coast. It will be built on the site of the existing 57th Air Base, named after Mihail Cogalniceanu.
The cost of the project is €2.5 billion. It will include runways, weapons platforms, hangars for military aircraft, as well as schools and a hospital.
@ukraine_watch’
Got that ? The LARGEST natzio base to watch over the Blqck Sea- standby for a hilarious Medvedev ‘hold my beer’ retort.
We have morons - mostly unelected VDL and EU and DS aristo clowns, every sodding oligarch, multi billionaire ‘supermen’ Gates, Musk, Bezos… others - they have leaders, who have lived experiences and have raised billions out of poverty and will be core to the POLYCENTRIC world.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 18 2024 10:08 utc | 63
@ Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 17 2024 18:22 utc | 18
I guess we haven’t agreed on the definition of ‘human civilisation’.
I’ll attempt a clarification:
What we are doing here in this medium, using this language, any language - is Civilisation.
When we eat - Wheat, Rice, Corn, Potato, Chillis, olives, nuts , fruits … foods that took many generations to genetically select and improve - that is civilisation.
Music. Art. Herbal medicine, knowledge of human bodies and none invasive treatment; Learning, measuring, tool making ; Construction using wood and stone and sand , Astrophysics, calendars - that too is civilisation.
Many things make human civilisation progress. Including Memory of that!
I am with the opinion that the Aboriginal peoples of Australia were the few who survived a great catastrophe - washing away their world in a flash! It’s in their stories. Their Memory.
Perhaps we can better define human civilisation by agreeing what is not civil, or civilising so not progress?
Slavery. Piracy. Xenophobia. Wars. Weapons for human destruction, invasion, genocide, colonisation currently blatant propaganda in the Levant.
Above all the most anti -civilisationary invention - the most evil , heinous , that holds us back for centuries - MONEY.
Its creation and control as the driving force of the pernicious list above, which is forever linked to its emergence across Europe and colonisation by genocide of natives.
Finally, as Gandhi quipped when asked what he thought of ‘Western Civilisation’?
“It sounds like a good idea! “
i.e when will it properly contribute to the progression of humanity, instead of being the plunderer of actual ancient peoples, their lands, their resources, their knowledge and wealth?
That Peter , is what I mean by a return to the progress of civilisation. It does require the extinction of Bankers though! Gather and hang them and their murderous minions before they kill more of us. Destroy their dynasties and temples - the sooner the better!
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 18 2024 11:18 utc | 64
Big picture overview with local granularity.
Biden May Not Have Enough Rope To Push His Vision Of The Middle East
March 17, 2024
By James M. DorseyThis year’s US presidential elections are not the only potential hurdle confronting President Joe Biden’s multi-pronged vision for a Middle East peace once the Gaza war ends.
So is Israeli intransigence, the prospect of a long-term insurgency in post-war Gaza, and increasing Saudi Chinese technological cooperation.
The Biden administration is pushing for a multi-pronged comprehensive Middle East deal that would not only end the war in Gaza but also produce a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The deal would involve a reformed Palestine Authority governing Gaza and the West Bank, a credible pathway to an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, and Saudi recognition of the Jewish state.
The plan doesn’t lack ambition but the odds of all the pieces coming together are almost insurmountable, certainly in the time left until the November US election, even if Saudi Arabia has bought into the concept, albeit with a high price tag.
Assuming the price is right, Saudi Arabia is interested in cutting a deal while Mr. Biden is in office. The kingdom is not sure that a second Donald J. Trump presidency would meet Saudi demands, particularly its insistence on a legally binding defense agreement with the United States.
Despite his catering to the Saudis during his presidency, Mr. Trump turned the moment the kingdom needed US assistance into a business opportunity.
In response to Yemeni Houthi attacks in 2019 on Saudi oil facilities that temporarily knocked out 50 per cent of the kingdom’s oil production capacity, Mr. Trump described the incident as a Saudi, not an American problem, and offered to retaliate on behalf of the Saudis if they were willing to foot the bill.
Saudi Arabia is not the only player putting a price tag on a Middle East deal.
The United States has indicated that Saudi Arabia would have to curtail its technological cooperation with China on return for a defence agreement.
Nevertheless, signalling interest in a deal, Saudi media, much like Al Jazeera, the pioneer in airing Israeli voices in Arab media and covering the Jewish state with correspondents on the ground, have increasingly included Israelis in their reporting on the Gaza war, despite the kingdom’s vocal condemnation of the Jewish state’s war conduct.
Even so, the war has raised the price Saudi Arabia insists on extracting from Israel and the United States in return for diplomatic recognition.
In contrast to vague Saudi references to a resolution of the Palestinian problem before the war, officials now insist on a “credible and irreversible” pathway to the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Public opinion in the kingdom and across the Muslim world enraged by the Gaza war is one reason for the hardening Saudi position.
However, an incident earlier this week suggests that changing Saudi attitudes towards Israel and Jews may not happen overnight.
A delegation of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) curtailed a visit to the kingdom after the group’s chairman, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, was asked to remove his skullcap during a tour of a heritage site, despite Saudi Arabia’s projection of itself as a beacon of tolerant and ‘moderate’ Islam.
"Boeing Whistleblower FOUND DEAD Before Testifying Against Them" (them = Boeing).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH1ZQ5VkwII
Posted by: WMG | Mar 18 2024 11:51 utc | 66
Have been waiting since October but have nowhere seen even hint of proposals for a viable Palestinian State with contiguous territory and full sovereignty.
Unfortunately this increases the likelihood that Gaza, at the least, will be ethnically cleansed, leaving the Swiss cheese West Bank a doomed remnant to be relentlessly grated by ever more settlers and checkpoints into eventual nonexistence.
The early separation of West Bank and Gaza was a clear sign of deliberate Palestinian dysfunction from the get-go, therefore bad faith on the part of those who assumed Authority over the Palestinians in clear violation of the very principles and laws on which the UN was purportedly founded. (Perhaps it was yet another Jewish-led geopolitical con like the Versailles debacle twenty five years earlier which virtually guaranteed a second World War.)
Palestine never had a chance. And still doesn't. There is zero evidence at this point of the World Community having the wherewithal to impose a sea change on the original flawed dynamic.
The Palestinians have been screwed, in no small part due to Major Power ego as demonstrated by the dysfunctional-by-design UNSC veto power. To solve the Palestine injustice it enabled in its very first year of existence, the entire UN must go back to the drawing board such that it can fix what it broke. Or it should be disbanded as not fit for purpose. That way it will no longer continue to enable more harm than good as is currently the case.
It's time.
Well. My morning started with a chuckle when I watched this 3 min piece on Putin’s election victory, which I suspect b will post about later today.
It’s from CBC’s The National, St. Paddy’s Day edition. How does this part of the Five Eyes look at things? See for yourself. Maybe it’s just me, but a bit of a warning is embedded in there, I think? Does this have to do with Ivanka Trump playing the iconic role of Sally Bowles from Cabaret in London/the UK?? And I’m not sure which Kelce brother is Eric Trump and which is Jared Kushner in the Daily Mail coverage. I might have mixed that up last time.
b, I’m glad you posted the link to Bhadrakumar’s piece which I thought was especially insightful. Too much in there to post a quote or selection even!
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 18 2024 11:57 utc | 68
Good piece on strategic dynamics in zone from Northern Africa, Middle East and Ukraine going back to Napoleon.
Larry Wilkerson:
- China has doubled the amount of nuclear warheads from about 500 (???) to 1000 (???) with the help of Russia.
- South Korea has - under US pressure - sent "rounds" to the Ukraine. So, even South Korea has contributed to the war in Ukraine.
Posted by: WMG | Mar 18 2024 12:28 utc | 70
https://tinyurl.com/2yemah44
Excellent overview article; website rejected by Typepad.
Title: Russia's victory in struggle with collective West will be achieved in Middle East, not Eastern Europe. Goes back to Napoleon.
Also good piece on the Gaza port: https://tinyurl.com/23kqzuqd
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/joe-bidens-parting-gift-to-america
I think Chris exaggerates Trump's vengeance dynamic, but the thrust towards fascism argument is well made. What he doesn't consider is how exactly any sort of correction could be made. Can reform happen without going on the attack against the swamp in DC? Is any such reform always bad because possibly fascist? Tricky...
https://www.rt.com/russia/594403-putin-victory-speech-recap/
Russia - surprise, surprise - showing how democratic voting can actually work. Compare Russia's relatively quick, simple and uncontroversial process to America's oligarch-driven deception-fest.
canuk and DunGroaning
A lot of the technologies are good. Much easier life than hunting and gathering more secure food supply and so forth.
I suppose I'm just thinking about the wars of the lighter skinned group vs the stability of the Australian aboriginal people throughout the holocene.
Doesn't seem to be any difference in intelligence levels, I've been thinking perhaps more imagination - the imagination to develop various technologies but with those technologies there is war, not only that, the imagination has led various peoples into very self destructive beliefs at times. As we currently see in the US and Europe.
China and Russia have a better vision for the future. I probably won't get to see it. Post WWII has been an era of constant US wars around the globe. A very aggressive country.
India with it's Hindutva is the only problem I see for the future, but perhaps that will be kept under control.
I left it too late, but would have liked to have done a lot more traveling - through Asia, Russia, MENA ect, to see and learn about cultures other than my own, other than western. A peaceful world where everyone retains their cultures but plenty of travel would be good.
No doubt there will always disputes here and there perhaps some conflict, but a world where others will try to mediate rather than taking sides.
That though combined with the fact I have always preferred vary sparsely populated places to live... I guess that's because I've never been into group think, everyone doing what everyone else does and that sort of thing.
I really only started researching geo-politics with MH17 but a good decade before that I believed the US was the main impediment to world peace.
Here in the west, we are onto self destructive beliefs and course, most of the basics completely forgotten, so I guess I always go back to the Aboriginal people because where their social structure and so forth still exists, it has still all the basics we have long forgotten.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 18 2024 15:26 utc | 74
Thank you, Toby C | Mar 17 2024 23:37 utc | 45 , for quoting the Alistair Crooke article. Here is the link karlof1 provided previously at his substack:
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-fabric-of-reality
(my comment at juliania | Mar 18 2024 3:02 utc | 55 follows on from that.)
Posted by: juliania | Mar 18 2024 16:14 utc | 75
@ juliania.. i am almost finished reading doestovskys ‘the idiot’.. it’s such a great book! thanks for your encouragement on this…cheers from france..
Posted by: james | Mar 18 2024 7:43 utc | 57
Wonderful, james - enjoy France! The ancestral home of my little Santa Fe church is in Paris -- Saint Sergius Orthodox Church -- near the Sorbonne. C'est si bonne!
Posted by: juliania | Mar 18 2024 16:55 utc | 76
"China: the invention of the roadmap to global power - Monde Diplomatique, Mar 2 2024
It’s well known that everything in China is determined at the centre by the autocratic head of the CCP in Beijing, who dreams of global power. The only problem is it’s not true."
As usual, the things "everyone knows" are mostly false. The Party in China is not autocratic. Nor do the leaders of the PRC want to rule the world the way US leaders do. After, all China has been the leading country in the world several times, over the millennia, without trying to rule the world. The pattern of Chinese history is of foreigners coming to China to buy Chinese manufactures, much like today.
US leaders think everyone else is as warlike and domineering as they are: what a mistake!
Posted by: lester | Mar 18 2024 17:14 utc | 77
Declassified UK has a report of the collusion between an IRA traitor and British "Intelligence". Which is to say agents authorised at Cabinet level to breal every law in the book. The report is by former Police Chief John Boucher
STAKEKNIFE: BRITAIN’S SPY IN IRELAND WHO GOT AWAY WITH MURDER
Veterans of undercover operations claim that colluding with terrorists is sometimes necessary for the greater good. Now a new report shatters that myth.
by Anne Cadwallader:
"...Although little in Kenova is truly shocking for seasoned observers of what passed for law and order during the conflict in Northern Ireland, it is nevertheless deeply depressing to see, in black and white, a conclusion that “murders that could and should have been prevented were allowed to take place with the knowledge of the security forces and those responsible for murder were not brought to justice.”
"Scappaticci himself emerges from the report, not as a redeemed terrorist who took risks to save life but as a sordid torturer and executioner found to be using extreme child pornography.
"On a more positive note, Boutcher claims his report shows independent, robust legacy investigations can bring relief and consolation to grieving families. Reconciliation without such investigations, he says, is impossible – a dig at the British government’s recent Legacy Act.
"Anyone hoping these Augean stables have finally been cleaned by Boutcher’s yard-brush should think again.
"Another investigation, dubbed “Operation Denton”, also conducted by him over the last five years (before his elevation as Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland) is continuing under the former head of Police Scotland, Iain Livingstone.
"This investigation, due to report later this year, is reviewing state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in the murders of ten times the number of people whose deaths were linked to Scappaticci."
https://www.declassifieduk.org/stakeknife-britains-spy-in-ireland-who-got-away-with-murder/
Posted by: bevin | Mar 18 2024 19:35 utc | 78
Here is an interesting link sketching the complicated history of Crimea.
https://www.rt.com/russia/549962-peninsulas-complex-fate-how-crimea/
Posted by: Richard L | Mar 18 2024 21:17 utc | 79
))) Welcome to the best intimate club -- https://shorturl.at/fpKL1
Posted by: Belliana | Mar 18 2024 23:53 utc | 80
Some random economic news by the headlines. Is it just outlier doom-and-gloom, or are things really getting that bad?
Out of Cash: These Banks are Dumping EVERYTHING as 100's of Banks Face Failure
100'S of THOUSANDS of Real Estate Agents GOING BROKE!
Posted by: unimperator | Mar 19 2024 4:28 utc | 81
WMG | Mar 18 2024 11:51 utc | 66
Bryan Dyne at the World Socialist Web Site suggests that there are reasons to doubt the 'suicide' of A Boeing Corp whistleblower just before he completed his testimony.
"The death of Boeing whistleblower John “Mitch” Barnett, the 62-year-old former employee of the aerospace corporation, was declared a suicide two days after he was found dead in a truck parked in a hotel lobby. There are ample reasons to question this narrative....
"...Barnett is not the first to come to a suspicious end just before providing potentially damning evidence against a critical force in American capitalism.
"Journalist Michael Hastings was found dead after crashing into a tree at 100 miles per hour while investigating then CIA Director John Brennan. His last story, “Why Democrats Love to Spy On Americans,” was published by BuzzFeed on June 7, 2013, 11 days before he died.
"Democratic Party staffer Seth Rich, thought to be behind the leak of 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee showing extraordinary corruption in favor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, was shot in an apparent mugging in June 2016.
"Financier and sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August 2019 after investigations into his business threatened to reveal sordid connections to high level executives and politicians in the US and around the world.
"In every case, a story is worked out by the corporate media that is politically palatable for the bourgeoisie: car crash, robbery gone wrong, suicide by hanging. There is no serious investigation or follow-up, whether by the police or those purporting to call themselves “journalists.”...."
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/18/pqwz-m18.html
"...Literally the only race of people that let their rivals live on are White Europeans...
...Once again, our mercy is used against us..." ryanggg | Mar 17 2024 19:55 utc | 22
This is historical illiteracy of the worst kind. While it would be ridiculous to blame it on any peculiar evil within their societies it is a fact that White European (and creole American) imperialists have been by orders of magnitude responsible for more genocide than any other group in history. There are specific reasons why this has been so, most of them associated with the development of capitalism, and they do not suggest any particular propensity to evil doing on the oart of the individuals involved. It is simply ludicrous to claim that the empires responsible for a succession of famines in India between the 1760s and the 1940s, the decimation of the indigenous populations of America and Australia and the showcase events of the Holocaust and the Irish 'Potato Famine'are uniquely kind and benign. Pulling the Jews into this nonsensical analysis is the icing on the cake and a good example of why the veteran socialist August Bebel called anti-semitism the socialism of fools. The socialism bit is debatable nowadays but the fools part still works well.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 19 2024 5:07 utc | 82
Posted by: bevin | Mar 19 2024 5:07 utc | 81
I think that John Grisham's novel Camino Winds which I have just finished, more or less sketches out the "suicide." In his story it was a big aged care mob that did the "suiciding." Killers for hire!
Posted by: watcher | Mar 19 2024 5:34 utc | 83
"I believe this means Boeing has selected a new CEO."
https://t.me/Slavyangrad/91835
😂
Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 19 2024 7:36 utc | 84
The EU will introduce duties on grain from Russia and Belarus in the amount of 95 euros per ton in the coming days, FT reports. - TASS
Ha,ha,ha,ha - they are doing a Trump.
Where else are they going to get the train from - Mars ?
Unless, everybody else can replace the lost grain from Russia and Belarus which is very unlikely. All the EU are doing is increasing the price they pay for grain. Which can be inflationary.
Like Trump did with lumber from Canada and cars from Germany and Soyabeans from China etc, etc,etc..
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 19 2024 9:10 utc | 85
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 19 2024 9:10 utc | 84
Poland-Ukraine is blocked and no frankenstein grain from Ukraine is allowed through Poland. Even grain wagons on trains are emptied on the border.
In conjunction with dismantling farming in EU, bodes very bad times for EU people.
Posted by: unimperator | Mar 19 2024 9:14 utc | 86
Posted by: bevin | Mar 19 2024 5:07 utc | 81
I have friends who live in Washington. When I visited them their neighbour owns a firm that protects whistleblowers. Over dinner what I heard would chill you to the bone. Whistleblowers get murdered all the time. Opened my eyes that's for sure.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 19 2024 9:14 utc | 87
Posted by: unimperator | Mar 19 2024 9:14 utc | 85
For sure buddy, they are completely bonkers !!!!
That's mainstream economics for ya. Trump will do the same again with tariffs.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 19 2024 9:18 utc | 88
I really ask myself often how a person can continue his life after experiencing these horrors of Gaza
https://x.com/l_d70/status/1769814761846297017?s=20
The Israeli devil's are not human those are evil entities from a satanic underworld
Posted by: 🌶️Mike | Mar 19 2024 14:19 utc | 89
Hello, Moon of Alabama people. I got a link here I think will interest you. Its about Canada's nazi problem. It is a podcast from Maple. So far it seems to be free for all, but they are increasingly paywalling themselves.
I only sporadically read Alabama. I think you are aware of the big scandal in Canada last year, when the parliament gave an ovation to a nazi veteran. Some people in Canada have been looking into what has been going on.
I have already done some of my own looking into it and know much of this. Basically, its the same story as everywhere else after the world war. Nazis went from being the bad guys to being the favored attack dogs against the "communists", basically anything "left" in the cold war time.
thttps://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/expats-allies/id1582657676?ref=readthemaple.com
Posted by: tim rourke | Mar 19 2024 14:36 utc | 90
[email protected] 68, we wanted equal rights, civil rights, one man, one vote. We had no soldiers, no fighting men. What we had were ideological university students, Steeped in the culture, the history and not one of them could load a Enfield never mind clean it.
Well documented, undercover SAS agents trained and organized the IRA's physical resistance. Mind you with typical British ease they split the IRA through infighting into two factions the Officials and Provisionals.
It really is a sad stamp of dishonour when one must, like Zionists, invent, train and arm one's adversary.
Cheers M
....I remember the FARC story, when Washington pooped it's pants. Highly technical barrel bombs started falling on the Columbian army. After investigation turns out some paddies fresh out of SAS University traveled to Colombia to teach a course on self preservation. Rebels are rebels the world over.
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Mar 19 2024 14:53 utc | 91
A quick chuckle to share (it made me more than chuckle actually, but anyway).
From the X/Twitter account of Canada’s spy agency, CSIS:
https://x.com/csiscanada/status/1769786027827204605
“We are still looking for intelligent, resilient and motivated people to become CSIS officers.
Dare to join a world of intrigue.” (Followed by a link and a John Clancy-esque photo)
The chuckle came in for me with the reply by @CrippsNicky —
“Is this open to Canadians or just immigrants?”
And - the French are so… French. From La Presse:
“Biden tente de combattre le désamour de l’électorat hispanique”
https://www.lapresse.ca/international/etats-unis/2024-03-19/nevada-et-arizona/biden-tente-de-combattre-le-desamour-de-l-electorat-hispanique.php
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 19 2024 15:21 utc | 92
A tale of two sides. Gramps was a decorated Brit vet. Part of his mustard gas recovery therapy was to sit on the front step breathing fresh air. One morning he was watching a company of Brits move up the street going door to door, Gran came out and said "Marty and Dutchie are in the back yard, they need a place to hide." He never missed a beat "get them into the coal box."
Within minutes the Brits arrived at Gramps. As several soldiers came up the walkway Gramps addressed one by rank and name. Took the Brit by surprise as he realized he was talking to another soldier. He asked Gramps if he'd seen two suspicious men, Gramps said no.
The soldiers moved on and after some time Gran brought the lads into the kitchen then fed them tea and toast.
Safe passage arrangements were made and they were both taken across the border to the Free State....that was in the days long before the FRU started blowing things up in Dublin Berlin and all points inbetween then blaming it 'in the media' on the IRA.
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Mar 19 2024 15:37 utc | 93
"Some random economic news by the headlines. Is it just outlier doom-and-gloom, or are things really getting that bad?
Out of Cash: These Banks are Dumping EVERYTHING as 100's of Banks Face Failure
100'S of THOUSANDS of Real Estate Agents GOING BROKE!"
Posted by: unimperator | Mar 19 2024 4:28 utc | 81
And its just starting.
In the commercial real estate market (CRE) a $TRILLION dollars in debts that were paying around 3-4% interest will have to pay 7-8% interest with CRE values falling from 40% to 99% in the US.
Not to mention US long term bonds are down 40% on banks balance sheet since the covid crisis.
Its going to be a huge bloodbath.
Buy some gold or solver, don't put it in your bank deposit box (when banks go broke they can use it as collateral) put in in your backyard or some secure place.
"A lot of the technologies are good. Much easier life than hunting and gathering more secure food supply and so forth."
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 18 2024 15:26 utc | 74
Modern technologies do make living easier; however, hunter and gatherers were 6 inches taller and 15% smarter than their 'civilized' descendants as eating grains are not as healthy as eating primarily meat.
So are we better off?
Depends how you look at it.
6 inches taller and 15% smarter - how did you compute that, canuck?
I also hear you are into gold properties. There's a really nice patch I'd love to offer you.
Posted by: persiflo | Mar 19 2024 16:10 utc | 96
@ 76 juliania
thanks!
we aren’t going to paris.. bayoone is the last place before the plane back from bordeaux.. finished the idiot.. fantastic read..thanks.
Posted by: james | Mar 19 2024 16:17 utc | 97
Since you' ve just read it, james, would you say a few words on its contents ? I read The Idiot as a 20 year old, and though I liked the experience, I was definitely lost in the story, and the many personas in there.
Sometimes I like to condense the contents of a novel or other work of fiction into no more than three short sentences, somewhat humorously of course, like: "Man gets indicted. He dies." for Kafka's Der Prozess. For The Idiot, I'd choose something like this:
Man arrives in town by train (150 pages). They sit on a porch, sipping tea (300 pages). He gets a seizure (200 pages).
I'm not hating Dostoevsky here. I read all of his more famous works, some of them twice, and it made me a friend of the russian people for life.
Posted by: persiflo | Mar 19 2024 16:47 utc | 98
*The Idiot* in one sentence:
Being a holy fool means willingly making a punching bag out of oneself to a motley collection of hysterics and parasites.
Posted by: malenkov | Mar 19 2024 17:11 utc | 99
Two recent article by Dugin viz Hegel in geopolitical context:
https://arktos.com/2024/02/28/hegel-and-the-theory-of-international-relations-part-1/
https://arktos.com/2024/03/15/hegel-and-the-theory-of-international-relations-part-2/
The comments to this entry are closed.
I suspect the whole Gaza sea port idea is not just for humanitarian aid. It is for removal and relocation of Palestians. Their lives made so miserable by the Zionists they have not much of a choice in the matter.
Posted by: circumspect | Mar 17 2024 14:03 utc | 1