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

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

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

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

”
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

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

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.

Posted by: Roger | Mar 17 2024 16:58 utc | 17

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

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

https://clearstory.news/2024/03/15/allegations-of-interference-and-destabilization-in-the-russian-presidential-election-by-western-nations/
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

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

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: 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

US engaging in election interference and PR stunts in Russia and at her embassies.
https://clearstory.news/2024/03/15/allegations-of-interference-and-destabilization-in-the-russian-presidential-election-by-western-nations/

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 17 2024 20:44 utc | 31

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

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

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

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

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:

===
===
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_humanity

Reality

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 23:14 utc | 41

Peter AU1 @38
By resorting to name-calling, you are debasing your argument.

Posted by: AJ | Mar 17 2024 23:24 utc | 43

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

“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’.

Posted by: canuck | Mar 17 2024 23:42 utc | 47

Posted by: canuck | Mar 17 2024 23:42 utc | 43
Holy crap—we agree!

Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 18 2024 0:21 utc | 49

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

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

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

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

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

“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 18 2024 10:02 utc | 61

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

https://www.eurasiareview.com/17032024-biden-may-not-have-enough-rope-to-push-his-vision-of-the-middle-east-analysis/
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. Dorsey
This 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.

Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 18 2024 11:32 utc | 65

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.

Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 18 2024 11:57 utc | 67

Good piece on strategic dynamics in zone from Northern Africa, Middle East and Ukraine going back to Napoleon.
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/russia-s-victory-in-struggle-with-collective-west-will-be-ac

Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 18 2024 12:26 utc | 69

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

Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 18 2024 12:32 utc | 71

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.

Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 18 2024 14:39 utc | 73

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

“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

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

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

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

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: 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

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

bevin@78….in 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 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

“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.

Posted by: canuck | Mar 19 2024 15:42 utc | 95

@ 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

*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