China is having a societal breakdown.
A young woman who earned a college degree could not find work and subsequently starved to death in a urban apartment her family had borrowed money for rent payments.
The collective West is pulling their money out of China.
The only investment allowed, the property market, is busted.
I expect to see civil unresest in China before the Russian Special Military Opperation in Ukraine is resolved

Posted by: Hot Carl | Aug 29 2024 10:17 utc | 3

Posted by: Hot Carl | Aug 29 2024 10:17 utc | 3
++++++++++++++++++++
China is watching the falling empires in the West and having a laugh in case you did not notice it.

Posted by: AI | Aug 29 2024 10:21 utc | 5

My bad. The troll part stands though.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 29 2024 10:29 utc | 7

Last week EC offered some kind thoughts on my reporting from China and suggested that I open a Substack account. This appealed as it would give me the opportunity to enlarge on various matters, as I do not like to engage in over long postings here. I have decided to try that out and have posted a first trial article.
The title is Four Chinese Women and it opens thus:

The stories I tell below are all true. They are not the life experiences of famous historical women, but simply of ordinary members of my extended family in China. Their misfortunes are certainly not exceptional and so I believe they well illustrate certain widespread aspects of daily life in China.

It is not very long so I hope if the subject is of potential interest to you, that you will read it and perhaps engage in a discussion below. Here is the link: I am new to this so I hope it works!
https://open.substack.com/pub/waltking/p/four-chinese-women

Posted by: Walt | Aug 29 2024 11:01 utc | 9

Maybe already posted?

Kim Dotcom
Here’s the major issue for Telegram users. Pavel is gone unless he gets bail. He was charged with a conspiracy crime as a member of a criminal “group”. It means the team that’s running Telegram now will either have to make a deal or face the same charges. They will make a deal.
They did the same with Mega. After a decade of proclaiming their innocence my co-founders made a deal, made false confessions, received a 99% discount on their charges and handed the encryption keys of Mega to the US Govt. Mega belongs to the US deep state now. Don’t use it.
“>https://x.com/KimDotcom

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Aug 29 2024 11:19 utc | 11

4 UK Nato and foreign policy greatly influenced by the lies and prejudice of the notorious Bill Browder who some years ago made representations at the Defence Committee or something like that . UK politicians are easy to play as suckers by those more intelligent and manipulative eg Z…..

Posted by: Jo | Aug 29 2024 11:22 utc | 13

Stupid trolls.
While I was living in Japan, a clerk typed a wrong character on a document related to the public pension for an elderly couple. As a result their pension payments ceased. The elderly couple quietly starved to death in their apartment.
Of course, this was a huge scandal in Japan, and every neighborhood in the country began programs to check up on their neighborhood’s elderly residents at least once per week; have someone visit every residence every few days.
The point is that shit happens, but normal people (thus incomprehensible to you trolls) take action that has nothing to do with trying to overthrow the government. You stupid trolls only heard about someone dying of malnutrition in modern China because it was such an unusual and shocking occurrence for the Chinese people that they themselves were scandalized and chatting about it on social media. Nobody but fake NGO shit-stirrers and moronic western trolls are even remotely thinking about overthrowing the Chinese government because of it.
There may be local protests in China over the event, but protests there have a very different character than they do in western countries with capitalist fake democracy governments (ex: USA, Britain, France). Rather than sending out the goons with teargas and water canons, Chinese bureaucrats and municipal workers rush to the streets with their clipboards and interview the protesters to find out what the problems are and what they can do to make things right.
Yeah, the Chinese conception of democracy is completely beyond you Sinophobic trolls’ understanding. You stupid fools think “voting” every couple years for some useless meatbag (out of two or three options chosen for you by your capitalist overlords) who you know ahead of time will not even try to do what s/he promises, and whom you don’t like anyway, is “Democracy™”. Stupid chumps.
There will be no “civil unrest” in China, at least not of the sort you moron trolls hope for. China’s government has even more popular support than Putin. It is untouchable by your retarded memes and narratives. The American and British governments are far more at risk of being toppled by their populations than is the Chinese government.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 29 2024 12:18 utc | 15

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 29 2024 12:18 utc | 15
Right on. Thanks.

Posted by: Walt | Aug 29 2024 12:34 utc | 17

Posted by: Hot Carl | Aug 29 2024 10:17 utc | 3
“I expect to see…” A glass eye up a cat’s arse in dark cellar that doesn’t exist has greater foresight.

Posted by: horseguards | Aug 29 2024 13:49 utc | 19

https://t.me/llordofwar/369469

‼️BREAKING‼️
Turkish drone shot down in northern Iraq
Iraqi air defense forces shot down a drone over the city of Kirkuk in the north of the country, Shafaq News writes, citing security sources. It is noted that the drone’s debris damaged a residential building in the city, and there were no casualties.
According to sources, after examining the debris, it turned out that it was a Turkish-made ANKA drone.
Deputy Air Defense Commander in the Northern region Hamudi Ramadan confirmed the shooting down of a drone that had entered Iraqi airspace from the neighboring province of Sulaymaniyah.
The Turkish side has not yet commented on the incident.
#Türkiye #Iraq

Posted by: anon2020 | Aug 29 2024 14:34 utc | 21

The JCPOA is back in the news which brought forth this “Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova on latest US insinuations about Iran’s nuclear programme”:

The American side continues its political “wobbles” over the Iranian nuclear programme. A few days ago, a US State Department spokesman said that the Biden administration is “still” considering a negotiated solution as the best option for curbing Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but Tehran’s lack of proper cooperation with the IAEA and its escalatory steps make diplomatic efforts impossible.
In other words, Washington has renounced the talks and once again made it clear that it is not going to work on the implementation of the agreements that were recorded in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and sealed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
Ironically, or perhaps not accidentally, these revelations by the State Department functionary came after statements by Supreme Leader of Iran Abdullah Khamenei, from which it followed that Iran is open to contacts with the United States, of course, with a full understanding of who it has to deal with. In fact, the Biden administration has once again admitted its inability to fulfil its campaign promises to return America to the JCPOA, although it was on these promises that it entered the White House.
It is indisputable that the current team in the corridors of power in the United States turned out to be no better than its predecessors and, by and large, brought Donald Trump’s case of destroying the nuclear deal and undermining UN Security Council Resolution 2231 to its logical conclusion. Following Washington’s bad example, European countries also began to openly violate this resolution. As usual, this lawlessness is accompanied by harsh rhetoric against Tehran with far-fetched and ridiculous accusations, the sole purpose of which is to shield themselves and create a strong sense in the international community of a nuclear threat from Iran, which can be fought by any means.
Unbiased observers and experts thoroughly immersed in this topic are well aware that it was the irrational and fundamentally erroneous policy of the United States, coupled with its disregard for international law, that became the root cause of the deep stagnation of the JCPOA. It was not Tehran, but Washington and its European satellites that sabotaged efforts to restore the nuclear deal, and now they are trying to sweep their shameful actions under the rug and pretend that they have nothing to do with it.
Our Western opponents can lead their public by the nose as much as they want, presenting themselves as champions of nuclear non-proliferation to the hackneyed record about the Iranian nuclear threat. But they will not be able to deceive the whole world. Iran’s repeated confirmations of its readiness to finalize the draft agreement on reviving the JCPOA and our numerous attempts to facilitate this process with China have not met with a proper response either in Washington or in Brussels, where, as is now quite clear, they do not intend to really agree on anything and fulfill any promises.
We, in turn, firmly believe that UN Security Council Resolution 2231 remains in force and must be implemented by all parties to the nuclear deal, including the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France, which are obliged to correct their violations and bring their policy into strict compliance with the requirements of the Security Council. They have no other legal way, and they should not waste time on empty lamentations about the Iranian nuclear program.

Another delightful example of policy continuity by the Empire and its vassals who continue to be the main outlaw nations on the planet, not Iran. Also, a foreshadowing of what can be expected after the elections and January inauguration–more of the same regardless the POTUS.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 29 2024 14:54 utc | 23

The PRC is DEFINATELY twittering on societal breakdown
1) cheap new housing in abundance
2) skyrocketing real wage growth
3) ~5% GDP growth year in year out
4) Chinese middle class has too much savings !!!
China’s problem is excess savings, not too much capacity
https://www.ft.com/content/879f5de7-cd9b-4987-9c2b-8b23cf0f3800

Posted by: Exile | Aug 29 2024 15:17 utc | 25

Posted by: AI | Aug 29 2024 10:20 utc | 4
It’s an open thread. No such thing as out of context and he was correct about the European and US views on the socialist movements of indigenous and dark skinned Central and South Americans.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Aug 29 2024 15:27 utc | 27

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Aug 29 2024 10:05 utc | 2
“Both Chavez and Maduro are ‘morenos’, dark skinned mulattos” […] “small groups of people supporting the opposition, and what struck was that nearly all of these people were White”
Take a look at an old SF-novel: The Squares of the City by British writer John Brunner from 1965.
SPOILER
He transposed the south-american divide between Black&White on a chess board and let the (unwitting) pieces-protagonists¹ replay a historic chess game. At one point the main protagonist has a similar insight like you did.
Other themes are subliminal messages and city planning as political tool. Like many SF-novels there had to be paid a price (literary weaknesses) for the spirited ideas.
¹The Italian Wikipedia even lists them: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_scacchiera

Posted by: Cetzer | Aug 29 2024 15:53 utc | 29

Re: black and white in Venezuela
There are plenty of whitish people on Maduro’s side of the fight in Venezuela. They are almost universally working class, though. But then the darker skinned Maduro supporters are practically all working class too.
So what about the Madurai opponents? Relatively pale lot there, but they have another much more important characteristic that unites them: they are middle class, with a handful of upper-crusties.
The issue is not racism, it is class struggle. Only fools who want to maintain the class hierarchy in society will fixate on the racial aspect of the conflict, as if a few more melanin enhanced people on the old death squad guy’s side would make his team acceptable.
Venezuela is not engaged in race conflict. They are fighting class conflict.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 29 2024 16:25 utc | 31

Jake Sullivan gets bitch slapped in China. I do remember reading about diplomacy in the past. There used to be diplomatic protocols. Especially when meeting a head of state, you would bring a well thought out gift. I sincerely doubt that anything remotely resembles the days of yore.

Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 29 2024 16:37 utc | 33

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 29 2024 16:25 utc | 31
I don’t share your Marxist ideology but I have to point out that you miss a lot of opportunities for your cause by neglecting the racial aspect of class struggle in LatAm.

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Aug 29 2024 16:43 utc | 35

Posted by: Cetzer | Aug 29 2024 15:53 utc | 29
I was not aware of an Italian wikipedia. By way of exercise, I compared the English and Italian entries for Cicero. The Italian version is longer and superior.
Via translation software, eg Google Translate, this is an excellent source for expanded research. I wonder how German wikipedia covers World War II?

Posted by: horseguards | Aug 29 2024 16:46 utc | 37

15 WilliamMcGruff
First thought is: there no social assistance in China ? – but yes, these systems are hoops, asset tests and take the sense of pride you may have & shred it ! The program described at basicincome dot org (titled “China’s unconditional cash program implications”) is called Dibao
The remember for neighbours watching out for neighbours is very sound. In lots of small towns been living in, there is real frequent meeting up with people on the street needing a hand.. and, consider how only 5 dollars may help. You will impact things.
My solution was looking for wild food .. and in some towns there are community gardens where one plot was meant for the public to freely take what you need.

Posted by: NinoWheelofLife | Aug 29 2024 16:53 utc | 39

Newbie | Aug 29 2024 16:38 utc | 34–
Thanks for your reply. Brazil’s a very interesting case and has a very convoluted history, and the same can be said of most of the non-North American nations in the Western Hemisphere. The best textbooks to learn those histories aren’t in English either.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 29 2024 17:04 utc | 41

psychohistorian | Aug 29 2024 16:58 utc | 40–
Thanks for that very important report. I had wondered if Sullivan was going to be confronted in such a manner. But will Trump tell the truth as to why the Outlaw US Empire is no longer respected by the world? I think not. His administration contributed mightily to that lack of respect, but I doubt he’d admit to that truth.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 29 2024 17:11 utc | 43

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 29 2024 17:09 utc | 42

Your capitalist ideology prefers that the discussion consistently veers away from underlying cause towards superficial and inconsequential features of social issues.

You’re not describing my capitalist ideology in the above quote but that of America and its groupies in Europe. My capitalist ideology recognizes that the main determinants are economic in nature.

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Aug 29 2024 17:30 utc | 45

Latest from Matthew Desmet substack, ending:

Trump and Kennedy are finding common ground now, something they never expected. But whether this also means they will continue to find common ground if they actually have to work together is another question. I believe there are quite a few issues where Trump and Kennedy hold radically different positions. The biggest challenge will not be winning the election; the biggest challenge will be to govern in a truly humane way in times of desolation and dehumanization of the social fabric.
I’ve said it many times: the core problem of the crises in our society is our rationalistic view of humanity, which absolutizes rational knowledge and prioritizes it over ethical awareness. Essentially, it comes down to this: to the extent that the Republicans operate within the dominant (rationalistic) worldview, they will just as easily continue to create the conditions for totalitarianism. They will ultimately either become totalitarian themselves, perhaps in a different way than the Democrats, but still totalitarian; or they will lay the groundwork for the unstoppable rise of another totalitarian party.
The real work, therefore, is to investigate how we can move beyond the rationalistic and mechanistic worldview. It is that worldview that creates a fundamental disconnection between humans and their fellow humans, between humans and nature, between humans and their bodies, and thus forms the breeding ground for totalitarianism. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, the key is to transcend that worldview and contribute to the metaphysical revolution needed to leave behind the ailments of our Enlightenment culture. A Democrat who contributes to that does more than a Republican who does not. And vice versa.
But in any case: we are on the threshold of a political shift unlike anything we have seen in recent decades. For the first time in recent history, a political movement is emerging that—whether you support it or not—has the determination to stand firmly against much of the established Big Corporations and Big State. If necessary, to the death.
The effects are already visible: Zuckerberg made unprecedented revelations about undemocratic influence by the Biden administration (during the COVID crisis and during the 2020 elections). In other words: he is about throwing the Biden administration under the bus. He might feel the storm coming: if Trump gets another chance, an investigation will be launched into the censorship and manipulation he was involved in. And the panic over the upcoming Trump-Kennedy duo is accelerating less pleasant aspects of the great totalitarianizing process our society is undergoing: the system is transitioning from the phase of indoctrination and propaganda to the phase of terror (see, among other things, the arrest of Pavel Durov).
One thing is certain: the coming months won’t be boring in the USA. And not in the rest of the world either.
Mattias
https://substack.com/home/post/p-148187889

Note his emphasis on the root problem being the mechanistic (aka materialist) worldview now shared by most ruling classes in multipolar as well as the Wicked West states. Broadly speaking, we already have a One World culture, fractious and fragmented as it is. I used to think that maybe the British Empire made it happen, riding on the coattails of Guns, Germs and Steel etc., but now wonder if it isn’t the other way around: the world naturally has a feeling for humanity as a whole and has been trading and cross-fertilizing for many thousands of years, even in neolithic times apparently. So maybe that intuitive, subconscious-level connection facilitated the post industrial revolution World Empire but those riding that crest in 19th Century Britain exploited that self-existing world wide connection in the ways that the greedy materialist machine people are wont to do.
Again and again we see how Evil works by exploiting the Good’s natural tendencies to trust, cooperate, experiment, expand. They twist these generous impulses into narrow self-serving ends. (Perhaps a dance that will never end in human affairs?)
In any case, I agree with Matthew that this latest development represents a possibly substantive sea-change in Western political configurations. Too soon to say at this point, but promising.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 29 2024 17:57 utc | 47

Posted by: AI | Aug 29 2024 15:52 utc | 28
Point out to me what I said that was “racist” and then refute the well known fact that there is plenty of racism at the core of the neo-colonialist approach to viewing and treating countries like Venezuela.
Don’t take my word for it. Here’s some Venezuelans talking about it.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/687/
It’s the Bolivarian revolution that seeks to break down racial divisions that are holdovers from colonial times or relegate “racial” considerations to the dustbin and focus on class struggle.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Aug 29 2024 18:14 utc | 49

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 29 2024 17:57 utc | 47
Quote from a Substack:

I’ve said it many times: the core problem of the crises in our society is our rationalistic view of humanity, which absolutizes rational knowledge and prioritizes it over ethical awareness.
[…]
The real work, therefore, is to investigate how we can move beyond the rationalistic and mechanistic worldview.

This view shares with dominant ideology its adherence to depart from reality to make a better world.
The only way to understand reality, including our minds, is by recourse to rationality and mathematical models of mechanisms, measurements and calculations.
A good solution is to harmonize rationalist policies with ethical awareness. You want to find that certain mechanisms of culturization lead to optimal ethical guidelines that you a priori think are self-evident.

If necessary, to the death.

This shows the fanaticism of the author. I’d rather live in a totalitarian State instead of just being dead.

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Aug 29 2024 18:27 utc | 51

Re: Living in a Totalitarian State
The vast majority of people living in dictatorships carry on with their lives much the same as people who live in “free” societies.
My experience is only with the 1980s DDR, 1970s Yugoslavia, and the Magyars for many many years, so might be wrong. I also lived and worked in the PRC as an expat in the early 2000s
My litmus test is always “what happens when a regular person politely argues with a cop ?”

Posted by: Exile | Aug 29 2024 18:54 utc | 53

#53 @Exile My litmus test is always “what happens when a regular person politely argues with a cop ?”
I’ve seen that a few times in the PRC. A couple times the cop gave the person a talking to, and no ticket or ID was produced.
Once the person had clearly endangered others, and she got a huge fine and the cop basically told her to shut up when she was trying to make excuses.

Posted by: billb | Aug 29 2024 19:25 utc | 55

Thierry Meyssan published an informative look into the Venezuelan election
Press lies about the Venezuelan presidential election
by Thierry Meyssan
https://www.voltairenet.org/article221176.html

Posted by: petergrfstrm | Aug 29 2024 19:36 utc | 57

fascinating and informative article on albania’s role in nurturing mek… i highly recommend it..
EUROPE WEAPON AIMED AT IRAN

Posted by: james | Aug 29 2024 19:51 utc | 59

@ simon crow | Aug 29 2024 19:58 utc | 60
good question, lol..

Posted by: james | Aug 29 2024 20:00 utc | 61

“canuk@ 56
Now Canuck you knows they were referring to the ‘Karen’s’ and not the middle class.
Are you a lawyer by chance?
lol”
Posted by: simon crow | Aug 29 2024 19:58 utc | 60
Ok, you are correct-I retract my statement.
No I’m not a lawyer, I am a minereal prospector and venture capitalist-though I have paid alot of unnecessary lawyers’ bills!!

Posted by: canuck | Aug 29 2024 20:14 utc | 63

A US type My Lia massacre in Iraq – has been discovered after a FoI.
“Gruesome photos of US Marines massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha spark global outrage.”
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/08/29/732280/US-Iraq-Haditha-massacre

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Aug 29 2024 20:43 utc | 65

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 29 2024 12:18 utc | 15
Nicely done. The canards about China will never cease though. In Australia dog-whistling up popular prejudice against Chinese students in our universities has led a weak government to capitulate to demands for ‘caps on international students’. There are no winners except jingoistic retards who hate the Chinese. Sad and frustrating.

Posted by: Patroklos | Aug 29 2024 20:49 utc | 67

canuck @ 63
sorry canuck, couldn’t resist.
(lol)

Posted by: simon crow | Aug 29 2024 21:06 utc | 69

There are no winners except jingoistic retards who hate the Chinese. Sad and frustrating.
Posted by: Patroklos | Aug 29 2024 20:49 utc | 67
All will have to go through the school of hard knocks.
Apparently a number of ‘influential’ Australians (Rudd and similar idiots) are starting to speak out against AUKUS. Too late now. They should have spoken out back when Fraser and Keating were.
I think the current American takeover of Australia began with the Gillard Government in 2013 announcing US troops would be stationed here on a “rotational” basis.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 29 2024 21:25 utc | 71

China’s policy of promoting people-to-people contacts with all nations and Taiwan in particular has proven very potent and within Chinese culture an excellent use of soft power.
Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 29 2024 15:03 utc | 24
This vision for the future, a multi-polar world – far different to to a one size fits all ideology. Perhaps more dangerous to the powers that be here in the west than the cold war domino theory.
In the cold war, we had relatively free media here in the west. Now we don’t.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 29 2024 21:38 utc | 73

maybe they should find someone with a tougher countenance?
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Aug 29 2024 21:39 utc | 74
The clown brings up thoughts of an undertaker with its dead face.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 29 2024 21:42 utc | 75

I don’t see it happening in my lifetime. Until then we will shovel everything we own into the US maw. We’re a colonial settler oligarchy to our dying day…
Posted by: Patroklos | Aug 29 2024 21:46 utc | 76
Yep. Most are determined to learn the hard way. Oz goes down with the USS Titanic.
Where my children were young, we would go down to the waterhole fishing. Steep drop off the banks into deep water. I would not let them near the waters edge if I was not there. When I was there, would let them do as they pleased. I think each at different times would fall in the water. I would wait for a bit watching them choke and splutter before pulling them out. After that they would have respect for water and I had no need to watch them.
Nobody to pull Australia out of this one.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 29 2024 21:56 utc | 77

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Aug 29 2024 20:43 utc | 65
No surprise there. Fuckin’ scum of the earth.

Posted by: horseguards | Aug 29 2024 22:09 utc | 79

@ karlof1 | Aug 29 2024 15:03 utc | 24
re: China’s policy of promoting people-to-people contacts with all nations and Taiwan in particular has proven very potent and within Chinese culture an excellent use of soft power.
Yes. President Xi was governor of Fujian province from 1999 to 2002, before becoming governor and party secretary of neighboring Zhejiang just north of Fujian from 2002 to 2007. Fujian is just across the Strait from Taiwan, and Xi is still working that angle with the “Cross-Strait Relations” at China Daily here. Most recently, “Over 1,000 from both sides of Taiwan Strait attend summit in Fujian.” . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Aug 29 2024 22:27 utc | 81

LightYFH@2139
Good call. Though somewhat clever-bright, the Jakes is the product of typically suburban cosseting and cuddling. No school of the streets in a serious urban environment…along with no nature-connective common sense as so often develops in rural America…the further away from even a micro-metro…the better.
Anyhoo, the Burbs pay through the nose for good herbs.

Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 29 2024 22:48 utc | 83

Republic of Scotland@2043
Little wonder why the frantic French government law- fared the chief honcho of Telegram. People all across the planet are being schooled by liberative alternative media, such as that Marine Corpse terror against Iraqi children and kids.
Of course, little Macaroni shells gets his orders from two sources…firstly the bank in Paris for which he nosed-up for some years…and secondly, from enforcers in the U$$A who get their orders from…

Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 29 2024 22:58 utc | 85

Exile@1939
Having never traveled to China during my current lifetime; I too have come to the understanding, mostly through various independent media sources; that the Chinese enjoy elements of personal liberty which are increasingly rare through a broad sweep of the “fruited plain”.
Ditto with the Russians, but perhaps in an alternative dimension. Can any normal American even imagine that the residents of the former USSR have pride in their government…rather than growing detestation? Could we be looking there at a manifestation of soundly based national pride?
Perhaps in some iterations the U$$A more resembles the USSR during it’stwenty years as an adolescent regime…than is currently the reality in the R.U.
When general Cornwallis surrendered to Washington and Rochambeau at the Battle of Yorktown…the British regimental bands played “The World Turned Upside Down”.
Inside-out too, I would aver.

Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 29 2024 23:30 utc | 87

If there is a diplomatic gift that might go well in China it might be some of the cultural booty taken out of China during the century of humiliation. Maybe just take a chunk of the British Museum booty and return it. The UK won’t be able to stop the US doing that. The USA has plenty too, but the pipsqueak UK vassal state is a perfect place to take stuff from.

Posted by: Gift Hoarse | Aug 29 2024 23:38 utc | 89

Canuck @1929 #56
“Ah yes, the fast transiting middle class. In higher-paced urbanizations throughout America…in order for a family to be regarded as even LOWER middle class…joint incomes need to be upwards of $125,000. My working class parents bought a suburban ’51 model rambler home with both basement and a crampy, unfinished upstairs for $13,900.
Indeed: The inflation factor. Price in 1913 to mail a first-class letter (speaking of class) was two cents. Yesterday I bought several at 54 cents a pop….not picturesque commemoratives, but serf-class flag stamps…not very classy…rather highly utilitarian and never noticed as such by those whose esthetic sensitivities became culturally devolved.
Maintaining the class consideration situation, how about contemporary public school classification of today’s “learning” environments in comparison with the 1906 Kansas state 8th grade graduation test. Calculated that (1) I barely managed to get a passing grade and (2) am highly doubtful that the average Yankee P.H.D. would be capable to emerge from the narrow cocoon of his/her specialization to pass that one-room country schoolhouse state regulated class-system.
Then, one of my common memes: In ca 1920, the most notorious of all the late 19th Century Robber Barons, John D. Rottenfeller, massively funded with tens of millions in grants to Columbia University to create a college of education. That first entry into the field of such teaching institutions was to serve as a template for similar “higher” educational facilities across the fruited plain.
Old Rottenfeller hired him a couple of names: The “philosopher” John Dewey and James Conant Bryant of a princely post-Puritan literary New England clan. Their public recognition for this new status of establishing America’s first first-class edumacaisonal institution…along with their handsome remuneration for such a formidable task…must have seemed quite satisfying for the egos of those two “gentlemen”.
In a different statement and time, Rottenfeller famously remarked (some liberties with precise quotation here, but capturing the general tenor: “We don’t need these people to learn Classics like Latin and Greek and certainly not too much of history, geography, calculus and chemistry”. We need them to work in our factories, offices and shops and to always be on time.”
Yes, slight paraphrasing but the gist is there.
Don’t know much about Canuckistani history; say between the end of colonial status, per se, in 1867 and the development of Dominion status somewhere around WWI. However, the economic enculturation in “True North,Strong and Free” has to have “achieved” a tracking and classification system rather similar to that here in the $tates.
Another of the great achievements here in the $tates has been a highly effectual demotion process for much of the professional class; as most doctors, lawyers and CPA’s are no longer classically middle class, by means of owning their own means of making a living. They MIGHT be considered as many of them would be upper middle class on a purely economic basis…due to their salaried paychecks.
Yeah, the professionals too might gain insights by listening to the country music fave several decades back whose musical I.D. was “Johnny Paycheck”.
No to those who reference the One-Percent putting down the 99. It’s probably not even ONE-TENTH of 1% who have so maneuvered as to become a ruling elite hovering over their Pyramidal layered economic classes…ever hovering over the masses at 99.99 percent… as embodying the All Seeing Eye of Horus.

Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 0:08 utc | 91

Scorpion citing Mattias@1757
Consider the roles of the two younger generations of our current cultural context. The inspirational instigators and infusers within that demographic…the leading edge, where informed intellectual acuity, merging with intuitive and insightful individuals with an artistic and esthetic perspective…all that along with a growing Real-Eye-Zation of cooperative commonality with the entirety of the human race…are, in general, harbingers of both natural world affections and growing levels of that which Richard Bucke expostulated clear back in his “Cosmic Consciousness” published in 1906.
Podcasters such as Alex Ferrari with his “Next level Soul” interviews of channelers, mystics and seers…are infusing the infosphere with a relatively new and rapidly growing transmutational levels of consciousness. Hegalian dialectics, about as rationalistic as it gets, posits a Thesis which ultimately comes under question and is then countered by a polarized perspective which is the Antithesis.
Basic Hegelian Dialectics, much utilized by Marx in his economic determinism. Marx, being highly rationalistic in his own way, lost Ariadne’s Thread when it comes to the Synthesis…phase 3 of Hegel’s postulation.
So let us consider the historical reality of cultural dictation by organized Abrahamic religion and its attendant monarchies, et al
as the Thesis. Rule from the top. Pyramidal cultural organization. All of a piece, but not of a Peace. Marx posited his Antithesis as the working class, the proletariat…and via Lenin’s inducement to intellectualists…as the VANGUARD of the Working Class. Ultra rationalistic and unabashedly materialistic.
Thus, we have the Thesis and its ultimate Antithesis…religion on one side of the totalitarian equation and the vanguard of the working class as its prospective replacement.
But how about the SYNTHESIS…the transmutation of those two polarized elements amalgamated into a transcendental synthesis…based on what?
Retroprojection here. We go back to Augustine’s “Summa Theologica” where “Holy Mother Church” lost the thread expostulated in Plato’s Cave…that story being devolutionary perspectivity of those whose visions are but shadows cast upon the wall by the flames at the central ground of that enclosure environmental perception of reality.
What the Western church lost with Augustinian philosophizing was any direct connexion with SPIRITUALITY.
Religion devoid of spirituality is ipso facto a false religion. As rationalistic materialism is militantly aversive to such elements as the manifold voices of the natural world…as well as the fact that Neo-Darwinistic “happy accident” with its Big Bangs and chemical soup to organic manifestation…is logically and rationally hoisted upon its own petard.
Magical Thinking embedded in the rationalistic, materialistic mindset? You betcha.
Here’s a simple proposition of elementary spiritual connectiveness: “All are One as One is All. The Whole is equal to, yet greater than…the sum of its parts”.
Give that some thought. Genuine religion would be centered and based upon intuitively realized conceptualization, similar to the vision of Rupert Sheldrake of humans as holograms of Source.
My personal variation on the Big Bang Theory is that Creator got bored with his singular and ultimate Oneness. So he started to play. After creating some simple chemicals; Creator then got the notion that a spiritually connective Light-Show would be fun. Stars appeared. Aha. More fun is the next step. Solar systems…planets. Another chemical blending, synthesizing of two parts hydrogen to one of oxygen…
Behold…the Universal Solvent…Water. Playing with and in the water, Creator popped up some primitive life-forms. Darwin did a decent job of telling the rest of the tale…up to a point.
Though Creator was thoroughly enjoying Beingself; there was yet this haunting feeling of boredom.
After a pleasant dream, Creator went off into the Big Bang…not a theory but an explosion of reality…why not create fellow Creators?
Make em a bit challenged in order for the learning process to accelerate…and then watch em go…as holographic emanations of Creator…or as a set of Chinese sages envisioned it…A Celestial Kingdom based on an interplay of seeming opposites and exhilarated by energetic pagodas with Ming vases and a will to enhance the very landscape in effervescent beauty.
Such is where the Twain shall meet. The Synthesis is fast upon us. The ride may start out being a bit bumpy. But not to worry, not to fret…as Love is the antidote to fear.

Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 1:12 utc | 93

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 29 2024 17:11 utc | 43
He sat down with the North Koreans a few times until the NEOCONS scuppered the attempt. He was stupid enough to bring Bolton along. I give him credit for the attempt. It is a tell about the man. There was a brief flash of hope in Korea that was surrounded by the usual massive media scare.
If he trys to sit down with Putin the people on the left will be telling me he is sucking Putin’s dick. I heard it before and will probably hear it again.
We gotta take the good with the bad.

Posted by: circumspect | Aug 30 2024 1:40 utc | 95

Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 1:12 utc | 93
This latest batch must be some seriously good shit, you lucky bitch you.

Posted by: Turdworld | Aug 30 2024 2:40 utc | 97

War Nerd

It takes a full time job to monitor fires started in China’s backyard front yard by the pro arsonist.

TW, SCS [skirmishes with Philippines], ECS [skirmishes with Jp], coups in Pakistan, Sri lanka, Bangladesh, unrest in Indonesia,
Cambodia

The attempt of the opposition group overseas to incite mass protests on August 18 to provoke unrest in the country, using the issue of cooperation on the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam development triangle area (CLV-DTA) to light nationalist sentiment among citizens, failed.

Myanmar
Civil war escalates in Myanmar
PLA in high alert, live fire exercise at border

Counselor Sullivan’s Meeting with Burma Pro-Democracy and Ethnic Stakeholders
US meets Myanmar opposition, pledges expanded support

Posted by: denk | Aug 30 2024 2:57 utc | 99